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News & Opinion
Apple Updates
Products
Software
News & Opinion
The Straight Dope on Macs and Malware
PC World's
Neil McAllister reports in Macworld:
"Earlier this week, Washington Post blogger
Brian Krebs stunned the computing world with the revelation that
Apple had quietly been recommending anti-virus software for users of
Mac OS X. This news flew in the face of popular wisdom (and Apple
advertising), which holds that only Windows users need fear malware and
other online attacks. But the shock didn't last long. Apple quickly
went into spin-control mode, claiming that the online Knowledge Base
article in question was out of date and that Macs were indeed perfectly
safe out of the box.
"Apple enthusiasts breathed a sigh of relief, while detractors
grumbled various opinions, the gist of which amounted to 'pride goeth
before a fall.' So who's right? Is Mac OS X the impenetrable
fortress that Apple makes it out to be, or is it really a lurking
malware death trap?
"First things first: Sit down. Take a deep breath. Pour another cup
of coffee. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
"The oft-repeated mantra that Mac OS X is safer from malware attacks
than Windows is actually true"
Link: Macs and
Malware: The Straight Dope
OpenCL 1.0 Spec Released: Snow Leopard Set to
Exploit GPU Power
The Register's
Rik Myslewski reports:
"Apple's Snow Leopard bounded closer to reality today - and there's
a strong possibility it leapt well past Windows 7 in the process.
"Today, at SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore, the Khronos Group, a
self-described 'member-funded industry consortium focused on the
creation of open standard, royalty-free APIs to enable the authoring
and accelerated playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of
platforms and devices,' released
the OpenCL 1.0 specification, which the association describes as
'the first open, royalty-free standard for cross-platform, parallel
programming of modern processors found in personal computers, servers
and handheld/embedded devices.'
"The release of OpenCL 1.0 is a giant step towards the long-sought
goal of industry-wide GPGPU (general-purpose computation on GPUs), in
which the massively parallel capabilities of GPUs (graphics-processing
units) are brought to bear on general-purpose applications that would
benefit from highly parallel processing. Not only would such current
image-based tasks as media processing, video and sound editing, and
image processing be able to tap into the resources of GPUs, but GPGPU
might also enable as-yet-impossible operations such as real-time ray
tracing, infallible voice recognition, and webcam-based lip
reading."
Link: Apple's
Snow Leopard Set to Exploit GPU Power - OpenCL 1.0 spec debuts
Official OpenCL 1.0 Spec Paves the Way for Snow
Leopard
TG Daily's
Wolfgang Gruener reports:
"Khronos Group today released the OpenCL 1.0 specification, a major
technology foundation for enabling software developers to take
advantage of the massive parallel computing horsepower in multicore
processors, including graphics processing units. Besides the previously
announced array of companies supporting OpenCL, Nvidia said that it has
added OpenCL to its GPU computing developer toolkit. Apple's upcoming
Mac OS X code-named Snow Leopard is expected to showcase just how
much potential this new technology really has.
"General purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing is one of the most
significant developments in computer hardware in years, from the user's
perspective perhaps in decades, but it is still very much a blurry
topic for mainstream users due to the lack of mainstream applications.
But an announcement that OpenCL 1.0 (Open Computing Language 1.0) is
now available is a big deal. Not only does it enable developers to tap
into the GPU to dramatically accelerate at least portions of their
applications, it is also a first sign of a departure from proprietary
GPU programming models such as Nvidia's CUDA and towards cross-platform
development models.
"One of the first beneficiaries of this specification will be Apple,
which announced some time ago that it will include OpenCL acceleration
into Snow Leopard...."
Link: Apple
Gets Official Acceleration Spec for Snow Leopard Software
Mac OS 9 Still Gets Stuff Done for Some
Cult of Mac's
Giles Turnbull says:
"I wrote my last 'OS 9 - Blimey Some People Still Use It'
article for Mac DevCenter back in 2004 (see OS 9, Mine All Mine);
it was fun to write and nostalgic too, but I didn't imagine I'd be
writing a similar piece four years later.
"But - blimey - there are still some people out there using
OS 9 and very happy with it too, thank you very much."
Link: OS 9
Still Gets Stuff Done for Some
OpeniMac Clone Surfaces in Argentina
The Register's
Rik Myslewski reports:
"First Psystar, now OpeniMac. It appears that Apple's lawyers will
soon be playing Whac-A-Mole with upstart cloners.
"Apparently, Psystar's latest legal troubles - the dismissal of the
company's anti-trust complaint against Apple and the upgrading of
Apple's suit against them to include alleged DMCA violations - haven't
deterred Argentina-based OpeniMac from dipping their toes into the
faux-Mac waters.
"Under the banner of 'Prestaciones de Mac. Precio de PC' (which,
according to our junior-high Spanish, translates to 'The capabilities
of a Mac. The price of a PC'), the web site of these plucky
pampas-pounders advertises two versions of their
sure-to-be-a-trademark-violation-named OpeniMac and OpeniMacPRO."
Link: Hackintosh Clone
Surfaces in the Argentine
iPhone Sales Help Boost Mac OS X
PC Mag's Chloe
Albanesius reports:
"Global sales of the iPhone during the third quarter boosted Apple's
smart phone market share and propelled its Mac OS X to the number
three position ahead of Microsoft's Windows Mobile, according to a
Thursday report from Gartner.
"Overall growth in the market was the slowest in years, but the
introduction of the iPhone 3G and new BlackBerry devices from RIM
helped increase both companies' market shares."
Link: iPhone Sales Help
Boost Mac OS X
Apple Updates
How to Clean Apple Products
A new Apple Knowledge Base
article says:
If your Apple product is dusty or you need to clean it for some
other reason, follow the guidelines below.
Products Affected
- iMac (20-inch, Mid 2007), iMac (24-inch Mid 2007), eMac, Displays,
Portable Computers, iMac (24-inch, Early 2008), iMac (20-inch, Early
2008)
Cleaning the display
- Disconnect the power cord and verify that the product is turned
off.
- Use a soft, dry, lint-free cloth, or the cleaning cloth that was
provided, to wipe dust from the screen.
- If needed, lightly dampen the cloth with water only and wipe the
screen.
- Do not spray liquid directly on the screen.
Cleaning the enclosure
- Shut down the product and disconnect all cables.
- Use a damp, soft, lint-free cloth to clean the exterior. Avoid
getting moisture in any openings.
- Do not spray liquid directly onto the product.
- Do not use aerosol sprays, solvents, or abrasives that might damage
the finish.
Warning: Don't clean the screen with a cleaner containing alcohol or
acetone. Use a cleaner intended for use with a screen or display. Never
spray cleaner directly on the screen. It may drip inside the display
and cause damage.
Link: How
to Clean Apple Products
Products
First Secure USB Flash Drive to Fully Support Mac
Users
PR: SanDisk Corporation has announced that the SanDisk
Cruzer Enterprise is the first secure USB flash drive to fully support
Apple Mac OS X computers. Available now, SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise
helps IT professionals more effectively protect information on
company-issued secure USB drives in Macintosh environments.
SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise is designed to meet the unique USB
security, compliance and manageability needs of today's enterprises by
imposing a hardware-based USB encryption solution that puts mandatory
access control on all files as protection against theft or loss of the
drive. By supporting Macintosh and Microsoft Windows environments, IT
professionals can more effectively use SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise to
protect information on company-issued secure USB flash drives across
their organizations.
"SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise is ideal for the millions of business
users who use Macs at home or in the office," said Yariv Fishman,
senior manager, product marketing management, enterprise division,
SanDisk. "It combines a simple, user-friendly interface with the
addition of SanDisk's tough security and ultra-fast transfer speeds.
It's the first secure USB flash drive that provides full Mac support by
allowing initialization of the drive directly on a Mac platform."
Cruzer Enterprise in Mac OS X and Windows PC environments has
the same features and data security - even if used in both
environments. The device can be initialized from either a Macintosh or
Windows computer, where users can:
- Log in and shut down access to the encrypted storage area
- Change and manage passwords
- Change contact information, language and other preferences
- Launch online support, view current firmware and drive
information
Available in 1-, 2-, 4- and 8-gigabyte (GB) configurations, Cruzer
Enterprise supports Apple Macintosh computers running Mac OS X
10.4 "Tiger" and Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard." Cruzer Enterprise
safeguards all files stored on the drive with advanced hardware-based
256-bit AES USB encryption, which combined with advanced password
protection makes it extremely difficult for unauthorized users to
access data if the drive is lost or stolen. Existing Cruzer Enterprise
users may download a firmware update at http://www.sandisk-enterprise.com/macupdaterwww.sandisk.com
Link:
SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise (currently available from Amazon.com for:
1
GB, $63.36; 2
GB, $74.56; 4
GB, $134.18; 8
GB, $185.26)
OWC Makes Gift Giving Easy with Holiday
Specials
PR: Other World Computing makes gift giving simple with a
Holiday Specials page.
With 80 suggestions starting at $2.99 to suit every budget, products
featured on OWC's Holiday Specials website range from iPhone/iPod
accessories to performance boosting memory for the latest MacBook and
MacBook Pro "Unibody" notebook computers.
"With one of the biggest on-line catalogs of Mac, iPod, and iPhone
products and plenty of time to ship before the holidays, OWC is the
one-stop shopping choice for holiday gifts," said Other World Computing
CEO Larry O'Connor. "Whether it is making legacy to the newest Macs
faster with a memory upgrade, adding a SuperDrive to burn DVDs and CDs,
or getting more iPod and iPhone functionality, OWC has what you need
for everyone on your list."
Holiday Specials include:
- Newer Technology DockSpot $2.99 Plug an LED flashlight into your
iPod.
- Newer Technology 11 Piece Mac & iPod Tool Kit $17.95 All the
screwdrivers and torx tools you need when upgrading your computer,
iPod, and other devices.
- Newer Technology Voyager Quad Interface Hard Drive Docking Solution
$99.99 The easiest way to access data from any 2.5" or 3.5" Serial ATA
(SATA) hard drive up to 2.0 TB.
- 4.0 GB Memory Upgrade Kits from $39.99 Make your Mac go faster with
an easy to install, Premium OWC Memory Upgrade Kit
- SuperDrive Your Computer with OWC DVD±RW, Blu-ray for as low
as $27.99 External and internal SuperDrive options for burning DVDs,
Dual-Layer DVDs, Blu-ray, and CDs.
- Canon PIXMA IP1800 Color Photo Printer $29.00 Get those holiday
pics out of the camera and into albums and the hands of family and
friends.
- Newer Technology Bass Response Earbuds for Apple iPod and iPhone
$14.99 Better sounding "buds" for your iPod and/or iPhone.
- NewerTech TrafficJamz iPod FM Transmitter/Auto Charger $12.99 For
less than the cost of a fruitcake, you can take your tunes over the
river and through the woods to grandmother's house with NewerTech
TrafficJamz iPod FM Transmitter/Auto Charger.
- Get Prosoft Drive Genius v2 for up to $79 OFF RETAIL with
Qualifying Purchase Save up to $79 on Drive Genius 2 with the purchase
of OWC and/or NewerTech storage solutions Maintain, Optimize,
Slim-Down, even Repair your Hard Drive/Storage Volumes. Same Software
that is used by Apple Retail Stores in the "Genius Bar" - Now who's the
genius?!
- Get up to $30 per Hitachi Hard Drive, up to $120 per select
OWC/NewerTech storage in Rebate Savings Special Cash Back Rebates on
Notebook, Desktop/Tower, RAID, RACK, & Portable Drives through Dec.
31st.
Link: OWC Holiday
Specials
Software
MacUpdate Holiday Bundle - 10 Top Apps for
$49.99
PR: Here's an amazing opportunity to get Prosoft's Drive
Genius 2 for half price with nine other great applications thrown in
too. MacUpdate is celebrating the holidays this year with a 2008
Holiday Bundle featuring $450 worth of applications for just $49.99 and
is available through December 18. Buyers receive all 10 bundled
applications immediately, and a new gifting system makes it easy to
purchase copies for friends and family. In addition, buyers who
purchase or gift three bundles receive a fourth bundle, free.
MacUpdate is celebrating the holidays this year with a software
bundle that delivers great value and appeal to every Mac user. The 2008
Holiday Bundle features $450 worth of applications for just $49.99 and
is available through December 18. Buyers receive all 10 bundled
applications immediately, and a new gifting system makes it easy to
purchase copies for friends and family. In addition, buyers who
purchase or gift three bundles receive a fourth bundle, free!
Included in the bundle:
- Drive Genius 2 ($99): Currently the highest-rated disk utility on
the market and used by Mac Geniuses at Apple Stores, Drive Genius
diagnoses and repairs problems with your hard drive, optimizes your
system, and much more. Buyers will receive a link to download a
bootable DVD image of the software to burn, which can be used to boot
and fix any Mac that can run Mac OS X 10.5, including Apple's
newest laptops. Notable Mentions: MacLife Editor's Choice pick (July
2008), 2008 MacUser Labs winner against competing disk utilities,
Macworld UK Editor's Choice (5/5 rating), "Excellent" rating from ATPM.
(Read Charles W. Moore's
recent review of Drive Genius 2.0.3 on Applelinks.)
- DefaultFolder X 4 ($34.95): Fly through Open & Save dialog
boxes at lightning speed. Notable Mentions: 4.5/5 rating from Macworld,
5/5 rating from MacUser UK, and numerous other awards
- VirusBarrier X 10.5 ($69.95): Fast, simple, and nonintrusive
anti-virus software for your Mac and iPhone Notable Mentions: 4.5/5
rating from Macworld in July 2008, which called it "the gold
standard"
- RapidWeaver 4 ($79): Create powerful, professional-looking Web
sites quickly and easily. Notable Mentions: 2008 Macworld Editor's
Choice pick (5/5 rating), 4.5/5 rating from MacFormat magazine
- MacGourmet Deluxe ($44.95): Like iTunes for food, track recipes,
plan meals, manage wines, and more. Notable Mentions: 4/5 rating by
MacLife magazine
- LittleSnitch 2 ($29.95): Monitors your network connection to make
sure your Mac only sends out what you want it to. Notable Mentions:
4.5/5 rating by Macworld, 5/5 rating by MacUser UK
- KeyCue 4 ($27): Displays full keyboard shortcuts for all your
applications; learn them and work faster. Notable Mentions: 4.5/5
rating by Macworld, 5/5 rating by MacNotes
- MacPilot 3 ($19.95): Access hundreds of hidden features to
customize and improve your Mac OS X experience. Notable Mentions:
5/5 rating by MacCompanion magazine, 4/5 rating by Macworld UK
- WhatSize 4 ($12.99): Effortlessly identify files that are hogging
disk space and that you don't need anymore. Notable Mentions: 4/5
rating by Macworld, prominently mentioned in the latest issue of
MacFormat magazine
- iVolume 3 ($29.95): Ensures all your iTunes tracks play back at the
same level, so you never have to adjust the volume individually.
"We're excited to be delivering this award-winning bundle of
applications to Mac users this holiday," said Nate Houle, coordinator
of MacUpdate Promo. "Our developer partners understand that value
counts more than ever during this time of year, and both novices and
experts will be able to get a lot more out of their Macs with this
collection of software."
The MacUpdate Holiday Bundle is available for $49.99 exclusively
from MacUpdate Promo.
Link: MacUpdate Holiday Bundle
Volitans Software Holiday Hard Drive Giveaway
PR: Volitans Software announces a Holiday Hard Drive
Giveaway. In the spirit of the holidays, Volitans Software is giving
away one free hard drive to a lucky winner. The winner will have the
choice between a 1.5 TB desktop hard drive or a 500 GB laptop hard
drive. To enter, fill out the form on the giveaway entry website.
Volitans Software, maker of SMART
Utility, wants to celebrate the holiday spirit by giving away a
free hard drive. Since SMART Utility allows scanning for bad hard
drives, and those hard drives need replaced, a perfect compliment is a
free hard drive.
Winner chooses between new Momentus 5400.6 SATA 500-GB Hard Drive
(model ST9500325AS) or Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5 TB Hard Drive (model
ST31500341AS), or equivalently priced drive if model is unavailable.
The prize will be shipped free of charge to the winner. The giveaway
runs from December 9th, 2008 to December 24th, 2008. The winner is
randomly picked December 25th.
Full Rules and Fine Print:
- No purchase necessary to win, but try a copy of SMART Utility while
you are here. It's a great way to check out your current hard drive.
Note that purchasing SMART Utility does not increase your chances of
winning.
- Entry period runs from 12:01 am EST on December 9th, 2008 until
11:59 p.m. EST December 24th, 2008.
- Winner chooses between new Momentus 5400.6 SATA 500-GB Hard Drive
(model ST9500325AS) or Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5 TB Hard Drive (model
ST31500341AS), or equivalently priced drive if model is
unavailable.
- Winner will be selected at random on December 25th, 2008 from the
email entries and notified by email. Winner will be posted on the
website on or after January 15th, 2009.
- Winner must respond within 7 days of being selected or a new winner
will be chosen. Volitans Software will not be responsible for email
delivery failures, including but not limited to power outages, server
crashes, filtering technologies, or incorrect email addresses.
- Only one entry per person, as multiple entries will be discarding.
Entries will be monitored for cheating, and entrants may be
disqualified if such cheating is discovered.
- Giveaway is open to individuals who are legal residents of the
United States and 18 years of age or older. Individuals must also be
legally allowed to participate in giveaways. Giveaway void where
prohibited by law. While we appreciate all our customers in all states
as well as in all countries across the world, laws very greatly and we
cannot satisfy all legal requirements everywhere.
- By participating in the giveaway, entrant agrees to not sue
Volitans Software and not hold Volitans Software liable for mistakes or
other violations.
SMART Utility is an application to scan the internal hardware
diagnostics system of hard drives SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and
Reporting Technology) is a system built into hard drives by their
manufacturers to report on various measurements (called attributes) of
a hard drive's operation. The attributes can be used to detect when a
hard drive is having mechanical or electrical problems, and can
indicate when the hard drive is failing. SMART Utility can read and
display these attributes. This allows time to hopefully backup, and
then replace the drive.
SMART Utility is different from other drive utilities, such as Disk
Utility, which only read the overall SMART Status. SMART Utility not
only displays the individual attributes to see their status and
information, but it also uses an internal algorithm based on those
attributes to detect drives failing before SMART indicates it has
failed. This pre-fail detection can save precious data before SMART has
determined that the drive has failed. And, while the raw information
can be viewed on the command line with smartmontools (which is what
SMART Utility is based on), SMART Utility presents it in an easy to
read format, as well as running its internal pre-fail algorithm.
Features:
- Displays all supported drives and their partitions
- Displays easy to read overall SMART status with color coded
text
- Displays important information in the main window, such as drive
model, capacity, power on hours, temperature, bad sector counts, and
error counts and types
- Displays more detailed information in separate windows, including
capabilities, all available attributes, and the past five errors
- Supports scanning individual RAID drives in addition to non-RAIDed
drives
- Supports logging all information to a log file for verifying SMART
data
- Supports Mac OS X 10.4 or later (including Server) and both
PowerPC and Intel Macs
SMART Utility is available in a variety of licenses: a personal
license for $25 (USD), a family license for $40, an educational license
for $65 and a business license for $100. It can be purchased online or
in an innovative way: within SMART Utility itself through its embedded
web store.
Link: Giveaway Entry
Website
OnyX 2.0b2 Released - Freeware OS X Maintenance
& Optimization Tool
PR: Onyx is a utility for maintenance, optimization, and
personalization for Mac OS X. OnyX allows you to run miscellaneous
tasks of system maintenance, to configure certain hidden parameters of
the Finder, Dock, Safari, Dashboard, Exposé, Disk Utility... to
delete cache, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may
become cumbersome, to see the detailed info of your configuration, to
preview the different logs and CrashReporter reports, to check the
Preferences files and more.
It allows you to run misc. tasks of system maintenance, to configure
certain hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Safari, Dashboard,
Exposé, Disk Utility... to delete cache, to remove a certain
number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, to see the
detailed info of your configuration, to preview the different logs and
CrashReporter reports, to check the Preferences files and more.
OnyX is delivered with Uninstall-Onyx, an independent application
allowing to individually remove the components created while installing
and using OnyX (preferences, history...).
A "Extras" folder contains some icons of replacement created by
voluntary sympathetic users.
OnyX was created using Xcode 3.1.2, the Apple Developer Tools (Cocoa
- AppleScript Studio + Objective-C) on a PowerBook G4 Titanium 550 MHz
with Mac OS X (version 10.4.8).
OnyX is an Universal Binary application and works with all Macintosh
PowerPC and Intel computers running Mac OS X version 10.4.x
(Tiger). To run correctly, OnyX must be run from an admin account.
OnyX is also available for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (OnyX version
1.5.3) and Mac OS X 10.1.5 Puma and 10.2 Jaguar (OnyX version
1.3.1).
New in version Version 2.0b2 (WARNING: Beta Version):
- Compiled with Xcode 3.1.2
- Deleting the applications Cache improved
- Deleting the Internet Cache improved
- Deleting the logs improved
- Confirm when closing multiple pages in Safari
- Rebuilding the dyld's shared cache in the Automation panel
- Rebuilding the Mail's Envelope Index in the Automation panel
- Corrections in the translations
- Help improved
- Uninstaller updated
System requirements: OnyX 2.0b1 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later
to run.
System support: OnyX 2.0b1 is an Universal Binary application and
works with all Macintosh PowerPC and Intel computers running Mac
OS X 10.5 or later (Leopard).
OnyX is Freeware, gratis and freely usable; you may copy and
distribute it at will.
Link: OnyX
Desktop Mac
Deals
Low End Mac updates the following price trackers monthly:
For deals on current and discontinued 'Books, see our 13" MacBook and MacBook Pro,
MacBook Air, 13" MacBook Pro, 15" MacBook Pro, 17" MacBook Pro, 12" PowerBook G4, 15" PowerBook G4, 17" PowerBook G4, titanium PowerBook G4,
iBook G4, PowerBook G3, and iBook G3 deals.
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