iPhone coming to UK, but not for another 7½ agonizing weeks

Well. Most of the rumours have proved to be true. The carrier of the UK iPhone will indeed be O2, and apart from O2 shops (including the recently-acquired The Link shops) the only independent retailer will be Carphone Warehouse. The phone will be identical to the $399 8GB US model.

As of 1pm GMT the only major Mac website reporting on this is TUAW. Some places still haven't got their act together - O2's official iPhone page was briefly visible at 11am GMT but has since been unavailable for over two hours since. Funnily enough Carphone's iPhone page is live and kicking.

The iPhone is priced at a surprisingly reasonable £269 (inc. VAT). Prior to the launch some people were predicting as much as £600! Tariffs start at a not-quite-so-reasonable £35 per month for 200mins/200texts with £45 for 600mins/500texts and £55 for 1200mins/600texts for the heavier users. All plans include unlimited internet usage. There is also apparently a deal with WiFi Hotspot outfit The Cloud, who specialise in providing paid WiFi access in pubs, restaurants, and city centres. The Cloud have a Hotspot finder here. The biggest news is probably the lack of 3G. This is allegedly due to the high power costs of using 3G on a mobile device. So we're all stuck with O2's currently-being-upgraded EDGE network, although for those of us who don't live or work in a major city don't care too much about 3G anyway. O2 have a website to check coverage in your part of the UK.

I can't wait to place my order

Rich Text (HTML) signatures in Mail.app

I was recently asked to help with setting up an HTML signature in Mail.app. "No problem", I thought. Unfortunately after a few quick attempts I quickly discovered that Mail.app's signature system is atrocious. Typing in plain text signatures (all I've ever done prior to this) is easy. Entering an Rich Text¹ signature is not.

The problem is mainly that the editor window is difficult to use. For one thing it relies on the available-to-all-Cocoa-apps Fonts and Colors floating selection windows - which are elegant but seem to be constantly getting in the way just when you least expect it. Also using images in your signature is a pain because the signature window inexplicably doesn't display images you drop into it.

The line spacing in the signature window is also buggy. On several occasions while switching from one signature to another I saw random increases in line spacing as well as inserted line breaks in the middle of sentences. These random increases were cumulative, so after several switches the gap between two lines of text was several centimetres. I encountered similar problems with the "Always match my default message font" checkbox. Selecting and unselecting the checkbox repeatedly again caused the line height to increase to gigantic proportions.

The bug is difficult to reproduce but you can see a hint of it here:



After taking the first screenshot I selected and unselected the "Always match ..." checkbox. As you can see in the first image the image is at the end of line 1, but in the second image there are two line breaks between line 1 and the image.

In my search for a solution I found this hint at MacOSXHints. The 6-step method is a bit of a pain, but it works - albeit with a little tweaking:

1. In step 3 the HTML page you create must use FONT tags to control the text colour and size. Using CSS won't work. Nor will using a BODY TEXT tag.
2. In step 6 the easiest way to determine which signature file you need to replace is to modify the signature file you wish to replace and quit Mail.app. Now when you open the ~/Library/Mail/Signatures folder you can replace the most recently modified signature file.
3. And when you eventually send your signed emails, the body of the email must be in Rich Text format, otherwise your finely crafted signature will be displayed as plain text (and also without images).

This method results in HTML signatures in Mail.app which display correctly in Mail.app's signature window without any weird line spacing issues and display correctly in the recipient's email client. It also can't be broken by clicking the "Always match ..." checkbox. All of this is good news, but my main feeling after this is that the whole procedure really should have been much easier.


¹ Mail.app's Rich Text format is actually HTML.

MacBook Pro battery growing pains

A few days ago I noticed my 9-month-old MacBook Pro seemed to be wobbling slightly while I was typing. Since I use the laptop on my dining table I initially thought I had trapped either a coaster or the power lead underneath. However after a quick investigation I discovered that my battery was bulging out from the bottom of the machine! It might not be that obvious in my blurry photos, but it's the white pouch inside the battery that has expanded and forced the cover upwards.



Given the recent reports of a spectacular MacBook battery failure I decided the prudent course would be to operate the laptop solely on mains power for a while!

Burning DVDs from AirDisk

To put it bluntly, think carefully before you try this. Yes, the AirDisk appears to be a normal network drive. However I just burnt a 4.2GB DVD full of jpegs (each approximately 2 - 3 MB) and it took over 6 hours! Throughout that period my Airport throughput meter (courtesy of the indispensable MenuMeters) fluctuated between 50 and 300KB/s transfer from the AirDisk to my MacBook Pro. I don't know why the AirDisk transferred data so slowly - normally I can achieve around 3MB/s for large files and half that for small ones.

Airport Extreme 802.11n setup problems - solved

So ... the Airport Extreme 802.11n base station (mentioned last week) arrived safely. On the same day I received a new LaCie Porsche Design 320GB USB hard disk (don't laugh, this drive had the best dollars to gigabytes ratio out of all the major vendors' offerings). I was too busy to do anything with the equipment for the first few days but eventually found an hour to set it all up. Little did I know how much more time I would need ...

A little background first. My current setup consists of an Airport Express in my living room connected to ADSL and a stereo. I have a Canon MP750 multifunction printer but it's upstairs in the study meaning I have to take my MacBook Pro upstairs to print anything. I wanted to connect the printer wirelessly, but without running very long cables from the living room to the study. Also due to rapidly shrinking free hard disk space on my laptop I have lately been wanting to install a network hard drive, so when the Airport Extreme (from now on referred to as AEN) was announced it looked like just the thing since it would also solve my printer problem. My plan was to connect the AEN to the printer and a USB hard drive, while continuing to use the Express downstairs for the ADSL and stereo.


Connecting all the appropriate cables was very simple - just a power cord each for the hard drive and the AEN and a USB cable between them. Inserted the CD that comes with the AEN and installed the software. Beyond this point I was expecting a mostly-automated configuration via Airport Utility which 'just worked'. Unfortunately Airport Utility assumes you are setting up a new network and doesn't seem to allow for joining an existing one. This meant I had to configure it manually...

Two days later, and many boring hours trawling the internet, I am finally done. It's been a long and arduous journey! And not at all what I've come to expect from Apple gear. What follows is a brief description of the problems I encountered.

The actual setup
You might recall that I wanted to keep my Airport Express in its current role and add the new AEN to connect the printer and hard drive. Now I foolishly assumed this meant I should use the AEN to extend my existing network and wasted a couple of already-scarce hours troubleshooting the faulty setup. Once I finally realised that I needed to use a WDS network and set the Express to WDS Main mode and the AEN to WDS Remote mode things started to look up - a little. While both Airport units were visible on the same network, I couldn't see my hard drive. After more research on the Apple 802.11n forums I came across several recommendations to reformat the hard drive to fix non-visible drive issues. Following this advice I connected the drive directly to one of my Mac's USB ports and formatted it as Mac OS X Extended (not journalled) and - Eureka! - the drive was now visible in Airport Disk Utility and could be mounted with the name 'AirDisk'. The light on the AEN was still flashing orange, but I didn't care. Success! Or so I thought ...

Teething problems
One of the first things I did was to start copying my iTunes library to the newly mounted AirDisk. This was something I wanted to do anyway to free up some space on my laptop hard disk and I thought I could get a feel of the AirDisk's speed while copying many gigabytes of data. Within the first few minutes I knew what the speed felt like - it was pretty slow. Don't get me wrong - I knew I only had an 802.11g Mac but my transfer speed was only around 3.1 MB/sec, nothing like the almost 7 MB/sec which 54Mbps 802.11g should be capable of. Nevertheless I left it churning away and left it for an hour or two. However when I returned I found a dialog box saying the AirDisk had disconnected, and my file copy had been aborted.

Things went downhill from this point. Now nothing seemed to work. I couldn't re-mount the AirDisk even though I could see it with Airport Disk Utility. The AEN was behaving extremely erratically, disappearing from the Airport Utility panel before mysteriously reappearing some time later. I could reboot everything and the network would seem to work but the AirDisk was still not mountable. Then 10 minutes later the network would fall apart again. It was all quite annoying.

After much head-scratching, I eventually figured out that the network dropping out after a few minutes was the sort of thing that would happen if two devices on the same network are both acting as DHCP servers. Searching through the Internet panel of the AEN configuration screens I finally noticed a drop box to disable 'internet sharing' and activate 'bridge mode'. Bingo! This solved the dropped network issues, AND it turned the AEN light to a solid green.


But my AirDisk was still not working. At this point I began wondering if the drive had suffered some kind of catastrophic failure in its first day of use.

It eventually occurred to me to disconnect the AirDisk from the AEN and reconnect it to my laptop. The only reason I didn't do this earlier was the fact that I had only formatted the drive a couple of hours earlier! But once I connected the drive, lo and behold, nothing. It didn't show up in the Finder. I proceeded to check the drive with Disk Utility and immediately discovered the problem:

This 'invalid sibling link' could not be fixed by Disk Utility. I looked it up on Google but found precious little relevant information. Luckily the mighty DiskWarrior was up to the challenge and was able to fix the problem. One directory rebuild later, and the AirDisk was magically mounted on the Mac's desktop! I disconnected it from the Mac and plugged it back into the AEN via a USB hub. I remounted it wirelessly using Airport Disk Utility and everything now seems to be hunky-dory. Hopefully I'm not tempting fate by saying that. Watch this space.

The Printer
Getting the printer to work was pretty straightforward. Trying to print to my old printer profile resulted in a 'printer not found' error, but simply re-selecting my printer in the 'Bonjour' submenu of the print dialog box created a new working profile. I made that my default profile before deleting the old one. Job done. (Although my printer is a multifunction I don't expect scanning to work wirelessly and haven't bothered to test it).

Results
Well, I finally have the exact setup I was hoping for. My Airport Express is connected to the living room stereo and AirTunes works flawlessly. The Express is also sharing the ADSL signal. The AEN is upstairs connected to an unpowered USB hub which is in turn connected to my printer and the new hard drive. Everything is working, and I don't have any cables running through my walls! I'm very pleased. One thing I would mention to anyone contemplating this is that I took the opportunity to rearrange my iTunes library and copied 15GB of music to the AirDisk before adding it all to iTunes (iTunes was not set to copy files and not to keep the library organised). Since the files wouldn't be moved I figured that adding them to the library wouldn't take too long. Oh boy was I wrong about that - determining gapless playback over 802.11g for 15GB of music took around 14 hours! It all worked without dropping any connections though, so hopefully that's a good stress test of the AirDisk. One thing I have noticed is that the hard drive doesn't seem to spin down, and although it doesn't bother me this is something I would expect to be addressed by a firmware update. Some people claim that not spinning down reduces the life of the hard drive but - given that modern drives have a MTBF measured in hundreds of thousands of hours - I'm not one of them.

Despite complaining about the speed I should add that the system is still highly usable. iTunes plays over the 802.11g network just fine. Movies and music videos seem to play without problems. I am still experimenting with iPhoto but others have reported success. I've also copied a lot of stock photography to the AirDisk and despite a slight pause while the custom icons are displayed the responsiveness is excellent. I have also set up nightly scripts to backup important documents to a folder on the AirDisk. As a laptop user I find the convenience to be well worth the price of the hardware. Not to mention freeing up dozens of gigabytes on my already crammed laptop hard drive.

Conclusions
This is a great product with excellent benefits for us laptop-as-sole-computer types who don't want to be constantly connecting and disconnecting wires. Having said that however the actual product has a distinct 'version 1.0' feeling to it. I don't consider my single Airport Express network to be particularly unusual but adding the AEN to it was unreasonably difficult. Airport Utility's automatic configuration needs to be significantly improved for this device to be truly accessible to your average consumer. Nevertheless, I still love it

Airport Extreme Base Station coming! Announced by SMS?

Woke up this morning to find an email from Apple informing me that my new Airport Base Station has been dispatched! Excellent news - the 320GB USB drive I plan on using with it is also arriving today. One strange thing, I also received an SMS message from Apple with the announcement! This is a first for me, I wonder when they started doing that?

iPhone frenzy

Well, it's finally been announced, and it has far surpassed the expectations of even the most optimistic Apple fan! I wrote a lengthy piece about it on my mobile phone blog. I bet Bill Ray is feeling pretty foolish right about now

Preventing iPhoto albums from appearing in your screensavers preference pane

While searching for a solution to iPhoto polluting my screensavers list with hundreds of albums I found this thread over on the Apple discussion forums. Since those forum posts will expire after a few months I am posting gryphonent's solution here for my own records. if you do read through the thread, be sure to look out for the amusingly smarmy posts by the improbably-named Al Van Malsen.

To disable the iPhoto screen saver from showing your albums try this:

1.) Launch the Terminal application
2.) Type the following command (all on one line) and hit return
defaults delete com.apple.iApps iPhotoRecentDatabases ; chflags uchg ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist

I have done this on my computer and have not noticed any ill effects from it. Essentially the command deletes the "iPhotoRecentDatabases" key from the "com.apple.iApps.plist" preference file and then locks the file so iPhoto can't write back to it the next time you launch iPhoto.

If you do experience any strange behavior after trying this you can unlock the "com.apple.iApps.plist" file in the Finder's "Get Info" window or you can issue the following command in the Terminal application:
chflags nouchg ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist

17" MacBook Pro in da house - one user's gripes

It's happened. I hinted at it several times before, but as of 7 days ago I am the proud owner of a new 17" 2.16GHz MacBook Pro with the 100GB 7200rpm drive. Once Apple announced the speed bump and price reductions across the line at the end of May I knew that it was time to splash the cash. Luckily for me the other half is a secondary school teacher, so we qualified for Apple's excellent education discount. Instead of paying £1900, we got the beast for a 'mere' £1750. Add in another £110 or so for a 1GB memory stick from Crucial (significantly better than the £200 Apple would have charged) and the grand total was around £1850. Not a small chunk of change by anyone's standards, but given that my venerable 667MHz Titanium Powerbook is definitely showing its age, it's a worthwhile buy.

Having had the machine for almost a week now, I can definitely say that the speed increase has been wonderful. Apps launch almost instantly. Spotlight is finally a useful tool. Web pages render with far more of that near-mythical 'snappy'. Programs that were as slow as molasses on the old laptop (Dreamweaver MX 2004 I'm lookin' at you) are now quite usable on the MacBook Pro even under Rosetta emulation. I am aware that these are all fairly subjective measurements, so as a test I whipped out my trusty old copy of DVD2OneX. The results were approximately what I expected, but it was still nice to see the results firsthand. Processing a 7GB DVD on the old Powerbook takes about an hour. Using the universal binary version of DVD2OneX on the MacBook Pro this now takes approximately 12 minutes! Absolutely fantastic, or as Jeremy Clarkson might say, "enough to give me a semi"

Despite all the good experiences of the last few days, there have been a few negatives. The MacBook Pro itself exhibits several of the problems reported by other people:

Heat
The MacBook Pro certainly gets quite hot. After a few hours of casual use the left palm rest gets very warm - not uncomfortable but enough to make your palm a bit sweaty! Also the strip of case between the keyboard and the screen (just above the air vent) gets extremely hot, to the point where extended contact is certainly uncomfortable, and even slightly painful. I have yet to run any lengthy CPU-intensive tasks, but I plan on remedying that situation in the next day or two. As long as it doesn't get any hotter than it is now I think it is fairly warm but acceptable.

Warped screen case
The case around the screen exhibits a slight warp when the lid is closed, i.e. when it is closed the gap between the screen and the body of the laptop isn't even. The gap is noticeably wider at the front corners of the machine than it is at the central latch area, i.e. perhaps 0.75mm at the latches and 1.5mm at the corners. This is also apparently a fairly common problem, but other than the slight annoyance of a cosmetic flaw in a £1850 laptop, it doesn't really bother me.
[Update: while taking these photos I've now concluded that the screen warp has at least partially corrected itself. As you can see from the photo above it is still noticeable, but it is not as bad as it was when I first unpacked the laptop.]

Other screen issues
I had previously noticed the new (compared to the Powerbook) hinge design during my last visit to an Apple Store. While I can see the logic of the new design in that it reduces the depth of the laptop, I wasn't so happy to find that I could no longer really use my laptop while standing up because the screen cannot fold back nearly as far as my Powerbook. This results in me having to bend down to properly read the screen.

Secondly, despite Apple offering a choice between glossy and matte screens, the matte screen of my MacBook Pro is noticeably glossier than the Powerbook's. Not a huge deal, but something I noticed immediately.

The third issue is the new hinge mechanism. It is far looser than the hinge on my almost-4-year-old Powerbook. Admittedly the MacBook Pro's screen glides very smoothly and is easily adjusted with a light push from a single finger while the Powerbook screen takes two hands to adjust (one to move the screen and one to hold the base of the laptop to stop it moving!). However there is a flaw - if you lie down on your back in bed or on a sofa with your knees bent, putting the MacBook Pro on your lap results in the screen falling down and closing itself! This was a feasible (and fairly comfortable!) position with my old Powerbook.

My final quibble is with the (admittedly cool) keyboard backlighting. This seems to be somehow connected to the ambient light screen brightness controller, in that when the keyboard backlight automatically turns off after a few minutes of non-use (despite being set to never turn off) the screen also gets significantly dimmer. I suspect that the light from the keyboard backlight is affecting the ambient light sensor for the screen brightness, so when the keyboard backlight switches off, the screen dims due to reduced ambient light. This may be the intended design, but I find it quite distracting.

Tiny return key, and other keyboard annoyances
I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, but this is annoying the crap out of me. The return key on the MacBook Pro keyboard is positively tiny compared to one on the Titanium Powerbook. This is evidently so they could squeeze in an extra key (more on that later). I'm hoping that I will get used to the tiny key, but after a week it is still a bit of a lottery which key I will actually press when going for the return key. More often than not it is the backslash key. In fact the whole keyboard is taking some getting used to.

For some inexplicable reason Apple have also decided to move the tilde (~) key and replace it with a new key (which produces the § and ± symbols). Now I don't have a problem with this, but it certainly fucks up application switching. In the past we used command-tab to cycle forwards through applications, and command-tilde to cycle backwards. This was great when the tilde key was above the tab key, but is not so great with the tilde key's new position. It also screws up window switching within an application (command-tilde).

Strange noises
One of the major issues reported by hundreds of different users has been strange noises coming from their MacBook Pros. Most commonly this is reported as a high-pitched whine coming from the base of the screen, possibly from a power inverter. Others have reported a 'mooing' noise which seems to be related to a misaligned fan. I, of course, have a completely different noise What I get is a white noise/static sound coming from the right speaker. it sounds exactly like a vinyl record player on high volume when it is in between tracks on the record (i.e. a kind of hissing and popping noise). The noise lasts for around 5 or 10 seconds. It has only happened 5 or 6 times so far, almost always when I am booting the laptop or waking it from sleep. Rather worryingly, these are two things I rarely do - the laptop is usually powered-on and on a table 24/7. Strangely enough the strange noise has also occurred once when I was booting under Windows XP via Bootcamp. This makes me wonder if it is a hardware fault, rather than a speaker driver problem. The noise isn't solely restricted to bootup and waking from sleep though. I've also heard it once when launching an application. For me this noise is a show-stopper. If I cannot find a fix for it I shall be returning this machine.

Closing thoughts
I should note that this is far from a complete review of the 17" MacBook Pro. I'll leave that to others. This piece simply states my impressions of the laptop after a week of use. I should add that despite my extensive moaning above, this is far and away the fastest and slickest laptop I've ever used. It is, on the whole, a hell of an improvement on my aged Powerbook. The MacBook Pro looks great, and the performance is simply stunning. I will probably even get used to the keyboard eventually. It is just that for the hefty price tag I want a perfect machine. That means a laptop that doesn't get too hot to touch, doesn't have no stinkin' warped screen, and absolutely, positively, does not make inexplicable noises at seemingly random times.

Tour of the Microsoft Mac labs

David Weiss has posted a great virtual tour of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit. Definitely worth a look if you ever wondered about MS's dedication to the Apple platform. The cluster of 150 Mac minis used for automated software testing (pictured to the left) is particularly cool

XP on a MacBook Pro pics

Yet another reason to get a MacBook Pro (I think I've almost persuaded myself now) - Accelerate Your Macintosh reader Michael F has posted some photos of Windows XP running on a MacBook Pro.

MacBook Pro hissing noises explained

The Mighty Ars is once again first off the mark with an explanation of the widely reported hissing/humming noises made by the MacBook Pro.

YA MBP review

Yet another MacBook Pro review, this time from the improbably-named Cisco Cheung over at PCMag.

More MacBook Pro reviews and speed tests

The best of the bunch is a very thorough writeup by 'controller2k' on Apple's discussion forums, but MacWorld's first look and Geek Patrol's benchmarks also make for interesting reading.

More on MacBook To Buy Or Not To Buy

This story from TUAW makes me glad I waited a few more days before brandishing the plastic. Hissing CPUs and bandy screens are most definitely not acceptable in a circa-£1500 laptop. In the meantime I shall continue to monitor the situation, and cross my fingers for the speedy introduction of a Rev-B model. I shudder to think what will happen to Apple stock if it turns out that every single MacBook has this hissing problem, and unfortunately for Apple it appears that this is very likely (at least according to TUAW's admittedly-anecdotal evidence and reader comments on the same).

OLED keys coming to the MacBook Pro?

Over the last couple of weeks I have pretty much decided that I am going to buy a MacBook Pro. All I've been waiting for were the first user reviews to start appearing on the web. The first have now started to appear, so it was only a matter of a few more days before I placed an order. But, as usual, it ain't that simple.

A new report from NewTechSpy suggests that Apple's next generation laptops will implement the OLED keys which we first saw on the Optimus mini keyboard. The idea is that Apple will replace all the function keys with OLED displays and also add three new OLED buttons on either side of the trackpad. This is supposed to happen as early as January 2007, which is blindingly cool, but remember this is still just a rumour. On the other hand it would certainly fit with Apple's reputation for adopting innovative new technologies.

Apple's MagSafe power connector - perhaps not such a bad idea after all

Isn't that bloody typical? Last month I wrote about the new MacBook and mentioned its highly touted MagSafe connector. The connector is designed to easily detach in the event of any sharp tugs on the power cord. At the time I said:

Apple are making a big deal of the new MagSafe power connector, which is a magnetized power connector which easily pops out if someone tugs (or trips over) the power cord. Whilst I've never had my PowerBook fly off my lap due to someone tripping over the power cable, it's a thoughtful design touch which embodies Apple's attention to the little details.

I should have just kept my mouth shut. My Powerbook's power cord had survived unscathed for over three years, yet within a week of writing the above passage I somehow managed to trip over it! The results? See for yourself: As is always the case when disaster strikes, this happened on a Friday evening, the worst possible time. I promptly ordered a new adapter (courtesy of these fine folks) but had to wait until Monday before the order was processed and Thursday for the adapter to actually arrive. Note to anyone else in the same boat: not all Powerbook adapters are the same wattage so make sure you buy the correct one for your model.

Yet more Virtual PC news

Some fairly good news: It looks like Microsoft have tentatively agreed to port Virtual PC to the new Intel Macs. MacNN have a posted an article quoting Roz Ho - the GM of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit - as saying "Virtual PC 7 remains the top emulation software for Mac PowerPC users. However, applications like Virtual PC that are highly dependent on the OS will not run under Rosetta."

Unforunately Roz would not however commit to even an approximate release date. "We’ll have a better idea once we have the new machines and can accurately evaluate just what is required to transition the product," was all he had to say.

Well, what can I say? It's better than nothing, but we're talking many months here before we see Virtual PC on Intel Macs. Without the benefit of near-native speed Windows apps, the idea of switching to an Intel Mac has lost some of its appeal. Sure, the computers are two or three times faster than their predecessors, but it was the orders-of-magnitude speed increase in Windows applications that should have been the 'killer' feature. It seems I'm not the only one who is less than impressed with the situation - Insanely Great Mac has posted a cutting analysis of the announcement.

Don't chuck out Virtual PC yet, the MacBook doesn't do Windows

Once again, Ars Technica dishes the dirt. It seems the lack of a BIOS on the MacBook means that it will never be able to run any current version of Windows. The MacBook uses Intel's far more capable Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) instead of a BIOS, but the only current versions of Windows which support EFI are the Itanium and 64 bit versions, neither of which will run on the 32 bit Core Duo processor. So, it's Windows Vista or nothing, and Vista won't be out until late this year at the very earliest.

In the article Ars also casually note that once Microsoft recompiles Virtual PC for the MacBook users will be able to run Windows apps at near-native speeds. However I have to ask how likely is it that MS will make the effort in a timely fashion? And how will Microsoft's hardware partners feel about the decision? Would they see it as unwanted competition for their PC systems? Or will MS place greater weight on the extra revenue and greater market share that will result if Mac users start buying copies of Windows? So many questions, when all I want is to be able to test designs in WinIE without enduring Virtual PC's geologic response time.

Max OS X tablet for sale

An enterprising outfit named ThePlaceforitAll.com is selling these modified-to-order OS X tablet PCs on eBay. The tablets are based on a 1.33GHz G4 iBook with 512MB RAM and a 40GB hard disk. They swap the original screen for a touch-sensitive screen and stylus, although sadly the screen they use is not compatible with OS X handwriting recognition software Inkwell. They do suggest a couple of third party software solutions, but you'd think for a starting price of US$1500 they'd throw both of 'em in! It's also worth noting that the screen does not appear to rotate but is instead fixed in place. Via The Register.

The new MacBook, and why everyone should have one

Cometh the moment, cometh the MacBook
It's finally here - the much anticipated Intel-based Apple laptop! Despite December's rumour frenzy, the first portable Intel Mac was NOT the iBook. With an all-new dual core Intel processor running at 1.67 or 1.83 MHz and supporting up to 2 GB of RAM this is by far the fastest Apple laptop ever. Connectivity is via a Firewire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0, 802.11g WiFi and optical audio input and output. The MacBook also ships with hard drives ranging from 80 to 120 GB at speeds of 5400 and 7200 rpm and comes with a built-in dual-layer DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. The machine boasts a 15.4" 1440 x 900 resolution display with VGA and dual-link DVI output powered by a ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor, as well as a backlit keyboard with ambient light sensor and stereo speakers. As this is the first Mac laptop officially supported by Front Row it also comes with Apple's new remote control. The MacBook retains its predecessors' vaunted 1" thickness and weighs in at 5.6 lbs. On the software side Apple's usual full-featured package is included, with OS X Tiger, iLife '06, Front Row, and PhotoBooth all featuring prominently.

New hardware
Although the big news is the new dual-core Intel Core Duo processor (formerly known as 'Yonah'), the new MacBook also features an iSight video-conferencing camera built into the upper bezel of the screen. The bezel appears to be wider than previous models, presumably to house the camera's innards. This new mini-iSight is said to have the same specifications as a full-sized iSight, i.e. VGA resolution and auto-focus. Despite the relatively low resolution, the iSight image quality is widely considered to be superb (especially with some extra software). The laptop also benefits from high-end ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics and a dual-link DVI connector for that 30" Apple Cinema Display we all secretly lust after. Apple have dropped the PCI card compatibility in favour of the smaller PCI Express - which is a mixed blessing given the lack of PCI Express cards currently available.

Power? No trip!
Apple are making a big deal of the new MagSafe power connector, which is a magnetized power connector which easily pops out if someone tugs (or trips over) the power cord. Whilst I've never had my PowerBook fly off my lap due to someone tripping over the power cable, it's a thoughtful design touch which embodies Apple's attention to the little details.

Yonah! Yonah! Yonah!
The Register has a nice round-up of the dual core Yonah processors here, but essentially the range includes the top-of-the-line 2.16GHz T2600, the 2GHz T2500, and the two chips used by the MacBook Pro, the 1.83GHz T2400 and 1.67MHz T2300. It seems sensible to assume that Apple opted for the two lower-speed chips due to volume requirements.

The BIG question
Can it run windows software at near-native speeds? No one seems to know. You might remember that Apple said this should be possible, but then again we never know when Apple will try and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If there is a way to maintain their exclusivity and alienate thousands of customers, I'm sure Apple will find it! Hopefully there will be no surprises, and Windows apps running at native speeds will be in our futures. Personally, I look forward to the day when I can hurl that slug known as Virtual PC into my virtual trash!

The Hyperbole
APPLE RELEASES FASTEST NOTEBOOK EVER! Or so proclaims MacRumors. They seem to have missed the fact that while Apple's high-end offering uses the 1.83MHz Core Duo, there is already a 2.16GHz version (the T2600) available in stores now. Nevertheless, expect much cheering for this new laptop (kind of like what I'm doing now ).

How much?
£1,429 (US$1,999) for the base model. It may seem like a slightly high price tag, but given the Core Duo competition it's not overly outrageous, especially when we consider that some features that used to cost extra are now standard across the line (Bluetooth, Airport, Superdrive, we're lookin' at you). Some Windows-based Core Duo laptops are significantly less expensive, but are missing a raft of features and software. Windows machines with similar specifications are possibly slightly less expensive, but it's still a coin toss depending on what features a user is looking for.

Core Duo here, Core Duo there, Core Duo everywhere
There's a nice roundup here, but with just a little research we see that the MacBook isn't priced out of the ballpark when compared to other Core Duo laptops, especially when we consider the added value provided by the iLife package and other Apple standard features.

For instance, the just-announced Acer Aspire and Travelmate laptops start at $1,500 and $2 grand respectively. The high-end model has a slightly higher resolution screen, more RAM and a bigger hard drive, but is otherwise not too dissimilar to the MacBook except it is heftier by exactly 1 pound.

Aspire 5670 will be available in a few different configurations starting at $1499, but the flagship model will feature 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 120GB hard disk, and an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics controller pushing a maximum resolution of 1200 by 800 to the 15.4-inch display.

The TravelMate 8200 notebook offers similar specifications to the Aspire 5650, including the same new camera functionality and system tools, but ships with superior 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics delivering a resolution of 1680 by 1050 to its 15.4-inch screen

Dell's Inspiron 9400 is another Core-Duo-sporting laptop with a 2 grand starting price, although for this price you also get a 17" screen (this is Dell's only dual core offering). On the downside the thing is 1.6" thick and weighs 8 lbs.

Customers can opt for either an Intel Core Duo processor T2500 (2GHz) or a T2400 processor running at 1.83GHz. The unit's 17-inch widescreen display has a standard maximum resolution of 1400 by 1050 but a 1600-by-1200 UXGA option also is available. The Inspiron E1705 features NVidia's latest 256MB GeForce Go 7800 graphics controller, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, a 60-100GB 7200-rpm SATA hard disk, and an optional USB 2.0 TV tuner that is compatible with its Windows Media Center Edition 2005 operating system.

For a low-end Core Duo system we turn to Gateway, whose dual core offering is the S-7510N at a base price of $1,150 which includes Windows XP and Microsoft Works. For that bargain price you get the slowest Core Duo processor, the T2300, a mere 40GB hard drive, a 15.4" 1280x800 screen, lousy onboard Intel graphics, no DVD burner or dual-layer DVD capability, no remote control, no camera and no Bluetooth. You do however get 512MB RAM, a modem, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and an integrated media card reader. Unfortunately it's also a bit of a brick, at a portly 1.31" thick and weighing 6.32 lbs.

Conclusions
The MacBook is a winner. This is a cutting edge laptop in terms of both design and speed without compromising its svelte 1" form factor. While I am sorely tempted to buy one RIGHT NOW I am trying, with difficulty, to restrain myself until there is an updated model to allow the inevitable kinks and bugs to be ironed out. I'd still like confirmation that it will indeed run Windows apps at near-native speeds, but given Apple's previous statements it seems likely that it will. If I was into rating things I'd give this beauty a 9 out of 10, but I'm not so let's just call it awesome . The only negatives that I can see is the lack of an internal modem and lack of Firewire800, and those are pretty minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things. In my eyes the price is perhaps 10% more than a comparable Windows-based laptop, but the Apple extras - slick design, iLife integration, security and lack of malware - make that extra money well worth spending.

Aperture gets torn a new one by the mighty Ars

That font of supremely in-depth technical information, Ars Technica, has reviewed Aperture - Apple's new pro-photography software - and given it an absolute mauling:

It saddens me to say that Aperture's innovations are only skin deep. If it could deliver on the promise of being both fast and produce flawless results, it would be the dream package. At this point it is an expensive and questionable alternative to Camera Raw, a free extension to Photoshop, and Adobe's Bridge which can batch produce better quality images in arguably less time. For US$500 (Photoshop itself retails for US$750), there is no excuse not to be aware of professional needs like a high-quality sharpen tool, DNG exporting or more basic things like curves, a sampler tool for RGB pixel readings, or retention of EXIF data on output.

Furthermore:

The quality of Aperture's RAW converter is bad, and for an application that's selling point is iterative nondestructive RAW editing, that's like building a house on a plate of Jello.

And this:

They have only themselves to blame: they set themselves up for a big fall by attempting to dig themselves a chunk of the pro market by purporting to have the lossless holy grail of imaging. The trouble with that is they obviously didn't have the engineering or expertise in RAW processing to pull it off or, if they did, they chose not to include it because of speed constraints due to Core Image.

I had previously been considering buying Aperture. Now I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, at least until these numerous fatal flaws have been fixed.

Should I upgrade my antique?

Kroll's blog has posted a fascinating entry featuring a photo taken at an Apple Store a couple of days ago (the image to the right is a thumbnail, visit the original page for a larger version). The man on the left is bringing in his 17-year old Mac SE for upgrading advice! Take a closer look at the resident Genius Bar staffer's face. That's what we Brits call 'gob-smacked'

Mail.app nightmare over

Back in April, I posted a rant about Mail.app's handling of inline images. The gist of my tirade was that Mail.app insisted (nothing's changed - it still does) on displaying images inline, rather than as attachments. The problem here is that messages with inline images or PDF documents take an age to open. This glacial response time is infinitely more aggravating when there are several such emails to open in succession (for instance when searching for one particular image out of dozens emailed to you). Mail.app does offer you the ability to right-click an image and choose 'display as icon', but close and re-open the email and you'll find that Mail.app will blithely continue to display the image as if you'd never told it otherwise. Even worse, there is no global preference to alter this behaviour.

This glaring tidbit of user-interface idiocy is particularly frustrating for me since I was a long-time Eudora user prior to the arrival of Mail.app and Eudora has always, for at least a decade, clearly distinguished between inline images and attachment images. Those of you who have never used any email client other than Mail.app may wonder what I am blithering on about. The basic explanation is that 'inline' should mean that the image is displayed along with the text of your email, whereas an 'attachment' should properly be an image (or other file) that is sent with the email as a file attachment but is not displayed with the text of your email.

The 'official' description of the difference between 'inline' and 'attachment' can be found in this RFC document, the relevant part of which is:

2.9 Content-Disposition and Multipart

If a Content-Disposition header is used on a multipart body part, it applies to the multipart as a whole, not the individual subparts. The disposition types of the subparts do not need to be consulted until the multipart itself is presented. When the multipart is displayed, then the dispositions of the subparts should be respected.

If the `inline' disposition is used, the multipart should be displayed as normal; however, an `attachment' subpart should require action from the user to display.

If the `attachment' disposition is used, presentation of the multipart should not proceed without explicit user action. Once the user has chosen to display the multipart, the individual subpart dispositions should be consulted to determine how to present the subparts.

Thus concludes Mac History 101.

"So", I hear you ask, "why are you moaning about this again?". Despair not dear reader - there is a solution! I have recently discovered that I am not alone in my Mail.app nightmare. Adam Nohejl of Czech outfit Loki Software must have been a fellow resident of inline-hell, but unlike yours truly he actually did something about it, writing a wonderful piece of $6 shareware named Mail Attachment Iconizer. This program does one thing only, and by God does it well. Simply fire up the installer and Mail Attachment Iconizer will modify your copy of Mail.app and forever turn those inline images into image icons. Double click 'em and they expand into images or PDFs; double-click a second time and they revert to icons. Apple - are you watching? This is the way it should have been done from the start.

For those of you wondering why I switched from Eudora in the first place if it was so damned wonderful, the answer is that Eudora at the time did not make the transition to OS X very well and wasn't updated for at least two years. It also didn't have Mail.app's tight integration with Address Book and the iLife apps. Not to mention the fact that Mail.app is free, whereas Eudora requires an annual (annual!) payment for the ad-free version.

iTunes 6 fixes cracked DRM

Warning to iTunes Music Store users - it appears that you will no longer be able to use JHymn to remove DRM from iTMS tracks bought using iTunes 6. Also note that once you buy a song using iTunes 6, you can no longer buy songs with earlier versions of iTunes. Via MacSlash.

Apple's one more thing

Unless you've been under a rock for the last 24 hours you've already heard the news. Let's just get this out of the way, shall we?

• New iPod - 320x240 video, H264 playback, thinner than before, available in black, US$1.99 TV episodes (US only), no firewire, improved battery life (which plummets when playing video)
• New iMac - built-in iSight, 2.1GHz, more and faster RAM, no modem
• New Apple Remote - infrared required, works with new iPod dock, magnetically sticks to iMac
• New iTunes - supports video, iTunes 5 only a month old
• Front Row - new media centre software, sceptics say it looks like CentreStage
• New Apple external USB modem - for those who must have one
• Photo Booth - special effects for iSight self-portraits

Sources: too innumerable to mention

Apple cracking down on 'Mac' adwords?

TidBits are reporting on a strange crackdown by Apple on the use of Apple trademarks in Google Adsense ads which target the EU. Why us Europeans are being deprived is unclear, but it looks like the end for all those MacLingerie™, MacWartRemover™ and MacShampoo™ ads I've been seeing.

On a more serious note, how will anyone know that a product is Mac-oriented if the vendors aren't allowed to advertise the fact? Just imagine: "Deal of the week - 15% off annual subscriptions for a magazine dedicated to a fruity-Cupertino-based-computer-vendor!

Mail.app single keystroke insta-quit

A headline in MacFixit's RSS feed caught my eye today. They report that pressing the control-T key combination in Mail.app's compose window (with your cursor in the message box) causes an immediate quit without any confirmation. I confirmed this on my PowerBook.

Update: MacFixit have posted a workaround

Airport Express 6.2.0 firmware update = no more internet

While adjusting some settings in Airport Admin Utility today I was prompted to update my Airport Express firmware to version 6.2.0. I knew that this firmware update was included with the OS X Airport 4.2 update from back in July 2005, but although I had updated my Mac's Airport software at the time I had never got around to applying the included update to the Airport Express's firmware. "What the hell", I thought, "perhaps it'll solve the occasional freezes I get" (every few weeks my connection seems to lock up, and resetting my D-Link modem fixes it).

Updating the Airport Express firmware was, as it turned out, a god-awful idea. After the update my internet connection immediately stopped working. I could see the Airport network and connect to it but nothing else worked. Internet Connect reported that I was connected to the internet. Network Diagnostics reported that my connection made it as far as my ISP but not to the internet itself. Several resets of the modem and Airport Express did nothing. Nor did a reboot of my Mac.

Eventually I fired up my trusty old dial-up modem and connected to the net to begin searching for clues. In the UK NASCR are a convenient source of dial-up services - no monthly charges and you just pay local-call rates on your phone bill. Having an account with them has saved me more than once!

After some slow-as-hell web browsing, I eventually found the solution. This comment on Versiontracker led me to discover many useful threads on the Apple discussion forums. Several people suggested that the Airport Express 6.2.0 firmware update breaks PPPoE on DSL connections, and reverting to 6.1.1 would fix it. I don't actually use PPPoE to connect, but I still thought that reverting was worth a try. Sure enough, after downloading and installing the Airport Express 6.1.1 updater, my Mac miraculously had an internet connection again!

Comment
This is ridiculous. This firmware update was released over 2 months ago, but I found several recent references to this connection problem in just 5 minutes of browsing of Apple's forums (at a snail's pace, mind you!). If this is such a common problem why hasn't there been a fix? It's hardly as if DSL connections are uncommon.

As an aside, surfing the net via dial-up modem was an edifying experience. For one thing I discovered that my very own website loads extremely slowly on dial-up! I used to pride myself on small fast webpages suitable for dial-up connections - evidently a few years of broadband has desensitized me to the needs of my dial-up brethren! I shall rectify that, but the whole episode also makes me appreciate my 2 megabit connection more than ever!

Mac news schizophrenia

Same day, same news outlet, two wildly contradictory stories - here's one, here's another.

Disassembled Nano

It was announced a matter of hours ago, and someone has already taken it apart (English translation here). Via TUAW.

iPod nano!

Through all the recent talk about the iPhone there has been a few murmurs of a new flash-based iPod mini. It looks like Apple have another winner on their hands. 4GB, 1.5 ounces, thickness of a pencil, color screen, 14 hour battery, free laser engraving. And available in black.

Another stupid patent, do we need 'em?

Techdirt are reporting that Microsoft have been granted a patent on Kazaa-style music playlists. The relevant US Patent Office document weighs in at a hefty 43 pages, but one essential paragraph caught my eye - it is a series of example playlists that will be possible with this "invention":

• "My favs—All 4 and 5 star rated songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, Sort: UserRating
• "My favs—64 Mb worth of 4+5 star rated songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, LimitFilter=64 MB Sort: UserRating
• "My favs—128 Mb worth of 4+5 star rated songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, LimitFilter=128 MB Sort: UserRating
• "My favs—One CD-R worth of 4+5 star rated songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, LimitFilter=630 MB Sort: UserRating
• "My favs, that I've not heard of recent"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, Sort: UserLastPlayedTime
• "Workday 100—Favorite Weekend songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, Limit items to 100 Sort: UserPlaycountWeekend
• "Weekend 100—Favorite Weekdays songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, Limit items to 100 Sort: UserPlaycountWeekday
• "Caffinated 100—Favorite Late Evening songs"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating>70, Limit items to 100 Sort: UserPlaycountNight
• "Recently Aquired Music"Filter: Type=audio, UserLastPlayedTime=
• "Recently Aquired Music (Yet to be rated)"Filter: Type=audio, AquisitionDate=
• "Songs I've not heard of recent"Filter: Type=audio Sort: User Rating, then UserLastPlayedTime (strongest sort)
• "Songs not yet rated"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating=
• "Sucky music—Songs I dislike and should delete"Filter: Type=audio, UserRating=<10 Sort: Album, then Artist (strongest sort)
• "Songs with digital rights management"Filter: Type=audio, Protected=Yes Sort: Album, then Artist (strongest sort)
• "Songs other users like"Filter: Type=audio, ServiceRating>70 Sort: UserRating
• "My Kazaa Music—All of it"Filter: Type=audio, PathFilter Contains "Kazaa"Sort: Album, then Artist (strongest sort)
• "My Kazaa Music—Recently Aquired"Filter: Type=audio, PathFilter Contains "Kazaa", AquisitionDate=
• "Hi-Res video clips"Filter: VIDEO_VIDEO_WIDTH>300 Sort: Title

Just hang on a second there. Even glossing over the fact that these playlists were implemented in Kazaa at least as far back as September 2002, and this Microsoft patent originated in September 2003, several of these playlists, including the very first one, are identical to iTunes smart playlists. Even if one argued that Kazaa wasn't very widespread (and thus somehow unworthy as 'prior art') you can hardly make the same comment about iTunes. Granted, some of the other playlists listed in the patent are not possible in iTunes, but surely there should be some acknowledgment that significant parts of this "invention" are already in common usage. It's akin to someone coming along and patenting the idea of using arrow keys on a wireless controller to change TV channels.

Comment
There really should be a rule about patenting ideas that have been already implemented in commercially available products (Apple's idiotic and futile 1988 GUI lawsuit against Microsoft comes to mind). Seemingly ignorant decisions like this one by the US Patent Office are what drive some Europeans to question the usefulness of software patents. I'd even go so far as to say that if a company cannot keep an idea secret long enough to patent it and bring it to market, then the idea is clearly so bleedin' obvious that it shouldn't be patentable. Does anyone agree?

eWeek embarrasses themselves

The venerable eWeek, normally a fairly reputable online news outlet, embarrasses themselves with an apparently serious comparison of Apple's OS X Tiger and Microsoft's Windows Vista. What's that I hear you say? What sense does it make to compare Tiger, which has been available for 6 months, with Vista, which will be available in 18 months? That's a very good question, and one to which I know no answer.

Mighty Mouse!

Apple introduces the Mighty Mouse! I first learnt about this $49 USB mouse via Tech Ronin, and after reading a little more, all I can say is that it sounds great! You've gotta hand it to Apple, they don't do things by halves.

Buttontastic
As you can see in the image, the Mighty Mouse keeps Apple's favoured 'simple mouse' philosophy. They have kept the appearance of a single mouse button, but by using the touch sensitive technology used on the iPod's scroll wheel users can assign the left and right forward quadrants to react as left and right buttons. This is apparently customisable, so presumably a single button will still be the default behaviour. In addition to the touch-sensitive main buttons, the mouse also has two old-fashioned buttons on either side of the body. The idea is that the user squeezes the mouse to activate a user-defined function (this is likely intended for Exposé ). A good idea, but perhaps a step too far in attempting to be original. The squeezing motion certainly doesn't sound all that comfortable, and apparently the buttons are not individually programmable. I think simply adding a third button assignable to Exposé might have been a simpler and less RSI-inducing approach. Speaking of third buttons, the division of what is presumably a single large touch-sensitive area into two sections seems purely arbitrary. Look out for unofficial hacks to divide the touch-sensitive area into three or more discrete 'buttons'.

Balls to that
Not content with simply improving button aesthetics, Apple have also taken the scroll wheel concept a step further by implementing a "Scroll Ball". Don't get me wrong, scroll wheels are great - I don't function well without them. But the current implementations for scrolling sideways - such as positioning the cursor over a window's horizontal scroll bar before using the scroll wheel - are simply unsatisfactory. Granted, Apple themselves appear to concede that the scroll ball will only work in certain 'scroll-ball-enabled' apps - iPhoto, iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro, GarageBand and Logic Pro are mentioned by name on Apple's Mighty Mouse page. The ball does not seem to be pressable in the way some scroll wheels are.

Click chirp beep swoosh
Yet another (as far this technology geek is aware) "innovation" is embedding a speaker into the mouse. This is to provide audible feedback of various mouse functions, primarily clicking to add feedback to the touch-sensitive 'buttons', but likely also including scrolling and dragging. This will clearly be divisive, with some loving and some hating it. Hopefully users will be able to control the volume, if not completely silence it if they wish.

Still smilin'
Apple have been seen exercising their sense of humour in public on a few occasions recently, but giving a high-profile product a name like Mighty Mouse takes the cake. For those of you too young to remember, Mighty Mouse was a superman-clone (but obviously a cartoon mouse instead of a being from Krypton) who featured in an eponymous Saturday morning TV show with its origins in the 1940s. This was incidentally a particular favorite of mine as a pre-teen. Apple credit the Mighty Mouse name on their page, with acknowledgment going to Viacom International. Interestingly, while 'borrowing' Apple's image of the (computer) mouse used at the beginning of this article I noticed that the name of the JPEG file was "mightymousehero". Which I thought was a nice touch.

Why no blue teeth?
The burning and obvious question - why isn't this mouse Bluetooth capable? Some are speculating (fairly wildly in my opinion) that Apple are waiting to sell a few million of these mice before introducing a wireless version. That doesn't quite ring true - I see a design issue as carrying heavier weight here. Perhaps the batteries increase the mouse's size too much. Or perhaps the Apple design philosophy requires something more elegant than batteries or a power cable, such as a recharging dock, but a dock pushes the price up to unpopular levels. I prefer the latter explanation, and wouldn't be surprised to see a "pro" wireless version, with snazzy Apple dock (and obligatory pulsating light), available next year sometime.

Good mouse? Bad mouse?
On paper, Apple's new super-hero mouse packs a KABAAM-like punch. It is cunningly innovative in so many ways that it simply screams Apple quality. The price tag isn't overly outrageous, and given the fact that it is Windows XP/2000 compatible it will surely lure some curious PC users into a test drive and, if all goes to Apple's master plan, perhaps encourage them to consider an Apple option when it comes time to upgrade the home PC. It's not all rosy though - initial reports suggest some problems with the touch-sensitive buttons, for instance not being able to 'press' one button while a finger is still touching the other. This will likely be fixed in a coming software update. A more serious complaint I've read is that some find it difficult to 'squeeze' the side buttons. The mouse is also only compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and later, which rules it out for those Mac users still happily using Panther and Jaguar. Still, if you are running the latest version of OS X, and need a new mouse, this Mighty Mouse appears to be worth a try.

Update: c0nsumer has posted an initial review with images and screenshots.

Final update, I promise: Engadget have posted links to no less than six reviews of this mouse. When was the last time you ever heard of a mouse getting this much attention?

HP no longer in the iPod business

It was bound to happen. HP and Apple both confirm the end of HP's iPod reseller deal. Yet again, Rob Enderle must be feeling pretty stupid.

Tri-booting Intel-Macs

Read it while you can: How to install OS X, Win XP and Linux on an Intel-Mac. Probably won't be long before they receive an Apple "Cease & Desist" letter! Via MacSlash.

Update - 8 hours later: Apple has had a quiet word with the author resulting in him removing the article. Unfortunately, as is ALWAYS the case, the rabbit is out of the bag and there ain't no puttin' it back. Don't these companies ever learn? It is impossible to suppress anything on the internet, and trying to do so gives you a lousy reputation. Apple is, sadly, particularly obnoxious in this regard.

Developers' Intel-Macs much faster than expected

AppleInsider published a fascinating article yesterday, which contained some great information about the speed of the $999 for-developers-only Intel-based Macs. My favorite part:

"It's fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel's Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5." In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes "as little as 10 seconds" to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.

SlashDot discussion here.

Why Apple Really switched to Intel

David K Every posts a response to a recent Ars Technica article. I read the Ars article when it appeared a few days ago and had ambivalent feelings, but after reading Every's insightful report I'm convinced he's right. Well worth a read!

Dock icon visual feedback

The OS X Dock has been the subject of a love-hate relationship from many Mac users since the launch of OS X. The 'magnification' effect has been dismissed by many who, claiming it does nothing to make the Dock more usable, dismiss it as marketing-department eye candy designed to wow would-be customers at Apple Stores. I must admit that despite initially loving the magnification effect, I have long since disabled it after getting fed up of dock icons magnifying themselves out of my way while I was trying to drop a document on them.

Another widely condemned "feature" is the Dock's cute bouncing behaviour when a program is launching or a background program needs your attention. While both behaviours do serve a limited purpose, there needs to be some configurability for those who desire it. I know that I for one would appreciate a setting to stop an attention-seeking background application's icon bouncing after a certain number of bounces. Toast 6, when it is hidden, commits this bouncing sin at the end of a disc burn and is a prime example of a situation where this setting would be a blessing.

Finally, there is the 'puff of smoke animation when removing Dock icons'. The less said about that the better.

"So", I hear you say, "is there anything good about the Dock?" The answer is yes! As amply demonstrated by the rotating 3-D cube of the CPU monitor X3, the Dock is capable of significant graphical gymnastics and is not limited to manipulation of the original program icon. The image to the left doesn't do X3 justice, the cube (X3 comes with a variety of icons) rotates through several dimensions and the speed of rotation correlates to CPU activity.

While X3 with its significant CPU drain may be overkill (somewhere around 10% on a 667MHz G4), the majority of Dock icons could still do with some sort of visual feedback, showing relevant information whenever an application is hidden. Irrespective of any other failings the OS might have, some Windows programs do this very well by displaying relevant information in the taskbar button when minimised. The amazing wish-there-was-a-Mac-version DVDShrink is a great example, showing elapsed and remaining time in its button.

Having said that, a few select OS X applications do make good use of the Dock's abilities. Prime amongst these is Apple's own Activity Monitor app, which has no less than 5 different animated Dock icons for displaying CPU, hard disk, and network activity. These icons display several different items of information each in the form of charts, but at a cost of measurable CPU drain. A further drawback is that the more frequently updated charts, for instance the CPU history meter, the Disk activity meter and Network activity meter, can be visually distracting.


Less intrusive but still useful is the 'display a single variable' approach used by Apple's Mail, and Ranchero's NetNewsWire. Both use their Dock icons to show unread material in the form of a number displayed on the icon. This approach is more than adequate for these types of programs, although some sort of font size control (particularly in Mail), would be nice.


A different approach is to use the Dock icon to display a progress bar, as seen in Toast and DVD2OneX. This is in my opinion the best use of Dock icon feedback and should really be mandatory behaviour for any program which has lengthy delays when processing data. MacTheRipper will apparently have a similar Dock icon progress bar in its next revision, but interestingly the DVD2OneX readme includes thanks to the MacTheRipper author for the progress bar code!


Finally we have Dock icons which merely display whether a certain state is true or false, for instance Virtual PC's Dock icon shows an OS X style spinning wheel on the PC monitor when saving a session, while Transmit's Dock icon shows a small arrow to indicate if it is uploading or downloading. In both cases a progress bar would make so much more sense, but I guess any feedback is better than none at all and I should be happy the authors have at least made an effort!


And that is, to the best of my knowledge, all of them. It seems like such a paltry selection given the thousands of OS X applications out there. Can anyone add any other programs to this list?

Update: I forgot about the fantastic BluePhoneElite. I usually have the Dock icon disabled so I had forgotten the feedback it gives (I use the menubar feedback instead). The Dock icon shows a signal meter and a battery meter consisting of graduated blocks similar to Nokia phones.


Update: I also forgot iCal! The Apple calendar program's Dock icon is deceptively sophisticated and displays an image of a paper desktop calendar which shows the correct month and date. Luckily most of us don't need a calendar to know what month it currently is - the month on the iCal icon can be very difficult to read.

iPhone with 512MB RAM?

A recent post on fscklog (English translation here) offers some evidence that the iPhone will have 512MB of RAM. Not enough, if you ask me.

Too ugly to be the iPhone?

Could this be the much-discussed iTunes-enabled phone from Motorola? AppleInsider, Slashdot and Engadget all have coverage, while one Engadget reader points out the (somewhat superficial ) similarities to the Moto E1060.

Home made laptop batteries

Roll your own for around half the price.

Windows on Intel Macs

Previous speculation that the future Intel-based Mac will be able to run Windows has been confirmed.

It's cold here in hell

The big news of today occured at 10.28am at the WWDC in San Francisco when Apple's announced that Macs will start using Intel CPUs in 2006 (don't miss Steve's interview on CNBC afterward). Microsoft and Adobe were quick to declare support. MacNN have live coverage of the WWDC.

Comment: yet again the rumours are proved true. Strangely enough no lawsuit this time ... could it be that suing a public company like CNet is less appealing than suing a minnow like ThinkSecret?

Update: I was reading more reactions to this news over at TUAW, where reader Michael Ströck points out that the BIG news here is that Macs in 2006/2007 will be able to run Windows natively! Now that would be, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, "insanely great" - imagine all the elegance and security of OS X with the ability to run Windows programs when necessary ... at full speed.

Major Tiger bug destroys data

While doing some research on using SuperDuper as an alternative to the not-yet-Tiger-compatible Carbon Copy Cloner, I stumbled across this warning from the authors of SuperDuper. Despite the warning being a week old, I haven't seen any mention of this anywhere else. This lack of publicity would be unusual for what should be a major Apple news story so it may be that this is a false alarm, however it's always better to be safe than sorry. The essence of the bug is that mounting sparse disk images over 1GB in size will corrupt the image, destroying all data in it.

G4 Tower Media Center

xlr8yourmac have posted a great guide to setting up an old 'Sawtooth' G4 Tower as a fully fledged media center. The setup is designed to be a CD/DVD jukebox, internet radio station, TiVo-like personal video recorder, video conferencing center, web browser and (Mac) gaming console. Of course, it can still do all the other things you might want to do with a Mac, checking email for instance.

Spotlight refinements

The venerable TidBITS posted an interesting note on adding qualifying keywords to Spotlight searches. It seems they had just complained about the lack of information when Apple updated a Spotlight Tips page. The keyword tips are useful, if a bit cumbersome to type, but the highlight of the page is the reappearance of Apple's sense of humour:

Happy tenth birthday, DragThing!

DragThing, one of the greatest accessories in Mac history, is celebrating its 10th birthday! The author James Thomson has posted a great history of the program which is well worth a read. There's a lovely 'coolware' anecdote in there as well

The article will be updated regularly over the next 10 days with even more DragThing trivia, and also contains a link to a US$10 discount page.

When I started reading the article I was convinced that I had been a DragThing user since System 7, but after looking at the comparison 'about page' screenshots, I now suspect I jumped on the bandwagon with DragThing 2 and OS 8. I seem to recall that my first use of DragThing was when it shipped with my PowerMac 6100/60 which would place it sometime in 1994/95, but the year seems wrong so perhaps I'm thinking of my subsequent Mac, the 8600/250 (bought in late 1997). In any case, I have used DragThing without interruption since then, right up to DragThing 4.5 which is installed on my Mac right now. I've been so happy with DragThing 4.5 for the last couple of years that I haven't even tested any newer version! Sorry James!

Tiger notes, vol. 2

Spotlight is still slow. Top tip of the day: don't make any spelling mistakes in your spotlight query.
Solution: possibly re-install QuickSilver and use it solely for launching apps.

Safari RSS no longer works with HSBC's online banking site. Safari didn't work at first too. That finally got fixed by the 1.2 update. Back to square one.
Solution: use FireFox.

DoubleCommand no longer loads.
Solution: Daring Fireball notes that Apple have added some of DoubleCommand's functionality, but alas not including the ability to remap a PowerBook's 'enter' key. The developer's says on his site that he is aware of the incompatibility, but is unsure when a patch will be available.

KeyChain Access has changed for the worse. It now takes several extra clicks to make clipboard copies of certain information.
Solution: none yet.

Not specifically Tiger related, but since my copy of iClock vanished after installing Tiger I took the opportunity to upgrade to iClock 2. However there is a major problem - this new version has an annoying iClockWarnings icon taking up valuable dock space
Solution: none yet. May try and revert to the old iClock.

Apple's education discount

It is fairly common knowledge that Apple has a forward-thinking policy about students and has always offered a great education discount. The discount doesn't seem to be explicitly stated anywhere, but is usually around 10% on hardware which can amount to decent chunk of change. What I only just discovered today is that the discount applies to teachers as well! As it happens my better half is a teacher, and our home network needs a new server

Related reading: How to buy an Apple Computer (although this article also misses out on teachers getting the discount).

Tiger review revisited

Not to be outdone by Ars, AnandTech have published their own Tiger review. It's a good review, and very detailed (although not to quite the geek level of the Ars review).

Tiger notes

My Tiger notes so far:

Spotlight is quite slow on my 667MHz G4. Using it to launch apps (granted, not it's primary function) is several times slower than with QuickSilver.

Dashboard is fast. Especially once you remove all animated Dashboard widgets since they hog so much CPU - the analog World Clock widget eats around 5-10% of my CPU, but the third-party Dash Monitors is by far the worst culprit (up to 40% CPU in full graphical mode).

Automator is fast (and awesome). My favorite workflow so far is Mail Images.

iPhoto was broken. Trashing plists and library did not fix it.
Solution: delete and reinstall.

iSync crashes upon launch. Trashed plists. Now launches but crashes as soon as I attempt to connect to the phone.
Solution: None yet.

Little Snitch was broken.
Solution: install new 1.2b3 version.

iClock had vanished.
Solution: downloaded and installed newest version.

Fire crashes on launch.
Solution: Apparently recompiling from source using XCode2 will fix this. I've switched to AdiumX.

MySQL acting strangely. After a reboot mysqld sometimes (but not every time) jumps to 100% CPU and gets stuck there.
Solution: force quitting mysqld and manually restarting in terminal fixes the problem (until your next reboot).

BitTorrent official client crashes on launch.
Solution: use Tomato Torrent Bits on Wheels (having to find a new BT app led me to discover Bits on Wheels. It's much more informative than both the original client and Tomato. Azureus provides similar information, but the obvious java-ness really grates on me).

Ecto behaves strangely. For instance Command-Shift-U used to insert a hyperlink of the clipboard contents. Now it sometimes does this, but at other times it does nothing.
Solution: Upgrade to new 2.3 version.

Safari annoyance eliminated, finally

They've finally fixed my Safari bugbear!

Tiger review like you've never seen

Nobody reviews like Ars Technica. They've just posted an in-depth Tiger review here - just to give you an idea of how thorough this is, the pdf version is 106 pages!

Tiger in da house

It's arrived!

Mac Mini essential extra

MicroNet have announced a particularly drool-worthy Mac Mini accessory, essentially an extra hard drive and a port replicator in a Mini-like case. The device comes in flavours ranging from a US$149 80Gb model to a US$499 400Gb model, with the US$249 250GB model having the best gigabyte-to-dollar ratio.

Video-On-Demand using Mac Mini & VLC

Short but sweet.

Tiger benchmarks

There's plenty of news out there about the forthcoming Tiger release on 29th April 2005 so I wasn't planning on mentioning it here, but the French site MacTouch has an article comparing Jaguar and Tiger (English Google translation here) with a particularly interesting graph of speed benchmarks for both systems running on a variety of Macs.

Mail.app inline image annoyance

I've noticed for a while that Mail.app seems to insist on displaying image attachments inline. This is fine for small web-optimised images, but becomes intensely annoying when you are trying to read several emails in succession, all of which have one or more large (1MB+) image attachments, because Mail takes several seconds to open each email due to the huge image that it insists on displaying inline.

I had always intended to figure out a solution, but today when I actually sat down and looked for one, I had nasty surprise. There is no solution. Apple really needs to sort this out, it's enough to make me consider ditching Mail.app.

PowerBook Motion Sensor goodness

If you have a recent PowerBook with Apple's motion sensor, check out this series of software for some amazing, albeit frivolous, demonstrations of it in action.

Intel demos Mac mini lookalike

Hey! That looks familiar!

Mac Mini in a Lexus

How cool is this?

Sonos on a Mac

A while back I drooled over the Sonos Digital Music System - it appears that there have been reports of problems with Mac compatibility, but they've now been fixed.

'Powerbook HD' rumours

No G5 for now, but the PowerBook's future is looking good. MacMischief has posted an analysis here.

PC makers desire OS X?

It's been mentioned in a few other places over the last couple of days, but this ArsTechnica article provides some insight. If true, this will be huge.

P800 syncing, solved

After the failure of my recent P800 firmware upgrade to solve certain long-standing problems, I finally splurged and replaced my el-cheapo generic bluetooth dongle with a D-Link DBT-120 bluetooth dongle, which is incidentally the dongle that Apple recommends. This has completely and utterly solved my often mentioned syncing problems. Syncing works 100% of the time now! All Apple needed to do was to put a warning on their website - something along the lines of "using other brand bluetooth dongles may cause iSync to crap out" would have sufficed.

Keyword Assistant updated!

I mentioned in this entry that Keyword Assistant, an indispensable iPhoto plugin, was broken by the upgrade to iPhoto 5. Have no fear, life is good again - author yesterday released an update which works with iPhoto 5. Phew!

Unique Mac mini review

This is really worth a read. It seems clear that plenty of Mac fans will get their knickers in a twist about it, but c'mon - this has GOT to be a joke. It can't possibly be anything else. How likely is it that a single individual could make SO many uninformed statements?

Update: It's starting to look like the entire DivisionTwo site is a joke. This article discusses replacing an 89-year-old granny's Mac 7.5 System with an easy-to-use Linux system. For word processing the author was kind enough to recommend emacs. 'Nuff said.

Further update: It's definitely a joke. If you read all the articles it becomes apparent entire site is an attempt at satirical humour. Sadly most it isn't very funny.

iPhoto 5.0.1 but not on Software Update

According to MacMinute, iPhoto has been updated to version 5.0.1. Unfortunately, as of 20:16 hours GMT, there seems to be no reference to it on Apple's site - the most recent update is listed as iMovie HD 5.0.1:

Software Update is also drawing a blank:

Update: MacOSXHints has a possible solution.

Official: iMac G5s dangerous in California

Want more traffic to your website? Easy solution - publish a silly article criticising Apple! Rob Enderle (yes, that guy) has a piece in DesignTechnica last week which said, among other foolishness, that

"I live in California, earthquake country, and the old iMac was one of the most stable products in its class, the new one [iMac G5] places the weight too high and relies on a base that is too narrow making it likely that it would fall.  Falling glass can be a huge hazard in a home late at night when you are trying to get the kids and family to safety during an earthquake."

MacDailyNews heaps scorn on Mr Enderle here. MacMischief has it's own pop here.

Uncripple your G5 superdrive

Macbidouille are reporting that most G5s shipping today are equipped with an artificially crippled DVD burner. By removing the drive and installing in a PC, they were able to flash the firmware and upgrade it from a ordinary 8x DVD-R burner to a dual-layer 16x DVD-R burner! Re-install it in the Mac and use Patchburn to enable it in the iApps.

Automatically copy Bluetoothed images into iPhoto

While searching for some iPhoto information, I found this interesting tutorial on how to set up folder actions to automatically copy images into iPhoto after they've been bluetoothed to your Mac.

Stop iphoto from importing images

After spending more time using my new Dimage X50, the major annoyance is rapidly becoming iPhoto launching itself and glacially preparing to import images every time I connect the camera. After a fruitless visit to iPhoto's preference window, I resorted to Google and found this. The option to launch iPhoto when you connect a camera is controlled in the preferences of the Image Capture application. Obviously.

Confirmed - Mac mini is upgradable

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting that the Mac mini is indeed upgradable. Not only is the RAM relatively easy to upgrade (there's an image of the Mac mini with case removed to prove it), users can also install an Airport card and a (presumably only Apple ones) bluetooth module. They also state that opening the machine does not void your warranty, unless you break something while opening it. I have previously heard this but believed it to be wishful thinking. The machine will also boot headless, which means it would make a good small server.

Holy Macmobile!

Well, it was bound to happen. Given that the Mac mini's front dimensions are 2" x 6.5", and a car stereo port is 2" x 7", it was inevitable someone would want to put the former into the latter. I'm not quite sure I get it myself - yes it would be nice having iTunes as your car stereo, but the mini seems overkill for that and if you used an iPod instead it could leave the car with you. But then again I don't have kids - I guess parents would appreciate the DVD-playing ability of the mini. I suppose with an internet-capable mobile phone you could also do email in your car, although I can't think who would want to. The voice control aspects of having a full-fledged Mac in the car are interesting, but to be frank my own experiences with voice recognition don't fill me with eager anticipation. I also wonder about the power supply. Will the mini get turned off when you aren't using the car? If it does I wonder if they've taken the Mac's relatively slow startup into account, presumably you'll just have to wait a minute or two after turning on your engine in order to play some music.

Analysts analyse Apple

MacMinute noted today that Yahoo News had a good article on analyst reactions to the Mac mini and iPod shuffle. Things are looking pretty good for Apple right now - their stock also took a 12% jump overnight after the earnings report yesterday. Like probably everyone else who read about the Mac mini, I considered buying some (or at least urging my wealthier friends to do so), but you know what they say about hindsight ...

Not everyone loves it though. Frank Steele over at Nicest of the Damned had a positive write-up today, but also maintained enough perspective to include links to some of the nay-sayers. Most of them were knee-jerk Mac-bashing, but a guy named Bill Palmer has some one fair criticisms, concerning Apple Stores and the non-existence of a low-end Apple monitor (Apple's lowest priced monitor is the 20" Cinema Display costing US$999).

Finally!

We finally have confirmation of all the recent rumours! Steve J's keynote speech is over and Apple's website has been updated. The iPod shuffle looks great - although it appears to have undergone a name change in the last few hours. The direct USB connection is typical of Apple's ability to cut through the crap directly to the most elegant solution.

The Mac mini is a definite winner. It brings the old Cube to mind, but at a much nicer price This thing could really be huge for Apple. It is so tiny and has the functionality of many computers ten times its size. It also represents an inexpensive option for PC users who wish to try out Mac OS X. On the other hand it is not perfect. One particularly noticeable drawback is the lack of an audio-in port, although there are USB-based alternatives. Another drawback is the US$425 (!) Apple charges to upgrade to 1GB of RAM (the Mac mini appears to only have one DIMM slot)

Other highlights include iLife 05 (iPhoto finally has folders!), and iWork 05 including the much-anticipated word-processor Pages.

Oddly enough the Apple Store is currently unresponsive very sluggish My guess is the horde of iPod shuffle and Mac mini buyers!

More Limited Edition iPods

CultOfMac today mentioned a funny take on the recent U2 Limited Edition iPods.

Safari interface annoyances

One of Safari's more annoying user-interface decisions is the "Safari can't find server" error message.

If you open a link in a new page or a new tab and encounter this error, when you switch to the page or tab in question, you cannot close or refresh the page or tab until you dismiss the error message. This is simply terrible interface design, and not worthy of Apple. Whoever is responsible for Safari's UI, please do something about this! The error message should appear in the title bar, or address bar, or simply as a webpage saying "Server not found", not as a drop-down sheet that has to be dismissed.

YA iPod Killer

Yet another iPod Killer - Gizmodo had an insightful report on Archos' new G-Mini XS 200 digital music player. I particularly liked the comparison of the relationship between Apple and Archos with the relationship between OS X and Linux. The Gizmodo article linked to a more complete review. Engadget also covered it, but went with C|Net's review instead.

iPod killer

John Dvorak reports on X2's MEGA View 561. This device sounds great, think of it as the fusion of the iPod photo with TiVo. It looks good too - and all for US$399, although versions with larger hard drives would be welcome. Oddly enough, this device is smaller in every dimension than the Archos Gmini 400 but it has a 3.5" screen as opposed to the Gmini's 2.2". It's also quite a porker - it weighs in at about 50% more than the larger Gmini.

iMac G5 voltage warning

BoingBoing had an interesting link today to an International Herald Tribune report. Apparently the new iMac G5s being sold in the US are 100-110 volt only (as opposed to being 100-240 volt). This is in contrast to every other Mac on the market except the eMac. Apparently this is to protect foreign sales since the US dollar is currently so weak - a British buyer could save £197 by buying one in the States.

Black Magic PB G4

How cool is this? With the white paint on the front rim of my PowerBook starting to chip away, I'm tempted to give it a try (if I wasn't so scared of cocking it up!)

Damn you Apple, stop deleting old forum posts

Not a single other forum I've ever visited does it, so why does Apple? A whole host of troubleshooting information is being deleted for no reason at all. I can't even count the number of times I've been directed to the Apple discussion boards for a solution to some problem or other, only to find that the thread is too old and has been deleted.

Running Apache behind an Airport Express

In order to reduce the number of wires I have to connect to my laptop I recently picked up an Airport Express. Setting it up to stream iTunes music to the stereo and print wirelessly to a USB printer were relatively painless, so I had high hopes for the device's third function - acting as a wireless internet router. However since the Airport Express only accepts ethernet network connections (the USB port is solely for printers), I needed to replace the free USB ADSL modem that comes with the BT Broadband service with a 'proper' ethernet ADSL modem. Based on nothing more than a solitary post by one guy reporting success with it in conjunction with an Airport Express (on some forgotten discussion forum otherwise I'd link it) I ordered the D-Link DSL-300T modem.

Easy setup
Once the modem arrived I simply attached it to BT's ADSL microfilter using the supplied RJ-45 cable and to the Airport Express unit using the supplied ethernet cable. The modem's lights flashed a few times and the Airport Express's light went green. Apparently the Airport Express's primary function is the internet connection, because the light will flash an angry orange forever unless the unit is connected to the internet, even if you only bought it to stream music and print wirelessly. Once it was hooked up the Airport Express Setup program launched itself and led me through the extremely simple setup process. As soon as that was done I fired up Safari and to my delight I had wireless internet access.

Teething problems
However, as is so often the case, spending a short while exploring my new capabilities quickly showed one major flaw. I could not access this website! After some research it began to make sense. What used to be 'my' IP address was now the Airport Express's IP address, while the Airport Express was using DHCP to distribute private IPs to the client computer (my mac). After doing some research an Apple KnowledgeBase article entitled AirPort 4.0 Help: Can I use a web server on my network? finally shed some light on the subject. Since I don't have a static IP the first solution was ruled out, but the article contains a reference to achieving the same result by using what Apple calls port mapping (and what the rest of the world calls port forwarding).

This should work
I then found another Apple KnowledgeBase article AirPort 4.0 Help: Assigning IP addresses to devices on your AirPort network. This seemed to address my exact problem, so I fired up the Airport Admin Utility, chose to configure the Airport Express, and clicked on the Port Mapping tab. Here I mapped public port 80 to the private IP 10.0.1.201 port 80. I then opened the System preferences Network panel where I modified the Airport connection's TCP/IP settings to 'Manual' IPv4 configuration, IP Address 10.0.1.201, subnet mask 255.255.255.0, router 10.0.1.1, and the appropriate DNS servers for my ISP. None of this is very complicated, and it SHOULD work. But it didn't. I could still access the internet, but I couldn't access this website.

The clouds part?
After more research, and browsing through assorted forums, I finally discovered this post in the MacOSXHints forums. This looked like a working solution! Not only did the poster have the exact same modem as me, he was trying to do the same thing!

Maybe not
However, there's still something wrong. It took me a few minutes to figure where in the modem's web-based configuration controls I could set the modem to act as a bridge, but once I had it set I set the Airport Express to log in using PPPoE. Apparently if I can get the Airport Express to login then port mapping will work. However when I fire it all up I get an endless 'Looking for PPPoE hosts' message scrolling in the menubar! Annoying.

Temporary solution
While I think about it (never admit defeat!) I've switched to using the 'Enable Default Host' option in the Base Station Options (located under the Airport tab in the configuration page of Airport Admin Utility). By setting the empty field to 201 (so the IP address is 10.0.1.201) you are limited to only having one Mac accessible from the internet, but that's what I had with the old non-wireless connection anyway. It simply would have been nice to get the port mapping to work in the event of any further computers being added to the network.

The True Story of Audion

I heard about this over at John Gruber's excellent Daring Fireball site - the True Story of Audion is a truly wonderful piece of Mac storytelling. I don't think I've ever felt so equally moved and delighted by what is essentially an article on the history of some computer software.

More iSight stuff

While prowling around for iSight related goodies, I found this somewhat frivolous but in-depth article at MacDevCenter. It covers pretty much everything you would (and a lot you wouldn't) expect to do with an iSight. A lot of great stuff, but for me the highlight was iChat Streaming Icon, which among other things can turn your buddy icon (as it appears to your buddies) into a video of yourself! It's tiny and slow, but it's live! No more need to set an 'away from keyboard' message, they can see from your icon that you're not sitting in front of your Mac!

iGlasses for iSight

In an attempt to have video conferences with family back in Hong Kong I bought an iSight last week. The device has received almost universal approval and as expected my early tests were all positive. I am looking into the actual video conferencing software, but in the meantime the iSight's one major flaw has been poor performance in low light situations. For whatever reason, there is no way to control any of the iSight's settings from within iChat or OS X itself so there is not much you can do about it apart from turn on more lights. Kensington's SightLight is marketed as a cure for this, but a much better solution is to install the $8 iGlasses. This amazing app provides a wide range of controls for the iSight, from exposure to white balance. The results are astonishing - the sample screenshots on the product webpage are not exaggerations!

Remote control for AirTunes

While we're on the subject of Airport Express, Macworld had an article today about the Keyspan Express Remote. The setup consists of an infrared remote control and a receiver. The receiver plugs into the USB port of an Airport Express or the iTunes computer whilst the remote lets you control iTunes (and other media applications).

Airport Express

Well, my new Airport Express arrived yesterday. There are plenty of reviews around, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. The plan is to (eventually) set up wireless internet access for my laptop, but I'm still waiting for my ethernet ADSL modem to arrive (to replace the USB one that comes with BT's broadband service).

All I've used the Airport Express for so far is AirTunes. Again, this has been covered extensively elsewhere, so all I'm going to say is "Wow." This is one of those gadgets that make even non-geeks sit up and pay attention.

USB Printing via Airport Express

As well as setting up the Airport Express and AirTunes, I've been attempting to attach an old USB Lexmark Z52 printer to the Airport Express unit. This printer works when plugged directly into my Mac. However when I try to print wirelessly to it the print job spools to 100% and then stops itself. Opening the print queue shows my print job has stopped itself with a message which reads "Printer: Jobs Stopped".

Despite some extensive searching, I couldn't find the solution. I tried reinstalling the Lexmark drivers from Panther disc 2, a tedious job, but to no avail. This discussion describes my exact symptoms, but the given solution didn't improve my situation at all. After spending a couple of frustrating hours reading the Apple discussion forums, I stumbled across this page which lists Airport Express compatible printers, and the Z52 is not listed as being compatible. However I couldn't be sure since the Lexmark page on Airport compatibility has been down for the last several hours. To be honest, it's a relief to find out. At least I know how to fix the problem now! (The Z52 was a hand-me-down, and virtually not worth using in any case due to the extortionate cost of ink cartridges).

Edit: while typing up this entry, I attempted to print this page in order to double-check the exact wording of the print queue error. The printer name had a small exclamation mark next to it so I clicked 'Printers' and 'Rendezvous' and choose the Lexmark Z52 again. This created a new printer, and lo and behold, the damn page printed out! This is almost too annoying for words - I must have deleted and recreated the printer a dozen times using this exact same method without result, and now the damn thing decides to start working for no apparent reason. It's good to know it works, but I will still be replacing the printer shortly - it's too big and the ink costs almost 20 times as much as Canon cartridges.

575MB/sec

How does 575MB/sec transfer rate sound to you? If you're interested in editing uncompressed HD video you'll need transfer speeds not too far off this number. Mike Curtis over at HD for Indies had a very informative article on how to achieve this with a home-built 2.7TB RAID with a PowerMac G5 for under US$3,000.

Superdrive DVD-RW without Firmware Updates

MacInTouch had a report today about a workaround for Apple's crippled superdrive firmware which doesn't allow DVD-RW. Normally you would hop over to the Superdrive firmware page of the incomparable Cynikal and download a firmware update to enable the RW features of your drive, however if you're worried about ruining your drive, or your drive is too new for a firmware update, then the MacInTouch solution may be more appropriate.

Edit: due to MacInTouch's terrible layout and constantly changing URLs (the above link from yesterday is already broken!) I'll repost the relevant passage here:

If you put a fresh DVD-RW in your Superdrive, it spits it back out. However, get a friend with a DVD-RW on a PC to write something onto it. This will mount on your Mac just fine. And guess what? Toast will now erase it and from now on it can be used like any DVD-RW! It's as killer workaround that I have tested with no problems.

iPod vs The Cassette

I recently stumbled across this guy's crazy mac.com page. My favorite part was the photo album entitled iPod vs. The Cassette. Defintely worth a look!

One self-employed analyst, idiotic statement of the year

"The expectation on the iPod is that HP's version will probably outsell Apple's version relatively quickly ... due to HP's broad distribution at electronics retailers", said Rob Enderle. Mr Enderle runs an outfit with the grandiose-title of The Enderle Group. Some kind of umbrella company controlling a multitude of lesser corporations? Nah, it's him, his wife, and two buddies.

This guy is either smoking crack or is operating on the principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I can honestly say I don't remember the last time I even saw an HP product other than a printer at an "electronics retailer", but I usually see a prominent iPod display of some sort.

Secondly, I've lost count of the number of times I've been to shops that do not sell any Apple products of any sort, except for the iPod. Let me emphasize this - shops that sell only Wintel-based PCs and wouldn't touch an Apple Macintosh with a bargepole will have iPods on display. So much for his theory that HP's "broad distribution" will make a difference.

Finally there is the 'cool factor'. Go and grab an average young person (for simplicity's sake let's say someone between 15 and 29) and ask them who is cooler, Apple or Hewlett Packard. Dollars to doughnuts the answer won't be HP.

Overclocking eMacs

This is old news, but it was only today I followed a link to page by a guy named Leo Bodnar. Among other things he has posted an eMac Upgrade Guide. My favorite bit was the amazing photo of the resistors the author removed to uncripple his eMac's processor and ramp the speed up from 800MHz to 1.33GHz! After a bit of googling I also found a SpyMac discussion and a MacNN discussion about the upgrades.

New OS X, New iSync

The new OS X 10.3.5 update is out. I was hoping that this, in combination with the new iSync 1.5, would fix my P800 sync problems. Alas not...

iPod speakers

BoingBoing reported on a MacGyver challenge involving tins of Altoids. There are some pretty inventive folks out there

Remapping the enter key

Apple PowerBooks don't have extended keyboards - not even the 17" model which clearly has room for one. While I don't really miss the lack of a numeric keypad (as far as I'm concerned they are primarily used as as direction keys in games!) on my 15" 667Mhz model, I've always wished that Apple had managed to squeeze dedicated page-up and page-down keys onto the PowerBooks, rather than making you press the 'Function' key and an up/down arrow key. But what is really aggravating is that there is only one 'Function' key, and it is on the left side of the keyboard! This means that you need two hands to page-up or page-down.

As a result, ever since I got this laptop, I've been trying to remap my Enter key to a Function key so I could page up and down with one hand. I thought I had found a clue in this MacOSXHints story, but it turned out to be aimed at remapping Exposé activation keys. After more searching on the same site I eventually discovered this old story, which led me to DoubleCommand. What can I say - this kernel extension has answered my prayers and is a must-have for any PowerBook owner! It can not only remap the Enter key to a Function key, it can also remap other modifier keys as well as the caps-lock key. Not only that it can make your Mac react like a PC when you press the Home and End keys. On the Mac the Home and End keys have traditionally moved to the beginning and the end of the document, while on the PC they move to the beginning and end of a line. I've always found the PC behaviour to be more useful. Note: this seems to work in all apps I've tried, except TextEdit.

Keyboard problems

Bad news: the 'o' key on my keyboard has started acting up. Sometimes when I press it a second 'o' appears 2 or 3 characters after the first one. At other times I press it and the 'o' doesn't appear until 2 or 3 characters later. Very, very, very, annoying.

Here's a sample:

This paragraph is just randomo text but hopeofully when I look up from typing it you will see where all the extra o's have appeared. I need to type moroe woords with o's in them. Here are some more o words: bomb copper balloon crock crook rolloover zoo soap crd ooval oopal orogan oroganic odour orifice

Update: I've managed to fix it! All I did was pry the key off, clean out the crap that had accumulated underneath, and re-attach it. For one heart-stopping moment I thought I had snapped something off when I pried it out, but it seems to have re-attached without problem.

Never enough storage

I got a new 160GB external firewire hard disk recently. I was just sick of copying things to and from DVD-RWs in order to make space on my laptop drive. The new drive is from StorageDepot and it seems to perform well and looks good. The price was great too. I'm very satisfied with it and would use StorageDepot again. However after owning it for 5 days and installing all my software that I couldn't previously fit on my laptop there is only 60GB of free space left!

Powerbook Superdrive self-install

The DVD/CD-RW drive in my laptop started malfunctioning due to a crapped out CD laser, probably from burning too many SVCDs! After some research I replaced the faulty drive with a Matshita UJ-815 CD-RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM drive. Getting the new drive to fully integrate with OS X was tricky, so I took a few notes along the way...

Installing a UJ815 DVD-RAM drive in a Powerbook G4 under OS X 10.3

This was inspired by djjuice at the SpyMac.com forums and AirForceRed at the MacNN.com forums. AirForceRed's original post was here. djjuice's original post was here, but djjuice himself has apparently edited out the revealing passage. It was so difficult finding information about this procedure but in the end so satisfying getting the drive to work under OS X 10.2 and later OS X 10.3 that I wanted to save the method for posterity (and in case the original thread at MacNN ever vanishes!)

Important Note: Before you start this process make sure you have the DiscRecording.framework mentioned by AirForceRed and djjuice.

You will also need a T8 Torx (star-shaped) screwdriver. I ordered one online, but in a pinch a set of mini flat-head screwdrivers will do the job.

The Hardware

First you need to obtain a Matsushita UJ-815 (also known as a Matshita UJ-815 or a Panasonic UJ815) DVD-RAM drive. I got mine at DFWDepot for a grand total of US$342.96 (which included the approximately $60 charge for next-day UPS delivery to southeast England). I dealt with Terry Harrison and apart from what I believe to be an honest mistake with shipping charges (albeit still unresolved - watch this space) everything went smoothly.

Update: the mistake DFWDepot made may have been honest, or maybe not, but in any case in addition to the UPS charge of approximately $60 for shipping from the US to the UK, UPS tacked on another $75 charge for the local delivery from the local airport to my house. This second charge was apparently to pay for a local courier company (it wasn't UPS who actually delivered it to my door). I had to pay the second charge in cash on delivery.

The next step is to install the drive. There is a slick installation instruction document (in PDF format) available from MacResQ. The document for older (400-667Mhz) SVGA Powerbooks is here, while the one for newer DVI (667+Mhz) Powerbooks is here. My torx screwdriver took a lot longer than the drive itself to arrive, so I ended up opening my Powerbook with the 4th largest screwdriver in a typical set of 6 mini-flathead screwdrivers. After that it was easy, with the possible exception of the power cable (unplugging it is slightly fiddly, I used to screwdriver to carefully lever it out), and the whole process only took a few minutes.

The Software

Once you've installed the drive you need to find out what it's called by your system. Fire up Terminal and type

drutil info

The drutil tool will display the name of your newly installed drive. For the UJ815 you're installing this should be 'DVD-RAM UJ-815A'. Remember this information exactly (copy and paste it into TextEdit if you think you can't be exact).

Now turn your attention to the DiskRecording.framework you acquired earlier (you did remember to acquire it right?). Control-click it and select 'Package Contents'. Dig down through the folders and find a file called DeviceSupport.drprofile (it's located in Versions / A / Frameworks / DiscRecordingEngine.framework / Versions / A / Resources). Launch TextEdit and open the DeviceSupport.drprofile file and do a search for 'DVD-RAM'. The first instance you find should look like this:

<key>DRDeviceProductName</key>
<string>DVD-RAM SW-9571</string>
<key>DRDeviceVendorName</key>
<string>MATSHITA</string>


You will be replacing the text DVD-RAM SW-9571 with the text that the drutil tool returned earlier (DVD-RAM UJ-815A). Once you've done that, save the file.

To finish the procedure you need to replace the existing DiskRecording.framework with the one you've modified. The easiest way is to boot into OS9 and then just replace the old version (found at /System/Library/Frameworks) with your modified one.

Reboot into OS X and you're done! Disc burning in the Finder should work now.

Notes

The drive is very noisy at first when you eject discs, and the disc doesn't eject all the way (it 'sticks' a little so you have to give it a light pull to get it out). However after using it for a few weeks the mechanism loosens up and both of these problems go away. The drive is now considerably quieter than the old combo drive it replaced.

Note that if you later update your system software you may have to repeat this procedure (if the update replaces the framework), although hopefully Apple will recognise this drive in the next version of OS X 10.3.

Update: I recently upgraded to OS X 10.3.2 on a fresh install of Panther and copied over my old home folder, including preferences etc. Somewhat surprisingly, the DVD-RAM drive works in the iApps and the Finder under the new install. It seems that it is now supported in 10.3.2, although the framework seems identical to the old one, and System Profiler still claims the drive is unsupported. YMMV.

iMovie wedding video

A friend kindly agreed to video Em and I's wedding day with my digital video camera so since we got back from our Honeymoon I've been playing with iMovie. It's been pretty time-consuming, but good fun along the way and we now have an 80 minute wedding video as a result. iMovie is astonishingly easy to use, but when I did get stuck Dan Slagle's iMovie FAQ was incredibly useful.

Powerbook G4!

I got my Powerbook G4! Quite the upgrade from the old PowerMac 8600/250. Now that I have a DVD drive I've become interested in transcoding DVDs into Divx and SVCD formats. Matt Haveri's SVCD FAQ provides a comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the subject of SVCD on the Mac