Want to play a Blu-ray disc on your Mac? Apple doesn't include Blu-ray as an option, but they are readily available through 3rd parties like Amazon or Other World Computing. You'll also need software to play the disc, which is where the Macgo Blu-Ray Player comes in. I reviewed the Macgo Blu-ray Player software more than a year ago and found it pretty flaky. It dropped frames, was slim on features, and not something I could get to excited about. The updated player is a completely different story. I tested the software on a Mac Pro, and also an older (2006) MacBook Pro. I'm pleased to see that the Blu-ray movies I tested it on worked just fine, there were no dropped frames, even when running movies full screen. That's much better than my last outing with the software, and smooth playbook on my aging MacBook Pro was impressive. The app also supports DTS5.1 surround sound if you have hardware that can play it. The Blu-ray Player software requires an internet connection when you first put in a new disc. This is due to the copy protection scheme built into the discs by the motion picture studios. One a disc gets its keys, you shouldn't need to go online again. If you try another disc, it's the same process. The Mac app has added some new features, including screen grabs, and what they call 'AirX' which allows you to beam a Blu-ray movie playing on your Mac to an iOS device -- on your same WiFi network, of course. This new version works much better than the old versions I tried, and movie playback is flawless but I can't say the same for the AirX feature. When I first tried it, Blu-ray Player crashed, then a second try went a bit further, but my iPhone and iPad reported a 'can't find the server' message, even though I'm sure I followed the setup instructions correctly. I think there's more work needed on this feature. The app has extensive help and an actively updated website. You can download a free copy and test it to see how it works with your hardware. If you want to view Blu-ray movies on your Mac, this is pretty much it right now, other than some open-source hacks that don't work very well and aren't as easy to use. There is a summer special on the Macgo Blu-ray player software for US$39.99, which is $20 off. The sale lasts until August 19th. Apple has never officially supported Blu-ray on the Mac, and the late Steve Jobs famously called the licensing terms a "bag of hurt." Even so, some people like the 50 GB capacity of Blu-ray media for backup, and if you have the hardware, wanting to play a movie in HD is an obvious next step Check the Gallery for some screen grabs and a look at the GUI for Blu-ray Player. Gallery: Mac Blu-ray PlayerMac Blu-ray Player software plays HD movies on your Mac originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Friday, 17 August 2012
Mac Blu-ray Player software plays HD movies on your Mac
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Ios Versions-Pulse News
There have been many times when I have wishes that my favorite news aggregators like Pulse news and Zite for iOS were available on my desktop or Mac laptop. Pulse News has answered my requests with a web version of the app that runs in any browser. You can log into your Pulse News account and get all the sites and feeds you normally graze in the iOS app displayed right in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. The Pulse developers also had some help and probably a wee bit of cash from Microsoft to make the app work nicely with Windows 8 touch capabilities. There's a nice Windows Explorer logo in the upper right part of your browser, no matter which browser you are running. Anyway, Pulse News works just fine with Safari, and unlike the iOS versions you get some choice in layouts, mainly adjustments to the size of the tiles. If you change the shape of your browser window, Pulse news obliges and re-arranges itself. All in all, it's a nice experience. I saw a few rendering issues where words would get cut off and there was occasionally some odd image cropping, but basically it's working pretty well. Single-click on a tile, and you get a clean render of the story, with the familiar controls to read it directly at the source or email it to someone else. This is a nice evolutionary step for Pulse News, and I'll use it often. You can take a look at it by going to the Pulse website and logging in if you have a free account, or you can create a new account and start publishing your own personal news source.Pulse News comes to your favorite web browser originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Mountain Lion
You're about to spend US$19.99 on Mountain Lion and want to know how long it will take to update your Mac. Fortunately, the folks at Tekserve have updated several machines and shared the results. The New York-based company keeps several demo machines running on its sales floor for customers to try, including laptops and desktops. The team recently updated every last one to Mountain Lion (we assume they were on the latest version of Lion previously). Note what a difference SSD made in the chart below: Apple servers are very busy today, as the company is distributing new Mac versions of iPhoto, iMovie, Safari and iWork in addition to the OS. Our readers have reported a range of download times from one to three hours. The Mountain Lion installer is 4.05 GB in size. All this means you should set some time aside and get comfortable. Tell us how it goes.#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }Continue reading How long will it take to install Mountain Lion?How long will it take to install Mountain Lion? originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Open System Preferences-Notification Center-Mountain Lion
Mountain Lion's Notification Center is handy. It displays banners and alerts from notification-aware apps to keep you informed of changes, like a new Twitter mention, Calendar event or email message. That last one can get distracting, depending on how much email you receive. Here are some ways to tame email alerts:
- Disable alerts and banners in System Preferences. Open System Preferences and click Notifications. Select Mail from the list on the right and then click None. You'll no longer see email notifications.
- Quit Mail. Apple's Mail app won't push notifications if it isn't running.
- Turn them all of at once. Open Notification Center on your Mac and swipe up to the very top. Move the slider labeled Show Alerts and Banners to the Off position to silence all pop-up alerts and banners (they still appear listed in Notification Center itself). Slide it back to On to restore alerts and banners.
Saturday, 11 August 2012
Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Mission Control-Curiosity Rover-Control Room
For those of us who stayed up late last night to watch the streaming coverage of the Curiosity rover's landing on Mars, it was a treat to see the huge numbers of MacBooks, iPads, and even iPhones that were in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The image above shows one of the EDL Ops (Entry, Descent and Landing Operations) engineers gazing intently at the screen of a MacBook Pro at incoming data. Other photos we've seen show a conference room full of engineers and scientists at JPL sitting around a table loaded with MacBook Pros with nary a Lenovo or Dell laptop in sight. Why the love of Macs? It's probably because OS X is the "Unix that works," the mainstream operating system that's built upon the BSD UNIX beloved by scientists and engineers (and is also certified by the Single UNIX Specification group as an Open Brand UNIX 03 product). Of course, the scientific and engineering community may not be thrilled with the recent shift away from bundling Apple-branded X11 with OS X in Mountain Lion, as that's often used to run legacy apps. The current X11 solution is the XQuartz open source project, which is heavily supported by Apple. Be sure to check back later; TUAW's Mel Martin is following up with a post about more reasons for all of this Apple love at JPL. [h/t Jeff Gamet]#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }Continue reading Macs abound at NASA/JPL Mars Curiosity mission controlMacs abound at NASA/JPL Mars Curiosity mission control originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Apple Tv
A weekend feature from Gizmodo's Brian Barrett explores the Apple TV's increasing importance with the recent addition of Hulu Plus and other features. The interesting part of the article is the numbers: 1.3 million Apple TV units sold in the previous quarter along with US$2 billion in sales of digital content from the App Store, iTunes and iBookstore. Barrett thinks this information shows that the Apple TV has become the company's most important product, and future dominance rests with the little Apple TV box rather than a dedicated television set. Forbes agrees with Barrett's stance, wondering if the Apple TV has become a legitimate platform rather than the hobby Steve Jobs tinkered with. I think it'll achieve this status when an Apple TV SDK comes out. It was something I hoped would happen at WWDC, but now I'm wondering if that might come out this fall with the expected slate of new iPhones and iPods. I disagree with the Forbes estimate that Apple will eventually allow its content to be licensed on premium TVs. That's not the way Apple runs things, and it's why I think the Apple TV's price is $99. If you're picking up a new TV, another $99 isn't going to matter in the long run if you're using the Apple TV constantly. Yes, Hulu Plus and the Amazon Instant Video app for the iPad are competitors to Apple's content, but you're still using Apple's hardware to view said content. Chances are, if you're using an iPad to watch Amazon Instant Video, you're likely to upgrade to another iPad somewhere down the road. Amazon gets your money, and so does Apple. Over time, as features are added, I've noticed that the Apple TV has become more important in my living room. At first, I wasn't using it much. Then came AirPlay and Netflix. Then came AirParrot. Now there's AirPlay Mirroring and Hulu Plus. The only thing it's missing is Plex. We're still using the PS3 to access Plex content. Oh, and BBC iPlayer, but I think there's a chance of pigs flying before getting it in the U.S. There's an excellent jailbreak community surrounding the Apple TV, but the hassle to unjailbreak the ATV to upgrade it was just too much to bother jailbreaking it again. But with the recent new features, anything I can pull up on one of my Macs can be sent to the Apple TV. I can use HippoRemote to control the Mac streaming the content. We're to the point that we happily dropped cable early this year and haven't looked back. It's so convenient that whenever we get a new TV, I know I'll grab another Apple TV to go along with it -- and that's exactly what Apple wants.The Apple TV's increasing importance originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
Humble Indie Bundle-Windows-Charity
I bet that behavioral economists get rather excited when they see pay-what-you-want offers going viral. Assuming the seller is collecting some basic demographic detail, the resulting statistics might deliver some interesting insights into the relative altruism (or discretionary cash reserves) of different sorts of folks. The Humble Bundle team (responsible for the Humble Indie gaming bundles that we've covered before) is running a Humble Music bundle, accessible to all sorts of music fans. Featured artists include Jonathan Coulton, They Might Be Giants and MC Frontalot; a flexible portion of the purchase price goes toward not-for-profit cause groups like Child's Play Charity and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The bundle price is entirely up to the buyer, although suggested pricing goes from $100 down to $15. If you pay more than the rolling average price (currently around $8.28) you get a bonus album of remixes from viral-video darlings OK Go. You can also define the split between the artists and the charities, and contribute a "Humble Tip" for the bundle organizers. Given that buyers can pay what they want, what sort of variance do the Humble Bundlers see among their contributors/customers? It's not scientific, and there could be a whole horde of confounding factors, but take a look at the stats in the image above. Mac users (representing about 1/5 of the 45K total customer count) are paying an average of $9.84 for the bundle, more than $1.50 above the average price and $2.40 above the average Windows user. That might be skewed by a few "whales" who are contributing $100 or more from the Mac side, but even so the population is large enough that the differences would seem to be significant. Before you start forwarding this post to your penny-pinching Windows-using wealthy relatives, note that the Mac users aren't the most likely to empty their wallets for tunes. Linux users, with a slightly smaller share of the overall purchases, are coughing up a stunning $11.94 per transaction -- more than $3.50 higher than the average cost. This might be an artifact of the Humble Bundle's past service to Linux gamers, who may be feeling especially supportive of HB's efforts here, or maybe Linux users feel more strongly about the charities/artists involved. Or they just really are more generous by nature. With the recently finished Humble Indie Bundle 5, Linux users donated an average of $12.51 per transaction. It would be really interesting to do a deeper dive into the HB sales data, especially from the perspective of Dan Ariely or the Freakonomics guys. Most sellers aren't this transparent about their customers, and what they do with the behavioral data they collect -- and there's good PR reasons why they don't share more. In June, travel site Orbitz caught some flak for acknowledging that it showed different search results to Mac users (skewed towards the higher-end properties that they apparently prefer to book) than to PC users. While both sets of searchers would pay the same price for the same room, Mac users responded better to upscale hotels and slightly more expensive stays. The Humble Music Bundle is available until Thursday, August 9.Humble Music Bundle shows charity disparity among Mac, Linux and Windows users originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Proper Power Management-Mountain Lion-Power Nap
One of OS X Mountain Lion's lesser-known features is the curiously named Power Nap. It's roughly analogous to an actual sleeping mountain lion; while he's catching some Zs in a tree, his brain is constantly aware of what's going on around him, monitoring sounds and scents that might spell danger or food. Likewise, Mountain Lion's Power Nap will keep your Mac a tiny bit awake. Just enough of the system will be active during sleep (on certain Mac models) to grab email, notes, reminders and messages, run backups, and download OS X updates. All of this is done without turning on a screen, powering up a fan, or doing anything else that could appear to be "waking" your Mac. It's enabled for both plugged-in and battery-only setups by checking the appropriate Power Nap box on System Preferences > Energy Saver. Power Nap in OS X Mountain Lion works only on current MacBooks that only ship with built-in flash storage -- the MacBook Air (2nd generation, meaning 2011 or later) and Retina MacBook Pro -- so this isn't a feature you're going to see on every Mac today. Will we see this extending to more Macs in the future? I certainly hope so; it could theoretically work on any Mac with proper power management circuitry and a boot SSD. I've enabled it on my 2011 MacBook Air and it works quite well. Previously, if I hadn't awakened the MBA for several days, I could count on having the Mail app spin for quite a while as it downloaded my email. Now when I open my Air's cover, I can be sure that it's going to be up to date with most, if not all, of my email. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; } Continue reading Mountain Lion 101: Power NapMountain Lion 101: Power Nap originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Encryption Scheme-Removable Drives-Contextual Menu-Mountain Lion
[Post updated, see below.] Whole-drive encryption isn't one of the sexiest features in OS X, but it's nice to know it's there. FileVault 2 (introduced in Lion; the original FileVault began in 10.3 Panther) can be very useful, especially for Mac users with sensitive information on their hard drives. The ability to lock down either a boot disk or a removable drive means additional security for Mac users when they need it. In Mountain Lion, Apple has made the encryption process easier and faster by adding a contextual menu option to the Finder. Removable drives can be encrypted simply by choosing the Encrypt option when you right-click (or control-click, or two-finger click -- we need a better word for that task) the drive icon. Note that only drives with a GUID partitioning setting can be encrypted, and the resulting encrypted volumes can only be read on other Macs running Lion or Mountain Lion. Mountain Lion also adds encryption as an option for Time Machine backups, and there's a new command-line tool (fdesetup, well-described by Rich Trouton) that allows third-party tools and system administrators to monitor and adjust FileVault settings. ML's FileVault can sync credentials with a directory system in enterprise environments, and the overall encryption scheme is in the process of certification under the US government's FIPS 140-2 standard, appropriate for "sensitive but unclassified information." Encrypting removable drives is now three-clicks easy, but if you want to encrypt your startup disk completely the process has not changed markedly from Lion. Head into System Preferences under Security & Privacy and choose the FileVault menu. You will need to turn on FileVault there. You'll also need to make sure Recovery HD is installed on your hard drive. It should have been when you first installed your system, but it may not have if something went wrong. Then you'll need to have a password for all users using the encryption. Once you activate FileVault, you'll get a recovery key, which is a last-ditch effort to recover your files if your password is lost or forgotten. After that, your files are locked down. You can use the computer normally, but if you ever lose your password and that recovery key (or if someone tries to sneak in without those), your files won't be accessible. There is an option to save the key with Apple itself, but you'll have to answer some other security questions to retrieve it. FileVault also offers an "instant wipe" feature, which will wipe the encryption key and all of your files from your Mac. So if you do encrypt your files and ever need to pass it on to someone else, you can be sure none of your secrets will make the trip. FileVault is a powerful feature, and if you need to keep a secret, it can make an important task very simple. Update: Clarified that the new features in Mountain Lion are the Finder contextual menu, encrypted TM backups and the command-line fdesetup tool, not the underlying FileVault 2 encryption. Our apologies for the mixup.Mountain Lion 101: Finder encryption via contextual menu (updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Mac Os X Leopard-Chrome Version-Google Chrome-Ars Technica
Changes are coming for Chrome users who are running Mac OS X Leopard. According to reports in Ars Technica and CNET, Google is dropping support for OS X 10.5 with Chrome version 22.0.1201.0, which is now available in Chrome's developer channel. This version will make its way eventually into the public arena in the next few months. At that point, Leopard users will be stuck at the most recent version of Chrome. With Mountain Lion coming out later this month, now might be a good time for users to look into upgrading their OS if their hardware supports it (see Apple's Mountain Lion upgrade page) or start shopping for the new Mac hardware. I hear the new Retina Mac Book Pros are really nice. [Via CNET and Ars Technica]Google Chrome 22 dev release drops OS X Leopard support originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Virtualization Software-Desktop Software-Retina Display-Macbook Pro-Parallels
Parallels has announced that its popular virtualization software is ready for the Retina Display MacBook Pro. Parallels Mobile was updated for iOS device Retina Displays earlier this year. The desktop software has now followed suit and is ready to let you see OSes such as Windows 8 and Windows 7 running on your brand new MacBook Pro. And, if you need a copy of Parallels, you can grab it in this excellent bundle of software, featuring over $900 worth of apps for just $50. Someone asked me the other day how to find some excellent Mac apps, and I recommended they grab a bundle and start installing. Even if not all the apps are great, chances are there'll be something good in there well worth the purchase price. [via 9to5Mac]Parallels 7 for Desktop gets the Retina Display treatment originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Apple Store-Refurbs
Was there a run on last year's MacBook Pro models? A surge of orders for the factory certified, previously owned iPod nano? The reasons may be mysterious, but the symptom is oddly clear: everything -- yes, everything -- is out of stock in Apple's refurbished product section of the online Apple Store. Readers Charles and Joel tipped us off today that something was up, and sure enough when we looked there was nothing at all to buy in the discounted departments. Macs, iPads and iPods are all showing as "out of stock" in the US store special deals section. It's likely that the refurbished models will show up again soon, although there's always the chance that Apple is reworking the way it handles sales of those items. Refurb products are generally sold after having been repaired to Apple's standards, and carry a one-year warranty; they're often a good bargain for slightly older gear.Where have all the refurbs gone? Apple's online cupboard is bare originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 22:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Video Game Consoles-Component Video-Video Footage-Hd Pvr
Game capture is a bigger and bigger business lately -- with YouTube views earning money for partner channels, indie devs needing to capture video footage of their games, and lots of players just wanting to record their own gameplay for various purposes, there's a big call these days for full, HD video of gameplay captured from video game consoles. Hauppage has been making the HD PVR for a little while now: It's a run-through set-top box that's designed to capture video footage, specifically from a satellite or cable box (so you can record an HD TV signal as it comes in). But just a few months ago, Hauppage also introduced the HD PVR Gaming Edition, basically the same box, but designed to work directly with the top video game consoles: The PS3, Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii. And with the help of an app called HDPVRCapture, Hauppage's box works with your Mac computer. I've run the system through its paces, and I can say that despite some issues I had with setup (and a few missing features), the HD PVR Gaming Edition is an excellent way to capture high quality video game footage. Getting the unit plugged in was the hard part: All of my video game systems are well-ensconced in my entertainment center, so having to dive back into that tangle of wires was probably the hardest issue I had. For most of the capture, I used my PS3, so I had to pull the component cables out of my television, and then run the included cables with the HD PVR from the PS3 to the unit, and then a separate component cable from the PVR to the television. To go from the box to my Macbook, there was just a simple USB cable, so that part was super easy in comparison. The HD PVR itself has plenty of options: You can run through the component video hookups as I did (along with right and left audio), or run with Optical video out and in. On the front of the unit, there are also connections for SVideo, if you happen to be running that, or composite video from another console. The hookups on the box are solid, and the component video worked well. The HDPVRCapture software allows you to set a bitrate for recording the video, which mainly just affects hard drive usage (more video information obviously means more hard drive space used). To test, I first set the bitrate super low (at 1000 kbps), and as a result, the output video was grainy and hazy, albeit still usable. Running at a higher bitrate, however (I kicked it up to around 10000 kbps), creates really beautiful video -- full 1080i footage, perfect for playing on any HD television or projector (or, more likely, YouTube's HD settings). In fact, the video file that I created by running the device for about 30 minutes was so big and so HD that my little years-old Macbook actually had trouble running it, at least until I closed some other apps. Editing or even viewing video of that quality could be a problem if you have an old computer to work on. But most video editors will have computers much more powerful than my little laptop, so high quality video shouldn't be a problem. The HDPVRCapture software has plenty of options for recording and converting the video afterwards (the streams I recorded came out as .m2ts files, easily converted into .mp4 for playing on most video systems), and there are also controls for video light levels and sharpness, along with an option to hook up to iCal for a recording schedule (in case you do want to use this with a cable system to record TV shows). There's also a few network options, so you can hook up the software to automatically send recorded footage to a network drive, streaming it live or later on. I did have a few issues with Hauppage's box, however. First and foremost is the lack of an HDMI connection -- the component video looked great, but I usually run my PS3 with an HDMI cable, so to set the box up, I had to actually switch the system's video back over to component to use it. Elgato makes a competing box that only runs on HDMI, and since Apple sells an a read more..
Monday, 18 June 2012
Macbook Pro
The biggest selling feature of the next generation MacBook Pro is its Retina display. The notebook has an impressive 15.4-inch LED-backlit display with 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch. The specs look great on paper and according to a display-focused review by The Verge, the display looks amazing in person, too. This improvement is best seen in a side-by-side shot of Chrome on the non-Retina MacBook Pro and a Retina MacBook Pro. Text, which has blurry edges on the MacBook Pro, is crisp and defined on the Retina MacBook Pro. As noted, the Chrome team is already working on a Retina update; you can see the effect already if you want to run the Chrome Canary bleeding-edge nightly builds. You can check out the short review of the display and a full review of the Retina MacBook Pro on The Verge's website.Side-by-side browsers on MacBook Pro with Retina display originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 14 Jun 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Software Update-Thunderbolt-Gray Boot
Whoa. Thunderbolt must be extremely upset about having to share the spotlight with USB 3.0 on the new Mac models introduced yesterday, as Thunderbolt Software Update 1.2 (also released yesterday) is now causing boot failures. The issue was reported by TidBITS publisher Adam Engst this morning, who said that people are reporting "strange boot-related problems" such as kernel panics, lockups at the gray boot screen, "unexpected error" messages and other issues. It's a pretty serious problem -- the Macs are unusable after the update. Adam reports that the best fix at this point is to reinstall Lion. That's quite easy with Lion, although time consuming. Users need to boot into Recovery Mode during restart by holding down Command-R. Once booted, they can select "Reinstall Mac OS X". If you don't have a Recovery HD volume, then Lion Internet Recovery will take over and allow you to download a new Recovery HD image to boot from. Once Lion is reinstalled, do not reinstall Thunderbolt Software Update 1.2 unless you're a masochist and like to reinstall operating systems. If you have a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac and have not run the update yet, avoid it like the plague. It's only required for the new Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter anyway.Thunderbolt Software Update 1.2 reportedly causing boot failures originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 12 Jun 2012 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Todd Harrison
Todd Harrison got his hands on an old Apple II and meticulously restored the computer to working condition. He details the process in a lengthy blog post that covers everything from cleaning the external case to inspecting the layout of the logic board. It's more than just a simple tear-down, Harrison's description is filled with historical information about both the components and programming language that make up the Apple II. There's also gorgeous high-res photos of the disassembly process, so you can marvel at the intricate design of one of Apple's early model desktop computers. You can check out the narrative of the restoration on Harrison's website and watch a video walk through on his YouTube channel. [Via Make]Apple II torn down, restored to glory originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 05 Jun 2012 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
Completely Free-Mac Files-Recipient
WellRed Apps launched its DropKey file encryption app for Mac last month, but realized that there's one issue with gaining widespread acceptance -- it takes two to tango, and it takes two copies of DropKey (one each for sender and recipient) to send files securely. The company had been giving away one free license with each purchase of DropKey, but is going all-out through Sunday by making the app completely free. DropKey pairs 2048-bit keys with 256-bit encryption for incredible security. The app, which requires a Mac running OS X 10.7 or later, is integrated with Address Book and makes encryption drop-dead simple. When you launch DropKey for the first time, it generates your public and private encryption keys. You can email your public key to a trusted recipient from the app, which adds the key information to your address book card on the recipient's Mac. Prior to that time, a shared password is required; after the keys have been shared, you no longer need the password. DropKey is a useful app if you need to send encrypted information to co-workers on a regular basis, and there's no better time than now to download a copy for free from the Mac App Store.DropKey app encrypts Mac files, free through Sunday originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Friday, 18 May 2012
Unofficial Apple Weblog-Laptop Upgrades-Macbook Pro-Bloomberg
Bloomberg reports that Apple is preparing laptop upgrades with models that are thinner than the existing Pro units; the new machines are expected to run on Intel's Ivy Bridge processors. This follows on rumors from earlier today that a new MacBook Pro and iMac appeared on the Geekbench benchmarking tool. The machines, which Bloomberg says are to be announced during WWDC, are also expected to sport Retina or HiDPI displays and a flash memory subsystem to speed up boot times. All those details are in line with a post from 9to5 Mac earlier today. Bloomberg also says that Apple might announce Mountain Lion's release date during WWDC as well.Bloomberg: Apple will debut new laptop lineup at WWDC originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 14 May 2012 18:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Text Editor Bbedit-Official Site-Mac App Store-Bug Problems
The latest version of the acclaimed text editor BBEdit is out and available now, and as you can see on the official site, it features a whole host of fixes and updates to existing features. A number of crashing and bug problems have been solved, so the whole app should run smoother than ever before. BBEdit is a terrific editor whether you're putting together HTML and CSS, code in various languages, or just typing up to-do lists and quick blog posts. It's available in an individual license for $49.99, or you can get it in the Mac App Store for the same price.BBEdit 10.1.2 now available originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 10 May 2012 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Parallels Desktop-Virtual Machines
The Parallels Mobile app (US$4.99 intro price, regular price $19.99) received an update today that provides support for the Retina display on the new iPad. The update is free to all existing users of Parallels Mobile. Parallels Mobile is designed to allow remote operation of virtual machines running under Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac. According to the company, the user interface and icons of the app were re-created in 264 pixel per inch high-resolution for the best possible user experience. When your Mac or virtual machine resolution is set higher than 1024 x 768, it's now possible to see all of the applications, files and images on the virtual machine with outstanding image quality. Parallels has also improved the login experience for connecting your Mac and remote iPad, and the app now supports international keyboards for the Mac host and Windows virtual machines in all languages supported by iOS.Parallels Mobile updated for Retina display originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 02 May 2012 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments read more..