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The new iMacs have just been announced. As I have expected, these new iMacs are all-in-one G5's. Prices start at $1299 which includes Panther, iLife 04, AppleWorks, Quicken 2004 for Mac, World Book 2004 Edition, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, Apple Hardware Test and more. I just went through the stats and I'm just wondering why an internal Bluetooth module is an just an option and does not come standard for such a design. All in all though, another work of art from Apple!

Posted by Joel at 09:16 PM | Permalink |

Skype is now available for OS X! I have never used Skype before but I've heard a lot of good things about it from my friends in the PC side of the fence.

I'm now downloading the beta!

Posted by Joel at 06:35 PM | Permalink |

Apple and HP's respective iPod ads have been shown in the MTV Awards. I think I'll visit Apple and HP's sites to view the new ads. Call me strange but I think I've never sat through a complete MTV Awards telecast. I was even surprised at the MTV logo design (how long has it been since they've used the color 55C9E1?) Anyway, the closest I can get to supporting my favorite singers is buying their songs in the iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Joel at 07:38 PM | Permalink

If you're a Friendster member, you'd immediately see how fast the site is now! Dubbed as "slowster" by disappointed users, Friendster grew up too fast too soon and could not keep up with the volume of regular visitors. Friendster reveals another surprise: all The Apprentice contestants are in there, in their own exclusive page! The Apprentice premieres Sept 9 at NBC ... and that could explain Friendster's bandwidth boost.

Posted by Joel at 07:01 AM | Permalink

Here are the print ads for the HP iPod brought to us by MacMinute.

I can immediately see how incredibly creative the ad force of Apple is. For me, there's just nothing that compares to the simplicity and impact of Apple ads. Less is more.

Posted by Joel at 04:28 PM | Permalink

HP has now announced it's iPod. There's nothing new aside from an added HP logo at the back... which I think does not feel right to see on an iPod that's exactly the same as the original.

The wait for the this "new" iPod is nothing more than marketing preparations.

Posted by Joel at 09:31 AM | Permalink |

I've just seen this article, "Macs are more expensive, right?"

It just goes to show how choosing a Mac is wiser, and more cost effective solution. I agree with the article because upgrading my aging PC is already becoming costly. Only systematic eBay and Pricegrabber searches let me save a bit.

From the article: "At the low end, therefore, the PC desktops are marginally less expensive than the Macs -- if you can do without their connectivity and multimedia capabilities -- and considerably more expensive if you can't. At the very high end, however, all of the design focus is on multimedia processing and the PCs simply aren't competitive from either hardware or cost perspectives."

Posted by Joel at 11:54 AM | Permalink

AirPort 4.0.1 for Mac is now available.

What’s New in this Version

- Improvements to Profiles support in the AirPort Admin Utility

- Improve handling of WEP keys with third-party access points

It's not yet in the Software Update list but that link above should have a download link.

Posted by Joel at 11:41 AM | Permalink

Check out these high quality, do-it-yourself paper Transformers. Download the pdf files and use Preview to read through each design, then print out those you like. Great stuff!

"It is a world transformed, where things aren't what they seem. It's a world of Heroic Autobots and Evil Decepticons. It is the world of PAPERFORMERS!"

Posted by Joel at 09:17 AM | Permalink

I'm a fan of Planet of the Apes and Twilight Zone so out of curiosity I went to check out a site featuring the original Planet of the Apes transformed into black-and-white Twilight Zone episodes.

From The Forbidden Zone: "I started Planet of the Apes: The Forbidden Zone because I wanted to learn more about Planet of the Apes myself. I looked around the web for a good Apes site, but only found a couple of episode guides for the TV series. When I first started gathering information about POTA, I was surprised to learn that Rod Serling co-wrote the screenplay for Planet. Then suddenly it all made sense. "Of course! Planet is a two-hour episode of The Twilight Zone!""

I watched the first few minutes and was impressed by the quality (I'll download all of three 30-minute "episodes"). The project really turned out great! I smiled when I read this:

"I imported all of the footage into a Mac G4 with iMovie. Using iMovie created some challenges later in syncing up the audio at the end (iMovie 3 doesn't handle multiple transitions well, and I ended up using several), but overall it met my needs."

Each episode is about 60MB each. Check them out at the Forbidden Zone.

Posted by Joel at 07:04 AM | Permalink

It's Sunday night and Typhoon Chaba is expected to pass about 100 miles from us in a few hours. About 130 mph winds and up to 160 mph gusts are expected as we sleep tonight. There's still power over here but I'm sure we'll lose it soon.

I think we've pretty much covered all the typhoon-related precautions -- we've stocked up on water, food, and gas. I've also attached the storm shutters earlier today. My powerbook and TH55 are all fully charged just in case I crave for some ebook reading.

Posted by Joel at 10:18 PM | Permalink |

From Apple: "In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety authorities, Apple is voluntarily recalling certain lithium ion rechargeable batteries that were sold worldwide from January 2004 through August 2004 for use with 15-inch PowerBook G4 (Aluminum) notebook computers. These batteries were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea."

Read more at Apple.

Posted by Joel at 10:50 AM | Permalink

Wingnuts is free for .mac members! A 25% discount is also available for Airburst Extreme.

I've downloaded Wingnuts a while back and was impressed by its quality. It's a topdown shooter where your mission is to stop the time-traveller Baron Von Schtopwatch and his legions of robot planes.

Meanwhile Airburst Extreme is a cross between Pong and Breakout. Up to four players can play this game.

Posted by Joel at 06:57 AM | Permalink

According to iPodlounge, 42% of those who bought the new iPods are experiencing problems:

"Having problems with your fourth-generation (4G) iPod? You're not alone. Three weeks after the release of Apple's newest iPods, iPodlounge readers have reported that approximately 42% of their 4G units have manifested an audio defect identified by iPodlounge, while others have complained of receiving soiled or physically damaged hardware. The problems affect new-in-box 20 Gigabyte and 40 Gigabyte iPod models sold with a Click Wheel control system."

Posted by Joel at 07:55 PM | Permalink

Politics, sex, and religion as I've said before, are my not-to-be-discussed topics in public forums. These topics are only reserved to-be-discussed with close friends, family members, or in academic settings. Otherwise, if I encounter any of these in public forums, I just don't take the discussion seriously -- it results in a more stress-free environment for me and the people I deal with personally.

Posted by Joel at 07:34 PM | Permalink

Just when I was finishing up exploring Entourage, I discovered Mozilla Sunbird.

"The Sunbird Project is a redesign of the Mozilla Calendar component. Our goal is to produce a cross platform standalone calendar application based on Mozilla's XUL user interface language. At the moment the "Sunbird" name is a project name. It is not official and may change in the future."

I downloaded Sunbird of course and played with it for a few minutes. Sunbird, though in its early development stages, is stable. I'm sure it's a great addition to Firefox and Thunderbird.

Posted by Joel at 07:21 PM | Permalink

I can't believe it myself but I'm beginning to love Office 2004. Sure it's made by Microsoft but it's done by their Mac department who has perhaps created an MSOffice more beautiful than its Windows version.

I'm just using the Student and Teacher edition but everything's a great experience so far. I've been using Entourage but haven't tried syncing stuff with my TH55/E.

Posted by Joel at 03:21 PM | Permalink

This made me laugh:

Opera's least popular feature comes to Firefox!

adbar displays Google ads related to pages you view. Because the ads are relevant, they are occasionally useful. When adbar isn't displaying ads from Google, it displays Firefox-related things such as silly Firefox slogans, ads for other Mozilla software, and requests for donations to the Mozilla Foundation.

So if you want ads in Firefox, get adbar at squarefree.

Posted by Joel at 02:50 PM | Permalink

My favorite launcher, Quicksilver, has been updated. This latest version 1.0b28 features:

• Plug-in architecture refined
• Setup assistant can install some basic plugins
• More appearance settings

Quicksilver lets me press the Command+Space combination and type the first few letters of any application or file I want to launch. Pressing the Return key launches the application.

Posted by Joel at 02:44 PM | Permalink

My PC that is. Three years is probably enough for my ancient P4 1.7 and P4S5A motherboard with 512MB PC2100RAM. So I'm getting a not-so-top-of-the-line P4 again. This time I'm getting a P4 2.8, an MSI 865PE motherboard, and 512MB PC3200 RAM set. My basis for the choices come from the budget PC recommendations of SharkyExtreme. They've also recommended a Sapphire Radeon 9800 videocard but I'm not yet sure if I'm going ATI or Nvidia.

Posted by Joel at 10:16 PM | Permalink

I was looking through the features of Apple Remote Desktop 2 and comparing it with the free VNC software when it struck me...

... I think the new Apple "handheld computer" would use ARD or VNC technology so that iTunes can be remotely controlled to stream music through Airport Express.

This is not a standalone device because it would have to connect to a host computer to function. And here's what it would have. It would have a G3 processor together with 128MB of RAM. Hard disk space would be 4MB like that of the iPod Mini. It will of course, have WiFi built-in. All in all, the device would have to be powerful enough to run a slimmed-down OS X which would have a new version of iTunes. This iTunes version's sole purpose is to remotely interact with the main playlist of the host computer.

I'd like to call this device the iPad.

Posted by Joel at 09:56 PM | Permalink

I'm pretty much sure that the next iMac would be an all-in-one design. I'm just waiting for images of how it would look like. However, this is a surprise: according to MacMinute, Apple has:

"Apple has filed for a European design trademark that shows what appears to be a tablet computer. "The filing, made in May this year but only published this week, covers a 'handheld computer' and contains sketches of what look like an iBook screen minus the body of the computer," reports The Register. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said in the past that he has no plans to develop a tablet PC. "It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, people couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this," said Jobs. "We look at the tablet and we think it's going to fail. Tablets appeal to rich guys with plenty of other PCs and devices already. And people accuse us of niche markets."

Also, I've just skewed an iMac image up there to see how the tablet computer could look like.

Posted by Joel at 08:47 AM | Permalink

Ralf Demuth has released fantastic skin designs for Opera for Mac and Opera for Windows. My current favorites are the Safari, Firefox, and Camino skins which, I swear, have fooled me a couple of times into thinking I'm using the original apps.

Skins also serve another function: to ease the "shock" in adjusting in a new application environment.

Posted by Joel at 09:54 PM | Permalink

OmniWeb 5.0 is now available. It's not a free browser but there's a trial download. I would not pay for it and would not recommend it. Though it looks more "macified" compared to Opera, Opera's speed and functions is much better compared to OmniWeb.

If I were to rank browsers I would have this list:

1. Safari/Shiira
2. Opera
3. Firefox/Mozilla
4. Camino
5. IE
6. OmniWeb
7. Others

Why then is Opera second in the list despite all my rants about recommending it? Well, Safari is very much integrated with OS X. No other browser really comes close to OS integration as Safari.

Posted by Joel at 02:35 PM | Permalink

Here's one rumored design for the upcoming iMac G5. Of course, I'd prefer an all-in-one lcd with the cpu etc at the back of it.

Posted by Joel at 08:39 AM | Permalink

As rumored a few weeks ago, here's the official release of iSync 1.5. Startup your Software Update....

iSync lets you manage your contacts, calendars, To Do lists, and Safari bookmarks across multiple Mac OS X computers and devices (such as an iSync-compatible mobile phone, Palm OS device, or iPod), so you always have your most current information with you. To sync a Palm OS device, you need to install the iSync Palm Conduit version 1.2 or later.

iSync 1.5 adds support for more devices such as the latest Sony Ericsson and Motorola phones. For more information about supported devices and connectivity requirements, visit www.apple.com/isync.

Before you install iSync 1.5, you must install iCal 1.5.2 or later. To download the latest version of iCal, visit www.apple.com/ical, or use Software Update (in System Preferences) to install the latest version.

If you are using Mac OS X version 10.3 and plan to synchronize a Bluetooth mobile phone, you need to have Bluetooth version 1.5 or later installed. To download the latest version, use Software Update (in System Preferences). If you have an earlier version of Mac OS X, visit www.apple.com/isync to download the appropriate Bluetooth version.

Posted by Joel at 07:02 AM | Permalink

I've just discovered a novel written in blog form and it's strange because I find it easy to read blogs rather than reading a novel. Probably blogging has been a big part of my life that it's almost second nature for me to accept anything blogged.

Here's the novel: Roommate From Hell.

Posted by Joel at 12:36 PM | Permalink

I'm downloading the update as I write this... here's what's new:

The 10.3.5 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" and is recommended for all users.

Key enhancements include:
• improved support for NTFS formatted volumes
• improves reliability for user logins and mounting of home directories in a networked environment
• updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
• improved Bluetooth compatibility for Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse and Bluetooth phones
• additional FireWire and USB device compatibility
• improved font management
• updated Mail and Image Capture applications
• improved compatibility for third party applications
• previous standalone security updates

For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n25791
For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798

Posted by Joel at 08:53 AM | Permalink

I took a look at Camino a while ago and frankly, I'm astounded. It's fast, it's sleek, and it's made for the Mac. I think I'll use Camino as my default browser for a while and see what happens.

I'm using 2004080708 (v0.8+).

Posted by Joel at 08:53 PM | Permalink

I took a look at Camino a while ago and frankly, I'm astounded. It's fast, it's sleek, and it's made for the Mac. I think I'll use Camino as my default browser for a while and see what happens.

I'm using 2004080708 (v0.8+).

Posted by Joel at 08:52 PM | Permalink

9:27 - 10:11 was the time it took for me to recover from a hard reset to a fully restored TH55. Apparently, StylusType (a virtual keyboard rip off of VirtualKB) was the culprit. I ran it, didn't work, tried to uninstall it. It won't uninstall! So I tried Filez and was "successful" in trying to remove part of the files... from there, my TH55 was stuck in a reset loop.

So I did a hard reset and fired up a hotsync. Since The Missing Sync and iSync were there, the restoration process took some time. This could have been faster in a PC but I trust my Mac more... even if it takes a few more minutes to do syncs.

I found StylusType in my TH55 again but a simple delete process removed it.

Posted by Joel at 11:19 AM | Permalink

Use OS 9.

Let me explain. I've just finished reformatting 28 computers. It's a mixture of Bondi, PowerMac, iMac DV, eMacs and new iMac computers. So as not to confuse students when we're pointing out windows, buttons, and other processes during classes, we have to have a standard look for everything. So OS 9 is the only solution.

OS 9 works great for the Bondi computers but using it on the PowerMacs and eMacs is a fun experience. Windows open fast, Appleworks renders graphics without hiccups, and IE loads pages almost instantaneously (a big surprise is IE's page caching which rivals that of Opera for Windows and Mac!).

I wonder how OS 9 would perform in my Powerbook?

Posted by Joel at 05:37 PM | Permalink

Check it out with Automatic Update.

I've been using the beta and have not encountered any problems. As I've mentioned before, I like Internet Explorer in SP2. Though it faltered once or twice, it was a secure build. IE has a built-in popup blocker but I can't understand why there are no tabbed browsing features yet.

Posted by Joel at 05:25 PM | Permalink

iPhoto 4.0.3 addresses minor issues with Smart Albums and European books, and provides notification when new versions of iPhoto are available.

I believe this was available earlier but had to be pulled out by Apple. I'm guessing there were still minor problems to fix. The description above, by the way, the same as that for 4.0.2.

Posted by Joel at 02:57 PM | Permalink

Here's what's new. Opera is still my default browser, Mail my default email program, and Firefox, my default news post browser for 1src.

Anyway, here's the changelog...

Security

Denied write-access to properties on objects from scripts that fail a standard origin check, in order to block potential access by attackers to user's computer. Fixes critical vulnerability reported in GreyMagic Security Advisory GM#008-OP.

Fixed security issue regarding spoofing of the addressfield by loading other page contents while keeping the URL, reported in Secunia Advisory SA12162.

Blocked access to file:/ URLs from documents that are not themselves loaded from file:/ URLs.

Miscellaneous
Fixed problem with canceling connections/downloads.
Cache-size limitation improved.

Posted by Joel at 11:34 PM | Permalink

Welcome to the Mac world!

Posted by Joel at 03:02 PM | Permalink |

Ages ago, I was a runner up for a Quake 2 competition. From then on, my FPS skills have slowly deteriorated compounded by the fact that my interest drifted to the Clie and OS X. Anyway, this summer, I decided to finish one game. I didn't know I would end up finishing three.

For those who know me, I don't use cheats. I hate it when a game's so well designed that it's completely ruined by a god-mode or something. I also played these games on my PC (Pentium 4 1.7, Ti4600)

Anyway, here are the games plus some comments.

1.Call of Duty

I freaked out in this game. I was totally scared of dying during the early levels because I felt I was really there. I hated it when I turned corners only to meet German troops head on. For once, I was really cautious... liberally using anything to hide behind in and to attack from. Graphics and sound were realistically rendered. An exploding grenade and its resulting effects made me observe the situation with awe. This is my favorite game to date and It's probably because the setting is based on real life circumstances that made Call of Duty a not-to-be-missed experience.

2. Halo

I think Call of Duty trained me to be more cautious in this game allowing me to finish some of the tougher levels easily. Halo's level designs are fantastic. They're huge and offer many alternatives to solve a goal. Graphics and sound are well done and it's written well too.

3. Half Life

Half Life is a classic but I never really got to finish it during its time. This is a long, tiring, but exciting game. Each level is huge but a bit linear in design. However, it still manages to offer surprises until the very end. If there's a game that has tempted me to cheat, it's Half Life, where the closest I got to cheating was downloading a saved game file so that I can skip to the level I left off about four years ago.

Thanks to my girlfriend for explaining what "half life" really means.

Images were borrowed from Amazon.

Posted by Joel at 07:23 PM | Permalink |