Security Update 2008-005 is out, fixes DNS flaw

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 8:03 PM PT by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen

Category | Security

Security Update 2008-005 in out in various flavors, and it’s a biggy. With it, Apple finally fixes a serious DNS flaw which our own Dan Moren described a few days back:

The flaw in question, uncovered by security researcher Dan Kaminsky, revealed a method by which the DNS’s cache could be “poisioned”—that is, false data could be used to replace real data, so instead of going to your bank’s website, you would be sent to a fake website, even though your location bar would still tell you that you were at your bank’s site. Scary stuff.

But wait, that’s not all! This update also fixes a numbers of flaws in Data Detectors, Disk Utility, OpenSSL, and more. Apple has compiled a handy and exhaustive list for your viewing pleasure.

So don’t delay, fire up Software Update and get your Mac all patched up.

New York Bar Association continues anti-Mac policy

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 4:59 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar

Category | Legal

It’s not just the FAA that’s hatin’ on Macs these days. The New York State Bar Examination — you know, the one that gives all those attorneys official permission to get their briefs all up in a twist — isn’t allowing Macs for the grueling two-day exam beginning today.

According to The New York Times, the board’s policy is: “We do not support Apple products in any form including Intel-based laptops running Boot Camp — no exceptions.”

This is, of course, despite the fact that last year’s laptop-based portion was disastrous, reports the Times:

Last summer, panic spread through various testing sites when the exam software - which locks down all programs and files except the exam - malfunctioned. Hundreds of laptop users who navigated back to a previously completed essay found a blank screen. In the months following the exam, [John McAlary, the executive director of the New York State Board of Law Examiners] said, the board salvaged all but 47 essays. Some of those candidates passed or failed regardless of their score on the lost essay, leaving only 15 that were given an estimated score. Nine of them passed the bar, six didn’t.

Once this is all said and done, we really, really hope that one of these new hotshot esquires sues for discrimination.

[via Electronista]

Shaq spotted at Orlando Apple store — twice in a week!

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 3:44 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar

Category | Apple » Stores

Apparently Shaquille O’Neal has been spotted at the Millenia Mall Apple store in Orlando twice in the last week, reports an Orlando Sentinel newspaper reporter.

Etan Horowitz writes:

In the past week, two people have told me they saw Shaquille O’Neal at the Apple Store at the Millenia Mall. But neither of them was able to snap a photo of Shaq and a Mac (despite the fact that one of these people is a photographer and there are a bunch of iPhones with cameras in the store that they could have grabbed).

So, since it seems like Shaq may be making regular trips to the Apple Store these days, I’ll give a prize to the first person who can e-mail me a real photo of Shaq at the Apple Store.

Can any Orlando MacUser readers confirm this? I wonder what percentage of the Suns starting five use Macs, or for that matter, how common they are in the NBA.

MobileMe e-mail outage chat support not playing nice with jilted customers

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 3:00 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Huh?

As if the brutal MobileMe e-mail outages weren’t bad enough for MobileMe customers, tuaw is reporting that Apple’s e-mail outage chat support service has been ungracefully cutting off customers who they don’t believe to be amongst the users affected by the outage—without even giving the customer a chance to appeal this claim.

Apparently, unqualified users who tried to get chat support for MobileMe email were booted off the chat with this curt, template response:

“I’m sorry, according to our records, you were not one of the members affected by the email outage that began on July 18th. MobileMe Mail 24-hour chat support is a temporary measure designed specifically for users whose accounts were affected by that outage. For help, please visit http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/ww for access to all of our support resources. I apologize for any inconvenience.”

One unfortunate MobileMe user believes he truly was amongst the affected users, and was entitled to chat support, but was not even given the chance to argue his point. Bad show, Apple. Not a nice way to treat customers who’ve already been through hell and back dealing with this most botched of botched releases.

Apple warns retailers of impending supply shortage; sign of things to come?

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 2:09 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Speculation

As the world anticipates the next big Apple product updates, Apple has advised retailers to stock up on Apple merch now as product shortages may loom in the near future. According to 9to5mac and AppleInsider, Apple suggests that retailers order 4 weeks worth of their top selling iPod models, and 3 weeks worth of Mac notebooks as supplies will become extremely limited over the next seven days.

While this may simply have to do with Apple’s education promotion in which they’re giving away iPod touches with new Macs, it may also signal that new models are approaching. Given the amount of time that’s passed since the last updates, the stars indeed seem to be aligned for new Mac gear. If the word on the street is true, Apple should be unveiling their new product line for the Fall holiday shopping season.

So there we have it: a potentially new line of iPods and notebooks in the near horizon. Let the stokage commence!

Apple reigns supreme in the European education market

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 12:56 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » News

A hardy congrats to Apple and their continued dominion over the European education market. According to 9 to 5 Mac, a study by research firm Gartner has confirmed that Apple, in the second calendar quarter of 2008, remains the number one PC manufacturer in the education segment across Europe. They’ve held this position for eight successive quarters, selling 19.2 percent of all CPU’s sold in the sector, including servers.

And so Apple continues its positive growth trend in just about every way, around the world. It’s crazy to think that when I was in grade school, the Apple II’s were the big thing, with only a few privileged “Macintosh” computers here and there. Nowadays, at least in Europe, Intel iMacs abound in the classroom. That, ladies and gentlemen, is progress. *sniff sniff* It’s just so damned beautiful!

Psystar prepares defense of the clones

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 9:48 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Legal

We may have thought, hoped, and dreamed that Apple’s suit against clonemaker Psystar was the end of the story, but the battle will apparently continue in the courtroom this fall. Psystar has retained the services of Silicon Valley law firm Carr & Ferrell to defend its honor.

Heading up Psystar’s crack legal team is Carr & Ferrell partner Robert Yorio (pictured), who’s actually taken on Cupertino before in the case of Burst.com v. Apple, where the aforementioned sued Apple for violating its streaming media patents—the case ended with a settlement that saw Apple shell out $10 million to Burst.com. Yorio also oversaw a similar case that ended with a $60 million settlement from Microsoft, a patent infringement case against Iomega and Adaptec, and—perhaps most notably—a case against LEGO for the containers used in their Bionicle line.

Yorio’s biggest obstacle will be finding a way around Apple’s EULA, which prohibits installing OS X onto non-Apple branded computers. We’d think it’s a losing battle, but if Psystar somehow manages to eke out a win, this could change the landscape of the desktop market. A formal response from Psystar is due in August, at which point, we shall get ready to rumble.

[via InformationWeek]

FireWire 1600 and 3200 due to heat up the scene

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 9:01 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Hardware

Son, you might think FireWire is pretty fast, but you ain’t seen nothing yet. FireWire’s 400 Mbps speed is great for high-bandwidth uses and it puts USB2 to shame most of the time. And that’s before we even start talking about FireWire 800, though I’ll have to confess that I’ve never even had the privilege of owning a FireWire 800 machine.

Then again, FireWire 800 is about to start looking pretty poky. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (better known by its super-sekrit codename, IEEE), not content to merely step FireWire, aka IEEE 1394, to its subsequent iteration, has approved the next two versions of the specification: FireWire 1600 and FireWire 3200. That means speeds of up to 3.2 Gbps. The new versions will be fully backwards compatible with the existing FireWire 400 and 800 implementation, but will use the FireWire 800 connector shape.

FireWire 1600 and 3200 are expected to be available in October of this year, which gets them out of the gate slightly before USB3.0 and its top speed of 4.8 Gbps makes its appearance by the end of the year. Will we see FireWire 1600 and 3200 in the next-generation of Macs? The iPhone and latest iPod models have all eschewed FireWire in favor of USB, despite the fact that it was Apple who created the FireWire protocol. The two have co-habited on most Macs, despite the fact that FireWire 800 has only made inroads on about half of existing models.

[via Gizmodo]

Yahoo makes good on DRM debacle

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 8:02 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Music

Remember last week’s news that Yahoo was locking down all of their music and throwing away the keys? It looks like they’re not entirely staffed by heartless, soulless minions of digital rights management orthodoxy. One might be tempted to even perhaps exclaim. “Yay!” one might say. Or something along those lines.

According to a report in the Associated Press, Yahoo has come up with a transition plan for those customers affected by the shutdown of the company’s music license servers. Yahoo will provide coupons that allow customers to re-purchase their music from Yahoo’s new music partner, Rhapsody, in untainted MP3 format. The coupons are not track-specific—i.e., you could buy different music from Napster, if you suddenly decide that all those Sugar Ray songs you bought several years ago no longer are quite your cup of crap tea.

You can pick up some coupons (or, if you don’t want more music, a refund) by contacting Yahoo’s customer care department. Tell them we said “hi.”

[via Consumerist]

iTunes 7.7.1 is an international update of mystery

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 6:30 AM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | iTunes

Simple title for a simple update: Apple today released iTunes 7.7.1, a full 0.0.1 increment to its jazzy jukebox app.

So what’s new? Quite a bit; we’ll need a full block quote for this one:

iTunes 7.7.1 includes fixes to improve stability and performance.

Dude, how can they fit so much into just one update?

Miracle men, that’s what they are. Miracle men.

What’s that, you say? Haiku? Don’t mind if I do:

One simple sentence To describe the whole update What are they hiding?

Check the new ‘Tunes in your Software Update, and start enjoying your “improved stability and performance.” Apple insists.

Update: Our friends at TidBITS believe they have tracked down five bugs that 7.7.1 fixes from trawling Apple’s discussion boards.

Delicious DNS irony

Posted on Jul. 31, ’08, 5:54 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Security

As much as security researchers provide a valuable service to the community, sometimes you wish they’d have to deal with the mess that they create. If you’ve daydreamed about this idea, your day has come.

HD Moore authored an attack that allows someone to poison DNS servers into returning the wrong IP address for a particular domain name. He didn’t anticipate that he’d end up enabling someone to attack him apparently.

Now he’s one of the first victims of such an attack. “It’s funny,” he said. “I got owned.”

Yes, that is funny. His Google page got replaced with one that contained a series of ads. Of course, now his ISP, along with many others, get to clean up the problem. I suppose that’s funny too.

Back in my day, we had to buy our own computers

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 6:25 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Apple

If you’re one of our many Natrona County, Wyoming, readers, you’ve probably already heard the news: Wyoming’s Natrona County School District just purchased more than 3,000 computers from Apple, in a $3.8 million agreement to distribute MacBooks to elementary, junior high, and high school students and staff in the county.

Which is pretty cool, I guess. Back when I was in elementary school, we had a similar technology arraignment: Every student got one free floppy disk (25 cents per disk thereafter)—we got to choose which color, and we didn’t even have to return them.

Nevertheless, this Natrona County deal underscores the continuing story of Apple’s comeback in the education market. Increasingly-growing Mac momentum in the education sphere isn’t unexpected: In its last two fiscal quarters, Apple reported significant growth in its education busiess—35% in the March ‘08 quarter (highest increase in 8 years), and 25% year-over-year in the June ‘08 quarter. And Apple’s mark on education is evidenced by more than just sales numbers—news stories abound, about other lower-education schools distributing Macs to its students, universities switching to Macs, universities’ increasing attention to iTunes U, the Mac’s strengthening position in education around the world…on and on and on.

Good news, if you ask me. Today’s Mac-using students are tomorrow’s Mac-using entrepreneurs and managers. The Revolution is coming; our platform will reign supreme; repetitious oppressors will crumble before us. IT will no longer be able to ignore our existence as they always have; our numbers will frighten them, force them to submission, aut concilio aut ense, O homines ad servitutem paratos! Hoc est bellum! Ave Jobs, arbiter elegantiarum, dux bellorum! Ave Mac, omnia regit!

Ad victoriam! Ad absolutum dominium!

…Woah. I took that way too far, didn’t I?

[via MacDailyNews]

Fusion 2 beta continues with number 2

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 5:55 PM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Windows

Ah, Fusion 2, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. VMware is continuing to develop the new version of their Mac virtualization product. I thought that they’d freeze the featureset with the first beta’s changes, but that turns out to not be the case. Beta 2 has ton of new features.

Unity now has a feature that allows you to open Mac files with Windows applications with no middleman. That’s right, you can double click that Excel file and have it open in Windows, allowing you to use only one version. You can run it natively on your Intel processor and still have those intact macros without being forced to use the Windows file browser. Fancy.

The snapshot feature also looks very promising. You can set up Fusion to periodically snapshot your virtual machine so that when you do something stupid (like get a virus), you can back up to a usable state, no questions asked.

The video acceleration has been improved and VMware promises HD video playback possibilities. I’d really like to take that for a spin because, despite DRM coming near its end, some HD video is only on Windows. For the more geeky power users, there is a new “vmware” command line command for manipulating your virtual machines. That is sweet.

With all of these changes in a single beta version, I’m a little excited thinking about what may come before the final. Even better, 2.0 will be a free upgrade for 1.0 owners.

Statusphere randomizes and rotates your iChat Status

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 4:08 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Software

A while back I showed you how to write a quick AppleScript that automatically rotates your iChat Away message using a list of messages from a text file, which is hunky-dory if all you want is something that simple and you’re into the whole D-I-Y stuff.

But I want more; I want customizable options and handy features and, most of all, I want a user interface that manages everything so I don’t have to tweak the code itself every time I want to make a change.

Well, I heard my calls, and I’ve taken action: Today I released a brand-new (free!) status-management app called Statusphere. Built with AppleScript Studio (Xcode + Interface Builder), Statusphere lets you randomize and rotate your iChat Status message from a simple, feature-full-ish user interface. Take a look-see:

What are its so-called “features,” you ask? Here:

• Choose a list of Status messages from a text file (one message per line), or create a new list within Statusphere and save it as a text file.
• Specify how often you want Statusphere to change your Status message to a random selection from your list.
• Specify if you want Statusphere to display your Status messages as Available or Away messages.
• “Set Random Status” button sets your iChat Status message to a random message from your list without enabling the rotation process.
• A built-in list editor lets you modify your messages text file without having to leave Statusphere.
• Includes three example quotes lists: Humor, Politics, and Writing.

It’s still an early build, so there may be bugs I’m unaware of. Give it a try (direct download link), let me know how it works, and pass along any feature requests or changes you’d like to see. (And yes, I’m working on Adium support.)

ARM gives architecture license to mysterious company

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 3:14 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar

Category | Apple » Speculation

So, ARM had its second-quarter financial conference recently. No big deal, right? I mean, after all, this is the company that provides some of the guts for the iPhone and iPod touch, not to mention a whole slew of other processors (let’s call it 75 percent of the world market) especially in the mobile/low-power sector—still, why should we care?

Well, during this event, the CEO revealed a little hint that will make its investors happy—a multi-year deal with an as-yet unnamed OEM, or original equipment manufacturer.

The EETimes reports:

“Don’t get excited about any revenue on this deal as it’s all tied up with future technology and the revenue will be recognized over several years. But it is very important as far as we’re concerned in terms of securing design wins with that particular OEM and also in the mobile space altogether,” said Warren East, CEO of ARM, at an analysts conference.

So who’s our mystery winner? All signs seem to point to Apple, says Electronista:

Speculation points to Apple as a potential candidate for the license. The company already uses a Samsung ARM processor at the core of the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod touch and is increasingly turning towards custom-designing its components. The California electronics label recently acquired PA Semiconductor with the intent of using its expertise to design custom components and is notably buying out a firm best known for its low-power, embedded designs.

Such a license is rare irrespective of the final buyer; while companies such as Samsung often license ARM architecture for themselves due to their sheer range of products and manufacturing scale, Apple and most smaller electronics companies have often had to purchase generic chips from these companies and thus lose out on optimizing their devices for more features or better performance.

So is there a better chip powering the iPod and iPhone in our future? Here’s to hoping so, because my iPhone tends to run out of juice a little faster than I’d like.

What you don’t know won’t you hurt you?

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 2:23 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Apple » Rivals

I was reading Gizmodo today…okay, no I wasn’t; I was pretending to read it so I could tell Dan I was “researching” post topics. I just open a bunch of sites every day to say that I have.

So I was visiting Gizmodo today when I noticed a conspicuous black ad in the top right corner that identified itself as “The ‘Mojave’ Experiment.” It was a Microsoft ad—a precursor to their new massive “Don’t Get a Mac” campaign that’s aimed at gaining some ground from Apple in the OS mindshare wars.

But this one made me laugh: It started by saying it got a bunch of people together and told them they were going to demo a new Microsoft operating system called “Mojave.” Ready for the hook? It wasn’t “Mojave,” which I don’t think actually exists…it was—prepare for it—Windows Vista.

It links to Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment website, which hosts a bunch of video clip interviews of people subjected to the slimy deception—with most of them pleasantly surprised at how Vista performed vs. their initial assumptions based on secondhand accounts.

Microsoft provides some numbers:

• Over 90% (or 94%) of respondents rated Mojave higher than they initially rated Windows Vista before seeing the demo. Zero gave Mojave a lower rating after seeing the demo.
• Of the 140 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5. Many said they would have rated it higher, but wanted more time to play with it themselves.

Ina Fried at CNET jabs at that last part:

Now, as I and others have pointed out, there is a huge difference between seeing what amounts to a short demo of an operating system and actually having to install new software, work with existing devices, and do the kinds of everyday computing tasks we all do. In addition, the videos are edited, so one has to believe Microsoft when it says it wasn’t cherry-picking the clips it included.

No kidding.

It’s funny to see Microsoft’s products’ reputations about on par with Pizza Hut’s—well, sorta. The Mojave Experiment would be like Pizza Hut’s pasta campaign if Pizza Hut got a bunch of people together, ate the pasta in front of them, them told them how good it tasted. Then told them it was from Pizza Hut.

Of course, it’s not all that surprising that Microsoft didn’t want them to use Vista—and that alone says more about the operating system than anything anyone says in those videos.

HP sez: Most Vista Buyers Downgrade To Windows XP

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 1:21 PM PT by Cyrus Farivar

Category | Apple » Rivals

Despite Microsoft’s renewed efforts to jumpstart the company and position itself as more of a true rival to Apple, Redmond still can’t catch a break.

The Australian tech publication APC recently published an interview with HP marketing manager Jane Bradburn, who unveiled this gem:

“However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today,” she said.

In other words, all those Vista sales that apparently are happening somewhere out there may not actually be, you know, sales of Vista. Freaking fantastic.

So, Steve, which part of the Microsoft story is this exactly?

[via InfoWorld]

When will Apple fix the Mighty Mouse?

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 12:00 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Huh?

As I write this, I am awaiting the shipment of my third wireless Mighty Mouse, courtesy of AppleCare, in less than 16 months. I’m betting most of you who’ve owned a Mighty Mouse (wireless or not) for over 6 months will know what my issue has been. That’s right: the trackball. It just stops working!

This seems to be the case with most people I know who’ve owned a Mighty Mouse for more than half a year, and it’s happened to me with both of my Mighty Mice within 5-7 months. Cleaning helps the first few times, but after that, no amount of cleaning that doesn’t involve taking the entire thing apart (something Apple clearly doesn’t want you to do, judging by the build), seems to help.

Apple: I agree that the Mighty Mouse, especially the wireless one, is an awesome idea, and the ability to scroll horizontally is nothing short of bad ass, but when I pay $70 for a mouse, I expect it to last more than 6 months. I feel especially sorry for those who purchased the Mighty Mouse separate from their Macs, thus leaving it uncovered by extended AppleCare.

Has anyone actually had a Mighty Mouse that’s consistently worked well for over, say, 8 months? If you’ve had your Mighty Mouse less than 8 months, I don’t want to hear that it’s still working. It won’t for long, k? More importantly, has anyone found a viable, bluetooth alternative to the Mighty Mouse? Once my three year extended warranty is up, there’s no way I’m shelling out the money for another one of these.

I print, you print, we all like to print!

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 11:11 AM PT by Kate Marshall

Category | Troubleshooting

I rarely mind having to print stuff out. However, that’s probably because I do the bulk of my printing at work, where a helpful IT staff is on hand for major paper jams, software driver issues, and USB snafus. Also, the bulk of my work-printing involves documents.

When it comes to home printers that print digital photos though…wow. I’ve had my own computer and printer since 2001-ish and generally, it’s been an easy ride. From Lexmark to Kodak, my own printers largely behaved (after much cursing during initial set-up). But setting up printers for family and friends? Insert weary sigh here.

In 2005, my parents purchased a new computer (iMac G5) and printer (Epson inkjet something-or-other). The computer is still chugging away but the printer died an early death earlier this year—as if it ever worked properly before then. So this past spring, they upgraded to an all-one-in system from Hewlett-Packard. It successfully printed photos and documents once or twice before inexplicably freaking out last week.

Switching from iPhoto to HP’s proprietary printer software package seems to have solved the problem, although now there’s the fun task of exporting 2500+ pictures from iPhoto and then importing them into the HP software (that’s the easiest method I can think of, at least).

I know that when buying a new printer and installing the software, you almost always have to also download updated drivers from the company website. I know that while the printer might have its own software for everything from basic maintenance to image editing, it might not be as powerful, user-friendly, or polished as standalone software like Photoshop or iPhoto. If it works for you, then great. But I think the user should have the final say in what kind of software they use to display, edit and print photos. If it’s not whatever HP or Epson bundled with that year’s hot product, then the software should shut up and get out of the way. Printing a picture from iPhoto shouldn’t require constantly tinkering with the “Page Setup” commands and then the Print dialog box to make sure you have just the right kind of settings to properly print a four-by-six picture.

After trying to troubleshoot my parents’ printer, I felt like casting runes might be a better solution. They called HP Support who, as expected, told them to just use the HP bundled software. So yeah, things seem to work now but what if you just really didn’t want to switch gears like that? What if you’ve gotten used to your image editor of choice and don’t feel like switching to a different application to print images? How hard can it be for a Kodak, Epson, HP, or Canon printer to say, “why sure, iPhoto, here’s your 4-by-6 picture of the Governor’s Palace?” How hard, indeed.

We’re going back…to the future!

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 10:21 AM PT by Kate Marshall

Category | Apple » People

So, 1987. I could say how great a year it was but I was all of about four years old. I was too busy being dressed up in “punk rock” legwarmers and lace headbands by my older sister (I think it was a Madonna thing). For the good folks who were at Apple in 1987, it looks like *they* were busy making videos: videos where they predicted how in 1997, Apple had taken over the world or something—hey, they were only about ten years off.

The video features such notable Apple names as Steve Wozniak and John Sculley (no, Steve Jobs is not in it, in case you were wondering—he was ousted by Sculley in 1985. There, I just saved you about seven minutes of your day). Check it out, if only for the distinct feeling of, “This reminds me of Weird Al Yankovic’s *UHF*” that it evokes. And the disconnect that comes from knowing what Apple was actually up to when 1997 finally rolled around (*not to mention the wearable computer idea dubbed—I kid you not—“the Vista Mac” -DM*).

Besides, it’s always fun to look back at predictions of the future—what did 2008 look like to you in 1998? Where all the flying cars that the 1950s predicted we would have by the 21st century? Why can’t I just think about brewing fresh coffee and it automagically appears? And so on.

Dell to roll out music initiative, head to Crazytown

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 8:46 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Rivals

Apparently someone at Dell is feeling a little nostalgic for the heady days of 2003. It’s the only possible reason I can divine for the questionable logic that is Dell planning to release a digital music player and attendant download service.

Guys, seriously. I mean, we admire your demented, demented chutzpah, but you’ve tried this. A couple of times. How can you think this will be any different?

Instead of simply selling a piece of hardware tied to someone else’s music service, as it did in 2003, Dell is working on software for a range of portable PCs that will let users download and organize music and movies from various online sources.

Ah…yes. I see. Because, man, if there’s one thing Dell’s known for it’s definitely its firm grasp of interoperability. How are they going to pull this off, in a market dominated by Apple?

…Dell is tapping ex-Apple expertise to make its foray. Its device is based on software developed at Zing, a company Dell acquired last year and which is headed by an Apple veteran. Mr. Tatelman said Zing software can be used to retrieve and organize online music, movies and photos, and will come pre-installed on a series of new Dell notebook computers and other devices. The Zing service will let users access their content from locations other than their own computer.

It’s like the old saying goes: If you can’t beat ‘em, hire the people who no longer work for ‘em.

The hardware, which would reputedly be priced at under $100, would allow connecting to music stores via Wi-Fi and would require an online subscription service. That sound you here? It’s the sound of children everywhere crying. Where could they have possibly gotten the idea that this idea would succeed?

Rob Enderle, an industry analyst whom Dell hired to consult on the new entertainment strategy, said he is still discussing with Dell whether profits would come mainly from the subscription service or from devices tied to it. [emphasis added]

Sweet Moses on a pogo stick. Have fun in Crazytown, boys.

MobileMe is up and at ‘em

Posted on Jul. 30, ’08, 7:52 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Internet

Another two days, another post from the mysterious David G. (known on the street as…er…David G.) on the status of everybody’s favorite yo-yo Internet service. Having previously informed us of the background behind MobileMe’s growing pains, David’s here to tell us that everything is copacetic.

We have completed restoring Mail service, including historical messages, to all of the 1% of affected members. Thank you all for your extreme patience during this trying time.

Is our long national MobileMe nightmare finally over? Well, mostly. Of course, there may be lingering problems for a few people. For them, Apple’s set up a dedicated chat line, just for MobileMe Mail issues—note that’s mail issues only; your iDisk and calendar syncing problems will have to go elsewhere.

Speaking of which, Apple also apparently caught a bug that was preventing syncing of calendar data to iPhones and iPod touches. The fix is transparent, so your data should already be back in fighting shape—if it’s not, just follow these steps.

The G-man (no?) promises another post on MobileMe Status “later this week.” This Apple blog thing is all so…novel. And kind of frightening. What’s next, Cupertino hopping on Twitter?

Jony Ive filmografied, coming soon

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 2:55 PM PT by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen

Category | Apple » People

We’re big fans of Jonathan Ive here at MacUser. Apple’s industrial design senior VP is legendary for his clean, elegant, award-winning designs. But you knew that.

What you might not know is that Jony Ive himself is being interviewed for the upcoming documentary Objectified, set to premiere early next year. The film is directed by Gary Hustwit, who’s known around these parts for directing Helvetica, which explored typography and graphic design.

But what is Objectified going to be about, you ask?

Objectified is a documentary about industrial design; it’s about the manufactured objects we surround ourselves with, and the people who make them. On an average day, each of us uses hundreds of objects. (Don’t believe it? Start counting: alarm clock, light switch, faucet, shampoo bottle, toothbrush, razor…) Who makes all these things, and why do they look and feel the way they do?

Note: “Filmografied” is unfortunately not a real word. “Objectified”, on the other hand, is.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

FAIL: Microsoft loses “Zune Guy” to iPod Touch

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 12:23 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Huh?

Remember that nutty Zune Guy? He could easily be considered the Zune’s claim to fame, mostly because he was crazy enough to deface his body with three Zune tattoos and made plans to legally change his name to “Microsoft Zune“—good God, the things people do for fame nowadays.

Anyway, in what could be seen as a true sign of Microsoft’s failure to make a likeable MP3 player, their precious Zune Guy has publicly defected from the Zune camp, purchasing an iPod classic, and later switching it for an iPod touch.

“It’s super thin and does some really neat stuff like tilting to go into cover flow,” Smith said. “I also like watching movies on it. I can go anywhere to get iPod accessories, that’s not the case with Zune stuff in Iowa.”

And so an embarrassing saga comes to a triumphant end. I just can’t help but wonder if Apple tattoos and a name change attempt to “Apple iPod Touch” will ensue.

[Via iPhone Savior]

Dell sets sights on Mac mini with Studio Hybrid

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 11:41 AM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Rivals

Dell is diving into the mini desktop computing market with their Studio Hybrid. As the “Hybrid” name implies, Dell is promoting the Studio Hybrid as an eco-friendly alternative to traditional PC towers, which have a significantly higher power draw (300 watts) compared to Hybrids (65 watts).

They’re naturally targeting the Studio Hybrid directly at the Mac mini, claiming that it “leaves the Mac mini behind” due to its optional Blu-ray drive for HD video, HDMI video out, an 8-in-1 card reader and an optional TV tuner.

The system also has a bunch of stylish customizable options that include different color shells as well as a bamboo finish option that actually looks pretty nice.

To top it all off, they’re offering the Studio Hybrid at a lower price than the Mac mini with starting prices at $499 for a base model with a 1.73GHz Pentium dual-core processor, 1GB of memory, and a 160GB hard disk. The catch? It comes with Vista. Ugh.

All in all, the Studio Hybrid could give the aging Mac mini a run for its money. I’m thinking it’s time Apple either updates the mini or discontinues it completely. After all, their portable line is doing so well and is so competitively priced that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to buy a Mac mini when you can get the way handier MacBook with the same specs for just $300 more—pretty much the price of a new monitor you’d need for the mini anyway. Am I the only one who thinks the Mac mini is kind of pointless?

[Via electronista]

Manage (or mangle) property lists with Pref Setter

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 10:09 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Software

Plists—my mortal enemies! There are all sorts of handy tweaks you can make to your system if you don’t mind digging around in obscure property list files (reminder: always wear your seatbelt and always backup your files first). While some of these options get exposed in GUI programs like TinkerTool, there are many others that require a little more work.

While Apple provides its own very handy Property List Editor as part of its Developer tools, maybe you don’t want to go through the hassle of finding your dev tools disk or downloading the whole thing from Apple’s site. In that case, check out Night Productions’ free Pref Setter 2.0; not only does it let you edit your pref files, but it even makes them easy to find, providing you with a complete searchable list right at startup. And changing settings is likewise easy—you can even drag and drop defaults write terminal commands into a window and it’ll do for you.

Pretty slick—I know where I’ll be turning next time I need to wrestle a .plist into submission. And then…the world.

“Dangerous Australians” exhibit is Mac-powered

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 9:05 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Geekery

I’m always of two minds about visiting Australia: on the one hand, all the Aussies I’ve ever met have been extremely friendly, cool people. On the other hand my impression is that everything in Australia is deadly. Honestly, I don’t even do that well with non-lethal flora and fauna, so I’m afraid that I might accidentally eat a poisonous barbecued shrimp or something.

For those just such as me, the Australian Museum in Sydney is running an exhibit called “Surviving Australia.” Among the installations is this slick interactive table concocted by Lightwell, which lets you interact with virtual models of “dangerous Australians” like the saltwater crocodile, funnel web spider, brown snake, and Russell Crowe.* The table will even tell you what you should do if you were to get attacked by any of them (we hear Crowe is easily distracted by blueberry muffins—if that doesn’t work, we advise that you play dead until Crowe moves on).

Why are we talking about this again? Oh yeah: the table runs on four synced Mac Pros and four video projectors, and the software is built from scratch using Apple tech like Cocoa, Core Animation, and QuickTime. And, if you lean in very close, you’ll even hear it whisper a message to you…a message that sounds suspiciously like “suck it, Microsoft Surface.”

* To forestall nitpickers—oh, I know you’re there—yes, I realize that Crowe was actually born in New Zealand, but he grew up in Australia. Besides: better I falsely attributed him to Australia than Mel Gibson, right?

It’s a photo finish! Lightroom and Aperture both get updates

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 8:04 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Photography

Apparently Tuesday is the new photo-cataloging application update day. Both Apple and Adobe have rolled out new versions of their high-end photo apps, so no matter what you use to keep track of your pictures, it’s time to check the old update queue.

Of the two, Adobe’s update is the weightier: it’s Photoshop Lightroom 2 (The Revenge!). Lightroom 2 has been in beta since April (and has supposedly been downloaded 130,000 times); it boasts the notable achievement of being Adobe’s first 64-bit OS X app. It’ll run $299 or $99 as an upgrade if you already own Lightroom.

What else does numero dos offer that’s new? Well, you can organize your photos across multiple hard drives; there’s a Suggested Keyword feature that should take some of the pain out of assigning keywords; a Local Adjustment Brush which lets you adjust qualities like color and exposure in certain areas without affecting the overall image; dual-monitor capability; and improved support for Raw images using the DNG Profile Editor and Camera Raw 4.5 which are also dropping today.

By comparison, Apple’s Aperture update is a snooze—it “supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.” It’s a free update, though—so you got that going for you.

John Mayer is not the best Apple Genius

Posted on Jul. 29, ’08, 5:33 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Apple » People

Do you remember John Mayer? He played at a keynote a while back. He’s also the guy that writes personal letters in crash reports. He may be a master of getting Apple customer service to respond, but he’s no customer service rep himself.

Gizmodo has (from TMZ) video of John Mayer trying to help his father. It’s hilarious and worth watching if you like John Mayer, dislike John Mayer, or ever suffered through the parental diagnostic session of hell. Sympathize with his pain or revel in it. Report back with your favorite line from the clip.

Sit IDLE-y by, waiting for your mailz

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 5:23 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Internet

Why-oh-why does Push mail/etc work on the iPhone and cloud, but not on the Mac itself? That’s one of those questions not even ChaCha can answer—and ChaCha’s pretty freakin’ smart, lemmetellya.

So while our phones are constantly ringing with the pleasant chime of freshly-arrived blue-dot-stamped emails resting comfortably in our inboxes, our Macs sit twiddling their…fans…waiting eagerly for MobileMe’s regimented 15-minute (or less) sync cycle.

Or do they?!

Sorta, says my old homeboy David Chartier at Infinite Loop, who points out the MobileMe now supports the IMAP IDLE standard—a push-like service for IMAP email accounts “which allows mail clients to instantly see mailbox changes and new message”—a service that was unsupported by .Mac.

So how doth it worketh?

In our testing, however, we found that Apple’s own Mail client (ironically?) does not always utilize IDLE reliably. Test messages arrived almost immediately about 75 percent of the time, while we had to wait a few minutes and ultimately check e-mail manually to see the others. Mozilla’s Thunderbird, which also supports the IDLE feature of IMAP, fared better; every test message in our testing period arrived right away.

Bummereth.

Well, at least it’s something. But having to flip to Mail to check for new mail manually every time I hear my iPhone chime its arrival is a painfully vexatious (vocab word!) task.

Whatevs. At least I got to use the word “vexatious” in a post—which makes this whole MobileMe debacle totally worth it.

Outspring looks at calendar, discontinues QuickMail

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 4:09 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Software

What do you do when you have an app that’s old as hell, built on obsolete technology, and has a UI with the same fashion sense as your friend’s dad who still dresses like it’s 1985?

You slice its head off and shift your customers’ focus to your new and improved replacement app with a different name that’s kinda like the old app but a whole lot better.

And so it goes: Today, Outspring Inc. announced the discontinuation of its QuickMail line of products, an email server and client that look like their CodeWarrior files haven’t been opened since they were recompiled for OS X eight years ago. (Just look at the screenshots. It’s like Outspring forgot about these apps for the past few years, until one day out of boredom one of their employees was idly clicking around their website and stumbled across the product pages.

“What’s this?” he asks his boss, Outspring president and CEO Jeff Baudin.

Baudin squints curiously at the screen. It looks familiar, but he just can’t place it. QuickMail…hmmm…Quick-Mail…Mail…that is…Quick…

Then it hits him. He pauses as his face fills with panic. “Oh…crap.”

He bolts to his office, his anxiety comparable to when he forgot his wife’s birthday last year and had to get her a card, gift, and flowers before they were supposed to meet in a half-hour at her favorite restaurant. “Debby!” he blindly shouts at his secretary’s desk, not realizing she left for lunch 20 minutes ago. “We need to issue a press release that we’re discontinuing ClickMail!”

“QuickMail!” shouts the employee in the background.

“QuickMail!” Baudin corrects himself. “You know, the ugly one!”)

As of today, Outspring has suspended all sales and phone support for QuickMail products. Customers who have purchased QuickMail products within the last 90 days will still be entitled another 90 days of telephone support. Prior users can still find peer-to-peer support in Outspring’s support forum at their website.

I’d really like to see some numbers on customers who have purchased QuickMail within in the last 90 days. Or, should I say, number.

The three apps—QuickMail Server, QuickMail Macintosh, and QuickMail Wintel—are still available at their website, if you’ve got some kind of old-software fetish and want to wrap yourself in its defunct goodness. Go ahead, I won’t judge (that’s a lie).

In the meantime, they’d like you to look at their Outspring Mail products, which at least won’t make you feel like you fell through a time portal to a pin-stripped past when you launch it. Always a plus.

Next-gen Macs may be in for a major architectural overhaul

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 3:34 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Speculation

We know that the next-gen Mac will soon be upon us, but we don’t know much else, really. How next-gen will these next-gen Macs be? The word from Apple Insider is that they will be way, way next-gen, like totally.

Word on the street is that the architectural jump from the current generation of Macs to the next may be as significant as the transition from Power PC to Intel. This is because Apple will likely strive for unique system architecture, distancing itself from the more standard, run of the mill Intel architecture it currently uses.

This will return to Apple a sense of exclusivity that it lacks right now (your MacBook’s Intel Santa Rosa mobile platform is used in a ton of Dell and HP laptops, tough guy). This means the new Mac notebooks will most likely not adopt Intel’s new Montevina chipset. In fact, according to people close to the project, the new mobile Mac chipsets may have little to do with Intel at all.

Barring Intel-made chipsets, Apple’s options include going back to developing their own chipsets or forging a relationship with other established manufacturers like AMD or Via. Doing so would effectively give them the ability to hand pick their technology from the best developers, which of course, would be awesome. So start saving, friends; it sounds like the new Macs are going to be the bee’s knees.

Apple Genius Bars draw the ire of anti-DRM campaigners

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 2:24 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Apple » Stores

In the noble war against DRM, civilians may be hurt; we call this collateral damage, like that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. This time, the collateral damage may end up being Apple customers in need of help at the Genius Bar.

Anti-DRM guerilla group Defective By Design is urging people to book slots at Apple’s Genius Bars and pester them with questions about DRM. They also have a number of gripes about the iPhone, but that’s another story.

Not only will this guerilla action waste the time of legitimate Apple customers and annoy the underpaid, already-hassled-enough Mac Geniuses, but it will also prove to be a futile effort on behalf of the anti-DRM crusaders, because, guess what? DRM isn’t really the fault of Apple Geniuses or even Apple, per se. It’s the big, greedy, clueless record labels that need to be told what’s up. They’re the guys who still think it’s a good idea to restrict their customer’s use of the music they paid for. Take it up to them.

Apple is more or less just trying to make due with what the labels will allow them. Sure they could do more to pressure the labels to allow DRM-free music and movies, but really, pestering the 20 year old Apple Genius at the mall isn’t going to do much.

[Via 9to5Mac]

iPhone self-portraits made geeky

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 1:27 PM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Tips

Even with its price tag dropped to $200, the iPhone 3G still has its fair share of missing features: voice dialing, A2DP Bluetooth stereo, MMS. But perhaps the most glaring among them is the lack of any sort of self-portrait mirror. iPhone owners who’ve tried to take a picture of themselves end up wrestling with the touch-sensitive controls, all the while unable to see exactly what they’re taking a picture of.

I’ve certainly taken my fair share of shots of my chin or one eye, but today as I tried to snap a photo, I came up with an ingenious solution. If you happen to be sitting in front of your MacBook, just fire up Photo Booth. Then you can point the iPhone’s screen at your MacBook’s iSight and see the framing of your shot. It doesn’t work perfectly—your arm can still get in the way—but it’s good enough for taking a carefully posed oh-so-casual shot.

If you don’t happen to have a MacBook or other iSight-enabled Mac, you can accomplish the same thing with a mirror. Or a window. Or a shiny piece of metal. And for those you who will inevitably complain that this won’t help you when you’re capturing your silly Friday night bar antics, may I suggest the simple, expedient solution of having someone take a picture of you?

Let it never be said that I don’t pull my weight around these parts.

PPPoE: I refuse to say that three times fast

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 10:44 AM PT by Kate Marshall

Category | Troubleshooting

A quandary: what happens if you can connect to your Airport Base Station (or other third-party wireless access point), but can’t connect to the Internet? I hate when stuff like that happens. As it turns out, Apple Support has a Knowledge Base article about this very problem. The instructions may have been written with 10.2 (Jaguar) in mind but don’t let that automatically put you off. This problem occasionally came up for me as I traveled the road from 10.1 to 10.5 (and I bypassed 10.2 entirely so there you go).

Onto the situation at hand: your computer is connected to the base station but it can’t pick up the Internet on your local network. Or, perhaps you check the “Network” preference pane and the IP address for “Built-in Ethernet port” says 10.64.64.64. According to Apple Support, “this typically occurs after adding an AirPort Base Station or third-party wireless access point where wired Ethernet was previously used to connect to a PPPoE DSL or cable modem service.” The computer still thinks a wired Ethernet connection exists and tries to access the Internet thusly. Here be the solution:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences.
2. Choose View > Network.
3. Choose Built-in Ethernet from the Show pop-up menu.
4. Click the PPPoE tab.
5. Click the PPPoE Options button.
6. Deselect the “Connect automatically when needed” option.
7. Click OK.
8. Click Apply Now.

Off we are then. Now I’m off to get more coffee.

Google Calendar now syncs with iCal, for free

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 9:59 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Internet

Holy Crow T. Robot! It seems that our own Aaron Freedman’s prayers have been answered. Aaron’s long been on the lookout for a free way to sync his Google Calendar with iCal, and while he’s tried a bunch of different solutions, none of them have quite met his rigorous criteria.

But that was before Google themselves stepped into the ring. The Goog has now enabled the ability to access your Google Calendar via iCal—with full sync support (caveat: this only works with the Leopard version of iCal). Create an event in iCal and it’ll show up in your Google Calendar and vice versa. The steps for setting it up are pretty straightforward, though you might want to know that there are still some known issues: for example, event reminders and notifications don’t sync yet (they’re a function of the calendar that you create the event on) and you can’t create To Do items on Google Calendars yet. You can, however, set up multiple calendars, though the process is a marginally more involved.

Still, it’s a promising move for those who rely on their Google Calendar but want the convenience of iCal. Personally, I’ve never been a regular user, especially now that MobileMe offers push calendars, but I know there’ll be a lot of people pleased by this development. Perhaps even you!

Rejuvenate a dead Nike + iPod sensor

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 8:55 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | iPod » iPod Accessories

I admit: it’s been a while since I last used my Nike + iPod gear. I know it probably feels neglected, but look, I’ve just been busy okay—it’s not you, it’s me. Yes, I’m sure I will miss you when your battery eventually fades into nothingness and I’ll remember all those good times we had. Like that time, when we were running…and then…we stopped running. Good times.

Fortunately, when that does inevitably happen, all I need to do is follow this simple technosurgical procedure, courtesy of Instructables, to replace it with a juicy new one. And the net cost of such an operation? A mere $5. You’ll need a knife, pliers, a small philips screwdriver, electrical tape, crazy glue, a CR2032 battery and a sense of adventure.

Instructables walks you through the whole process, from prying open the little pebble’s case to attaching the new battery. Then you can get back to the important business of leaving the kit in a drawer and ignoring it again.

[via Lifehacker]

Sick and tired of talk about Steve’s health

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 8:09 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

If it’s not MobileMe issues these days, then it must be Steve’s health. I’m beginning to think that the two are somehow inextricably linked—unable to find a power source for their “cloud”, Apple has hooked MobileMe’s servers directly into Steve’s body. That’s right: MobileMe’s being powered by the Reality Distortion Field (which explains why the field itself has gotten correspondingly weaker in the last couple weeks). Perfect logic, no?

In case you decided not to check the news this weekend—which, frankly, I could not fault you for in the slightest—you may have missed this piece by the New York Times’s Joe Nocera. In response to his repeated inquiries about the CEO’s health, Nocera received a call from none other than Steven P. Jobs, who discussed his health issues, off the record. Obviously, Nocera can’t repeat what Jobs said, but he has said that he is not in a position to contradict other reports of Steve’s health.

But, you ask—how do we really know it was Steve himself? Could this be some sort of elaborate trick? I thus submit the following exchange into evidence:

On Thursday afternoon, several hours after I’d gotten my final “Steve’s health is a private matter” — and much to my amazement — Mr. Jobs called me. “This is Steve Jobs,” he began. “You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.”

Yep, that’s Steve.

Nocera uses this to raise the larger issue of whether or not Jobs should have to disclose his health condition to investors. To me, there seems a fine line here between reasonable disclosure and morbid curiosity. Yes, Steve is an intrinsic part of Apple, and as such, his health affects the company.

But what worries me is the precedent. If Steve or Apple responds now, it essentially backs them into the corner of having to respond to health issues every time they come up. Because if they ever don’t respond, people will jump to the conclusion that something is wrong. That’s not something they want people to focus on (though, granted, by not responding now, they’re kind of being forced to do that anyway). In the end, it’s a lose-lose for them.

Personally, I don’t think Steve should have to discuss his health with anybody apart from his doctor. But if such a thing is necessary, I agree that it should be handled with taste and discretion—as Arik Hesseldahl suggests, Apple’s outside directors are probably best-suited to this task. If they say that they’ve talked with Steve and they’re satisfied with the information that he’s given them about his health, that ought to close the matter.

Now if only everybody in the world were so enlightened.

A second MobileMe status blog update

Posted on Jul. 28, ’08, 6:00 AM PT by Derik DeLong

Category | Internet

Apple is really taking the MobileMe outages seriously (finally). They’ve added a second entry to their status update page. This time, David G. informs us about the nitty gritty details about getting those 1% of users back on their feet.

As you know, restoring full email access to the remaining 1% of MobileMe users is our first priority. We turned on web access to their current email yesterday and the feedback has been cautiously positive. Since then, we’ve restored full email history (minus the approximately 10% of mail received between July 18 and July 22 which may have been lost) and the ability to access email from a Mac, PC and iPhone, to over 40% of these users, and expect the remainder to be restored in the next few days.

Don’t try to calculate all the percentages and their relation to one another at least until your second cup of coffee. The good of this update is that these users have web access at the least and some are getting IMAP access. The bad is that not everyone has IMAP access. The ugly is that 10% of their mail could have been lost between July 18 and 22.

That’s not a great success rate and it makes me a little hesitant about putting all my email into MobileMe. Email is one of those things where you want to get all of it, or the service is essentially useless to you. This blog is the status update that MobileMe and .Mac users before them have deserved from the beginning. Rather than vague outage warnings, every outage should have explanations of this depth attached to them.

Let’s hope they get this resolved quickly and with as little lost email as possible.

Direct from the horse’s mouth, information on MobileMe

Posted on Jul. 26, ’08, 12:12 PM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Internet

Hark, what’s this! Could it be? A missive directly from Apple headquarters? Amazing, but true. It seems that the ongoing problems with MobileMe (which we have been documenting at length) have finally blown back to the office/meditation sanctuary of the one, the only Steve Jobs. And now we have the MobileMe Status Page to show for it.

An unnamed Apple employee has been asked by Steve himself (who I presume said “pretty please with sugar on top”) to keep MobileMe subscribers updated about the fluctuations in service. Here’s what our nameless friend (who we’re considering dubbing “MobileMel”) has to say:

One issue we encountered was a mail outage affecting 1% of our members. Last Friday a serious problem with one of our mail servers blocked those members’ access to their MobileMe mail accounts. As of today a team was able to restore limited web access to those accounts so the affected members can use their browsers to read mail that has arrived since last Friday (though not before) as well as send and receive new mail. The team has already begun rolling out restoration of full access for all the accounts and expect to finish by the end of next week. We particularly regret to report the loss in the affected accounts of approximately 10% of the messages received between July 16 and July 18.

You know, it’s not good news, but I’m glad that they’re at least being forthright about it. According to our new buddy MobileMel, the updates will continue “every other day or so” with information about how MobileMe is doing—the next is scheduled for later this weekend. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed for the most up-to-the minute information.

This may be cold comfort to those who have been affected by the problems with MobileMe, but we see it as a rare and welcome step from Apple. What do you think? Are your concerns assuaged at all, or is this just Apple digging themselves deeper?

It’s never fast enough for Virginia Tech

Posted on Jul. 25, ’08, 5:36 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Hardware

You remember Virginia Tech: They were the ones who bought up all the PowerMac G5s (1,100 total) when they first shipped in 2003—delaying shipments to us common folk—to build System X, the third-fastest supercomputer in the world (at the time), which clocked in at 12 teraflops.

Well, that wasn’t good enough for them, and they eventually replaced their PowerMac G5s with Xserve G5s—which made System X a whopping 20% faster.

And according to Infinite Loop, the VT folks are still not satisfied—they’re building another Mac-based supercomputer, this time clustering 312 Mac Pro towers to achieve a ‘theoretical computing capacity’ of 29 teraflops.

The new system will not replace System X, according to CHECS Director Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan. “Unlike System X, which is a production machine for computational science and engineering researchers, the new system is intended to be pure computer science research system,” he told Ars.

Ah ha. But what kind of ‘pure computer science research’?

The system will be used to study two main areas: power-aware software systems that can adjust performance automatically to maximize efficiency, and distributed shared memory systems that can run existing threaded code on high-performance clusters “as if they were scaled up versions of multi-core desktops.”

Yeah man. Totally.

Check out the Infinite Loop for some great info on both System X and VT’s new Mac Pro cluster, as well they’re reasoning for choosing Mac Pros over Xserves. They also have some preliminary info on VT’s plan to eventually upgrade System X itself.

[Update: Corrected the typo that said System X was 29 teraflops—it’s actually 12. My bad.]

Proof of Jobs’ health? Just look towards the sky

Posted on Jul. 25, ’08, 1:05 PM PT by Dan Pourhadi

Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs has a Gulfstream jet.

Steve Jobs bills Apple when he uses the jet for business purposes.

The expense shows up in the company’s quarterly earnings report.

A Morgan Stanley analyst looked at this information and found out: Jobso has been flying a lot recently. Silicon Alley Insider provides the deets:

In the last three months of 2007, Steve racked up $550,000 in expenses. That dropped to $30,000 in the first three months of this year. Now it’s back up: He’s billing Apple $102,000 for the June quarter.

When you’re sick with something bad, should you fly? No.

When you’re sick with something bad, do you even want to fly? No.

Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty thinks that the more Steve flies, the more reason AAPL investors have to be excited about the stock, because that means he’s involved in face-to-face discussions with potential partners.

If the reports from Time and BusinessWeek weren’t enough, the above is just more (speculative) evidence that His Steveness is in good health.

At this point, though, I think we’re all convinced.

…Right?

[via MacDailyNews]

The Taxman cometh…to music downloads in Britain?

Posted on Jul. 25, ’08, 10:59 AM PT by Kate Marshall

Category | Business

Stealing is wrong. Downloading an MP3 song without paying for it falls under “stealing” (with the exception of someone saying, “sure, take this item for free”). To emphasize this point, British officials are tossing around a proposal to counteract music piracy: charge internet users an annual tax to download as much music as they want. The proposed levy, which could be as much as £30 (or approximately $60 USD) per person would be sent to music copyright-holders to offset the effect of illegal downloads on music sales.

This proposed tax comes on the heels of other ideas the British music industry and government are pondering, according to Business Week. So what other options might be in store for British ISP customers who routinely engage in MP3 piracy? Glad you asked! The package includes:

• sending letters to warn such ne’er do wells that copying and sharing music is illegal


• employing a “three strikes and you’re out” tactic. Based on a French policy, this would disconnect ISP customers who ignore two warnings about illegally downloading files


• Ordering ISPs to install download-preventive filters and/or disclosing the identities of frequent downloaders

[sarcasm mode ON] Heh heh, filters. Like those ever work the way they’re supposed to [sarcasm mode OFF] But seriously, it seems that piracy has the British music industry deeply peeved, as Business Week reports that, “an estimated 6.5 million broadband users unlawfully download files every year, which the industry warns has resulted in a slump in CD and DVD sales. About 95 per cent of music downloads from the internet are thought to be illegal.” 95 percent, eh? That would certainly put marzipan in anyone’s pie pan, bingo.

Update to the extreeeeme!

Posted on Jul. 25, ’08, 10:51 AM PT by Kate Marshall

Category | Software

The Airport Extreme, that is. As July winds down, we’re treated to an Airport Extreme update from Apple. And…wow. Sorry, I just read the explanation for why the update is necessary and man, is that short and laconic:

What’s New in this Version
This update is recommended for all Intel-based Macintosh computers and improves the reliability of AirPort connections.

How…informative. So yeah: new Airport Extreme update for Intel-based Macs. Supposed to improve AirPort connection reliability. 1.9MB download on Apple Support. I’d write a haiku about it but that would go against the “lazy” part of my “lazy English major” identity (aka, “Communications major” identity). If I wrote out the lyrics to the Moulin Rouge version of “Your Song,” it would probably take up much more space but since I’m nice, I won’t do that. I’d download the update myself but I have an Airport Express so…carry on, then. Happy Friday and all that.

Update: Just pointing out that this is only for Intel-based Macs running 10.4.11—if you’re running Leopard, you’re good.

Putting the “DRM” in “drama”: Yahoo! to shutter music, throw away keys

Posted on Jul. 25, ’08, 9:24 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Music

Oh, DRM, when will you learn? As we heard earlier this year, Yahoo! Music, one of the first major music vendors to experiment with dropping DRM, will be shutting down their independent digital music service. And, worse it appears, they’ll be taking their DRM license servers offline as of September 30th. That means that all the music you bought (“you” generally, that is—we’re sure that “you” specifically were way too smart for that) from Yahoo! Music will be unplayable after that date.

A similar fate befell MSN Music when it went out of business, though Microsoft recently changed their tune and said they’d keep the lights on until 2011. And hence we see the problem with digital music subscriptions. Imagine if Target closed down, broke into your house, and took back all the CDs you bought there. That’d be awesome.

Of course, there are workarounds. For one, you can burn your tunes to a CD and re-rip them. That seems awfully counterproductive, doesn’t it? Isn’t the whole point of digital mus