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News & Opinion
Software
News & Opinion
Mac Hits Record 6.81% Share on Net
Fortune's Philip
Elmer-DeWitt reports:
"After taking a brief October dip in advance of Leopard's release,
Apple's share of the operating system market grew 3.34% in November to
hit a record 6.81%,* according to the results of a Net Applications
survey issued today.
"Microsoft's Windows in its various flavors continues to dominate
with a 92.42% share, as measured by the Web metrics firm. Among the
operating systems gathered in the 'other' category are Linux (.57%),
Apple's iPhone (.09%), Sony's PlayStation (.02%), SunOS (.01%) and
Nintendo's Wii (.01%)."
* The breakdown is 3.59% on Intel-based Macs and 3.22% on pre-Intel
Macs. dk
Link:
Apple Mac Hits Record 6.81% Market Share in Net Applications
Survey
iMac LCD Problems Continue to Grow
AppleGazette's
Michael says:
"MacNN reports that there are a
growing number of iMac users that are having some pretty serious LCD
screen trouble. The trouble seems to be that the iMacs are 'showing a
number of artifacts that include single-pixel lines spanning the length
of the screen.'
"This discussion thread features over 80 posts about the issue, and
since most of these iMacs are over a year old and have just come out of
warranty, users are being quoted prices of $700 or more...."
Editor's note: These problems have been
reported on Apple's forums since late May. It appears to impact
only white Intel-based iMacs, and at least one user reports having the
problem out of the box. Here's a good reason to consider buying
AppleCare for iMacs! dk
Link: iMac
LCD Problems Continue to Grow
3 Ways to Run Classic on Leopard
MacCompanion's
Jonathan Hoyle says:
"Longtime Mac users have been familiar with Classic, as Mac OS 9 and
earlier helped paved the way to where we are today. The Classic
environment allowed Mac users to continue to use older applications
even within Mac OS X. Surprisingly, even some original applications
from 1984 continue to run just fine on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, over two
decades later. However, with Apple's transition to Intel-based
Macintosh computers, Classic appeared to be on borrowed time. With
Leopard, it's official: no Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.5,
either PowerPC or Intel, will run Classic applications.
"Well . . . not exactly.
"Just because Apple ceased to support its Classic Environment
implementation does not mean you have to delete your old apps just yet.
As it happens, there are still a number of options available to the
Leopard user who wishes to run these older applications. We will
examine three of these: SheepShaver,
Basilisk and Mini vMac. The good news is that
all three are open source products, so they are absolutely free for you
to download and try....
"This month's article will describe some of the pro's and con's to
each of these three emulators, including running comparative
performance tests and step-by-step installation instructions...."
"None of the options we have discussed is a truly suitable
replacement for the Classic environment. If you use Classic
applications continually and interactively, then your best bet is to
stay with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger...."
Link:
Shaving Sheep and Running Classic on Leopard
3 Ways to Put Hierarchical Menus in the Leopard
Dock
TUAW's Dave Caolo reports:
"Stacks is one of the selling points of Leopard, and many users love
it. Many, but not all. If you'd like to use hierarchical menus in
Leopard, try one of these three solutions.
"Quay 1.0 was
released last week as shareware , Quay provides custom-sorted
hierarchical menus, re-sizable icons and a customizable dock
icon....
"Also available is freeware HierarchicalDock
by Eternal Storms Software....
"Finally, check out OldFolder. It's free and open
source...."
Link:
Hierarchical Menus in the Leopard Dock: 3 Ways
Leopard Slow on Your Older Mac? Speed It Up with
Fewer Colors
Blogger Charles Arthur says:
"To cut to the chase: Leopard, besides switching off your firewall
in the upgrade, also switches your display preferences for colours
displayed from 'thousands' - if that's how you had it set - to
'millions'.
"Since that's a difference which can suck up huge amounts of RAM,
swap memory and CPU/GPU ('huge' being relative to the amount you have
available), it's a hidden change which isn't very welcome.
"So, to speed up your machine: go to System Preferences, choose
Displays -> Colours, and change the setting from 'Millions' of
colours to 'Thousands'. Voilá! Faster machine."
Editor's note: This is very subjective. If anyone knows of
benchmarks that demonstrate this, please let me know. dk
Link: Leopard
Running Slow on Your Ageing Mac? Here's How to Speed It Up: Fewer
Colours
Software
HierarchicalDock 1.1 Puts Hierarchical Menus in the
Leopard Dock
PR: HierarchicalDock is a simple application for creating
folders in your Dock that have hierarchical menus.
Feature List:
- Very lightweight, very fast
- Can show you invisible files
- Option: Show QuickLook Previews instead of file icons
- You can copy entire paths to files by holding down the control
button and clicking on an item
- Sort: Alphabetically, by last used date, by creation date
- Quickly open folders by holding down shift and clicking on the
folder in the Dock
Release Notes for v1.1:
- Optional: Show QuickLook Previews instead of file icons
- Two new sorting methods: Last Used Date, Creation Date (additional
to alphabetical sorting)
- Resolves aliases
- Fixed issues with multiple monitors
- Fixed color profile issues
- Fixed issues when clicking on items
- Fixed a bug that caused extensions to show in Dock
- Fixed some issues with the different localizations
- Fixed positioning of menus
- Performance improvements
- Added Preferences window
- Added Update mechanism
HierarchicalDock is Freeware, but donations are greatly
appreciated.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
System support: PPC/Intel
Free
Link: HierarchicalDock
Correo 0.3, a New Email Client for OS X
PR: Introducing
Correo, a new open-source mail client for Mac OS X. Correo blends
technology from two popular Mozilla projects, Camino and Thunderbird,
to create a polished native Macintosh application.
There are many planned features for the mail client, including
plugin capability (to allow development of extensions such as PDA
synchronization), tabbed window interface, address book support,
keychain access, and various other to-be-determined features.
The latest release, 0.3 introduces many fixes to the internals of
Correo, as listed below:
- Leopard Support
- Enhanced IMAP support - subfolders now load properly!
- Improved Character Encoding Support
Correo is currently in the early stages of development, and the
latest release for the application is the 0.3 release.
Features of Correo
0.2:
- Keychain support, passwords are stored in the Mac OS X
Keychain
- Mac OS X Address Book integration.
- Single window mode, open messages in a separate window.
- Attachment support, adds the ability to save and add attachments to
messages.
- Enhanced message list support for IMAP accounts.
- Collapsible message header and attachment view.
Features of Correo 0.1:
- Create multiple mail accounts (POP and IMAP)
- Reply, Forward, and write new messages (via SMTP)
- Ability to setup interface for 2 column split view or 3 column
view
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
System support: PPC/Intel
Free
Link: Correo
Parallels Premium Edition for Mac
PR: Premium Edition includes award-winning virtualization,
security, disk management and backup solutions in a single, affordable
package
SWsoft, maker of Parallels Desktop for Mac, the #1 selling Mac
system utility that allows users to run Windows side-by-side with Mac
OS X on any Intel-powered Mac, today announced the release of Parallels
Desktop 3.0 for Mac Premium Edition - a complete virtualization
solution for Intel Mac users that includes Parallels Desktop 3.0 for
Mac, plus easy-to-use utilities from leading third-party software
companies that help keep Windows virtual computers safe, secure and
running smoothly.
Award Winning Utilities Coupled With Parallels' Award Winning
Virtualization
As part of its commitment to providing Mac users with the easiest,
most complete virtual computing experience possible, Parallels Desktop
3.0 Premium Edition supports the latest Leopard-compatible build of
Parallels Desktop 3.0 - which is available as a free update for all
Parallels Desktop 3.0 users as of today - with three award-winning
utilities that help users secure, back up and customize their Windows
virtual machines. Bought separately and new, these three utilities cost
more than $175.
Complete Malware Protection from Kaspersky Internet Security
7.0
To protect against the viruses, spyware, spam and malware that can
harm any Windows machine, even virtual ones, Kaspersky Internet
Security 7.0 is included with Parallels Desktop 3.0 Premium Edition.
Kaspersky offers "Triple Threat" protection, including automated hourly
anti-malware updates, intelligent active heuristics that provide
proactive protection to investigate all unknown files and real time
behavior analysis for consistent monitoring of a system's activities
for any malicious behavior.
Fast, Easy Backup with Acronis True Image 11 Home
Acronis True Image 11 Home is the latest version of Acronis'
award-winning backup and disaster recovery software. With Acronis True
Image Home, users can easily back up individual files on their Windows
virtual machine or take an entire image of their Windows virtual
computer. Backups can be scheduled to run automatically at any interval
and can be stored on external drives, DVDs and off-site computers via
FTP.
Simplified Disk Management with Acronis Disk Director Suite
Acronis Disk Director Suite provides the ability to resize, move,
copy, split and merge virtual disk partitions without losing data. It
includes a boot manager that allows users to boot other operating
systems, such as Linux, inside their Windows virtual machine.
"Maintaining and securing a Windows virtual computer is every bit as
important as it is for a physical computer," said Serguei Beloussov,
CEO, SWsoft. "We are pleased to work with Acronis and Kaspersky to make
it easy and affordable for our Mac customers to protect, backup and
customize their Windows virtual machines."
Now available from the Parallels website, as well as in Apple Stores
and select retailers nationwide and via Authorized Parallels Partners,
Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac Premium Edition costs $99.99.
Current Parallels Desktop 3.0 customers will receive the
Leopard-compatible build as a free automatic update starting today.
Link: Parallels Desktop for
Mac Premium Edition
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