Hello and welcome to the first issue of the MacMost email newsletter! Each week, we hope to keep you up-to-date with the new content at MacMost.com. We’ll cover the latest Apple news, list the new MacMost videos and blog posts, and throw in some tips as well.
We’re sure the MacMost email newsletter will grow and change over time. If you have any suggestions as to what we can add to the newsletter, please let me know.
You can always contact MacMost at http://macmost.com/contact
Tower defense games have been around for a long time. The basic idea is that there is a never-ending wave of enemies approaching you, and you must put down defenses to stop them before they reach your base.
Fieldrunners for the iPhone is a particularly good one. Not only is it simple and fun, but it works well using the iPhone’s touch interface. I was surprised when it got me hooked. I played it obsessively for a week, which is much more than I can say for most iPhone games I’ve downloaded.
You can read more and view it at the iTunes Apple Store.
We find that most note-taking, project planning and business organization tools are too restrictive. They want you to organize your information in a certain way that may or may not fit your business or style. VoodooPad is a little personal wiki program that runs on your Mac and allows you to create almost any organizational system you want. You can keep notes, to-do lists, frequently used text and images, ideas and almost anything all together and linked to each other in a way that works for you.
The “Lite” version is free, and it may be all you need. It is packed with features and there is also a full and pro version if you want more power or to support the creators. You can read more and download it at FlyingMeat.com.
Did you know you can customize the look and features of the clock that appears in the upper right corner of the menu bar? Just go to System Preferences, Date & Time and choose the Clock tab. You can display the clock as digital or analog. In digital mode, you can choose to show a 24-hour clock, show AM and PM, show the day of the week and display the seconds as well as the hour and minute. You can even have the colon in the time flash every second. You can also set up a chime to announce every hour, half-hour or quarter-hour.
Many people have been reading the signs lately and trying to predict the future of the Mac Mini. In fact, it’s death has been prematurely predicted several times before. But Apple responded directly an email from a Mac Mini fan with a phone call. An Apple representative told him that that Apple knows the value of the Mini and seemed to indicate a new version of the machine will be available soon.
But that probably won’t be until next year, as Apple has stated that no new machine updates will be coming out this year. This is probably to encourage people to go ahead and buy holiday presents and Mac as end-of-year expenses right now. It also makes sense that any major changes will wait until the MacWorld announcements in January.
The new MacBook Air is shipping, with its upgraded video chips. But the base level machine, with a 1.6GHz processor seems to have been delayed. People with orders have been told they won’t get theirs until after Thanksgiving.
In iPhone news, it is confirmed that AT&T’s free iPhone WiFi access at Starbucks and other AT&T hotspots is official. We received and email directly from AT&T with the procedure. iPhone users at an AT&T hotspot need to look for the “attwifi” network and then they will be asked for their 10-digit phone number. A free text message will then give them a link to follow to complete the connection.
Looks like we’ve been given an early holiday present by Apple: a break from the Apple rumor mill. Apple made an official statement this week that there will be no updates to product lines before the end of the year. No new iMacs or Mac Minis, which is the opposite of what we’ve heard on Apple rumor sites.
Now the reason for such an unusual announcement is obvious: Apple wants to sell some product for the holidays and they want the selling to start now. Rumors of new product updates always get people waiting instead of buying, hoping to avoid buying a computer just before a new version comes out.
So this may be the perfect time to buy, knowing you’ve got at least two months ahead where your purchase will remain the latest and greatest.
Of course early January brings MacWorld, where Apple traditionally announces something new. New iMacs and a Mac Mini update or replacement are likely there. But that’s a long time to wait if you need a new machine.
This week saw some minor software updates to Mac OS X Leopard, such as iPhoto print quality fixes. Make sure you run Software Update to download and install.
On the hardware side, Apple is now shipping updated MacBook Airs, which include new new Nvidia video chip set, the same ones in the new MacBook Pros and MacBooks.
The iPhone OS version 2.2 is getting closer. It was spotted on the net several times this week. Improvements seem to be the inclusion of Google Maps street view feature in the Maps application, and possibly the ability to download podcast episodes directly to the iPhone. It is frustrating now when you know a new episode of a podcast is available but you have to download it on your Mac and sync to get it on your iPhone. And street view arrives just in time as it is being touted as one of the ways that the Google Android mobile phone is better than the iPhone. At the same time the free Google Earth iPhone app was released this week. It’s more of a toy than anything else, but it can be a fun distraction when you have spare time and only your iPhone to entertain you.
AT&T once again seems to offer free WiFi at AT&T hotspots like Starbucks for iPhone users. They have started and stopped this service without announcements before. So we’ll see if it sticks around this time.
To quickly launch an application without even touching your mouse, press Command+Space to activate the Spotlight menu at the upper right corner of your screen. Then type the first few letters of the application name, such as “Tex” for TextEdit. Type as few or as many as you need for the application to show up in the menu as the “Top Hit.” Then press Return on your keyboard to launch the application.
The official FaceBook application lets you check your new feed, update your status and even access some data feeds from your FaceBook application. You can also view photos and do all of the most common FaceBook tasks that you do on your Mac or PC. This is a must-have for any FaceBook user. Best of all is that it is free!
Read more and check it out at the iTunes App Store.
Gary Rosenzweig looks at seven free iPhone applications: Google Earth, iTalk, Fring, Fonts, Translator, Wikipandion and FaceBook. You can find iPhone Apps using the MacMost iPhone App directory at https://macmost.com/iphoneapps/ .
Everyone is in agreement that the new MacBooks look great. But almost everyone is also in agreement that the biggest problem with the new MacBooks is the removal of a Firewire port. The MacBook Pros have one, but not the new MacBooks.
The primary use of this Firewire port was to import digital video from a camcorder. They can also be used to connect external hard drives and some other devices. But hard drives are usually USB2 nowadays, which are comparable in transfer speed to Firewire. So the main problem with not having Firewire on the new MacBooks is in connecting camcorders.
But Steve Jobs defended this move, saying that many new camcorders use USB2 anyway. This is surprisingly true. I haven’t bought a new camcorder in about 2 years, and then Firewire was the standard. But looking around now, I see that USB2 has indeed moved into this area. There are still Firewire connectors on some camcorders, but USB2 does seem to have taken over.
In addition, the home video camcorder market has changed. Nowadays, any decent digital camera has a video mode that captures at least 640×480 video at 30 frames per second. The quality isn’t pro-level, or even Web video level in many cases, but it is definitely family reunion video level. And these videos are transferred to your computer via USB2, or using a card reader. Also, with the popularity of small, cheap video cameras like the Flip, many people are forgetting about consumer-level camcorders all together in favor of this cool little devices.
So the only problem I see is the situation where someone who has a Firewire-only camcorder buys a new MacBook to replace an old one. Now they find they can no longer connect the two. Their upgrade has turned into a downgrade. And with no expansion slot on a MacBook, and no way to adapt USB2 to Firewire, they really are stuck. There is just no way to use Firewire on their new MacBook.
So existing MacBook users that use their MacBooks with a Firewire camcorder need to either get a new camcorder or upgrade to a MacBook Pro, not a MacBook.
Looking at it from Apple’s point of view, I do see this taking care of one problem: how to differentiate the MacBooks from the MacBook Pros. In the past, the case has been different, as well as the video chips. Now that they are the same, we’ve got Firewire, expansion slot, and larger screen, to name the major differences.
So the good news is it will be easier to choose between MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The bad news is that if you really want Firewire, you’re going to have to pay a lot more for it. But with a difference in price of $700, you can afford to replace that old camcorder with a new one anyway.
