Mac OS X
Widgets: iStat Pro – Information at Your Fingertips
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 | Free Stuff, Mac OS X, Software | No Comments
If you’ve used a Mac for any length of time, you definitely know about widgets. Mac OS X comes with Dashboard, an application that runs a variety of small applications that accomplish all kinds of things. These widgets can be downloaded from Apple.com or from the web sites of their develops. Apple pre-installs several of these widgets on all of the new Macs. However, you can expand your widget collection to an unimaginable extent.
I’d like to share with you one such widget that I find very useful. Granted, I’m a techie and I enjoy knowing what goes on under the hood of my computer. I like to know the temperature of my machine, fan speed, network speed, up time and so on. An easy way to access this information with one key stroke is to use iStat Pro widget. It displays the information I listed and more. With it you can know the charge of your battery, available capacity of the hard drive, most active processes, CPU usage and memory usage.
If you find yourself curious about what’s under the hood, iStat Pro is the widget for you.
What widgets do you find useful or most enjoyable? Let me know in the comments.
Apple’s consumer popularity spilling over to corporate buyers
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 | Mac OS X, Mac Resources, Mac vs Windows, Opinion | No Comments
Yesterday, I expressed that Apple is not intending to penetrate the corporate market. It is not found in their publicly stated business strategy and the corporate market share does not lead us to believe that it is so. However, I indicated that this does not mean that Macs are not fantastic business machines, in fact many businesses choose Mac over PC for their main computer platform.
Well, today I came across an article that explores what seems to be a side-effect of Apple popularity in the consumer market. Donna Fuscaldo, the author, notes that “the popularity of Apple’s Macintosh computers is morphing into increased interest from corporations – and not only from the graphic arts departments, where Apple products traditionally have been popular.” If this trend continues, this could mean that the corporate market may become part of Apple’s business strategy.
The CNNMoney.com article points out further that even though “Apple has less than 3% of the U.S. corporate market, according to some estimates, and isn’t clear if being a player there is a priority for the company. However, corporations appear to be interested.” Personally, I think corporations should consider the Mac seriously. And some are, such as the Auto Warehousing Co. (AWC), who is moving their entire company to the Mac platform. And this is not a small mom and pop shop. AWC is the largest full-service auto processing company in North America. The original article on this story can be found at Computerworld.com.
I think this example and the many satisfied Mac consumers are an indication that Apple is delivering a solid operating system tightly integrated with high quality hardware. A formula that has come to be associated with stability, superb performance and class.
SuperDrive firmware update
Thursday, June 28th, 2007 | Apple News, Mac OS X, Tech News, Tips | No Comments
My new MacBook Pro has been having issues with the SuperDrive. It refused to play certain media and didn’t always burn discs on the first try. Today my software update prompted me for a new update. It happened to be the SuperDrive Update 2.1. I haven’t been able to test my optical drive extensively after loading the update, but have see some improvement. I have a disc with me that didn’t play prior to the update but plays after the update. That sounds like good news to me. I suppose that these firmware updates to make a difference. I’ll do some further testing at a later time when I have access to more variety of media.
If you’ve been having issues with your optical drive on a MacBook Pro, fire up the Software Update on your machine and load the SuperDrive Update 2.1. It should improve your drive’s performance.
Safari, Leopard, iPhone and More…
Monday, June 11th, 2007 | Apple News, Apple View, Browser News, Mac OS X, Mac Resources, Tech News, iPhone | No Comments
Today has been a very exciting day for the Apple community. Lots of announcements and even some disappointments. All of the news have already been covered by a number of blogs and news sites. I will just list of the major items of interest.
This week is the World Wild Developers Conference (WWDC). Apple Inc. hosts this conference annually in San Francisco. Most of the announcements came during the keynote address by Steve Jobs at the opening session of WWDC.  Here some of the things we learned.
1. Mac OS X Leopard: several previously undisclosed features. Here’s a condensed list of these features. Engadget has a post with greater detail as well as coverage of the entire keynote address.
A. Leopard will deliver a revamped Finder. This is something Mac users have wanted for some time. One of the most noticeable changes will be the Cover Flow style browsing of files and folders.
B. A new updated, polished and unified look of the user interface.
C. Built-in tools to keep the desktop organized. A downloads folder to store all of the things downloaded through the browser.
D. Quick view. An easy way to preview files without opening them. It even features a full screen preview.
E. Boot Camp will be native in Leopard. You will no longer need to restart your computer run Windows. It won’t be work the same way the Parallels runs Windows alongside OS X, but it will be a much easier process.
2. Safari 3.0 beta: Apple released a public beta of Safari 3, which is part of Leopard. However, the bigger news is that Safari is now available on Windows.
3. iPhone: Apple has opened up a door for third-party applications on the iPhone. Develops will be able to write web based applications using Web 2.0 compatible code and AJAX. For more details hop over to Engadget.
Steve Jobs announced that EA Games will release its games on the Mac. Among the first will be Madden and Tiger Woods 08, which will come in August. Other games such as C&C, Battlefield 2142 and NFS Carbon are on their way too.
In addition to these announcements, Apple has also revamped its web site to match the look and feel of Leopard. Head over to apple.com and see the new look and while you’re there download a copy of Safari 3.0 beta.
By the way, Apple has posted a Quicktime video of the keynote address from WWDC.
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