I love my SlingBox. Withe ability to travel freely through the space-time vortex of television, my cable box no longer rules me. Still, SlingMedia's SlingPlayer client for Mac hasn't yet been up to the standards I would like. That is, until now.
Today, SlingMedia unveiled SlingPlayer 1.0 for Mac. SlingPlayer 1.0 includes a lot of features that many Mac users have been waiting for for a while now, including a full Aqua interface following Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (which looks gorgeous, and has some nice additions including a transparent background when no Slingbox is connected, and an overall much more Mac-like appearance), integrated support for the Apple Remote (for controlling the Apple TV, an iPod with Apple's Universal Dock, the iPod Hi-Fi, or a Mac with Front Row and an IR port), and some extra bug fixes and features (including support for the TiVo Series3).
The Slingbox 1.0 update looks really great and definitely shows SlingMedia's Mac support with full colors.
[via Engadget]
Joining the ranks of Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion and CrossOver is a new addition to the Mac virtualization market: VirtualBox. A few days ago, innotek released a Mac beta version of the software, in addition to its existing Windows and Linux editions.
What differentiates VirtualBox from its competitors is its price: $0 for personal use. Not only that, it's completely open-source. It runs various flavors of both Linux and Windows (including Vista). A few notable features include a modular design, Remote Desktop Protocol support, and shared folders. Overall, it sounds like VirtualBox is somewhat on the geeky side.
Judging by the lone Mac screenshot on VirtualBox's site, the product lacks Parallels Desktop's polish, but early user reports sent to MacWindows suggest the speed is impressive. There's price to pay for the "beta" label, though: among other things, expect USB support to be flaky.
Anyone want to try it out and report back? The beta is downloadable from VirtualBox's website.
I love the Mac platform so much because it simply gets the best apps. Mac developers really know what they're doing, as there's a constant flow of new, exciting, and beautiful pieces of software everyday. Today I was particularly impressed by an application called iScrapbook. The idea is pretty standard--it's simply a scrapbook on your screen--but you'd be hard pressed to find something so simple yet functional anywhere else.
You can create beautiful pages of your photos, test, and graphics--complete with over 100 image masks. The application even includes a package of over 40,000 piece of clip art, which alone is enough to justify the $49.99 price tag. It will eat up nearly 4GB of hard drive space, however.
[via Macworld]
If you read any of my initial posts about Coda, you know that I was thoroughly impressed with the app, I just didn't really see myself using it, due to my unbreakable addiction to TextMate. So even after downloading Coda and wanting so hard to make it part of my work-flow, I ended up sticking with my old routine of TextMate, Terminal, and Firefox (with the Firebug extension for CSS tricksiness). I attempted to make my setup as Coda-like as possible, even going so far as installing a tabs plug-in for Terminal (a plug-in that I later found to wreak havoc on performance).
Last night, it finally occurred to me that the fact that Coda can't replace 3 out of 3 of my development apps doesn't mean that it can't replace 2. So I've found myself using Coda's excellent site management features, as well as its superb Terminal support. I've replaced Firefox with Coda's preview mode, and have even been able to start reaping the benefits of Coda's CSSEdit-esque stylesheet editor.
The best part about consolidating all of these apps is that it's still easy as ever to do all of my code work in TextMate. As the resident web development geek here at MacUser, I must say that Coda is an investment worthy of anybody who spends more than 10 minutes a day creating stuff that will end up in those Internet tubes. If any of you have any experiences with Coda you'd like to share, please do so.
Are you one of those people who likes to wait until the very last second? Because if you are, there's still time to squeeze in a submission for our MacUser redesign. We've been collecting entries for the last few weeks, but we want to hear from you (and you, and you, and you).
The official deadline is tonight at 11:59PM Pacific Time. We'll accept submissions to macuser [at] macuser [dot] com right up until that clock clicks over onto May 1st, at which point no power on this green earth can save you from the terrible fate that awaits.
We'll have more on the results of the MacUser redesign in the next few weeks, but remember, if you want a chance for glory and victory, get those submissions results in pronto.
We talked up MCE's OptiBay way back last fall, but we had heard little of its real world use until now.
Eric Cheng, dissatisfied with paltry storage scheme on his MacBook Pro, took matters into his own Torx-wielding hands, and decided to use the OptiBay to slip an extra drive in (who really uses the optical drive anyway?). Using Xbench, Eric tested the results when the two drives had been configured by OS X's Disk Utility into a RAID0 array (in a RAID0, the data is "striped," with alternating bits being written to both drives; the result is usually faster disk access times, since you can use both drives simultaneously, but the downside is that if one drive fails, you lose all of your data).
Eric's results do show an improvement in performance, though they come with a number of caveats, including louder noise from the drives, a 1mm gap at the top of the case, and some excess heat. But if you're looking to improve speed on your MacBook Pro's disk (or add data redundancy with a RAID1 array), this is one way to do it.
[via Macenstein]
Apple's Support site may have a shiny new look, but it's the same great taste. The support section has undergone a slight redesign, which currently features a prominent plug for the Apple TV's support section. The left hand navigation bar now has an easily accessible list of Apple's most popular products (with the option to browse all products in a drop down menu), and services.
The bottom of the page has information on Apple Care, Repair and Replacement Parts, and Exchange and Extension programs, with an option to type in your serial number from any Apple product, to get full information on it.
Looks pretty good to me; definitely cleaner and more streamlined. I find Apple's Support site to usually be comprehensive and helpful, though it can sometimes take some digging to find precisely what you're looking for (that's where Google helps out). I wonder if we'll see more changes as the iPhone gets closer to launch.
[via The Mac Observer]
I could never get the hang of SimCity. I spent a couple afternoons playing with it, but in the end, it always ended up being a desolate place that no one wanted to live in. My excuse I used recently to hide my shame was that there wasn’t a universal binary. I’m a man of principles after all.
If you’ve got SimCity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion pack, you can download the new public beta version to get that fresh universal binary feeling. No RAM bloating Rosetta for you. Don’t be afraid of the description text.
The wording is somewhat confusing on the Macgamefiles.com page where the download is hosted, as it says “For now, Simcity 4 Rush Hour is still not supported for play on Intel Macs.” This is not to imply that the Universal binary does not work on Intel-based Macs — simply that Aspyr does not yet warrant that the software will work.
That’s pretty fair, especially since it is a beta. Are you guys waiting for any games? I still have a copy of KOTOR that I really couldn’t get into and want a UB for.
It’s true. Not all of us are so lucky as to have been using Macs for their entire lives. Technically I used a DEC machine for a little while (yay for DEClander!), but for the most part, I’ve lived my entire computer life on Macs. I’m sure there are a few behaviors I picked up from that I tried on Windows, Linux, and Unix, but none come to mind. However, with Macs becoming more popular every day, switchers and newbies are making mistakes that I would never think of.
Dan Warne documented 30 of these faux pas (archive link because Dan’s site can’t withstand the power of Digg). It’s a pretty good list as far as these “top insert number here” lists go.
These three really struck a chord with me (and some of the others seemed a little contrived).
6. Double-clicking a window thinking it will maximise it, but instead sending it to the dock
18. Thinking the green “+” button maximises a window to full screen (not realising that Apple’s maximise philosophy is to only make a window as big as it needs to be to comfortably fit the width of content currently being displayed)
26. Inability to work with multiple documents on-screen at the same time, because they have only ever learned to use Windows’ maximise mode which always makes everything full-screen
This is probably the biggest thing Windows fans miss. The maximize function is so overused and ingrained into their psyche that the idea of having multiple windows coexisting seems foreign. A surprising number of Windows users use all their programs that way. However, given the design of most Windows apps, it’s unsurprising. Scores of them are designed in such a way that it’s the only usable mode of operation. The biggest cause is that so much gets crammed onto the screen that for most users is completely useless, that a huge canvas is needed.
It’s good to keep these in mind. The next time you visit your friend with their shiny new Mac, you’ll be able to help keep that experience as good as it is for you.
[via the Destroyer of Blogs]
