When will Apple say "Goodbye" to the Combodrive?

Today Apple released the long awaited updates to the MacBook Pro, and tagging along we also got an updated "non-Pro" MacBook.

Labels: Apple, Combodrive, Mac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro

10.5.2 is Out! - Quick Impressions thus far

Going against my speculations of when it would be out ( I said a week ago), Apple finally released the long awaited 10.5.2 update to the masses of Mac users anxiously awaiting yesterday. Weighting in at a hefty 353 MBs (for the combo updater), it sure brought some fixing goodness for the Leopard. So how was it?

Labels: 10.5, Apple, Leopard, Mac, OSX

Unleashing Leopard on a 12 in. PowerBook

Earlier this week, after pondering about it for some time, I installed 10.5 on one of Macs. The victim? My trusty 12 in. PowerBook. How does Leopard behave on this old Mac notebook? Surprisingly well, I must admit.

My PowerBook has a 1.33 Ghz PowerPC G4 processor and just 768 of RAM. Far from what you may call a "great performer" when compared to the intel Macs these days. Despite my lacking hardware specs, 10.5 performs very nicely. Sure they are some very small hiccups here and there, but they don't take away anything from the great Leopard experience I am having on this hardware. All of the eye-candy is there, except for the non-transparent menu bar (which can be considered a good thing for some Leopard users). All the features that I could test work with no complain: -Screen sharing via iChat, Screen Sharing my other Mac from the network (pic), Spaces, the new iCal (now it shows the current date on the Dock!!), etc. Sadly, I couldn't test how well the Machine of Time makes a backup because I don't currently have an external HD.

I must say that so far everything is good with Leopard (even after the dreaded 10.5.1 update) on my 12 in. PowerBook. Stay tuned for a feature by feature break down of my trials and tribulations with Leopard.

Labels: Apple, Leopard, Mac, OSX

10.5.2 Will Make Everything Right

Labeling Apple's Leopard as the Vista for Mac users may sound a bit extreme to some. But for many Mac users, 10.5 feels like a bad joke coded by Microsoft inhabiting their Macs. Apple's own support forums, as well as other Mac forums, are filled with issues regarding Airport reception, keyboard freezes even after patch-fix, Spotlight indexing going crazy, etc. All these issues point to Leopard as the culprit. And it's not like Apple hasn't tried fixing these issues, 10.5 has already gotten a .1 update since its release in October of last year, but apparently there's still a whole lot to fix.

According to many Apple news sites 10.5.2 is coming soon ( as soon as today or next week, my take) and it will fix many of the troubling issues at hand. To many, this may be the update that fixes and once again makes their Leopard experience a good one. Weighting in at over 300MBs thus far, it sure packs lot of fixing goodness. So what's getting fixed (or added) this time around?

- Transparency in the menu bar is now optional and can be set in Desktop Preferences.
- DVD/CD sharing preferences, allowing you to share your optical drive with the MacBook Air (or another Mac).
- List view in Stacks

Fixes include:

- Border now draws correctly when 2-up printing
- Preview Image and scrolling horizontally with keys
- CFNetwork and Proxy error messages
- NTFS Volume and System UIServer fix
- DVDPlayback and second display hookup
- Preview PDF and Mail Document fix
- Resolved tabbing issue with PDFView
- Fixed issue with Time Machine Preferences
- Icon Services and file attachments
- Time Machine and resumed backups
- Images captured in tethered mode fixed
- CoreAudio Toolbox and EstAudioFileRead
- ImageCapture and file creation
- SharedFileLists and SMB guest issue resolved
- BackupCore and backup preparation
- Japanese localization and CUPS
- NSTextView and scroll bar thumb scrolling direction
- SMB File Server and name resolving order
- CFNetwork and Windows proxy ISA server fix
- Fixed deinterlacing issue with DVDPlayback
- CoreData Framework and NSFetchRequest
- AD DS Plug-in
- HLTB Menus
- Memory leak with Rosetta
- X11.app and customized menu commands
- AirPort shared printer fix
- Disk Utility and FAT32
- HFS and allocated space
- Fix to Process Manager and VISE
- NSNavigationServices and NavServices from a Cocoa application fix
- Reprinting Hold jobs and CUPS
- Fixed issue with Text Input Sources
- Mail Message Body Display issues with certain font types
- DAVKit and iCal redirects
- Calendar Store Framework and CalRecurrenceRule fix
- CoreText Font and PUA unicode characters now work correctly
- rsh jobs no longer waits for backgrounded processes to complete
- Fixed issue HLTB and Finder
- Fixed issue with AppleEvents
- ImageIO preiew issue in Finder fixed
- HIClock now accepts user entries
- smb now handles "%" in password field
- Fixed issue with CUPS and reverse page ordering
- NSTableView and special keys now works correctly
- AF_UNSPEC& null address Networking issue fixed
- Resolved issue with Xquartz and CPU cycles
- Fixed exception issue with KeyChainAccess
- Quartz Composer no longer brings up an error when saving a composition
- Fixed ScreenCapture issue
- Addressed issue with Web Content Filter and Parental Controls
- CUPS no longer prints a blank page when 2-up print setting is selected
- CoreData Framework fix to XML data creation
- Fixed Quick Look plug-in loading issue
- Mail to iCal Data Detectors now work correctly
- Fixed issue with Finder and column view
- Core Audio fix now allows empty m4a files to behave correctly
- Fixed horizontal scroll issue with Finder and Spotlight
- Fixed iChat audio issue with fast user switching
- Core Data apps now save correctly when no document changes have been made
- Fixed issue with Firewall customization settings
- Fixed Active Directory binding issue
- NSTable View -selectAll setting now works correctly
- HLTB Dyhmanic Menus now behave correctly
- Resolved issue with HIImageView
- Fixed issue with ATSCreateFontQueryRunLoopSource
- Mail now treats flags correctly
- Fixed day selection issue with NSDatePicker
- Invalid RR queries problem now resolved
- Input issue with NSTokenField fixed
- Archive & Install problem with Sync Services Translators resolved
- Fixed Spotlight issue with arithmetic expressions
- Fixed problem with Podcast Producer and Wiki running via SSL
- HLTB ApplyTHemeBackground memory leak fixed
- Fixed Numbers printing issue with CoreGraphics
- Fixed permissions problem with NFS
- NSManagedObject now implements dictionaryWithValuesForKeys correctly
- Fixed memory leak in CoreData Framework
- Bitmap-only fonts now work correctly in QuickDraw
- Issue with MusicSequenceSaveSMFData fixed
- SMB File Server reboot issue resolved
- Fixed issue where running a MAC application from a NTFS volume may not work correctly
- NSXMLNSNumberTransformerName now handles NSDecimalNumbers correctly
- Addressed issue with ToDo recurrences and iCal Synchronization
- Issue with NSNavigationServices and kNavCBTerminate resolved
- Fix to AppKit and popup menus
- CTFontCreateCopyWithFamily() now works correctly
- Fixed issue with Tamil IM
- Networking issue with records over sockets fixed
- HIShape symbols in HLTB fixed
- Fixed window flicker issue with PrintManager
- NSArrayController and Lazy Fetching issue resolved
- Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder now works correctly when there's a / in the title
- Fixed issue with "Find Next" and the spelling panel
- Issue with NSTreeController resolved
- Resolved issue with local SOCKS proxy and iChat
- Logged iChats now open quickly

Pretty packed list if you ask me. We can only hope Apple has gotten everything down and under control and we can finally say that 10.5.2 will make everything right.

Labels: 10.5, Apple, Leopard, Mac, OSX

Macworld 2008 Recap

With just mere hours prior to the big Steve-note, it's a good idea to recap the rumors that seem to running around the Internet. Everybody has a different take on what Steve will be finally showing off tomorrow. It's always that way, people love to speculate on Apple's next big thing. Shifting through all the rumors, here's my take on what we most likely will be seeing tomorrow:

• The Banner: "2008. There's something in the air". Cryptic message aside, most people are clinging on to the whole air, lightweight thing. A really thin Mac notebook (see below)? Perhaps it means wireless distribution of content through your iPhone, or a new Airport Express that does audio as well as video?

• MacBook Air: If the info posted on MacRumors is to be believe (they have been on the spot several times before). The MacBook Air will be:

- A slim notebook, but not a "sub notebook"
- 13.3" screen
- Not a "Pro" machine
- External Optical Drive
- It will be called the MacBook Air

• Further MacBook evidence: 9 to 5 Mac posted an interesting discovery dealing with a Google cache of Adium's usage log, where there's a clear mention of the MacBook Air. It's worth noting that the entry was made on Jan. 9th. way before the banners went up..

• iTunes 7.6: It will be the new version of iTunes that will bring Movie rental support, as well as the support to transfer iPod/iPhone ready movies from FOX's DVDs.

• iPhone SDK Demo: Seeing how the SDK will be landing on developer's hands in February, it's only right that Apple showcases the potential of the SDK to us. Just a quick demo on what can be done, probably given Phill Schiller. Mention of plenty of WWDC 2008 iPhone SDK Sessions in June.

So there you have it, to me those are the sure bets for tomorrow's Keynote. Sure I left some candidates out of the list (like the whole "Mac Mini + Apple TV in One Package" rumor), but again, the ones that made it to the least have the most "Pretty sure it can happen"- feel.

With just a few hours left, we can only sit around and wait. Hopefully I am not too off the mark with my predictions, but hey its Apple..you never know until they show it to you.

Labels: Apple, Mac, MacWorld, Macworld 2008

OSX Reloaded

Now that I have my PC back in "operational status", I was able to accomplish the long overdue reinstall of OSX on my PowerMac G5.

Using my PC as a backup storage device basically , I backed up my 20-and-then-some Gigs iTunes library, iPhoto library, documents, random crap, etc. After two+ hours of a tedious backup procedure (I should get a firewire external HD next time..) I was ready to re-install OSX on my PowerMac.

One of the main reasons why I needed to do a reinstall was the crazy amount of kernel panics I was been submitted to on a regular basis. The culprit, and I'm pretty sure of this, was the evil piece of crap software called 'Virtual PC" by the fine folks at Redmond, WA. Worst piece of software. Ever.

Anyhow, I went ahead held-C while booting up, click here-there, customized the install, and off it went. A couple of minutes later, I was greeted by the familiar default OSX desktop with the gargantuan Dock. First thing I did was to minimize the Dock, and turn on the magnification effect. Secondly, I ran Software Update...and holy crap was there a whole lot to update. Given that my so-called "broadband" service is crap (avg. download speed 25-30 kb/s) this turned out to be a 3-4 hour affair to get all updates. *sighs*.

Long story short, I am now back with a freshly installed, and most importantly, stable system. So far I haven't gotten one panic *knocks on wood*. Sure it may have been one tedious, time-wasting event, but hey..not like you gonna do this every other week, right? Lets hope everything continues to be nice and calm with at least this Mac. Oh and before I forget, never install Virtual PC on your Mac, to quote Bobby Boucher's Mom..."IT'S THE DEVIL!!"

Labels: 10.4, Apple, Mac, OSX, Virtual Pc