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Apple Massacres Psystar

Brian Proffit — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:43:03 -0600

Groklaw reports that the California version of Apple v. Psystar is over and in their words, “It’s a total massacre.” Psystar shocked the world in February 2008 with their announcement of pseudo Macs—essentially PC’s put together with off-the-shelf components, but with OS X preinstalled. By July 2008 Apple decided Psystar was getting enough attention to be worth suing, and the case has been making its way through the system since then.

Judge William Alsup’s ruling addressed Apple’s claims that Psystar was violating OS X distribution rights and violating DMCA were upheld, and Psystar’s countersuits were dismissed. In other words, the End User License Agreement we all agreed to when we began using OS X is legally valid and enforceable. There is a similar case making its way through the courts in Florida, but chances are good that the Florida courts will look at the California ruling.

The next step comes on December 14 when a hearing will be held to discuss remedies. Essentially, though, today’s ruling seems to put Psystar out of business—and undoubtedly stopped any other OEM that was considering producing their own Mac clones. There is no comment on the Psystar site, and they are still selling units there this afternoon, for those looking for a $599.99 hackintosh…though I wouldn’t expect much in the way of warranty support.

MacBook Pros to Receive New Processors in the Coming Weeks?

Andrew Villa — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:46:50 -0500

According to an Applesana message board poster, there is a report that the newest build of OS X 10.6.2 10C531 contains references to new MacBook Pros. The current version of MacBook Pros are at 5_5, the screen shot shows MacBook Pros 6_1 and 6_2.

Could a new MacBook Pro be coming with the introduction of the 10.6.2 update?

There is also speculation that Apple Store Geniuses are being trained on the new Quad-Core processors, which could be in MacBook Pros. Delivery could be timed with the new intel Core i5 and i7 iMacs in November.

An Apple Through Their Windows

J Keirn-Swanson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:15:56 -0500

With the upcoming launch on October 22nd of the newest Windows OS, Apple's Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, sees a huge opportunity for Cupertino to snag a few more customers away from Redmond. "It presents a very good opportunity for us."

One such tactic is explained thus. "Any user that reads all [these] steps is probably going to freak out," Schiller explains. What steps? Well XP users who want to upgrade will have to save all their documents and data to an external hard drive, reformat their PC's hard drive, install Windows 7, then reload all their software and all their documents. And somewhere around 80% of Windows users are still on XP as opposed to Vista. Notes Schiller, "If you have to go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?"

The process does sound rather complicated and time-consuming, though Apple may have an uphill battle in a depressed economy. While users may be put off by the hassles in reinstalling software, the question remains whether or not they'll want to purchase the higher-end Mac as well as all new Mac versions of software they already own in a PC iteration.

Schiller didn't state whether or not Apple was planning any specific sales around Windows 7's launch date nor did he mention any price reductions, though such a short-term move might pay off with long-term dividends. Convincing users of Mac's better safety against virii and other malware and its greater operating stability are only of limited appeal, but paired with price cuts the effect could dampen Microsoft's sales numbers.

The one thing you can count on, though, will be all new pitches targeting Windows users with older, limping along XP machines wary of upgrading after the disaster of Vista. We expect to see returning characters of Mac (Justin Long) and PC (John Hodgman) get in on the action sooner rather than later.

Snow Leopard Killed My Address Book

Ray Aguilera — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:31:43 -0500

Since I updated to Snow Leopard, my Address Book has been more or less unusable for anything other than browsing. Starting up the app resulted in 30 to 90 seconds of spinning beachball before contacts would populate. That clearly fell into the "annoying-but-tolerable" camp, since I usually only open Address Book a few times a day, and quickly learned to just leave it open to avoid the wait. But adding new contacts, or editing existing ones resulted in the same spinning beachball of doom.

My first instincts were to export the data, zap my Address Book files and re-import, but the problem persisted. I forced an overwrite from MobileMe. Nothing. I shook my fist angrily and threatened my iMac with bodily harm. And the beachball continued to taunt me.

Finally, I called Apple's tech support. After multiple restarts, trashings of Address Book data, and forced MobileMe syncs we nailed down the culprit: Smart Groups. After deleting two Smart Groups from Address Book, the problem just disappeared. According to a helpful Apple support tech "We know that Smart Groups are not working with Snow Leopard right now. Hopefully we'll get it figured out in the next update."

Until then, delete them.

Quiet, You! - Stop the Volume Clicking

Scott Rose — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:52:09 -0500

What is with that clicky sound that happens when I turn the volume up or down with my keyboard? Especially with headphones on, that is so annoying!

We hear you. You can turn that off entirely in System Preferences > Sound. Click the Sound Effects tab and uncheck the box for Play Feedback When Volume Is Changed. If you would rather leave this on most of the time and just toggle it off sometimes (like when you’re wearing headphones), just hold down Shift when you’re pressing the volume-adjust keys on your keyboard.

Adjust this preference to banish the clicks.

Bonus: If you’re running Leopard, holding down Shift-Option while you press the volume adjust keys will give you 64 volume levels instead of the default 16. That doesn’t mean your Mac will play four times as loud—the maximum and minimum levels stay the same. You just get more (and smaller) steps in between them.

Best Mac Drag-n-Drop apps

Cory Bohon — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:58:43 -0500

The Mac is the ultimate mousing platform, after all, it was one of the first consumer systems to incorporate the mouse. This would explain all the great drag-n-drop shortcut apps for OS X. TechRadar has complied a list of the "5 best drag-n-drop file transfer apps for OS X," and we'd have to agree with them.

They mention the following apps as their fav-fives:

- MoveCM

Of course, these aren't the only applications that let you move files around with drag-n-drop ease, and we could easily add our favorites like DropCopy and others. Our only question is: What's your favorite drag-n-drop applications for the Mac? You know, the kind that makes you want to add "clicking, dragging, and double clicking" to your resumé like Jen did on The IT Crowd (Season 1, Episode 1).

Amazon.com Offers Up Snow Leopard Pre-Orders

Cory Bohon — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:20:24 -0500

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is almost ready to pounce on a Mac near you, but the first store offering pre-orders for the new OS isn't in fact Apple, but rather Amazon.com. You can now pre-order several different flavors of Snow Leopard straight from the online store. They currently offer pre-orders for:

- Mac OS X Snow Leopard (single-user) for $29

- Mac OS X Snow Leopard (family pack) for $49

- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server for $499

- Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard for $169

- Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard (5-user) for $229

... and we mock Microsoft for offering up seven different versions of Windows. Unfortunately there is no estimated date for shipping, but Apple has already said the product will be released in September. Amazon notes that this product will only work on Intel-based Macs, and only if you're upgrading from Leopard. They note that Tiger and previous users will need to purchase the Mac Box Set in order to get Snow Leopard.

10 Awesome FREE Plug-ins for OS X

Arvind Srinivasan — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:02:00 -0500

Who says you need an application? Sometimes, all you need is a plug-in to make your regular apps run harder, better, faster, and stronger. However, plug-ins don't get the respect and recognition that full fledged apps do. And while there are applications to do most things, who needs an application when a simple plug-in can do everything behind the scenes?

We introduce the ten “Flugins” (free plug-ins) that will make you forget there were ever shortcomings in your favorite OS X apps.

QuickTime Plug-ins

>>Perian Tools

If QuickTime player was a bread bowl, and your video was soup (forgive us, we're hungry), Perian would be the forks, knives, and spoons all in one. You only need one file format to play the video, but it has so many extras that you will never be caught off guard. Perian includes playback support for MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture, all within QuickTime. Yeah, we didn’t know there was a "Fraps" file format either. Technically, you could just download VLC player, but QuickTime integrates much better with other OS X applications, and it's set to be the default media player, anyways.

Perian can be downloaded here.

>>Flip4Mac

Apparently (and surprisingly) there are still a lot of people using Windows Media Player for their everyday tasks. However, there is a glaring lack of support for the Windows media file formats (WMV and ASF) in OS X. To add insult to injury, even though there are third-party solutions that can open WMV files, like the excellent Miro Player, there is no way to play windows media files that are embedded on Web pages. Flip4Mac has a solution, and even though it only does one thing, it does it well. It extends WMV and ASF support throughout the OS X ecosystem, so your compatibility worries can go away. There is a free version that merely allows playback of Windows Media files, which is enough for us, but if you want to convert WMV to QuickTime, export to WMV, or export to HD WMV, you will have to shell out some cash.

Flip4Mac can be downloaded here.

Safari Plug-ins

>>Glims

The browser wars are in full swing. Internet Explorer, once the unquestioned king of the Internet hill, finds its market share declining, while Firefox gains momentum every week. And it's no surprise, given its combination of geek-friendly extensibility and basic user-oriented stability. That's not to say it's perfect; it's notorious for being RAM-intensive, a problem exacerbated by its imperfect port to OS X. However, without comparable features, such as saved tabs and keyword searches, using Apple's native Safari feels like using a Honda while a Lexus is parked in the driveway.

Glims, a plug-in for Safari, offers a good compromise. It adds features like full screen browsing, saved tabs on close, auto-complete in search, enhanced form auto-completion, and our personal favorite, mappable keyword search, which allows you to easily query any search engine from the address bar. While Glims’ feature set won’t appease hardcore Firefox users, it duplicates the functionality of some of Firefox’s most popular extensions.

Glims can be downloaded here. However, as of this writing (6/26/09) there is no Safari 4 compatible version. We assume one is in development, but until then, it can actually increase the probability that Safari crashes on launch, so we recommend you don't download it.

>>AdBlock

Firefox users know the power of Ad-Block, the veritable defense against your computer suddenly saying “You have won a free iPod nano.” However, if you are using Safari, the only built in defense is the pop-up blocker, which, while effective, does not prevent obnoxious banner ads. Enter Safari AdBlock, which presumably takes inspiration from the Firefox version of the same name. Unfortunately, Safari AdBlock still has fewer features than its Firefox counterpart. You can’t selectively block ads, and you can’t modify the block list, save for adding exceptions.

Safari AdBlock can be downloaded here.

NEXT: Quick Look Plug-ins

Quick Look Plug-ins

>>BetterZip

Even if you have been living in a cave for the past year, you probably know the sheer awesomeness of Quick Look, the OS X tool that allows you to preview the contents of files rapidly with a press of the spacebar. However, what Apple doesn’t advertise is the plethora of Quick Look plug-ins that allow you to preview many more file formats than the default installation. One of the best is BetterZip, a Quick Look plug-in that allows you to preview the contents of zipped folders. This is especially useful to check suspect compressed folders, because you don’t have to decompress them to see whats inside. It can also be useful if you are searching for a specific file and you don’t want to decompress and re-compress folders to find it.

BetterZip can be downloaded here.

>>Folder

Folder is like BetterZip, but allows you to preview the contents of regular folders. If you want to quickly check the organization of your file browser without having to go through Finder, this is the plug-in for you. There isn’t much more to say about it - it is built for one purpose, and does its task admirably.

Folder can be downloaded here.

>>Honorable Mention: ColorCode

If you work with a lot of code, regardless of language, you know how useful syntax highlighting is. You also know that opening up a full IDE is overkill if you just want to browse some code. ColorCode introduces syntax highlighting to Quick Look, offering support for 140+ languages (most languages that OS X recognizes as source code).

ColorCode can be downloaded here.

NEXT: Spotlight Plug-ins

Spotlight Plug-ins

>>ZipLight

If you love the idea of the BetterZip quick look plug-in (#5), but tend to find files with spotlight instead of finder, check out ZipLight, a Spotlight plug-in that lets you search within Zip files. Of course, when you eventually want to use the file, you will have to unzip the folder.

ZipLight can be downloaded here.

>>Google Importer

If you find yourself searching Google too often and would like quicker access to it, the Google Importer Spotlight plug-in will bring Google’s search engine to Spotlight. It works with regular queries, showing internet results alongside files and folders that Spotlight has indexed. Beware though, it has been known to crash if you try to search too many times in a short period - hopefully the developers will fix this bug in a future release.

Google Importer can be downloaded here.

System Wide Plug-ins

>>NTFS--3G

If you have a Boot Camp partition, you know one of the most annoying things to do is transfer files between partitions. Windows does not have read or write support for HFS Journaled, the OS X filesystem, and most external hard drives that are built for Mac are HFS Journaled. So, you generally have two options: USB sticks, or emailing files to yourself.

NTFS-3G gives you an easier solution. Using the MacFuse SDK, which was developed by a few Google employees, it allows you to mount and handle NTFS formatted drives as if they were native Mac ones. This means you can drag large files from your Mac drive to your Windows drive, and vice versa, just using Finder.

NTFS--3G can be downloaded here.

>>Growl

Growl is so widely used by different applications that you likely have it already installed, without even knowing it. However, it is so critical to the Mac experience that we felt we had to include it. Growl is a system wide notifier, of sorts, that allows different applications, like Adium, Transmission, and Dropbox, to alert you with system messages without bouncing the dock or playing an obnoxious sound. Instead, you see a bubble in a predetermined corner of your screen that disappears in a few seconds. Growl is highly configurable, and you can generally set how it is used from individual application preferences.

Growl can be downloaded here.

Have a favorite plug-in you want to share with the world? Drop the info in the comments section.