Back when the 2008 Mac Pros were released, I noticed that they shipped with a new video card, the Radeon HD 2600 XT. Sure, I could purchase the Radeon 1900XT, but at $400 as an after purchase item, it wasn’t terribly economical. While the 2600 isn’t what you’d call high end, Apple’s own graphics page (88 fps versus 64 fps) shows it as a decent upgrade over the Nividia 7300GT that shipped with the original Mac Pros.
The trick is that although no Apple source specifically calls out the card as compatible with the original Mac Pro, it actually is by virtue of the backwards compatibility of PCIe 2.0. Barefeats has even gone as far as to do performance testing comparing the two cards (which is also how I learned the card was an option.
While it doesn’t exhibit the same level of performance that the 1900XT does, you’re looking at a double improvement in most cases. For $149, that’s not bad. I’m tempted to pick one up, but I must admit the lack of noise with a fanless card has been quite wonderful. Has anybody done this upgrade or can anyone comment on fan noise?
Your Mac laptop needs a regular sleep pattern just like you and SmartSleep sets out to give it the sleep cycle it needs to maximize its battery life.
SmartSleep regulates your Mac's sleep patterns, setting it to sleep only (no hibernation) when your battery is high and putting it on sleep and hibernate when your battery goes below 20%(this level is customizable). Once your battery goes below 5%, SmartSleep sets the computer to hibernate only, which will preserve the battery completely.
I've had my MacBook completely die on sleep mode before, which is more than a little annoying, so I'll definitely be giving this free software a try.
[Via TUAW]
If you're buddies with any malicious cyber geeks or hackers, think twice before letting them hop on your Mac—A security glitch that exposes the OS X password of a Mac to someone with physical access to it has been confirmed by Apple. Oops.
The vulnerability, discovered by San Francisco-area programmer Jacob Appelbaum, arises out of a programming error that keeps the account password in the Mac's memory long after it's needed, allowing it to be retrieved and used to log into the computer by unsavory types.
"This is a real problem and it needs to be fixed," said Appelbaum, who reported the issue to Apple. Apparently, Apple's response was far from stellar: "They won't put it in the latest security update or release a security update just for this issue."
I don't grant physical access to my Mac to many people, and the ones who do use it every so often wouldn't have the know-how or intent to take my password. Nevertheless, this is still a big deal; Your OS X password should never be at risk of being compromised. I hope as this story circulates, Apple will be pressured to address this issue with haste.
[Via boingboing]
When His Royal Steveness announced iTunes movie rentals at Macworld Expo, he claimed there would be 1,000 available titles by the end of February. Which, coincidentally, happens to be today.
Ooo, spooky.
Can't wait to get home and check out all the...wait, what? Chris "Geezer" Breen at the Mothership says there are not yet 1,000 rentals?! Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Chris? (running joke?)
Choose All Movies on your Apple TV and you'll find 351 titles for rent. Dash to the iTunes Store from your Mac or PC and you'll see that you can rent 378 titles if you use the All Rentals link. Use iTunes' Power Search feature, however, and 399 titles appear. When you select iTunes' All Movies link, 770 titles appear, the combined total of movies for rent and for sale.
Those bastards. I bought, like, a dozen cases of Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn, enough soda to quench the thirst of a small nation, and one of those sweet reclining chairs with cup-holders and a built-in toilet. Now what am I going to do this weekend? Homework?
As if.
Apple also promised 100 titles "in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound." Chris's search turned up 91 HD movies, and not all with 5.1 sound.
Well, hey, they still have a few hours to meet their deadline. I picture a hundred frantic Apple employees using HandBrake to rip every DVD they could rent from Blockbuster/find at their homes to cram into iTunes before midnight. Clock's ticking, gentlemen.
The team over at Gizmodo has wasted no time—har-dee har—in getting their hands on one of Apple's new Time Capsule devices. Their initial reports suggest all is as to be expected in Capsule-land, but I noted one interesting point from Wilson Rothman's post that will be sure to have AirPort Extreme owners frothing at the mouth:
But say you buy the 500GB Time Capsule, and want to use an external 1TB drive to do all your serious backing up. When you connect it via USB, it is automatically visible in both the AirPort Utility and the Time Machine on your Mac.Whoa, whatchu talkin' bout, Wilson? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that exact same feature that went MIA from the AirPort Extreme? That my colleague Peter Cohen just wrote about this week? What gives?
Much as I wish I had an answer for this perplexing question of the ages, I got nothing. I would have hoped that a firmware patch for the AirPort Extreme would be forthcoming, but Apple's playing this one close to the vest.
How's this for sensationalist headlines: "Mac OS X Secretly Cripples Non-Apple Software"? So said a piece on Slashdot yesterday, referring to a blog post by Firefox developer Vladimir Vukicevic. Vukicevic uncovered some programming options that were being used by development builds of WebKit, but were undocumented, and thus, unavailable to third-party developers.
Of course, that led to many calling foul on Apple, with Mozilla developer Robert O'Callahan going so far as to say:
It's worth reflecting that if Microsoft was doing this, they'd likely be hauled before a judge, in the EU if not the US. In fact I can't recall Microsoft ever pulling off an undocumented-API-fest of this magnitude.That may be overstating the case just slightly. Web Kit developer Dave Hyatt responded to Vukicevic's initial blog post, saying that there were other reasons the APIs were undocumented:
The programmatic disabling of coalesced updates should not be public API. It’s actually a very dangerous thing to do. We aren’t really happy with that code in WebKit, but we had to do it to avoid performance regressions in apps that embedded WebKit. Technically it’s wrong though, since we turn off the coalesced updates for any app that uses WebKit! This includes drawing they do that doesn’t even use WebKit.And Hyatt and fellow Apple developer Maciej Stachowiak both suggested and supported filing bugs with Apple to ask for documentation on the missing APIs.
Vukicevic has updated his initial post with a clarification, stating that he thought Slashdot "misunderstood the post"; he doesn't think "Apple is in any way trying to purposely "cripple" non-Apple software," rather he would just like to see these methods documented, in case they're useful for others. The most even-handed writeup I've seen so far is from Ryan Paul at Ars Technica, so if you're interested in the nitty gritty details, it's worth a look.
Personally, I think that these kind of differences—important though they may be—are probably not the deciding factor when you choose which browser you want to use. That's true for me, anyway: I surf on Safari because I prefer the interface and look of the browser; others prefer Firefox's extensive plugin architecture. To each their own.
Last night, I took a journey—a journey of the body and the spirit. To the Apple Store. Well, okay, mainly it was a journey of "I need to buy a new power adapter, because my MacBook's is dead." But it became so much more.
I'd just paid for my new power adapter, and the cashier offered, as usual, to send my receipt to me via email, confirming that I wanted it sent to my .Mac address. As I turned to walk away, a second cashier—having overheard that I had a .Mac account—asked me if I wanted to save some money on my renewal. Savvy shopper that I am, I asked him how much I'd be saving. "40%," he told me.
Well, seeing as how I was going to renew my account anyway, it seemed silly not to take advantage of $40 off the usual $99 price, so I handed over my credit card. When I asked about the discount, the cashier shrugged and said it was an incentive for people who took the time to come into the store, and that it wasn't widely advertised, but he tried to mention it to people whenever he heard they had an account. "I'm still selling something," he pointed out, adding that it made people happy.
So there you are: if you're planning on renewing your .Mac account, you might want to take a trip to your local Apple Store and see if they can hook you up. I'm told there are some restrictions (I think it needs to be at least three months since you've purchased/last renewed), but it's probably worth checking out.
The Coen brothers are putting Apple and Final Cut Pro back on the Hollywood map—in a positive way this time.
The brothers, who created the four-oscar-winning film "No Country for Old Men" have discussed the importance of Apple hardware and software during the editing of their film.
"They [Apple] made it really easy for us -- we cut now much the same way we cut on film [using Final Cut Pro]. It's hugely faster," said Ethan Coen.
Whatever they did with Final Cut Pro, it worked, as they won Best Picture of the Year, among a number of other awards. This is an especially big deal since, according to Macworld, this is the first movie edited with an entirely digital workflow on a Mac to win the Oscar.
For those iPhoto users who have been suffering from "issues with wire-bound books and cards", your wait is finally over. iPhoto 7.1.3 is now available, and the 16.9 MB download claims to fix this exact issue. I'm not exactly sure what "issues with wire-bound books and cards" it may be addressing, but it's good to know that this is no longer a problem.
Now go, my wire-bounding and card-making friend. Download the update, be free, and wire-bound and card away!
Twitter's hot in the Mac community. Probably because we all think everything that crosses our minds is so important that everyone must know it.
Which is true, really. At least everything I think.
So it's always a blessing when Iconfactory updates their famed Twitter client, Twitterrific. Version 3.1 includes a host of new features: new preferences for scrolling tweets, new keyboard shortcuts, new option to display @names instead of full names, and more. It also has a ton of bug fixes.
Check the Twitterfic site for info about the app, and the Version History page for deets on the 3.1 update. Twitterrific is $14.95, or you can use an ad-supported free version.
