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News & Opinion
Apple Updates
Software
News & Opinion
Mac 'Security Site' Littered with Malware
The Register's
John Leyden reports:
"A Mac security site has a forum full of links to actual malware
which targets Apple computers.
"Discussion forum posts on Macvirus.org seek to trick users into
downloading the RSPlug-Gen Trojan, a type of malware capable of
infecting Apple Macs. For good measure, the site also harbours posts
designed to dupe prospective marks into downloading the Zlobar-Fam
Windows Trojan.
"Both the Trojans pose as fake codecs that are supposedly needed to
view non-existent pornographic movie clips featuring troubled chanteuse
Britney Spears.
"The site serving the fake codecs detects the user agent in a
browser in order to distinguish between Mac and Windows PCs before
delivering the appropriate malware...."
Link:
Mac 'Security Site' Littered with Malware
Penryn iMac and Mac mini Imminent?
MacScoop's
Alexandros Roussos says:
"Apple is readying to release an improved version of both its iMac
and Mac mini lineups by the next few weeks, sources indicated
MacScoop.
"The refresh will mainly bring Intel's 45nm Penryn chip across the
line for both the iMac and the Mac mini, MacScoop was told.
"The Mac mini's Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics chip should also
be replaced by the GMA X3100 currently used in the MacBook and the MacBook Air."
Link:
Penryn iMac and Mac mini a Few Weeks Away?
Blu-ray Macs Later This Year?
Macworld UK's
Jonny Evans reports:
"Sony is in talks with Apple and Microsoft on a mission to provide
Blu-ray drives for computers and console games....
"According to the Financial Times, Sony US president Stan
Glasgow, confirmed talks with Apple and Microsoft. These talks would
see Blu-ray deployed within the Xbox 360, while also seeing Macs with
support for the standard appear."
Link: Blu-ray
Macs Later This Year?
Mac mini + Xbox Media Center Software: The Ultimate
Media Center?
coolest-gadgets.com's Marc says:
"A couple of years ago (it doesn't seem that long ago...) I waxed
lyrical about the advantages of using a modded Xbox with XBMC as a
living room media adapter.
"Unfortunately technology moves on and my trusty Xbox just didn't
have the horsepower to play back high definition content. The next gen
consoles can do it but they still aren't as flexible as I'd like
(although kudos to Microsoft for finally enabling DivX playback on the
360).
"So what do to? The Mac
mini stepped in to fill the gap nicely; the new Core Duo models are
fairly powerful, it's tiny and it's almost silent running. It's also
surprisingly good value for money - I can't build a PC that ticks all
those boxes for the price of a mini.
"It seems like the developers of the original XBMC software had the
same thought and they've been porting the media player software to OS
X...."
Link:
Mac mini + XBMC = The Ultimate Media Center?
Link: Xbox Media Center on OS X
A Mac User's View after 5 Months with Vista
Applepeels
reports:
"I have tried very hard to like Vista. I really did not have a lot
of choice. I needed some sort of Windows to run Internet Explorer and
the forms package that NC real estate agents use to complete
transactions.
"I did not have the resources to run Windows on my two year old
MacBook, and buying an inexpensive Windows laptop was the cheapest
solution.
"At a certain point you have to decide that frustration you are
experiencing is something you are willing to endure or make plans to
minimize it . . . this is 2008, and I should not have to
worry about my operating system showing up....
"Life is too short to be constantly dealing with operating system
frustrations. I might not agree with everything that Apple has put into
Leopard, but at least I am not hearing howls from people about Leopard
just not working when you need it....
"I have ten things that need to be fixed before I will use Vista as
much as I use my Macs...."
Link:
A Mac User's View after Five Months with Vista
Leopard, Four Months Later
Macworld's Dan
Frakes says:
"Back when Leopard was released, we gave you our in-depth, but
first-look, impressions. Now that we've been using Mac OS X 10.5,
day-in and day-out, for over four months, we've got a better handle on
what we really like and don't like about the latest and greatest
computer cat. Over the course of the week, several Macworld editors
will be sharing their personal 'long-term' views on Leopard.
"Here's a run-down of my take...."
Link: Leopard,
Four Months Later
One Page Crash Course in Switching to the Mac
My First Mac's
Chris Kerins says:
"A friend of mine recently started a new job at a company that used
Macs. Normally that's not a big deal because there should be people at
the office to train you. But in this case, she was starting up a remote
office with no support and only years of Windows experience as her
guide. So where do you turn when you get thrown into the deep end of
the Mac pool?
"Of course there are web tutorials and screen-casts, not to mention
the excellent free instruction at Apple stores. But what if you have to
get productive NOW? No days or weeks of training, just start using your
Mac, doing the all the things you are used to doing on your old PC.
"Fortunately, she received her Mac pre-configured, so she had an
account set up in Entourage, and Skype was preloaded with all the
business contacts. All the apps were installed, but where do you start
when there is no Start menu?
"Below you'll find the My First Mac guide on how to use your new Mac
when all you know is Windows. Of course this topic can go deep and take
months or even years of training, so we will stick to the top dozen or
so issues that new Mac users run into that makes them want to throw
their Mac through the window...."
Link:
One Page Crash Course in Switching to the Mac
To Buy AppleCare or Not?
TUAW's Cory Bohon says:
"Most people are split on the decision to buy an extended warranty
on their electronic devices. Some think it's the best 'accessory' that
you can buy for your gear, while others think it's a total waste of
money. Speaking from my personal experience with AppleCare support - it
has been a worthwhile investment.
"While I have never experienced a major problem with any of my Macs,
iPod, or iPhone, AppleCare has definitely been there to solve those
minor glitches. Case in point: this weekend my Mighty Mouse's scroll
wheel stopped working (this is the 3rd Mighty Mouse in less than one
year). I simply called Apple's support and told them what was going on.
'My Mighty Mouse stopped scrolling,' I said...."
Editor's note: I've never bought AppleCare coverage, and never been
sorry. Money I've saved in not paying AppleCare premiums over the past
16 years would probably buy me a new MacBook Pro and then some. But
that's the nature of "insurance". How much risk are you comfortable
with? cm
Link: To Buy
AppleCare or Not?
How to Change a Hard Drive in Time Capsule
Hardmac's
Lionel reports:
"When we ordered a Time Capsule, we chose the 500 GB model, since
this was sufficient and also less expensive than the 1 TB. However we
had in mind that as the price of large disks came down, we would one
day change the disk for a larger one...
"However, we had a disagreeable surprise once the power was
connected to the device and the disk had spun up. The Time Capsule
started to vibrate . . . The device was to be installed in a
calm area so we decided to change the disk to see if this would improve
the situation."
Link: Changing a Disk in the Time
Capsule, How to Gain Storage Space - A Step-by-step Procedure
Electronista Reviews Time Capsule
Electronista's
Wallace Wang reports:
"Everyone needs to backup their data, but in the past, backing up
your data meant fiddling with non-intuitive software, tape cassettes,
multiple CDs or DVDs, or external hard drives. Fortunately, Apple
provides a simpler solution called Time Machine, which comes with Mac
OS X 10.5. While Time Machine makes backing up painless and simple, you
still need an external hard disk connected to your Macintosh through a
USB or FireWire cable. For desktop iMacs and Mac Pros, this isn't a
problem, but for MacBook users, it's not practical to keep a laptop
hooked up to a cable at all times. To solve this problem of backing up
laptops, Apple offers Time Capsule, a combination WiFi router and
external hard disk backup unit."
Link: Electronista
Reviews Apple Time Capsule
Apple Updates
Firmware Update for Mac Pro with ATI Radeon
HD 2600 XT
This update is for Mac Pro
computers with one or more ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics cards
installed, running Mac OS X 10.5.2 or later with the Leopard Graphics
Update.
It updates the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card firmware on all
of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics cards in the Mac Pro to improve
system stability.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.5.2 or later, Leopard Graphics
Update.
File Size: 792 KB
Link:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Firmware Update
Software
Xbox Media Center on OS X
PR: OSXBMC is a port of the highly functional and successful
Xbox Media Center to the Apple Macintosh OS X platform. Like XBMC,
OSXBMC is open source and licensed under the GPL.
The longterm goals of OSXBMC are to be the best media center for the
Mac, offer tighter integration with OS X platform, and to give users
the best of what XBMC and OS X offer. Eventually, we would like OSXBMC
to behave and feel like a completely native Mac application.
The OSXBMC team are all Linux users and Linux fans, however, the
founding team has friends and family members that are intimidated by
Linux, or already happy Mac users that are not interested in building a
separate box just for media playing purposes. Additionally, the team
believes that there is an advantage in that there are limited hardware
combinations with the Mac platform. With less combinations of hardware
to support we can spend our time making sure the limited number of
combinations that are available work very well. It's also no secret
that the team (and many in the community) view the Mac Mini as an
especially attractive HTPC option in terms of appearance,
size/heat/noise, functionality and price (and let's not forget built-in
IR, Bluetooth and WLAN)!
By adding OS X as a platform we are attracting new talent and
resources to the XBMC project that might not have otherwise been
interested. Today, we have had good luck with both platforms beings
developed quickly in parallel - improvements made to the Linux code
base often improve the OS X platform and vice versa.
Our plan is to support all current Intel Mac hardware.
It's unlikely that we will ever support PPC. Many people think that
it is as simple as "checking PPC" in XCode, it is not. Additionally, as
stated above one of the goals of OSXBMC is to support HD playback on
most hardware - this is just not likely on legacy Mac PPC hardware.
Tiger support is not a near term goal, but it is a possibility in the
future. It's obviously quite possible to get OSXBMC to work on Tiger,
but the team has determined that it is also nontrivial. As we get
closer to a 1.0 release we will poll the community to see how much
demand there is for Tiger support.
This is a 0.1 release, we will not consider this project
"production" quality until 1.0. It is still very early days. While we
are happy with our progress, and the core OSXBMC team has switched over
to using it as our primary media center, the project is far from stable
and complete. Unless you are an active tester or developer we do not
recommend you run this as your primary media center . . .
yet.
- NEW: Improved handling of situations where display refresh rate
< video frame rate. Allows doing things like watching 60 FPS videos
on a 24 Hz display (although this doesn't work perfectly yet). It also
improves how 24p content displays in 24p mode. (N.B. the mode on your
display should really be 23.976 Hz. It doesn't sound like a big
difference but it accumulates). Thanks to elupus for pointing me in the
right direction.
- NEW: RAW thumbnails are now building the embedded JPEG (when
present), so previewing directories of RAWs is now really quick.
- FIX: I was seeing occasional crashes when using FTP, due to an
apparent incorrect ordering of libcurl operations. I've also increased
the idle time from 5 seconds to 30, because when browsing, the
connection would tend to close and need to be reestablished. It could
probably be longer.
- FIX: The hang in library mode has been fixed.
- FIX: TV and movie scrapers have been updated and should now
work.
- FIX: Don't default to digital audio mode anymore, as we don't need
to now that we do mix-down.
And one again, here's Barkley, who has agreed to sponsor all future
releases. He thinks that the ball in the mirror is a duplicate and he's
trying to figure out how to get them both.
Get support for the Apple remote so it works right out of the box.
The main advantage of this Apple remote is that it comes free with just
about every Mac. The downside The apple remote's primary weakness is
that it only has 6 buttons, although the Mac has the ability to
differentiate a pressed button from a held button giving the user
effectively 12 buttons.
- Audio: Playing, Visualizations (MProject), MP3, OGG, AAC, FLAC
- Video: Playing, Full-screen, most video formats
- Photos: Viewing, browsing, slideshows
- Metadata: IMDB, Allmusic, etc pull down working
- Library mode: Working but can be flaky
- Connectivity: Local disk, FTP
Link: OSXBMC
GutenPrint Quality Open Source Drivers for
Most Major Inkjet Printers
PR: The GutenPrint project announces GutenPrint 5.1.7, a
development release. This release incorporates the support for
additional printers and other improvements. See the Downloads
section.
GutenPrint 5.1.7 is a release of the developmental branch of
GutenPrint 5.1. The 5.1.7 release supports additional printers and
offers some important bug fixes along with additional features.
New in version 5.1.7
The most important changes for Mac OS X users are:
Added support for the following printers:
- Canon Pixma MP520
- Canon Pixma iP6000D
- Epson PictureMate 100
- Epson PictureMate 210 (Corrected)
- Epson PictureMate 240 (Corrected)
- Epson PictureMate 250 (Corrected)
- Epson PictureMate 260
- Epson PictureMate 270
- Epson PictureMate 280 (Corrected)
- Epson PictureMate 290
- Epson PictureMate 500
- Epson PictureMate 2005
- Epson PictureMate Dash
- Epson PictureMate Flash (Corrected)
- Epson PictureMate Pal (Corrected)
- Epson PictureMate Snap (Corrected)
- Epson E 150 (Corrected)
- Epson E 300
- Epson E 520
- Epson E 500
- Epson E 720
- Epson E 700
- Epson Stylus D92
- Epson Stylus DX4400
- Epson Stylus DX4450
- Epson Stylus DX7000F
- Epson Stylus DX7400
- Epson Stylus DX7450
- Epson Stylus DX8400
- Epson Stylus DX8450
- Epson Stylus Photo R280
- Epson Stylus Photo R285
- Epson Stylus Photo RX585
- Epson Stylus Photo RX680
- Epson Stylus Photo RX685
Note: Not all of the PictureMate printers have been fully tuned at
this point.
Printing for the Canon Pixma iP4500 has been fixed
Printing near the bottom of the page has been improved for many
modern Epson inkjet printers. In addition, we have determined that most
of these printers can print with consistent high quality at 2880x2880
and 5760x2880 DPI. Therefore, these resolutions will be used for Ultra
Photo and Best qualities respectively on these printers.
Printers affected include:
- Stylus Photo R800, R1800, PM-G820
- Stylus Photo R2400
- All printers using Claria ink
Envelope paper sizes are now offered in both portrait and landscape
form factor, as some printers expect envelopes to be fed long edge
first while some expect them to be fed short edge first.
PCL laser printers now offer paper trays with adjustable guides.
Many laser printers use adjustable guides for manual feed of papers
narrower than letter size.
Two new dither algorithms, Segmented and Segmented New, have been
added. These are not intended for normal use, and will normally behave
like Ordered and Ordered New. However, if Raw color correction is
selected and a printer with multiple drop sizes is used, the range of
input will be divided up such that the high order bits will select the
drop size to be used and the lower bits will specify the amount of ink.
High order bits of 0 indicate that all drop sizes should be used.
GutenPrint is the new name for the Gimp-Print project.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later.
System Support: PPC/Intel
Free
Link: GutenPrint
Switch Audio File Conversion Software
PR: Convert and encode a range of audio file formats. Switch
audio file conversion software is a sound file format converter for
Windows or Mac. Convert audio files from many different file formats
into MP3, WAV or WMA files such as WAV to MP3, MP3 to WAV, WMA to MP3
and much more. This audio file converter is easy to use. Just add the
files you want to convert, select the output format, and then click
convert.
With Switch you can convert your sound files into the formats
you need to compress for storage, create ringtones, add to a
presentation, listen on your iPod and much more. In fact, the
possibilities are endless using this powerful audio file converter.
A full list of the Switch Audio File Format Converter features
follows below but a quick way to see all the features is to download
and install now. We make Switch free in the hope you will like it so
much you will decide to upgrade to Switch Plus which supports
additional encode-to formats.
Supported File Formats
Converts a variety of audio file formats to MP3 or WAV such as:
- WAV, MP3, AU
- AIF/AIFF, GSM, VOX
- raw, OGG, FLAC
- AAC, MP2, M4A,
- .mov, .amr
- and many more formats.
Other Features:
- Automatically normalise audio while converting.
- Import multiple file formats at the same time and convert to one
output format.
- Ability to play tracks prior to conversion.
- Import and convert a playlist (m3u and pls).
- Import video files and extract audio (AVI, mov, MPEG)
- MP3 encoder supports constant or variable bit rates from 8 to 320
kbps with optional error correction and stereo modes.
- WAV encoder supports sample rates between 6000 and 196000 Hz in PCM
as well as a number of other audio codecs.
- Allows up to 32000 files to be converted in one batch.
- Can be run from the command line for automation with other
applications.
- Optimized CPU usage and efficient code allows for fastest
conversion times.
- Switch Sound File Converter integrates directly with other sound
software programs including:
- Express Burn for CD Recording,
- Express Rip for Direct CD Ripping,
- WavePad for Sound File Editing,
- RecordPad for Professional Sound Recording and Typical
Applications
- Compress WAV to MP3 files to save hard drive space.
- To open or convert strange or audio file formats not supported by
other audio software you use.
- Extract audio from video files (favorite sound bites) for your
phone or other audio player.
- Convert multiple format audio files to MP3 for your iPod, PSP or
phone.
- In professional audio studios to open formats not supported by your
sound editor.
- As a command line plugin for other software to convert or compress
audio files.
System Requirements
- Mac - Mac OS X 10.2 or above
- Windows - 95/NT4/98/2000/Me/XP/2003/Vista
- Linux
Switch Sound Format Converter Plus Edition
Unlimited license including all the new Plus features - $19.40
Link: Switch Audio File Conversion
Software
Geekbench 2.0.13 Checks Rosetta Performance
and More
PR: Geekbench is a cross-platform benchmark that measures the
performance an average application can expect from the computer being
benchmarked.
Geekbench is a cross-platform benchmark that measures processor and
memory performance. Geekbench was designed from the ground up to take
advantage of the latest technology like multicore processors and 64-bit
operating systems.
Geekbench is available for Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Windows,
letting you compare performance across different hardware
configurations and operating systems with ease.
Result Browser
Submit your results to the Geekbench Result Browser and share your
results with your friends and other Geekbench users. Create an account
and keep track of your Geekbench results online.
Geekbench's processor benchmarks (every one!) run in both
single-threaded and multithreaded modes letting you see the performance
increase multiple cores (or multiple processors) bring to your
system.
SIMD benchmarks
Geekbench features a number of benchmarks that use SIMD instructions
(both AltiVec and SSE) letting you see the performance increase
SIMD-aware applications bring to your system.
Geekbench is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Run both
versions on a 64-bit operating system to see the increase (or decrease)
64-bit applications bring to your system.
Note: 64-bit benchmarks are only available in the registered version
of Geekbench.
Rosetta benchmarks
Geekbench is available in both Universal and Rosetta versions for
Mac OS X. Run the Rosetta version on your Intel-based Mac to find out
how quickly it runs PowerPC applications, or to find out how much of a
performance advantage Universal applications bring.
Note: Rosetta benchmarks are only available in the registered
version of Geekbench for Mac OS X.
New in version 2.0.13:
- Added support for the MacBook (Early 2008) and the MacBook Pro
(Early 2008)
- Added x86 processor database
- Improved logical/physical processor count detection
- Improved "Hackintosh" detection
System requirements:
- Geekbench for Mac OS X
- Mac OS X 10.4 or later
- Mac OS X 10.5 or later for 64-bit
- 512 MB of RAM
System support: PPC/Intel
Geekbench costs $19.95 and you'll receive your serial number
immediately after purchase.
Link: Geekbench
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,
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