Saturday, March 22, 2008

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (18 сообщений)

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  • Sneaky Safari Updater opinion roundup

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    The news that Apple has stealthily included Safari in its Software Updater bounced all over the Mac blogosphere today, and earned cheers and jeers (well, mostly jeers). Here's a quick roundup.
    • The most attention probably comes from John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, who unequivocally calls the decision "wrong," and says that doing something other than "updating" with an "updater" betrays the public trust.
    • Darby Lines at The Angry Drunk says that the whole matter is just plain "whining" and that Apple is hardly forcing the software on anyone, especially considering that there's a checkbox right next to the name of it. And it's not like, as many people have said, installing Safari on a PC is actually a bad move.
    • The Inquirer actually makes a worthwhile joke: "Some iTunes users report that the box to sign up for Safari appears pre-ticked." At least we think that's a joke -- you'd only say Apple was "targeting" and "hijacking" Windows users if you were joking, right?
    • Microsoft Watch calls the program a "rogue updater," while Paul Mison fisks them pretty completely and shows that even if Apple did somehow hurt the computers by installing a reasonable, standards-compliant browser, Microsoft has done much, much worse.
    So what's the deal overall? As we said earlier, Jobs very plainly told us this was going to happen, and though, yes, users who don't pay attention may end up with extra software, it's extremely easy to not install the software. While a warning might have been nice, Apple isn't really outside its bounds here, so it's unlikely that they'll change it anyway.

    The only real result is that users, whether PC or Mac, are reminded once again to pay attention to what they're clicking on. It's unexpected that Apple would be the company to remind us of that, but it's as true as ever.
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  • TUAW Best of the Week

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    Welcome to the latest installment of TUAW 's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment.

    'Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.0' Is Out
    Now you can use RAW format from some of the newest cameras.

    TimeMachine and AirPort updates
    Apple provided us Mac users some updates to our TimeMachine and AirPort base stations.

    Security Update 2008-002 is available
    Hmm ... must have been one of "those weeks" for software updates. Apple passed along some security updates, requiring us to restart our Macs at least 3 times this week -- most likely while you were trying to get some "real" work done.

    Apple issuing refunds, credits from WGA strike
    After the writers strike, Apple offers up some refunds for affected TV show customers.

    Evernote: universal human memory extension
    Brett takes a look at the all-knowing Evernote. Watch out, you might become "note-happy!"

    Apple offers refurb iPod Nano deal
    Now is the time to snag an iPod Nano, eh?

    Engadget plays with iPhone 2.0
    It's iPhone-licious!

    iTunes: Free Tuesday
    Get your free tunes while they last!

    Is your Airport Extreme suddenly Time Machine-happy?
    Yay, Apple made software happy? OK. That's like totally cool, right? Right?

    iPods in Space
    That might make a good movie -- might be better than Snakes on a Plane or Star Wars: Episode I.

    Safari 3.1 available
    Oh yeah, and there was this update too, making Mac users everywhere restart at least 4 times this week.

    Here's hoping next week requires fewer restarts with more sunshine and uptime!
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  • Rumor Time: Mac mini to get upgrade soon?

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    Just as many of you thought the Mac mini would die off in favor of a new class of consumer Macs, the rumor mill starts up again. AppleInsider is reporting that the Mac mini may receive an upgrade -- and fairly soon, too.

    According to AppleInsider, the Mac mini may receive the following upgrades:
    • 45-nanometer Core 2 Duo mobile chips starting at 2.1Ghz
    • 800MHz front-side bus
    • Stepped-up Intel graphics processor (comparable to the one in the consumer MacBook)
    AppleInsider remains speculative on a release date, but they're sure of the forthcoming upgrade. They go on to say that "Penryn-3M-based systems reportedly remained within the engineering build stage as of mid-month."

    [via AppleInsider]
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  • Internationalize your iPhone .com key

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    Today Mac OS X hints offers an easily overlooked internationalization hint. You're probably well aware of the trick where you hold down an iPhone button on the keyboard to view accented variations on the letter being tapped. What you might not have know about was the regional domains. In settings, choose General > Keyboards and enable some of those international keyboards.

    Next go to Safari and start to enter a new URL. Tap the globe to switch the active keyboard from US English to some other nationality. (French is shown here.) Finally, tap and hold the .com button. After a second, a regionalized version of .com appears just to the left of the default.

    [via TrumpetG]

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  • Terminal Tip: Safari 3.1 brings true one-window mode

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    Are you a browser fiend? The sort of person who loves Safari, yet can't quite live with some of its peculiarities? If you hadn't guessed, I certainly am one of those people. I love the speed and simplicity of Safari, but it never worked as well as (say) Camino, particularly when it came to persuading links from the likes of Gmail to open in the same window. No number of SIMBL hacks (yes, hacks) seemed to persuade Safari to open links in the existing window - driving me away from Safari, and instead swear by Camino.

    But that's about to change, as Apple has added a hidden preference to Safari 3.1 that allows you to tell Safari to stick to one window. Even in Gmail. Tipster Dennis Stevense, explains in a blog post that through a simple Terminal command, true one-window mode is finally, finally, here for Safari. All you need to enter is the command below into Terminal, hit enter, and you're sorted.

    defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

    Thanks Dennis!

    Update: If you want to reverse the change, it's a simple matter of entering the following into Terminal:

    defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool false
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  • Apple offers refurb iPod Nano deal

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    Two big TUAW snaps up to reader Timothy Colburn for tracking down this fab iPod nano offer. Between now and June 30th, when you buy a refurb nano, Apple is going to throw in a $15 iTunes gift card. Sweet! Make sure to read through the how to and the terms and conditions because they're significantly longer than the offer itself.

    So does this mean that Apple is readying itself for an iPod refresh? We have no idea -- but a nano in the hand is worth two in the bush.

    Update: Just got back from my son's school play and found several notes in my mailbox about this offer. Apparently, Apple sales associates are not honoring this promotion any more and the promo has been removed from the website.

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  • MacBook Air USB hacks

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    TUAW reader Rowan Pope pointed us to this insane MacBook Air hacking post. How many USB ports does the Air support? Apple says just one; this post says up to 7. Apparently, the Air has a few extra live USB port connections built into that thar skinny little computer. How do we know this? Because the guy downloaded developer documentation for the ICH-8 chip, which offers 5 low-speed and 2 high-speed USB controllers.

    He popped open his Air and measured the voltage at each pin. He then used a hacked memory key with a modded USB extension cable (with an extra resistor just to be safe). After connecting the memory key to one of the pins, his MacBook Air system log reported a USB error. A few more tests and adjustments later, he actually got his laptop to recognize the drive. In total, he found three working USB connections plus an unused SATA controller.

    TUAW is awed. Be sure to check out the other mod on this much-opened Air: a carbon-fiber bottom case. Sleek!

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  • Is Apple pushing Safari 3.1 on Windows users?

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    If you run iTunes or QuickTime on your Windows PC, but not Safari, you might have seen an uninvited guest show up in the Apple Software Update earlier this week. Yes, Apple thinks you need yet another browser. They tried to slip the new Safari 3.1 in for iTunes owners, a move that has some Windows users up in arms.

    Cybernet reminds us that this wasn't quite unexpected -- Steve did say that Apple had made inroads on Windows with iTunes, and that they planned to use those inroads to send Safari around. The only problem is that, while yes, the button and the text do say "Install," the program is usually used for "updating" software, and so getting new software with the deal wasn't something a lot of users expected. And users who don't do anything but the default (I can guarantee you that, since I bought my mother an iPod for Christmas, my parents now have Safari 3.1 installed on their PC, despite the fact that they still aren't quite sure how that Firefox I installed for them works), are basically getting software they didn't plan to have.

    Sneaky unwanted software scheme, or just a not-so-subtle hint to Windows users that they could be using a better browser? You decide. I just know that I'm going to be paying a little closer attention to exactly what my Software "Update" is updating (or "installing") from now on.

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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  • Adobe backs off iPhone Flash statement

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    If you were one of those people who were excited that Adobe was going to apparently fight to get Flash on the iPhone, get ready to be unexcited: Adobe has decided that despite what they thought earlier, they're not actually going to be able to get Flash on there using only the SDK from Apple. Nope, Adobe has admitted that they need Apple's help to get it working (not a big surprise there), and since Apple isn't really keen to help at all, odds are it's just not going to happen.

    Adobe then announced that they didn't need your iPhone anyway, Apple, and that they hate you, Apple, and that you never let them have any fun, and that they wish you'd just die! And that they'd never been born! Then they ran to pout in the corner for a good 20 minutes, only to be seen a little while later playing with their trains like nothing had happened.

    [Via Engadget]
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  • MacBook Air: It's a good thing

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    America's favorite ex-con (that's Martha Stewart, not her dog Sharkey, as seen above) just loves her new MacBook Air, according to her blog. Like most MBA owners, she's "amazed" by how thin it is, and is thrilled that the trackpad "works much the same way as the Apple iPhone" -- in fact, her whole writeup reads exactly like an ad from Apple, complete with the link to the Apple Store at the end. Who knew Martha was such a Mac-head?

    Although she does settle that debate about whether the book counts as a laptop or a laptop support unit: Martha still keeps her HP right next to the Air, not only because she likes to keep up with both platforms, but apparently because when aides come by her desk to work, she wants them to have choices. And we all know what choice is: a good thing.
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  • Ask TUAW: Migration questions, saving disk space, making audiobooks and more

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    In this edition of Ask TUAW we'll be looking at questions about migrating to a new Mac, full screen video, saving disk space on a notebook, coping data from an iPhone back to a Mac, viewing facing pages in Pages, making audiobooks and more.

    As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we'll assume you're running Leopard if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!

    Continue reading Ask TUAW: Migration questions, saving disk space, making audiobooks and more

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  • iBooter offers iTunes-free iPhone diagnostics

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    iPhone hacker Niacin has just released his version of iBooter. Running on Mac, Windows and Linux, iBooter offers an interactive diagnostic and customization tool that talks directly with Apple's iPhone bootloader. With it you can set environmental variables, write a custom picture to the display (faboo if you're tired of that USB plug and the iTunes logo), run USB commands and diagnose why, for example, your iPhone isn't booting correctly.

    Full installation instructions are available at the iBooter website as well as downloads for all three platforms. If you need to send commands directly to the baseband, iBooter is the tool you've been looking for.

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  • Gartner acknowledges iPhone enterprise mojo in new report

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    CIOs and IT pros pay money -- a lot of money -- for the opinions of the Gartner Group. Since I'm not shelling out $95 to buy "Gartner Changes It's iPhone Enterprise Recommendations," even though I'm sure it would be worth a giggle or two, I'll just point you to some folks who have read the new report. Short summary: author Ken Dulaney acknowledges that the circumstances leading to Gartner's original "burn it, it's a witch!" stance on the iPhone for enterprise use have changed, and with the additional support for Exchange and ActiveSync coming in June there are far fewer reasons to take a strict stand against iPhones in corporate settings.

    Since Dulaney was the principal author of Gartner's first report, we commend him for sticking with the issue and setting the record straight. Now, about all those C-suite folks who already have iPhones... well, as Gartner describes the support levels required to handle idiosyncratic devices, there's "concierge," "appliance" and "platform" levels of support, with "concierge" being the most hands-on and resource-intensive (the iPhone is moving from "concierge" to "appliance" status with the June 2.0 update). How much do you want to bet that CEOs, CFOs and CIOs who go off the reservation and buy themselves iPhones and MacBook Airs are already getting, and will continue to get, "concierge"-level support from their IT departments? Yeah, that's what I thought too.
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  • 'Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.0' Is Out

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    If you happen to be a photographer who likes to take digital photos using the RAW format, then Apple has just released an update you might want to take a look at and, perhaps, even apply. Appearing today in Software Update is what Apple calls the "Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 2.0."

    According to the notes in Software Update, this new update "extends RAW file compatibility for Aperture 2 and iPhoto '08 for the following cameras:

    Hasselblad CFV-16
    Hasselblad H3D-31
    Hasselblad H3D-31II
    Leaf Aptus 54S
    Leaf Aptus 65S
    Nikon D60
    Olympus E-3
    Pentax *ist DL2
    Pentax *ist DS2
    Pentax K100D Super
    Sony DSLR-A200
    Sony DSLR-A350

    If you're curious, you can also find more info on this update, which according to this page seems to be a bit of a security update as well, by going to the Apple support site. Of course, as always, if you decide to apply this update and your Mac explodes or something, be sure to let us know.
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  • SugarSync client for Mac reaches beta

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    The cloud storage and sync offering from Sharpcast, SugarSync, has released a public beta of its OS X client today, complementing the existing Windows, web and mobile (WinMo + Blackberry, iPhone coming soon) clients. The Mac client and the Windows client appear pretty much the same, but once you set up your sync you don't have to look at the client UI very often.

    SugarSync is a for-pay service that extends your local files seamlessly to your other computers, to a secure webpage, and pretty much to anywhere you think they ought to go. CEO Gibu Thomas describes SugarSync as "get my stuff everywhere," a supercharged and cross-platform version of .Mac iDisk synchronization. Our colleagues at Download Squad have checked out the service in detail, and there's a good writeup at webware.com as well.

    To use SugarSync, you can define a set of folders to sync, photos to share, "Magic Briefcase" files that live in the cloud and sync down on demand, click and go -- then the defined content will be available on all your computers. With both "full sync" and "light sync" modes, you can leave rarely used files on the SugarSync side and only retrieve them as needed (great for those MacBook Air users hungry for storage). You can also selectively share photo galleries or other content via the web UI.

    Once you get past the 45-day, 10 GB of storage trial period, you can use the discount available through 4/15 to get a half- off data plan (starts at $25/yr for 10 GB, up to 250 GB for $250/yr).The advantages of SugarSync for backup, specificity of synced items, and a supported client may make you give it a look as an alternative to iDisk, or to cloud solutions like OmniDrive, JungleDisk or other clients for Amazon's S3 that require you to roll your own synchronization plan.

    Gallery: SugarSync


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  • Evernote: universal human memory extension

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    Evernote has plans for your brain. More specifically, a vision for the the augmentation of your memory. Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote and a recent Mac convert (who's been enthusiastically replacing his relatives' PCs with Macs to cut down on tech support calls) filled us in on Evernote's big plans.

    Originally, Evernote was a Windows desktop application for taking notes, and it was (and is) top-ranked in its class. Then they decided that a broader array of input options and more accessibility could take Evernote light years beyond the initial plans. This included creating a Mac desktop client and a web application to interface everything. It can take your text notes, web clippings, pictures and more, organizing them with a tagging system and attribute filter. The ultimate goal of Evernote is to be, as Phil puts it, a "universal human memory extension."

    The Mac desktop client is being developed from the ground up, not ported from the Windows client. This makes for a true Mac experience and a beautiful interface. Feature parity will eventually be maintained (Windows users currently have a slightly different feature set), but the two clients are being developed separately. Read on after the jump to find out what makes Evernote different from your current system for tracking all the information in your life (and find out how you can get in on it!).

    Continue reading Evernote: universal human memory extension

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  • ScreenSteps gets blog-friendly

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    We do love our ScreenSteps here at TUAW. Following up on some great features introduced in version 2, bluemango is releasing version 2.0.3 today with a brand new post-to-blog feature. The feature makes use of a Screensteps Live account to host images, then provides the HTML markup to paste into a blog entry.

    If you're not familiar with it, ScreenSteps 2 is an application that makes the process of documenting software and on-screen tasks simple and elegant. ScreenSteps Live is bluemango's online complement to their desktop software, allowing users to publish lessons on the web after creating them in ScreenSteps 2. The post-to-blog feature is documented at the developer's own Live account, with instructions for Wordpress that are easily translated to other platforms. The concept is very cool and will aid a lot of people in sharing tutorials and software documentation. The blog templates are also customizable to fit your stylistic needs.

    I would love to see some closer blog integration and automatic uploading via XMLRPC, ala TUAW favorite MarsEdit. Taking into account that ScreenSteps is not aspiring to be a blog editor, though, and the fact that they're seeking integration with ScreenSteps Live, I think the simplistic cut-and-paste approach fits the bill and provides the flexibility to post the exported output in a broader variety of places.

    In addition to our own Macworld show floor coverage of ScreenSteps, there are screencasts done by ScreenCastsOnline covering ScreenSteps 2 and ScreenSteps Live. There are free accounts available to try out ScreenSteps Live, and plans start at $12/month. ScreenSteps 2 Standard is $39.95 (pro version which allows the creation of full pdf and online manuals is $59.95) with a free demo and academic discounts. And it's available for Windows, too, for those with cross-platform needs.

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  • Is your Airport Extreme suddenly Time Machine-happy?

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    Update 9 pm ET: Our comrade David Chartier from Ars Technica points out that the 7.1.3 firmware itself may not be necessary for the new functionality to work; he says he tested a 7.1 AEBS with a machine running Time Capsule & Airport 1.0, and Time Machine was able to see the remote disk. Other readers have reminded us that the disk must be formatted as HFS+ with journaling, and you may have to mount it in the Finder before Time Machine sees it. The freeware TimeMachineScheduler is disabled by this update, comments note.

    Update 6:45 am Thursday: More comments point out that if you take a locally-connected Time Machine drive and attach it to an AEBS, you will be starting over with new backups (because the remote backups are stored on sparseimages, not as folders). Something to keep in mind if you already have a long backup history -- you might want to use a different drive.

    Sometimes the fixes are subtle and quiet. Once TUAW reader Peder downloaded today's Airport updates and ran the utility, he noticed a new version of the Airport Extreme firmware queued up and ready (v7.3.1). When he installed and rebooted his AEBS -- which happened to have a USB hard drive hanging off of it... well, let him tell you:

    After downloading the latest Airport-update I checked for updates for my AirPort Extreme. After upgrading to version 7.3.1, Time Machine recognised the attached USB-drive.

    If this is a reproducible result -- this means you, everyone, go ahead and start testing this firmware! -- that means that the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't Time Machine to AirDisk feature of Leopard has finally arrived. Sure, the Time Capsule is a one-piece solution and quite economical, but for all the AEBS owners out there who have been waiting patiently, this would be a very nice bit of March madness indeed. [Response to "just-a-guy" below: Remember, this is the Airport EXTREME only; the Express doesn't support AirDisk at all.]

    Seeing the same results as Peder? By all means let us know. He was kind enough to send us a few screenshots, see below.

    Gallery: Time Machine via AirDisk

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