Apple don’t let me down!

So its no secret that I reallllly want an iPhone, now there’s a slight murmur in the house that if I make certain goals, that I’ll get one. However, I might save my “iPhone” purchase till the 3G iPhone comes out. Smart idea right? Well there’s a few things that have me nervous about this new model that everyone is buzzing about. First off the design, sure I’d love it to be all black, that’d be cool, but now Apple Insider says we might see the aluminum backs become plastic, which I don’t think i’d like (wouldn’t that be easier to scratch?). Also, I think the MacBook Air like - “tapered design” that they mentioned might also be kind of disgusting. I guess I should have more faith in Apple, new designs are always better than the previous.

However there’s one thing that has REALLY got me biting my nails, accessories. Now the current iPhone comes with the headset, dock, usb cable, usb charger, and cleaning cloth. I’m nervous they’ll drop these accessories and turn them into purchasable accessories. They did this with the iPod, it used to come with the dock and the charger (and I think at one point a case too), but then they dropped the included dock, and now they don’t include the wall charger anymore either. Another example is with the Mac Remote, it has been coming included, but now the new macbook makes you PURCHASE it if you want one.

I understand they’re a business, but please apple I’d really like the dock, headset, and charger when I go to buy my iPhone!

 

So I just wanted to put that out there.

Psystar In the Wild!

So the famous tech. blog Engadget has gotten their Psystar Open computer! You know the PC that comes with OS X Leopard (not to mention Leopard is unmodified - according to Psystar). Engadget has posted some unboxing pictures as expected. The computer comes packed in that oh so foam-peanut packaging that PC users know so well. One thing, that I’m really impressed with is the PC’s number of ports, I saw 6 USB (four on the front - two on the back), 2 VGA, a DVI, your standard PC keyboard and mouse plugs, the printer port, serial part, ethernet, audio ports, (some circular port on the video card that i couldn’t determine), and another audio in-out on the front. On the font there were two places where 2 more USB could go and a firewire 400 port, but I’m assuming that’s for a higher-end model. This blows away the iMac completely with peripherals, but doesn’t quite match the Mac Pro (except for the Psystar’s 6 USB ports, compared to the Pro’s 5).

Engadget hasn’t posted anything yet as far as performance or system stability, just the unboxing pictures. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated! Thanks for reading, ~Chris~

Here’s the link to Engadget’s unboxing article

Afloat : Update

Hey everyone, so its’ been a few days (Word Press says its was yesterday, but its got me in some funky time zone) since I took the time to review the OS X plugin “Afloat.” I standby what I said, about how its user friendly, and has a nice interface. I also standby what I said about a few of its errors. However, I take back what I said about it not being useful! After using it, I really like what it does sometimes I really need some windows to be transparent! I use it mostly with iChat because I want to be able to do whatever it is that I’m doing distraction-free, but still keep an eye on the chat (and of course respond when needed). Also, Im not having any more problems with text overlapping! Which is always a good thing! So I’m changing that ⅖ rating to a ⅘ because it’s a VERY nice little plug-in!

Who uses Messenger!?

Now, I recently caught wind that Microsoft Messenger 7 has been released, like a good little Software reviewer I went and downloaded it. Then of course started a review of it. The setup feature was nice (even though I had to create a Live account, because I don’t use Live OR messenger), but ended up cutting the review short. Why? Because no one really uses Microsoft Messenger unless they have to. Its true……

Interesting Silence From Apple

Since Leopard’s release we’ve seen a lot of non-apple machines running Leopard. Sure, this isn’t too odd, but what is odd is the fact that Apple hasn’t come after these jerry-rigged machines.

For example, Psystar has been captivating Apple-rumor sites, by allegedly selling a PC, pre-installed with Leopard. It’s been about 2 weeks, and Apple hasn’t tried to shutdown or sue this company. 9to5mac was the first to raise the question of why Apple has remained silent about these OS X rigged PC’s. I’m wondering the same thing myself.

So Mr. Jobs, how do you feel about this Psystar mac? A few home brew geeks or a serious problem?

 

Link to the original 9to5mac article

question

How would you describe these ads? The feeling of them? I just cant pin point them….COMMENTS PLEASE!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2diWPmU7i_M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi8_rRq8os

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGD9J3pEtU

Thanks, ~Chris~

PS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY iTunes Store!

New iMacs

So sometime this morning Apple released a new line of iMacs. As expected, this update simply gave the iMacs a nice power boost. The consumer-based Apple, can now be purchased up to a powerful 3.06GHz!

The 3.06Ghz iMac also packs 2GB of ram, and a 500GB hard drive, which shows how the standards are really changing. (For example the standard Hard Drive capacity, the processor speed, and the standard amount of ram.) Sure, these things normally change over time, but they’ve actually changed dramatically over the last few years. For example when I bought my “Blackbook” (summer 2006-first gen.) it went up to 2.0GHz, had 512 MB of ram (with a max. of 2GB) and a 80GB hard disk. Now the black MacBook has a speed of 2.4 GHZ, comes with 2GB of ram standard (with a max. of 4GB) and a 250GB hard drive.
This makes me wonder if we’ll see a new Mac Pro sometime soon; maybe going up to 3.4-6GHz? Especially since the high-end iMac is 3.06 is catching up with the Mac Pro’s 3.2. However, I think we’ll see a new MacMini first (high end is 2.0GHz, 1GB of Ram, and a 120GB hard drive).

Afloat Review

Click Here to Watch The Video

★★☆☆☆

Afloat is a simple little freeware app put out by Infinite-Labs, that lets you customize the appearance of Cocoa apps in Mac OS X. It’s currently in its 2nd version, and now requires Leopard. To appeal to the code-gurus out there, its open source. Afloat gives you a few different options on how to customize your windows, which I go over in the video. Afloat is user friendly, and has a nice interface.

I did have a few problems with it, first off, there needs to be a universal setting, so that you don’t have to change each individual window. Secondly, when I had a window transparent, and then changed something in it (like in a Pages document) it would keep the old one there underneath the new text. A very unfortunate flaw, because  then you’ve got two pictures or fonts or whatever you’ve modified, overlapping each other.

So, in conclusion I give it a ⅖ on a scale, just because even though its in version 2.0, it feels very beta-ish.

Quick Shortcut Tips:

Okay, so first off, if you’re a professional or even mediocre at computing, you might not find this useful. However, for the rest of you here’s a quick “translation” of all those shortcut symbols in the menu bar:

⌘ - Apple Key (a.k.a. command)
⌥ - alt/option key
⌃ - Control (your key might just say ctrl)
⌫ - backspace/delete
⌦ - Forward delete (on a laptop its simply function+delete)

Finally the shift key is a little arrow pointing up, but unfortunately there’s no way to put that in text or at least I couldn’t find one. It’s pretty self-explaintory, hope that clears up any confusion you might have!

Woah, that’s awesome!

So I just downloaded Mars Edit for Mac OSX
and let me just say that its freaking amazing! I opened it (30 day free-trail) and I selected that I already had a blog, and then it imported my ENTIRE blog from WordPress!

How awesome is that!
So If I end up buying it, I’ll be sure to review it! ($29.99)