Posted by Mirko at 03:09 PM | Permalink

When the iPhone App Store launched last Friday along with the new 3G iPhone, free apps made up 24 percent of the 552 apps available. In other words, the most popular price point was free. The rest of the apps ranged in price from 99 cents to $9.99 and even more. Instead of dictating a uniform price, as he did with music, Steve Jobs let the market decide what price apps should go for. The market is already doing that sorting.

Posted by Mirko at 03:05 PM | Permalink

Blogging through Safari is practically impossible on the iPhone due to the excessive real estate taken up by the keyboard. Native apps have the potential to make the whole ordeal much more manageable, and they could spawn a new trend of bloggers who post while on the road.

Posted by Mirko at 10:59 AM | Permalink

It is certainly possible to make money selling software at $5 or $10 a pop, but you have to do significant volume to make it pay. $20-$49/pop can add up pretty quickly (as many successful shareware authors can attest to), but $5-$10/pop requires real volume.

Posted by Mirko at 10:56 AM | Permalink

Apple finally let developers know when their iPhone apps will be live on the App Store for users to download and use: around 9 am PST Thursday morning. That, at least, is when the embargo lifts and press can start writing about the specific applications. Presumably the App Store will go live, along with iPhone 2.0 software in general, around that time.

Posted by Mirko at 11:46 AM | Permalink

Lextech Labs introduced iRa, a remote surveillance viewing and control system that puts the power of multiple live video feeds and direct camera pan-tilt-zoom control in the palm of your hand on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Posted by Mirko at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Delicious Library 2 is most beneficial in that it provides a record of most things that you own, and it does it in a fun way. It is actually exciting to feel like you are a checker at a store as you scan items into your library.

Posted by Mirko at 02:21 PM | Permalink

Cornerstone integrates all of the features you need to interact with your repository and does so in an elegant and easy-to-use fashion. Whether you're new to versioning or a Subversion expert, Cornerstone will help streamline your workflow and make version control more transparent.

Posted by Mirko at 12:28 PM | Permalink

OmniGroup's plan for the iPhone version of OmniFocus was not to be merely a companion to the desktop version, and since day one has planned a standalone version of OmniFocus. That means that, unlike some other projects, OmniFocus for the iPhone allows its user nearly the full spectrum of capability you expect from such an application. This includes adding, deleting, and editing tasks, organizing and prioritizing those tasks, and marking tasks as complete.

Posted by Mirko at 10:06 PM | Permalink

Sketches allows iPhone owners to draw on top of photos they synced from iPhone or snapped with the built-in camera. The killer "feature" is the ability to shake your iPhone to erase what you had drawn. Compared to the bare bones features you may have played with in the original version of Sketches, the application that the team at LateNiteSoft will be selling on the Apple App Store is nigh unrecognizable.

Posted by Mirko at 04:25 PM | Permalink

Apple today introduced MobileMe, a new Internet service that delivers push email, push contacts and push calendars from the MobileMe service in the “cloud” to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs. MobileMe also provides a suite of elegant, ad-free web applications that deliver a desktop-like experience through any modern browser. MobileMe applications include Mail, Contacts and Calendar, as well as Gallery for viewing and sharing photos and iDisk for storing and exchanging documents online.

Continue reading "Apple introduces MobileMe Internet service" »

Posted by Mirko at 06:54 PM | Permalink

The latest release to the PGP Encryption Platform, PGP Whole Disk Encryption 9.9 adds pre-boot authentication to the proven PGP Corporation data encryption technology for Intel-based Mac OS X systems “Tiger” and “Leopard,” providing protection for data on desktops, laptops, and removable media.

Posted by Mirko at 04:08 PM | Permalink

Screenflick features high performance screen capturing for smooth, fluid motion up to 60 fps. It can record any portion of the screen, simultaneously recording audio from internal or external microphones and the system audio.

Posted by Mirko at 10:20 PM | Permalink

RelatedMail is a very useful plugin for Apple Mail that shows messages related to the currently viewed message.

Posted by Mirko at 10:14 PM | Permalink

ReadAir is an OS X themed desktop client that was built with Adobe Air.

Posted by Mirko at 03:06 AM | Permalink

PocketTweets is a Web-based Twitter client for the Apple iPhone. See the latest tweets from your contacts, update your status remotely, or see what's happening around the world by viewing the public timeline - all via EDGE or WiFi.

Posted by Mirko at 12:54 AM | Permalink

One of the smartest things Apple did with Mac OS X was to offer software development tools for free to anyone with a Mac. Apple therefore made it easy for anyone to create useful and innovative Mac applications. Until recently, Microsoft charged several hundred dollars to acquire a similar set of tools.

Posted by Mirko at 03:51 PM | Permalink

The Launcher isn't intended to replace a full-blown IDE or editor. However, basic tasks are now trivial. To create "hello world", you now just type a name and click twice. And deployment of a finished application to Google is a single click away. With the Launcher, you can focus on your app instead of the tools.

Posted by Mirko at 03:39 PM | Permalink

It's a long time coming but there is finally a file sharing application for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Posted by Mirko at 09:56 PM | Permalink

It's not from Apple, but it gives a pretty good idea of what to expect from them, specially knowing that only one guy—Christian Moore—got this system running at full speed on a simple Intel-based MacBook. His Lux free open framework enables true multitouch interaction in Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 07:29 PM | Permalink

SilverFlow is a plugin for the application launcher Quicksilver, adding a new interface.

Posted by Mirko at 11:48 AM | Permalink

Open-With Manager lets you edit the list of file types a given application thinks it can open. This is most useful with regard to the Finder's "Open with" context menu; and it also affects the way applications behave when you drag files to their Dock symbols.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Posted by Mirko at 11:08 PM | Permalink

A teenager is making a multi-touch table running Mac OS X, similar to Microsoft's Surface, for a science fair. The table uses infrared light emitting diodes, where an IR camera transmits input via fingertip motions to the computer running Mac OS X.

Posted by Mirko at 10:59 PM | Permalink

Hahlo is the original Twitter client for iPhone/iPod Touch. It's built on top of the great APIs provided by Twitter and Summize. Just one of the great new features in version 3 is the search capabilities that are made possible via the Summize API. Hahlo 3 has an all-new menu which brings all the great features right to your fingertips. Hahlo's aim is to provide as much of the Twitter.com functionality as possible, in an interface that is as easy to use as it is on the eyes.

Posted by Mirko at 12:04 AM | Permalink

In January NewsGator announced that all of its consumer products, including NetNewsWire, were going free. NetNewsWire 3.1 was released that same month, but Brent isn't one to let a version sit for very long. Citing NewsGator's new focus on "[taming] the information overload problem," Brent is working on NetNewsWire 3.2 and 4.0 almost in tandem, with a decent set of changes and new features already lined up for both.

Posted by Mirko at 01:53 PM | Permalink

Parallels has released a new beta build of Parallels Server for Mac that now supports creating virtual machines to run Leopard Server. When the company released last month's public beta of Parallels Server for Mac (which also supports versions of Windows and Linux), it had removed support for Leopard Server VMs due to technical and performance issues.

Posted by Mirko at 02:58 PM | Permalink

Time Machine users, rejoice! Pierce T. Wetter III has provided a modified version of the GrandPerspective utility - a version that understands the use of file and folder hard links peculiar to a Time Machine backup. You can use this modified GrandPerspective to scan your entire Time Machine backup folder. For one thing, this tells you immediately how big your Time Machine backup really is (something that's surprisingly hard to find out otherwise).

Posted by Mirko at 02:55 PM | Permalink

Paragon Software released the free Rescue Kit for Mac OS X - Lite which allows users to recover quickly and easily from system problems by rescuing important data and restoring their system back to its original state. The tool kit comes with fully automated wizards that allow users to easily backup and restore partitions.

Posted by Mirko at 02:40 AM | Permalink

This guide will show you how to access a computer located on your home network from outside of your local area network. For the purposes of this guide, let’s assume we are trying to access a HOME SERVER such as a Mac Mini located on your home WiFi router. The home computer could just as easily be a Ubuntu, or similarly flavored Linux machine. The first thing that we will need to do is determine your home IP address, and then we will setup port forwarding on your wireless router. Keep reading to get started with this process or go here to learn how a SSH Tunnel works.

Posted by Mirko at 04:26 PM | Permalink

DMG Architect is the easiest way to create professional disk images for commercial distribution or for your own personal use. Design, test, burn and release all from one app.

Posted by Mirko at 09:32 PM | Permalink

CCC 3.0 features a new interface designed to make the cloning and backup procedure more intuitive and more responsive. Users have better control over what gets backed up, and are provided with detailed information about the progress of their backup. In addition to general backup, CCC can also clone one hard drive to another, copying every single block or file to create an exact replica of your source hard drive.

Posted by Mirko at 05:58 PM | Permalink

Knapsack, is a personal travel organizer for Mac OS X Leopard. You can plan your itinerary in detail, use the enclosed checklist to keep track of all your unfinished business or create lists of various things, create groups, and more.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

If you need to rename several files at once every now and then, this is the application you have always been looking for. Name Mangler is a batch file renamer that supports all common renaming tasks: Find and Replace (including support for regular expressions); Number Sequentially; Change Case; Set Extension; Add Prefix/Suffix; Remove/Insert Characters.

Moreover, you can combine all of these using the Advanced renaming mode, which even comes with some extra features, such as conditional statements, nested counters, and more.

Posted by Mirko at 03:21 AM | Permalink

Some of the changes in Leopard are obvious—Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, and so on. Others are more subtle. Here are some tips and tricks for working with some of the lesser known new features in System Preferences and Terminal.

Posted by Mirko at 12:15 PM | Permalink

Apple would like you to believe that Mac OS X is a complete package, able to fulfill all your needs out of the box. But unless your needs are limited to e-mail and web browsing, there's plenty of room to improve upon OS X's solid foundations. You could go out and spend hundreds of dollars on software, but in most cases there's no need to fork over your hard earned cash. Here's a list of all the free software you need to trick out your Mac.

Posted by Mirko at 12:27 AM | Permalink

Whois or "Who is," is a way to query for contact information (or domain name ownership information) about the person or company in control of a site. If you want to know who runs a website, you don't have to look any further than your Mac and opening a Terminal window.

Posted by Mirko at 12:33 AM | Permalink

Aperture 2 isn't doing anything groundbreaking over the previous version, but the better overall speed and Quick Preview combined with background processing alone will be worth the cost of the upgrade for many users. If you're just checking out Aperture since running like the wind from version 1.0, rest assured that Aperture 2.0 is a completely different animal and produces very good results most of the time. Its new interface is easier to navigate and is more customizable, so it will accommodate different users' workflows.

Posted by Mirko at 02:16 PM | Permalink

Apple previewed its iPhone 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

Continue reading "Apple iPhone 2.0 software beta" »

Posted by Mirko at 01:57 PM | Permalink

ExpanDrive gives you perfectly transparent access to open, edit, and save files with your favorite programs, even when those files are half a world away. Transparent means that you don’t even notice you’re operating on remote files—they act like they’re on an USB drive you plugged directly into your own computer. Daring Fireball has a good article about this software title.

Posted by Mirko at 03:09 PM | Permalink

Apimac released Compress Files ‘08, a compression tool for Mac OS X that enable Mac users to create a variety of compressed and encrypted files as well as encrypted disk images. For high security, you can use Compress Files to encrypt part of your hard disk through the use of an encrypted disk image protected with a password.

Posted by Mirko at 08:41 PM | Permalink

Mac OS X has free software fans, and a well-maintained collection of software at MacPorts, but for a long time those fans have been limited to the command line for finding, installing, and updating the offerings. Now a new utility called Porticus has arrived to present a slick GUI interface to the MacPorts collection, and it could make some converts.

Posted by Mirko at 10:44 PM | Permalink

"Apple wants to use [Blu-ray] as a creative tool," notes Yankee Group's Carl Howe, not simply add it to a MacBook Pro's feature list. Put another way, Apple is waiting for some decent Blu-ray software.

As Howe notes, Apple usually doesn't throw new technologies into its computers unless it also has decent software support. This was true when Apple started shipping SuperDrives in its systems in 2001, and it will also be true when Apple finally begins to include Blu-ray drives, according to Howe.

Posted by Mirko at 12:57 AM | Permalink

Chris Pirillo writes: "Microsoft does some amazing things - very amazing things. My choice, however, for a primary desktop operating system is no longer Windows - it’s Mac OS X. Duh. It’s rather difficult to admit that officially, if only because… well, I think Microsoft does amazing things."

Posted by Mirko at 06:56 AM | Permalink

PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, is a commonly used and very secure encryption program using public key cryptography. Through PGP, you can encrypt information such as messages, documents and files in a manner so that only the recipient can decrypt and open them. The goal of this tutorial is to get you up and running with PGP through terminal and familiar with its operation.

Posted by Mirko at 06:45 AM | Permalink

Apple today introduced Aperture 2, the next major release of its groundbreaking photo editing and management software with over 100 new features that make it faster, easier to use and more powerful.

Continue reading "Apple releases Aperture 2" »

Posted by Mirko at 04:21 PM | Permalink

Cocoa Packet Analyzer is a native cocoa implementation of a network packet protocol analyzer for Mac OS X. It uses libPCAP for reading packet trace files and for capturing network traffic.

Posted by Mirko at 03:07 PM | Permalink

The fresh security update addresses 11 issues. Learn more at Help Net Security.

Posted by Mirko at 03:03 PM | Permalink

Working with a lot of photos to upload can be a pain, especially with any sort of web-based interface. No matter how well-designed the interface is, you're still in a web browser and suffer from the limitations therein. The answer to effectively organizing and uploading tens, or even hundreds, of photos to Flickr is to use a desktop application specifically designed to help you accomplish this task. Enter Photonic.

Keep in mind that, unfortunately for many, Photonic is Leopard-only.

Posted by Mirko at 05:17 PM | Permalink

In the four years since the last major version of Microsoft Office, Entourage has probably come under more attack from Apple’s applications than any other member of the Office suite. OS X’s Mail, Address Book, and iCal have all come to offer credible alternatives to Entourage’s core features. So how does Entourage 2008 stand up to Apple’s triumvirate? Read this article to find out.

Posted by Mirko at 01:15 PM | Permalink

Fortunately for anyone with a stylish iBrick adorning their coffee table, there is hope, and that hope's name is iPhone firmware 1.1.3. Braving the dangerous seas of unlocked iPhones and firmware updates, Gizmodo was able to successfully recover a phone originally unlocked with AnySIM, activate it in iTunes for AT&T, make calls, and use data.

Posted by Mirko at 11:23 PM | Permalink

Non Stop Mac reader Bud points out a very insidious error with Microsoft Word 2008 that has been making his installation on a 4GB MacBook Pro with OS X 10.5.1 pretty useless. He said: "Word 2008 crashes on me if I resize the main window from its' (narrow) default, then restart. Have to delete the pref file to get it to open normally again."

If you're wondering about his OS, Bud's tried the install on different machines: "Now I've installed it on a 2GB MacBook Pro (non-hi-res, 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, also running OS X 10.5.1), and after verifying that everything worked okay initially, I tested to see if I could repeat my problem (below), and I can. On the first notebook, by the way, I can no longer start Word, even by deleting the prefs for Word, and Office itself, since I 'customized' my toolbars by adding the formatting toolbar. (Can't imagine anyone doing that!) On the second machine, I am able to restart Word for now, even after having added the formatting toolbar (which is removed of course since I deleted the Word and Office prefs). On the second installation, I didn't allow Office 2008 to delete Office 2004, so I'm learning"

Let's hope this issue is resolved soon. With several installations it cannot be just a fluke.

Posted by Mirko at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (42)

After four years of waiting, Mac users are finally able to get their hands on a new version of Microsoft Office.

Posted by Mirko at 12:46 AM | Permalink

Apple today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard including the amazing Time Machine automatic backup software.

Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Simply plug it in, then easily set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac in your house to a single Time Capsule with just a few clicks. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

Continue reading "Apple Time Capsule - wireless backup for all your Macs" »

Posted by Mirko at 07:00 PM | Permalink

Adobe announced the highly anticipated Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 software for Macintosh is now available for pre-order for US$89.99. Photoshop Elements 6 software for Mac combines power and simplicity so consumers at all experience levels can easily achieve outstanding results with their digital photos. Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh will run on Leopard, (Mac OS X v 10.5), as well as previous versions of Mac OS X starting with 10.4.8.

Continue reading "Adobe unveils Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac" »

Posted by Mirko at 03:10 PM | Permalink

NewsGator announced that all of its client RSS reader products are now available free of charge and include free synchronization along with other services. Users can now enjoy the great features and performance of all of NewsGator’s Web, desktop and mobile readers for iPhone, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry (powered by FreeRange), all synchronized to provide the same view of their RSS content no matter when or where they read it.

Posted by Mirko at 02:44 PM | Permalink

Adium 1.2 is a major feature release with a ton of fantastic improvements as well as a a ridiculous number of bug fixes. There's the improved Adium menu item and account management features, various and sundry improvements to Jabber support (including SSL certification authentication, server-supplied action support, and discovery services browsing), fixed Bonjour local area network messaging with file transfers, better group chat (conferencing), a completely rewritten Applescript dictionary which should lead to all sorts of powerful new interactions with other programs, and detachable groups.

Posted by Mirko at 11:40 AM | Permalink

Until the 1.1.3 firmware is successfully hacked by the resourceful iPhone hackers, you can still enjoy all of the features the update is bringing and more with your jailbroken iPhone. Here's a look at 20 outstanding (that's right, 20) third-party iPhone and iPod touch apps.

Posted by Mirko at 01:34 PM | Permalink

Hydra is a software that gives human eye perception to photographies by creating high dynamic range (HDR) images from a series of regular photographies, either from DSLRs or traditional point-and-shoot cameras.

Continue reading "Create HDR photos with Hydra" »

Posted by Mirko at 08:05 AM | Permalink

Regardless of where you stand on the Office versus iWork question, there's no denying that Redmond has has churned out some pretty impressive and very Mac-like software. In this review the author takes a brief look at the Office 2008 versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage to give you an idea of how the MBU has spent the past few years.

Posted by Mirko at 09:15 PM | Permalink

More information at Touchmodders.

Posted by Mirko at 05:25 PM | Permalink

Flickr Finder is a free, Mac-only application that lets you browse Flickr photos without a browser. The interface is similar to the Mac Finder.

Posted by Mirko at 07:14 PM | Permalink

Apple fixes a variety of issues, click here for more details.

Posted by Mirko at 03:12 AM | Permalink

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

Posted by Mirko at 05:22 PM | Permalink

There's never been a better time to void the warranty on your MacBook Pro and upgrade to one of those sweet 2.5" WD Scorpio 320GB drives. That was what made me throw caution to the wind and attempt a Time Machine-assisted swap. The good news is, it works as billed. You get a bit-for-bit transfer to the virgin drive with minimal fuss.

Posted by Mirko at 06:59 AM | Permalink

Here is a little movie of ProRemote in action connected to a ProTools LE rig.

Posted by Mirko at 06:41 PM | Permalink

NetNewsWire is arguably the most popular desktop feed reader on the planet. That does not, however, mean that NetNewsWire is the most popular RSS reader, period. Far from it, actually. Find out heavy details about NetNewsWire in this article.

Posted by Mirko at 12:03 AM | Permalink

It's like explaining the difference between a Buick and a BMW. Both get you from here to there, only the ride is generally smoother and more fun. Put another way, Windows users tolerate their computers to get stuff done. The Mac crowd enjoys its machines, whether managing music in iTunes or pictures in iPhoto.

Posted by Mirko at 12:00 AM | Permalink

What's the deal with SNMP? Well, the 'deal' is that people wanted a flexible, relatively low overhead way to manage their network. They wanted a way to read and set information, and have devices inform them when something goes wrong, or is about to go wrong. The result is SNMP. Now, why "Simple", when, as we shall see, it's actually pretty complex. Well, it's "Simple" in the sense that there's not much to it. There's about three things that can happen in SNMP:

1. You can query a value and get a reply
2. You can set a value and get a return code
3. An SNMP-enabled device can send you a notification, or "trap"

That's pretty much the entire range of SNMP right there, and of the three, two is the least common. It's what you do with those numbers that gives you the power, or rather, what utilities like Nagios, Cacti, and Lithium do with the numbers that make things interesting.

Posted by Mirko at 06:24 AM | Permalink

Shopping for Mac users and Apple fans can sometimes be a challenge -- especially if you want to get something other than the obvious choices, or if you're not as big an Apple fan as the person you're shopping for. With that in mind, here are 10 great gift ideas for the Mac user on your list.

Posted by Mirko at 12:12 AM | Permalink

FlickrShop is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that allows you to upload images to Flickr photo sharing website directly from Adobe Photoshop.

Posted by Mirko at 03:30 AM | Permalink

Here's a comprehensive list of ways to speed up Aperture. Some are quick, some are cheap, some are neither.

Posted by Mirko at 11:06 AM | Permalink

The new version of Mail in Leopard introduces a ‘message:’ URL handler that allows you to refer to individual messages in Mail from other applications. You can use a utility such as RCDefaultApp to see that Mail registers as the default handler for the “message:” scheme. That Mail now supports these URLs does not seem to be documented by Apple anywhere, but it’s fairly simple, and very useful.

Posted by Mirko at 11:00 AM | Permalink

FlickScreen makes uploading screenshots to Flickr as simple as taking screenshots on your mac now. While FlickScreen is running it lives in your menu bar and is always available to you regardless of what you are working on. You can capture and upload by selecting an option from the FlickScreen menu or by invoking it from your keyboard. Before you upload you have the opportunity to set the title, description and tags for your screenshot so that no further editing is necessary.

Posted by Mirko at 12:09 PM | Permalink

The iPhone has no built-in BitTorrent client yet, but you can use it to access uTorrent remotely from anywhere in the world. The iPhone web interface for uTorrent makes it easy to manage your torrents when you’re away from your desktop computer.

Posted by Mirko at 01:06 AM | Permalink

The discussion begins with a mailing list message called Interesting Behavior of OS X, in which Steven Edwards describes the discovery that Leopard apparently contains an undocumented loader for Portable Executables, a type of file used in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows. More poking around revealed that Leopard's own loader tries to find Windows DLL files when attempting to load a Windows binary.

Posted by Mirko at 01:46 PM | Permalink

Coda, one of the favorite apps for developers on the Mac has been updated to version 1.1. The release notes offer a detailed view of what has been improved.

Posted by Mirko at 01:40 PM