Are you kidding me? I don’t know who this Mike Barton guy is, but he clearly must be trolling for hits on his blog.
Hey Mike – first of all, your comparison of the Macbook Air to a ThinkPad notebook you just bought is disingenuous because the ThinkPad you link to at $599 is USED, not NEW as you list it. Besides, refurb Macbooks can be found on the Apple Store for well under $1000 (some as low as $799). And we all know, refurb is much better than used, as you get a full warranty with an Apple refurb.
You’re right about Apple needing a budget laptop though. I mean, the sales of the Macbooks are just abysmal. Apple’s market share is just tanking. What will they ever do?
For the record, the above is sarcasm. Apple’s Macbooks at their $1099 – $1499 price outsell the competition, are extremely profitable, and Apple is kicking ass on the market share front.
In short, you don’t know what the hell you are talking about.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
Category: Opinion
I love my Mighty Mouse. It feels great in my hand, the scroll ball is absolutely a joy to use, and it tracks extremely well in OS X. The downside is that the scroll ball has a tendency to get dirty over time, and it can impair its ability to scroll. My Might Mouse started to suffer these problems, and after a couple of days, lost the ability to scroll down altogether.
A quick search of the web yielded a few different options on how to clean it. One of them takes it to the extreme and shows you how to dismantle the mouse and clean the internal parts individually. Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary for my mouse.
Apple has a knowledge base article on the topic, along with a Quicktime video demonstrating how to clean the mouse. Luckily, this was all I needed.
In short, I tried rolling the ball while wiping it with a slightly damp cloth. It didn’t help much at all. On Apple’s suggestion, I turned the mouse upside and performed the same action. Bingo. That did the trick.
So, the next time your Mighty Mouse stops scrolling, turn it upside down and give the scroll ball a few pushes. And if that doesn’t work, you can always disassemble it.
Category: News
Love Coda? Love TextMate? Wish that you could get Coda’s syntax coloring for HTML in TextMate? Well, here’s my first quick stab at replicating Coda’s syntax coloring in TextMate. Download the CodaHTML.tmTheme file, unzip, double click, and enjoy.
Category: Software,Web Development
NetNewsWire, which is arguably the best desktop news reading client available, just changed the game by reducing the cost of the application to zero. You heard me – NetNewsWire is free. Brett Simmons, the developer, has a full run down of what prompted the decision to release NNW as freeware.
The change of status accompanies version 3.1, which includes numerous enhancements and bug fixes. For those who aren’t aware, NetNewsWire can sync your feeds with NewsGator’s online service, allowing you to keep up with your feeds on your mobile device (say, an iPhone).
I’ve long loved NNW, but always felt the price was too high. Especially considering that I had multiple licenses of NewsFire. However, since I’ve had an iPhone, I’ve been loving Google Reader. Being able to have all my feeds in Google Reader and keep up with them through the day on my desktop, and then in the evening on my iPhone during my bus ride home has been wonderful. Sure, Google Reader isn’t as slick as NetNewsWire, but I think this is definitely an instance where the cloud app’s convenience factor outweigh’s the slickness of the desktop client.
(Via Inessential.)
Category: News,Software
The MacHeist Bundle is back! This year, the bundle promo runs for 15 days, and features the following applications:
- 1password
- CoverSutra
- Cha-Ching
- iStopMotion
- Awaken
- AppZapper
- TaskPaper
and when sales reach 5000 units, the following three apps will be unlocked:
- CSSEdit
- Snapz Pro X
- PixelMator
Like last year, 25% of sales go to charity.
Let the nay sayers complaints begin! Personally, I find this post by Scott Stevenson to sum it up best.
MacHeist » Bundle
Category: Software
New vector based drawing application from TweakerSoft. Initial impressions are very positive. It looks to give LineForm some good competition. Among the features unique to VectorDesigner are integration with Flickr (allowing for quick search and retrieval of Flickr images inside VectorDesigner), and a conversion between raster and vector formats. VectorDesigner 1.0 is $49.95 until after Macworld, at which point it will be bumped up to the normal price of $69.95
Category: Software
One week before Macworld San Francisco 2008, Apple has decided to release updated versions of the Mac Pro and Xserve.
The new Mac Pro, features the following stock configuration at a price of $2,799:
- two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors with dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses;
- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory;
- 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
- 16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
- two PCI Express 2.0 slots and two PCI Express slots;
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR; and
- ships with Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse.
The new Xserve, at $2,999, features:
- a single 64-bit 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processor with 12MB of L2 cache and a 1600 Mhz front side bus;
- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM RAM, expandable up to 32GB;
- a single 80GB SATA Apple Drive Module;
- dual Gigabit Ethernet on-board;
- internal graphics;
- two FireWire® 800 and three USB 2.0 ports; and
- an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard.
Both machines can be customized, of course.
One has to wonder – with Macworld a week away, why release new Macs now? The only logical conclusion is that Apple has enough new products (outside today’s launches) to occupy an entire keynote. Let the speculation begin!
Category: Apple
Macinstein is reporting that among the other various bug fixes in Mac OS X 10.5.2, there is an “enhancement” to the way that Stacks works. In short, Apple has added the ability to display Stack’s content as a Folder or Stack, and as List items, the way they were presented before Stacks.
If this enhancement ends up shipping in 10.5.2, I will be one happy camper.
Category: News
Safari 2 passed the Acid2 test when it was released. It was one of the first browsers to do so (Opera might have beat Safari by a couple of months). Word hit yesterday that the IE team had their in house IE8 build pass the Acid2 test for the first time. Things are looking up for developers who support standards!
However, look at this screenshot of the Acid2 test in Safari 3.04 (both Windows and Mac). It seems that Safari is suffering a regression.
Here’s hoping the Safari team can fix this glitch quickly. I’d hate to live in a world where IE passes the Acid test, and Safari fails.
Category: Apple,Web Development
I’ve noticed that under Leopard, many installs that used to require a forced restart, now do not. One of these, is the Cisco VPN client, which I am required to use for my day to day work. Under Tiger, once the app was installed, the installer (the standard Apple supplied one) required a restart. Under Leopard, the install completes, it gives you the big green check mark, and you’re done.
However, I’ve noticed that many of these apps still require a restart even though the installer isn’t forcing it on you. The Cisco VPN client will not work until you restart you Mac, in my testing. I’ve stumbled upon a few other apps that still require a restart even though the installer doesn’t force it on you. One of those is MySQL (MySQL 5.0.45, i386).
So, if you have completed and install in Leopard, and your app is seemingly not working, try a restart. It might just fix the issue.
Category: News
