Highly-targeted title; up to the Take Control series’ usual, high standards. Takes a very practical typical-use-case approach.



View all my reviews

Even better, when I hadn’t seen any mention of a forth-coming upgrade on PictureCode’s web site after Aperture 3 let me know it would have to run Noise Ninja under 32-bit mode, I emailed them to ask about their plans.

Not only did Bill Smith, their senior programmer, get right back to me, letting me know a release was imminent — he attached a beta version of the plug-in.

How cool is that?

(Via Official Google Mac Blog.)

AvidCodecsLE.pkg, AvidCodecsLE.zip

(Via Reddit.)

‘Digital Manners Policies’ is a marketing term. Let’s call this what it really is: Selective Device Jamming. It’s not polite, it’s dangerous. It won’t make anyone more secure — or more polite”

Best argument for open-source software; now what about open-source hardware?

The first rule of using a Mac is to always trust Adam Engst. I’ve been trusting him for 15 years, and I’ve never regretted it.

This issue isn’t likely too likely to bite any individual user, but the precaution is easy to take.

All that remains to be seen is whether the next patch from Apple requires us to put ARDAgent.app back before patching.

I think we’ll see the following announced tomorrow:

• Another price drop, but more modest than last time; I’m thinking ~$75
• Storage increase: 16, 32 and 64 GB models
• Video camera capability for conferencing and uploading to YouTube and/or the rumoured-to-be-rechristened .Mac
• International launch of iPhone in 2-line-press-release countries (like Canada) this summer; I’m thinking late July
• Screen size will be unchanged
• Battery life extended
• GPS on iPhone: sure, why not? Not for iPod touch, though…
• 3G? I can’t bring myself to give a shit about cellular networks, since the companies are all radically overcharging in Canada, so I have no opinion on this, except everyone else expects it…
• Apps like Email, Notes, etc., will work in landscape and portrait mode, making typing easier
• App Store to launch tomorrow

On a sidenote, I got a phone call from Bell this week, asking me if I was happy with my cell phone, pointing out that my package was okay since I wasn’t going over my alloted minutes, and letting me know that I could switch to any cellphone I wanted and get $150 off my renewed contract. I resisted the urge to ask for an iPhone.

I’ve had a cell phone for years now, and this is the first such call I remember. The timing is interesting, coming less than a week ahead of a possible new iPhone release and new competition from Rogers.

June 9 update — here’s my report card:

• Another price drop, but more modest than last time; I’m thinking ~$75 — I was $25 short; not bad, though
• Storage increase: 16, 32 and 64 GB models — unbelievably, wrong; I thought this was a safe prediction
• Video camera capability for conferencing and uploading to YouTube and/or the rumoured-to-be-rechristened .Mac — wrong; no partial marks for .Mac becoming MobileMe.
• International launch of iPhone in 2-line-press-release countries (like Canada) this summer; I’m thinking late July — not bad; off by less than 2 weeks. Staff at a Rogers dealership told me they’d have them for Christmas.
• Screen size will be unchanged — score.
• Battery life extended — score.
• GPS on iPhone: sure, why not? Not for iPod touch, though… — score.
• 3G? I can’t bring myself to give a shit about cellular networks, since the companies are all radically overcharging in Canada, so I have no opinion on this, except everyone else expects it… — I’ll take that.
• Apps like Email, Notes, etc., will work in landscape and portrait mode, making typing easier — partial marks; apparently Calculator now has extended functionality in landscape mode (becoming a scientific calculator in that mode). No word either way on other apps that I’m aware of…
• App Store to launch tomorrow — a miss, unfortunately. I suppose I should’ve seen this coming; despite the possibility of being banned from the store, I find it hard to believe that word hadn’t leaked if the store were going to launch today.

So, 6.5 out of 9: 72%. They were pretty conservative predictions, though, to be fair.

(Via SecurityFocus.com.)