This, a Note From Apple: Apple Answers the FCC’s Questions

Today Apple filed with the FCC the following answers to their questions.

We are pleased to respond to the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s inquiry dated July 31, 2009, requesting information regarding Apple’s App Store and its application approval process. In order to give the Bureau some context for our responses, we begin with some background information about the iPhone and the App Store.

Apple’s goal is to provide our customers with the best possible user experience. We have been able to do this by designing the hardware and software in our products to work together seamlessly. The iPhone is a great example of this. It has established a new standard for what a mobile device can be—an integrated device with a phone, a full web browser, HTML email, an iPod, and more, all delivered with Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface.

Apple then introduced something altogether new—the App Store—to give consumers additional functionality and benefits from the iPhone’s revolutionary technology. The App Store has been more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, just over a year since opening, the App Store offers over 65,000 iPhone applications, and customers have downloaded over 1.5 billion applications.

The App Store provides a frictionless distribution network that levels the playing field for individual and large developers of mobile applications. We provide every developer with the same software that we use to create our own iPhone applications. The App Store offers an innovative business model that allows developers to set their own price and keep more (far more in most cases) of the revenue than traditional business models. In little more than a year, we have raised the bar for consumers’ rich mobile experience beyond what we or anyone else ever imagined in both scale and quality. Apple’s innovation has also fostered competition as other companies (e.g., Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, Palm and Verizon) seek to develop their own mobile platforms and launch their own application stores.

Apple works with network providers around the world so that iPhone users have access to a cellular network. In the United States, we struck a groundbreaking deal with AT&T in 2006 that gives Apple the freedom to decide which software to make available for the iPhone. This was an industry first.

We created an approval process that reviews every application submitted to Apple for the App Store in order to protect consumer privacy, safeguard children from inappropriate content, and avoid applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. Some types of content such as pornography are rejected outright from the App Store, while others such as graphic combat scenes in action games may be approved but with an appropriate age rating. Most rejections are based on bugs found in the applications. When there is an issue, we try to provide the developer with helpful feedback so they can modify the application in order for us to approve it. 95% of applications are approved within 14 days of their submission.

We’re covering new ground and doing things that had never been done before. Many of the issues we face are difficult and new, and while we may make occasional mistakes, we try to learn from them and continually improve.

In response to your specific questions, we would like to offer the following:

Question 1. Why did Apple reject the Google Voice application for iPhone and remove related third-party applications from its App Store? In addition to Google Voice, which related third-party applications were removed or have been rejected? Please provide the specific name of each application and the contact information for the developer.

Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it. The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail. Apple spent a lot of time and effort developing this distinct and innovative way to seamlessly deliver core functionality of the iPhone. For example, on an iPhone, the “Phone” icon that is always shown at the bottom of the Home Screen launches Apple’s mobile telephone application, providing access to Favorites, Recents, Contacts, a Keypad, and Visual Voicemail. The Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail. Similarly, SMS text messages are managed through the Google hub—replacing the iPhone’s text messaging feature. In addition, the iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.

The following applications also fall into this category.

• Name: GVDialer / GVDialer Lite
  Developer: MobileMax
  info@mobile-mx.com
• Name: VoiceCentral
  Developer: Riverturn, Inc.
  4819 Emperor Blvd., Suite 400
  Durham, NC 27703
• Name: GV Mobile / GV Mobile Free
  Developer: Sean Kovacs
  sean@seankovacs.com

We are continuing to study the Google Voice application and its potential impact on the iPhone user experience. Google is of course free to provide Google Voice on the iPhone as a web application through Apple’s Safari browser, just as they do for desktop PCs, or to provide its “Google-branded” user experience on other phones, including Android-based phones, and let consumers make their choices.

Question 2. Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications? If the latter, please describe the communications between Apple and AT&T in connection with the decision to reject Google Voice. Are there any contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T that affected Apple’s decision in this matter?

Apple is acting alone and has not consulted with AT&T about whether or not to approve the Google Voice application. No contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T have been a factor in Apple’s decision-making process in this matter.

Question 3. Does AT&T have any role in the approval of iPhone applications generally (or in certain cases)? If so, under what circumstances, and what role does it play? What roles are specified in the contractual provisions between Apple and AT&T (or any non-contractual understandings) regarding the consideration of particular iPhone applications?

Apple alone makes the final decisions to approve or not approve iPhone applications.

There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without obtaining AT&T’s permission. Apple honors this obligation, in addition to respecting AT&T’s customer Terms of Service, which, for example, prohibit an AT&T customer from using AT&T’s cellular service to redirect a TV signal to an iPhone. From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration.

Question 4. Please explain any differences between the Google Voice iPhone application and any Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications that Apple has approved for the iPhone. Are any of the approved VoIP applications allowed to operate on AT&T’s 3G network?

Apple does not know if there is a VoIP element in the way the Google Voice application routes calls and messages, and whether VoIP technology is used over the 3G network by the application. Apple has approved numerous standard VoIP applications (such as Skype, Nimbuzz and iCall) for use over WiFi, but not over AT&T’s 3G network.

Question 5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons? Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers? If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?

In a little more than a year, the App Store has grown to become the world’s largest wireless applications store, with over 65,000 applications. We’ve rejected applications for a variety of reasons. Most rejections are based on the application containing quality issues or software bugs, while other rejections involve protecting consumer privacy, safeguarding children from inappropriate content, and avoiding applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. Given the volume and variety of technical issues, most of the review process is consumed with quality issues and software bugs, and providing feedback to developers so they can fix applications. Applications that are fixed and resubmitted are approved.

The following is a list of representative applications that have been rejected as originally submitted and their current status:

• Twittelator, by Stone Design Corp., was initially rejected because it crashed during loading, but the developer subsequently fixed the application and it has been approved;
• iLoveWiFi!, by iCloseBy LLC, was rejected because it used undocumented application protocols (it has not been resubmitted as of the date of this letter);
• SlingPlayer Mobile, by Sling Media, was initially rejected because redirecting a TV signal to an iPhone using AT&T’s cellular network is prohibited by AT&T’s customer Terms of Service, but the developer subsequently fixed the application to use WiFi only and it has been approved; and
• Lingerie Fantasy Video (Lite), by On The Go Girls, LLC, was initially rejected because it displayed nudity and explicit sexual content, but the developer subsequently fixed the application and it has been approved with the use of a 17+ age rating.

Apple provides explicit language in its agreement with iPhone developers regarding prohibited categories of applications, for example:

• “Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory; and
• Applications must not contain any malware, malicious or harmful code, program, or other internal component (e.g. computer viruses, trojan horses, ‘backdoors’) which could damage, destroy, or adversely affect other software, firmware, hardware, data, systems, services, or networks.”

And we also provide a reference library that can be accessed by members of the iPhone Developer Program that lists helpful information such as Best Practices and How To Get Started.

Question 6. What are the standards for considering and approving iPhone applications? What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)? What is the percentage of applications that are rejected? What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?

As discussed in the response to Question 5, Apple provides guidelines to developers in our developer agreement as well as on its web site regarding prohibited categories of applications. These materials also contain numerous other provisions regarding technical and legal requirements that applications must comply with, and Apple uses these standards in considering whether or not to approve applications.

Apple developed a comprehensive review process that looks at every iPhone application that is submitted to Apple. Applications and marketing text are submitted through a web interface. Submitted applications undergo a rigorous review process that tests for vulnerabilities such as software bugs, instability on the iPhone platform, and the use of unauthorized protocols. Applications are also reviewed to try to prevent privacy issues, safeguard children from exposure to inappropriate content, and avoid applications that degrade the core experience of the iPhone. There are more than 40 full-time trained reviewers, and at least two different reviewers study each application so that the review process is applied uniformly. Apple also established an App Store executive review board that determines procedures and sets policy for the review process, as well as reviews applications that are escalated to the board because they raise new or complex issues. The review board meets weekly and is comprised of senior management with responsibilities for the App Store. 95% of applications are approved within 14 days of being submitted.

If we find that an application has a problem, for example, a software bug that crashes the application, we send the developer a note describing the reason why the application will not be approved as submitted. In many cases we are able to provide specific guidance about how the developer can fix the application. We also let them know they can contact the app review team or technical support, or they can write to us for further guidance.

Apple generally spends most of the review period making sure that the applications function properly, and working with developers to fix quality issues and software bugs in applications. We receive about 8,500 new applications and updates every week, and roughly 20% of them are not approved as originally submitted. In little more than a year, we have reviewed more than 200,000 applications and updates.

App

Cars are technology too!!!

I was at a car show earlier today taking pictures. I decided to post the pictures on this site because after all cars are technology too!

Corvette Engines:

Corvettes that the engines go in!

A nice black Camaro!

and finally a Nissan 350Z that has been tune quite nicely it has an exposed carbon fiber hood and dual HUGE exhaust pipes! not sure what all is under the hood but you can guess it matches the rest.

See what I mean by huge exhaust? these look like they belong on a bus!

Psystar Open(7): Is it Really Cheaper?

Most of us who follow Apple know about the ongoing conflict between Apple and a new Mac Clone company called Psystar. For those who don’t know here’s a quick brief:

After Apple’s transition of Intel processors in 2006, the founder of Psystar was probably thing thinking something like this, “if the Mac OS runs on Intel chips now, what would be stopping me from building my own Mac clone?” So the company of Psystar began building computers saying that Apple’s Macintosh computers were over priced and that theirs were cheaper. Apple then sued Psystar saying that it was unlawful to install Mac OS X on any computer or other device not designed by Apple itself. Psystar counter sued and the outcome of said counter suit is yet to be decided.

So… back to the main topic. Psystar has done a very good job of making their new Open(7) computer appear cheaper than it counterpart at Apple, the MacPr, however when I looked at their site and priced out an Open(7) customized to my specifications, I thought it seemed a little high. Behold the price of a MacPro of similar specs is about $100 cheaper. Why is this? or was it just that configuration?

For all intents and purposes the two computers are about the same. they both run the Mac OS and both run it fast and have loads of storage. When I went looking for a high end mac desktop I wanted at least 600GB of storage and i wanted the fast 3GB per second hard drive. I wanted lots of firewire ports that come on every Apple Mac. I wanted 6GB of RAM and an aluminum enclosure. Everything else standard.

The final thing on my list left me with no option but to buy a Mac Pro from Apple, but I decided to check Psystar to see how much money I was wasting. Here’s what I got:

On the Mac Pro:

• One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
• 3GB (3×1GB)
• None
• 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• None
• None
• None
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
• One 18x SuperDrive
• None
• None
• Apple Mighty Mouse
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User’s Guid

$2,499

On the Psystar Open(7) I learned that I could not just buy one hard drive to get to my 600GB minimum. So I bought two of the High speed drives. This was what jacked up my price. but here it is:

2.66GHz Quad-Core Xeon Nehalem

two Fast! 300GB 10,000RPM SATA2 Hard Drives.

20x DVD±RW DL

// <![CDATA[// 802.11n (PCI-E 1x)

USB Bluetooth adapter

Firewire ports.

$2,907.98

The reason the Open(7) looks cheaper than the Mac Pro is the fact that with the Mac Pro many of the items that I would’ve had to pay extra for from Psystar, come standard on the Mac. Things like the Keyboard and mouse, bluetooth, extra firewire ports, and then there’s the fact that the hard drives were more expensive because I couldn’t buy just one! Bottom line, Psystar is cheaper in it’s base configuration and probably in some other configurations too, however not in all or even most configurations. Also when you buy an Open(7) you can expect a cheap plastic case held together by screws and filled with lose wires and scattered parts held down by screws and clamps. When you buy a Mac you can expect a sleek Aluminum case held together firmly by Torx bits, with an equally sleek and accessible design on the inside. With the Mac it is simple and quick to replace or upgrade parts. With an Open(7) it would be a long frustrating experience involving many tangled wires and stripped screws.
MacPro insides!

Forrester’s New ads

What Steve Said

The original article can be found at http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9964230-37.html. My thoroughly non-professional annotations will be at the bottom.

The second chapter of Apple’s iPhone era is almost ready to begin, and it’s already clear that things will be a little different this time around.

Few people who pay even scant attention to the technology industry could claim to be shocked by the introduction of a faster iPhone earlier on Monday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Apple has sold 6 million iPhones since June 2007, Jobs said, and will likely sell a few more once the new model arrives on July 11 with a faster networking chip, GPS capabilities, and a software upgrade that’s an IT manager’s dream for a mobile device.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils the 3G iPhone. For more photos from the event, click on the image.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

From a features point of view, the new model delivers on what iPhone customers want and need. Yes, you still can’t do mobile messaging, and I still don’t think you can do cut-and-paste, which is just bizarre. But Apple has added just about everything else people have asked for or complained about in iPhone 1.0: faster networks, secure access to corporate e-mail, precise location-based services, and third-party applications.

What’s perhaps more interesting is what Apple has learned about the mobile phone business. It’s not all that surprising that Apple, which has a proud legacy of product design and software development, would have created an excellent product that has the rest of the industry scrambling to overtake.

But several developments later on Monday indicate that Apple has had to learn just as many lessons about playing in the mobile phone market over the past year as it has taught the mobile phone industry about product development.

About 90 minutes after Jobs concluded his keynote, AT&T held its own press conference to announce some major changes in the way iPhones are sold. You now must immediately agree to a two-year contract with AT&T whether you buy the iPhone in one of Apple’s stores or one of AT&T’s stores, and there will be no online ordering. AT&T and Apple have ended their revenue-sharing agreement, and Apple also said that the “vast majority” of its new carrier agreements overseas do not involve revenue sharing. To top it off, iPhone data plans are now $10 more expensive.

This just might be the aftereffect of the unlocked iPhones. Apple executives downplayed the actual number of unlocked iPhones several times this year, claiming they couldn’t estimate how many iPhones had actually been unlocked and that in any event, it just demonstrates demand for the product.

But Apple’s carrier partners sure cared about that number. Apple negotiated extremely favorable deals for iPhone 1.0, getting a piece of AT&T and other carriers’ revenue for data services while retaining complete control over what applications would appear on the device.

Apple held up its end of the bargain in one sense–delivering a solid product that enticed people to switch networks and drove data usage–but failed to secure its product against those who wished to unlock it from its designated networks, forcing some carriers to watch their rivals reap the benefits of iPhone data usage. Wireless carriers may be opening up their networks in new and interesting ways, but their influence on the mobile market isn’t waning just yet.

It’s not clear whether Apple will introduce technology changes into the new iPhone that makes it harder to jailbreak, then unlock, but it will at least require U.S. iPhone buyers to sign a two-year contract and activate the iPhone on AT&T’s network before they can take it home. This won’t eliminate unlocking, but could discourage it to some degree.

The faster speeds, additional countries–and a tweak to Apple’s business model–should help the company hit its goal of shipping 10 million iPhones in 2008.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)

Of course, compromise is part of any good partnership. In exchange for giving up revenue sharing and its novel at-home activation service, Apple is getting a subsidized iPhone. That will lower the price of entry into the iPhone world and should accelerate sales without dinging Apple’s product margins to the degree that would be result if Apple absorbed the cost decrease itself. The increased sales should also offset the loss of the shared revenue.

So the big question: will the iPhone 3G–and new business model–enable Apple to meet its sales target for 2008 of 10 million units? If Apple has sold 6 million units to date, as Jobs said in his keynote, that means the company has a long way to go, having sold just 2.3 million iPhones so far in 2008.

The fact that the new iPhone won’t be available until July 11 was one of the most surprising things to emerge from this morning’s keynote. Apple, of course, never put a finer grain on when it expected to ship iPhone 3G beyond “next year,” which Jobs quoted a few times in response to questions about the issue in 2007. But few expected the company to miss the one-year anniversary of the iPhone’s debut with the new model, and at the very least, Apple itself had promised the iPhone 2.0 software by the end of June.

That means Apple will have shipped almost no iPhones from roughly the middle of May to July 11: about two whole months, although AT&T stores took longer to run out of their supply. We’ll get a more precise number for iPhone shipments during Apple’s third fiscal quarter, which ends in June, during the company’s earnings call in July. But no matter how you slice it, that’s a large gap that points to a bit of a supply chain snafu at some stage along the way.

Apple’s Greg Joswiak, vice president of worldwide iPod and iPhone marketing, reiterated Apple’s 10 million shipment goal in an interview after Jobs’ keynote, so it’s not like Apple is backing down. There are two main reasons why the company can still be confident: the combination of 3G and the cheaper price will spur potential customers who have been sitting on the sidelines in countries where the iPhone already exists, and a total of 70 countries will get official access to the iPhone, including major new destinations like Canada and Australia. In addition, Jobs hinted to CNBC later in the day that the big prize–China–could be coming sooner rather than later.

It’s always interesting to watch a company try to make its way into an entirely new business; those who fail far outnumber those who succeed. The most common reason why many fail is because they forget to learn from their initial experiences, or assume they know better based on their past successes.

Apple may not proclaim it from on high in the Stevenote, but today the company showed that it’s willing to learn from its mistakes, and to adjust its business model when prudent. So far in its iPhone era, Apple has wisely tackled the hard problem first–making a great product, and continuing to improve it–and is now making the kinds of changes to its business model to make sure the iPhone really does turn into the third leg of the company’s business some day.

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Strictly non-professional Annotations From a Non-professional Annotator.

Unlike what I had before speculated. Apple did announce Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. This however got about 5 words of the keynote and was later demonstrated on Monday. As everyone expected the 3G iPhone was announced and demonstrated and the AppStore took a large portion of the keynote. The rumors of .mac being changed were right and the Macworld podcast guy even got the name right. See the full picture at www.me.com. Everything was pretty cool but I was hoping for some hardware announcements other than the iPhone.

l8er

Laptop Cooling

I have been spending a lot of time working on making my ibook run cooler. Yes I know ‘it’s an ibook! how hot can it get?’ but believe me. It gets hot. I have a G3 600 MHTZ iBook with 16 Mb video RAM and a 20Gb hard drive. This is the main reason for my hoping for donations to keep this free blog up. The reason for my laptop’s overheating is probably due to the fact that I have the processor clocked at 800mhtz instead of 600 but it run’s fine under that clock speed.

My mother’s MacBook has similar issues to the ones mine is developing only it get’s to the extreme of actually causing the machine to slow down to less than the performance of mine! That’s pretty bad… I have been working on cooling these computers with out any major ‘under the hood’ investigation and I thought that I would share with you some of my findings. These will go into the options if you want to take the whole damn thing apart and if you don’t. I do however recommend that if you know how to take your machine apart that you should. There are some minor changes you can make to the insides of the machine that will collectively make a large difference in heat output.

SMC Fan Control (for Intel Macs)

SMC fan control (download) is a great solution for people with Intel macs that don’t like getting their lap burned every time they use their computer. It enables you to set the minimum speed at which your fans run. It also shows you the temperature of all of your components. Unfortunately there is no solution like this for PPC machines at this point. The downside of using an application like this is that your battery life will decrease the faster you run your fans. This works great if you don’t have any problem plugging your computer in a little more often.

Cooling pad

There are cooling pads available for all types of laptops. They can be found in almost all computer stores and in most department stores. You can also search on Amazon.com or other online retailer for ‘laptop cooling pads’ The one on Amazon that I like the best can be found here. Laptop cooling pads usually plug into your USB port and run 1-4 fans off of USB power. This will drain your battery less than using SMC fan control but usually provides for less cooling. This option will work on any computer Mac or PC.

Underclock the processor

Underclocking the processor decreases the CPU performance thereby decreasing the heat it generates. This also increases your battery life. This is great for anyone with a computer of which they do not require all of the power most of the time. To do this on a G3 you can download the application called iCook. It enables you to change your clock speed on the fly. On any other Mac I can tell you how to do it but I’m sure there is a way. On a PC there is usually a setting in the startup bios that you can tweak to get a new clock speed but you can’t do it on the fly

Heatsink/Thermal Compound

The braver of us may wish to make a more perminant change to our computer by taking it apart and tweaking it. These people may try replacing the heatsink or thermal compound or both. I have no personal experience doing this with anything other than my G3 iBook so I won’t give detailed instructions. you can get instructions on how to fully dismantle your computer at a number of places on the web. I recommend that you have a friend help you if you haven’t done this before so that you may blame all of your mistakes on him/her. The theory behind this procedure is that Apple usually puts way to much thermal compound on their processors so that it ends up smothering the processor. Thermal compound and heat sinks also do ware out. You can buy new heatsinks on ifixit.com.

If anyone has any other experiences in cooling down their hot Apple laptops please share in a comment to this post.

What Will Steve Say? -as usual noone knows….

The following article was found on technewsworld.com. I give my annotations and outlooks at the bottom.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will take the stage at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference and announce … something. As usual, it’s a mystery, and as usual, there’s plenty of speculation and expectation in the blogosphere. Hopes for a new iPhone are running high, though ideas on how it might be priced fall all over the map. Indeed, some say the 3G iPhone is a big red herring.

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This week, the Apple-focused blogosphere’s eyes are cast forward to Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) Worldwide Developer Conference, where nearly everyone expects Apple CEO Steve Jobs to announce the iPhone App Store and iPhone 2.0 software, not to mention a new version of the iPhone itself.

In still more iPhone speculation, debate over possible AT&T (NYSE: T) subsidies has been raging — mostly on the hope that it could drive down the cost of acquiring a new iPhone. Still others are speculating that Jobs has something even more interesting up his sleeve for the conference — like a multi-touch Mac tablet device.

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App Store on the Way

“A source at a software company that has been working on a native iPhone application tells us the company is getting ready to launch that application on Monday, which could also imply that Apple’s App Store will be up and running that day,” noted Cnet.com’s Tom Krazit, writing on his One More Thing blog.

While the news isn’t exactly surprising, it does lend a bit more weight to the idea. Jobs could possibly announce the App Store, meaning delivery could happen in late June, around the one-year anniversary of iPhone. All the developers who’ve been working away with Apple’s iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) might have to wait a while longer before their third-party applications hit iPhone and iPod touch consumers.

“There are already a great number of applications already available for the iPhone (and iPod touch). However, you do have to jailbreak your iPhone. Developers have been using the installer programs to distribute beta versions of their software among the more technical iPhone users. There are some wonderful programs out there and next week there will be even more!” commented jypeterson on the One More Thing post on the subject.

There’s also hope that if the App Store is ready, a 3G iPhone might be ready as well. This, however, seems to be a slightly bigger leap of faith. Apple might think the iPhone’s one-year anniversary is a better time to launch a new iPhone, and that won’t happen for three more weeks.

Either way, the App Store is a huge leap forward for iPhone lovers and the ecosystem Apple is trying to build.

“The launch of the App Store represents the coming of age of the iPhone platform. You will see thousands upon thousands of developers begin to release new and innovative applications for iPhone and iPod touch,” Raven Zachary, a research director for The 451 Group, told MacNewsWorld.

“Consumers will no longer perceive these devices as just phones and music players. I think the market is underestimating the impact of the App Store launch. We’re talking about a single platform dominating portable music, telephony, gaming, personal productivity and, over time, enterprise applications,” he explained, adding that the App Store will be a highly disruptive move.

A Cheaper iPhone?

Bloggers have also been poking at the possibility that AT&T may subsidize the cost of the iPhone, which would let it retail for as low as US$200. AT&T subsidizes most every other phone it carries, so this isn’t such a wild idea. However, it still may be just a pipe dream. Apple most likely isn’t keen on the subsidies because it undermines the consumer perception of value for a product, making it much harder to roll out new devices — independent of subsidies — at the premium prices Apple is used to.

Still, given iPhone’s strong sales despite the relatively high starting cost, would it really behoove AT&T to subsidize it?

Some think so.

“I’ll speculate that the subsidy happens because the ‘fan-boy’ crowd and early adopters are already on their network and the iPhone. This round is to tempt all the rest of us over, which will require lowering the cost of the phone since it won’t have any features that aren’t already available at lower costs,” Gando commented on InformationWeek.com’s Over the Air blog.

Not everyone agrees. “iPhone has shown that they do not have to subsidize the device in the U.S.,” William Ho, a research director of wireless services for Current Analysis , told MacNewsWorld.

“The numbers that it puts up [are] certainly enviable. This is a trend that carriers want to acclimate the general public towards — at least the higher-end ones — as open access comes into play a few years down the road. No subsidy equals a lower acquisition cost, which means ultimately margins are better for AT&T,” he added.

Drooling Over ‘One More Thing …’

Cult of Mac blogger Leigh McMullen took a striking different turn this week by speculating that Jobs may have something even cooler than a 3G iPhone to deliver at WWDC.

“Personally, I think this whole 3G iPhone business is a red herring. Sure, it’ll be announced, and people will love it. But the leaks abound so much. I find myself hoping that it’s part of a disinformation campaign; to keep us distracted so we don’t guess too closely at what new cool products Apple might unveil, and that there will be a terrific surprise for all of us at WWDC,” McMullen wrote, linking to a previous post and artist mockup of a possible multi-touch Mac tablet device.

Some readers hoped for new cinema display, Blu-ray Apple TVs and free .Mac service. Several seemed to concur with McMullen’s tablet desire.

“It’s going to be a tablet. Or something touchscreenie. Why else would microsoft otherwise rush to show windows 7 with touch screen capabilities. They wanted to be the first to claim it. Although it didn’t make a lot of impact …,” airwin commented.

“WWDC is about development, not really hardware. Sure, hardware has been announced in previous WWDC’s, but it’s not a common thing,” Sven Rafferty, director of Internet technology for Hypersven and editor of Svenontech.com, told MacNewsWorld.

“After two years of Leopard, Leopard and just Leopard, it’s easy to ignore the fact that there might be more than just the iPhone next-gen and firmware 2.x. Rumors are seeping of 10.6, which I wouldn’t be surprised by, as well as the tablet,” he said, noting that the tablet is less likely.

“It’s a niche market … I’d say a mini-PC, like that of the ASUS, would make more sense. Now is that a tablet? I don’t know …” he added. “I say the next-gen iPhone will be center stage along with the SDK and all the apps.”

========================================================

less professional speculations from a non-professional writer

I am very sure we will see a 3g capable iPhone. The iPhone has been struggling in Europe because of the EDGE network’s inability to match the speeds of their existing 3g network and that would solve the problem. Also there is the fact that apple seems to have shipped over 1 billion brown boxes out to their retail stores in anticipation of a product release. I realise that this could be anything but the boxes appeared to be the correct size and I just have a hunch I know what’s in them.

Business Stuff

Apple had a special event a while back about business apps for the iphone. This was at the same time they announce that the AppStore would be released ’sometime in June’. Therefore it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that there will be something about said AppStore.

‘Rumors are Seeping of 10.6′

That would surprise me greatly considering only a few well known facts. First: Apple just released 10.5 this January! There is no way in hell that they would announce a new OS so soon. It took them 3 years or so of tiger to get around to releasing leopard. Second: If history is a guide (it usually is for Apple) they will release many more patches to leopard before releasing another. Third: It’s obvious that they might crank it to 11 sometime. You can’t expect the X to stick around forever do you?

I will probably use these points in a more detailed article written entirely by myself later on. Till then this is what I have for you. Goodnight and good luck…and stuff the end.

Pronographic Message Found on Library Kiddie phone line

Someone hacked into a California library’s dial-a-story phone service and replaced a fairy tale with a pornographic, profanity-laced message, according to The Associated Press.

The director of the public library in Benicia, which is about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, says a four-digit passcode is required to change the recording. The offensive message was immediately removed after it was reported last week.

I know you’re probably wondering what the message was. It reportedly involved a dog and a pig. Enough said.

Info found on CNET

YouTube law fight ‘threatens net’

The following article caught my interest on the BBC. @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7420955.stm\

A one billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube threatens internet freedom, according to its owner Google.

Google’s claim follows Viacom’s move to sue the video sharing service for its inability to keep copyrighted material off its site.

Viacom says it has identified 150,000 unauthorised clips on YouTube.

In court documents Google’s lawyers say the action “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information” over the web.

The search giant’s legal team also maintained that YouTube had been faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act and that they responded properly to claims of infringement.

In papers submitted to a Manhattan court, Google said it and YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works”.

Viacom disagreed that either firm had lived up to that standard and said that they had done “little or nothing” to stop infringement.

Abuse

In a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom claimed YouTube consistently allowed unauthorised copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its website and viewed tens of thousands of times.

It said it had identified more than 150,000 such abuses which included clips from shows such as South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and MTV Unplugged.

Interview with one of the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley, first broadcast on 21 May 2007

The company says the infringement also included the documentary An Inconvenient Truth which had been viewed “an astounding 1.5 billion times”.

Viacom, which is asking for damages for the unauthorised viewing of its programming, said its tally represented only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.

“The availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants’ business plan,” Viacom said.

Viacom originally started legal action last year and filed an amended version last month. Earlier this month Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone told Dow Jones: “When we filed this lawsuit, we not only served our own interests, we served the interests of everyone who owns copyrights they want protected.”

He added: “We cannot tolerate any form of piracy by anyone, including YouTube…they cannot get away with stealing our products.”

For its part, Google said the only way the legal action would be resolved was in court.

Google’s vice president of content partnerships David Eun has said: “We’re going all the way to the Supreme Court. We’ve been very clear about it.”

After the legal action was first started, YouTube launched an anti-piracy tool that checks uploaded videos against the original content in an effort to flag piracy.

New Forrester GX1000!

Forrester Technologies, a company that we have worked very closely with for the past few years has finally released it’s long awaited gaming computer under the name GX1000. With two Intel Xeon quad core chips clocked at 2.6-3.12 Ghtz it blazes through everything that you can throw at it. It has the same great Ubuntu linux that was well loved with the C100 and it has an optimized OpenGL platform for developers. OpenGL can be used at a kernal level on this linux based system so that the graphics that your working with as a developer are faster than ever. It has up to 4Tb hard drive space with an option of SSD drives, and up to 32Gb RAM. Oh and did I say that it looks really awesome too…

New iMacs!

The more powerful iMac. Now running at speeds up to 3.06GHz.

Just when you thought iMac had everything, now there’s even more. More powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processors. And more memory standard. Combine this with Mac OS X Leopard and iLife ’08, and it’s more all-in-one than ever. iMac packs amazing performance into a stunningly slim space.

Wide-eyed wonder.

Photos, movies, games, videos, and applications with palettes. Anything you see on the 20- or 24-inch glossy widescreen display will be a perfect pixel experience. iMac features a flat-panel LCD screen with 1680-by-1050 resolution (20-inch) or 1920-by-1200 resolution (24-inch), giving you vivid colors and breathtaking clarity.

Power duo.

The latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors run at speeds up to 3.06GHz with advanced 45-nm process technology and 6MB of shared L2 cache. Translation: iMac runs your applications faster and more efficiently than ever before.

View the iMac Application Performance Chart

iMac Application Performance. Up to 28% faster than previous iMac.

When looking at how the new iMac performs with real-world applications, you can clearly see its advantage over the previous generation. Now with iMac, you’ll enjoy new levels of performance with tasks across the board, whether it’s creating web pages, movies, or music, or organizing and enjoying your favorite pictures and music.

Testing conducted by Apple in April 2008 using preproduction 24-inch iMac units with 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors; all other systems were shipping units. All systems were configured with 2GB of RAM. Photoshop test file size = 120MB. HTML and JavaScript benchmarks based on VeriTest’s iBench Version 5.0 using default settings. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of iMac.

Final Cut Pro. HDV render and encode

28% faster

iPhoto. Common application tasks

27% faster

Adobe Photoshop. 45-filter function test

22% faster

iMovie. Common application tasks

21% faster

iTunes. Convert for iPhone

21% faster

Safari. HTML, JavaScript, Java VM

17% faster

iMac with 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo. (previous generation)

Baseline

The best iMac graphics yet.

With ATI Radeon HD graphics standard, iMac delivers smooth video playback and realistic visual environments. And now you have the option to upgrade to the most powerful graphics ever available in an iMac. With the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS and 512MB of dedicated video memory, this 24-inch iMac configuration reaches a whole new, blow-you-away level of detail and realism in games, three-dimensional graphics, high-resolution photos, and high-definition video.

View the iMac Graphics Performance Chart

Graphics Performance. Up to 2.2x faster with NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS.

Quake 4 performance: 1920-by-1200 High Quality

Configure-to-order 24-inch iMac with 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 2.2x faster

Standard-configuration iMac with 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo

ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO Baseline

Testing conducted by Apple in April 2008 using preproduction 24-inch iMac units with 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of iMac.

Massive storage. More memory standard.

iMac has up to 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory standard so you can run more applications simultaneously. And with a Serial ATA hard drive up to 320GB, you can load up on photos, videos, and music. The 24-inch model has a remarkable hard drive option — up to 1TB — for just about anything and everything you want to pack in.

	Standard Drive	Optional Drive	Standard Memory	Optional Memory
20-inch 2.4GHz	250GB	320GB or 500GB	1GB	2GB or 4GB
20-inch 2.66GHz	320GB	500GB or 750GB	2GB	4GB
24-inch 2.8GHz	320GB	500GB, 750GB, or 1TB	2GB	4GB

iMac ins and outs.

Bring on your iPod, digital camera, mobile phone, and external hard drive. If it has a cable, iMac has a place for it. You’ll find three USB 2.0 ports on iMac itself and two on the Apple Keyboard. Connect faster peripherals to the FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 ports for even more possibilities.

Built-in freedom.

Turn your house into a wireless wonderland. High-speed 802.11n wireless technology is built into iMac. And with Time Capsule or the AirPort Express Base Station, every computer in every room can connect to iMac, the Internet, and each other. Over this network, everyone can print, surf the web, and even play music from the iTunes library through your home stereo — wirelessly.

iSight camera.

Built into the top of iMac is an iSight camera. You’ll hardly notice it’s there until you want to launch iChat, Photo Booth, or iMovie. iSight is easy to use and highly advanced. The remarkable picture quality and color accuracy make this tiny feature huge.

SuperDrive.

iMac doesn’t have a disc tray. CDs and DVDs slide right into the slot-loading SuperDrive. What makes it super? You can burn your own CDs and DVDs — including double-layer DVDs — to back up data or create your own music mixes. With the SuperDrive and iDVD, you can even burn the movies you make onto a DVD and watch them on your TV.

Slim, all-in-one design

Setting the highest standards for elegance and simplicity, the all-in-one iMac packs all its components — from processor to video camera — into an astoundingly thin, anodized aluminum frame.

Faster Intel Core 2 Duo processor

At speeds up to 3.06GHz, the latest-generation dual-core Intel processors powering iMac are faster than ever, offering greater performance for everything from enhancing photos to playing games and more.

Dazzling display

The glossy widescreen display on every iMac delivers incredibly rich, vivid color. And you can configure a 24-inch iMac with a new option — the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS — to enjoy up to 2.2X faster graphics performance.

iLife ’08: Home of your life’s events

With the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand included, you can create a photo book, make a movie, build a blog, compose a song, and much more.

Built-in iSight camera

Have a video chat with friends or family,³ record a video at your desk, or take fun pictures with Photo Booth — everything you need is built right in.

I said I would post Apple’s description of the thing so here it is.

Battlefield 2142 © 2008 EA Digital Illusions CE AB. All rights reserved. Battlefield 2142 is a trademark of EA Digital Illusions CE AB. EA and the EA logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

New Apple iMacs

Apple’s low end computers were speed bumped recently and now their specs don’t look very low end. The latest 24 inch iMac has a 3.06Ghtz Intel Core 2 Duo chip and a 1Tb hard drive. Speeds and sizes reminiscent of the highest end desktops a year or two ago. The slowest model has a 2.4Ghtz version of the same chip. We’re waiting on reviews and benchmarks of these machines and they will be posted when we get them. Today I will also post the full specs and description that Apple provides, complete with links and stuff.

Ubuntu iz cool.

I just set up Ubuntu on one of my computers and it’s really good. I like some of the new features of version 8.04. Here’s a screenshot

Psystar Mac Clone!

A California based company named Psystar has created a Mac clone. The Mac clone market was killed by Steve Jobs back in the 90’s when the plan didn’t work out for the company and the couldn’t make any money off of their software alone. The Mac clone market may be starting up again, however. Psystar has built the open mac, which is a $399 Mac with better specifications than the $599 Mac Mini.

The question remains however “Is this legal?” Psystar says ‘yes’ because Apple is running a monopoly by not allowing people to install Mac OS X on non-apple hardware. They believe Apple does not have the right to tell it’s customers what hardware they can put Mac OS X on. Apple believes that it does have the right to say that and that it is not running a monopoly.

Apple’s philosophy has always been ‘people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware’ for that software. The outcome of this case may compromise the ideal which Apple was founded on.

A Mac user, Chuck Maunder, says this about the situation “When apple sells a computer they aren’t just selling a computer they are selling the Mac OS.” He later went on to say “Apple should probably win this case if it ever goes to court.” and “I don’t think it will make it to court.”

Another concerned consumer says “Apple can only say that they will not honor the warranty.”

No matter what the outcome Apple will continue to make great products and high profit margins.

Earth Hour

Earth Hour 2007 was a Sydney event. Earth Hour 2008 is a global movement.

Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.

About Earth Hour

On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.

In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

We’re Now Hosting the Store!!!

We are now hosting the Forrester store on this site to increase traffic on both this site and forrestertechnolgies.googlepages.com. Forrester Technologies is the company behind most of the money that supports this site. I (the writer) am the CEO of Forrester and use most of my paycheck to make sure this site is running and kept updated all of the time.We wanted a way to attract attention to both this site and the commercial site for Forrester Technologies without combining them or making them maintained for the same purpose. This is the first of many integratios you will see in the coming months but rest assured the site will not change dramatically outside of the store page.

Quad Core Intel Notebook

I found this article on wired.com about an Intel quad-core notebook chip. It will be on our ‘intel’ page as well. Don’t forget you can always see the latest on intel stuff by clicking ‘intel’ at the top of your page.

Intel Prepares a Quad-Core Notebook Chip

By Bryan Gardiner 03.17.08 | 7:30 PM

Intel’s widely expected to release new quad-core laptop processors this fall, but even the chipmaker admits it could be years before the chips really go mainstream.
Courtesy Alienware

Stanford president John Hennessy calls parallel programming for multicore processors the biggest challenge computer science has faced in more than 50 years. But that’s not stopping Intel from moving ahead with plans to bring even greater core counts to your laptop.

According to trade-media reports, Intel is readying a new breed of quad-core mobile processors for release this fall, marking what could be the first concerted effort by the chip giant to aim its high-end multicore processors at the general mobile market.

Just don’t expect quad-core laptops to become an industry standard anytime soon. As DigiTimes notes, these chips won’t come cheap, and will also suck down significantly more power than today’s mainstream mobile Core 2 Duo processors — a big no-no in the mobile space.

Intel has previously stated its intention to release quad-core notebook processors, but the company would not confirm the details reported by DigiTimes.

“I’ve always used the adage, the hardware is ahead of the software is ahead of the user,” says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, who says that quad-core processors in notebooks will not be suitable for mainstream consumers for quite some time.

“I can imagine a small niche [of adopters] on the notebook side, but I still think it’s going to be three to four years before [quad-core laptops] become mainstream,” he says.

In addition to high prices and power constraints, there’s still a dearth of software (and programmers) that can properly take advantage of four processing cores, a fact that will make selling multicore laptops an even harder prospect for Intel in the near term.

Nevertheless, IDC analyst Bob O’Donnell says the decision to relocate quad-core from the desktop to the laptop may actually make sense when you look at future industry trends.

“If you look at where the market is going, we have notebooks sales surpassing desktops on a worldwide scale in 2009,” says O’Donnell. “Notebooks are clearly the platform of the future; hence all the movement by Intel and others into the mobile space recently.”

In the not-too-distant future, O’Donnell also says that notebooks may even become the platform of choice for which chipmakers will develop new technologies, platforms and, yes, even new multicore processors.

For its own part, Intel seems to be well aware of the challenges it and the rest of the industry face in creating software that can take full advantage of multicore chip technology.

Intel and Microsoft are expected to announce a partnership on Tuesday with the University of California-Berkeley and other universities. The venture will see both companies funding new research into parallel programming techniques.

“Given the many attempts at salting parallel computing in the industry over 40 years, there have only been relatively modest successes to date,” says David Patterson, a professor of computer science at Berkeley.

Because the entire industry is now betting on multicore processors, it’s also realizing that unless the software community catches up, there remains no compelling reason for consumers to buy 4-, 8- or any other multicore processor.

As Jerry Bautista, director of technology management for Intel’s Microprocessor Technology Lab, puts it: “It’s not the hardware that’s really compelling. It’s what you can do with the hardware that really is the interesting stuff.”

Computer Sale at Forrester!!!

The Forrester C100 is on sale for 299 dolors for a limited time only. To buy it you can go over to forrestersoftware.googlepages.com/c100info/ and click buy. This is a great computer for very cheap and most of the profit will go to the maintenance of this site. Good way of donating if you need a computer. Supplies are limited.

click to enlarge.

New desktop pics!!!

Here are some new desktop pictures for free download. Click on images to enlarge.

Crazy Illusion!

I just found this amazing optical illusion and thought it would be fun to put it up on the website.

click to enlarge

Taking Donations!

    If any of our returning users want to see more content on our website please send us a donation. We don’t have the money to keep paying for domains and storage, so we need your help! We want to continue providing High-Resolution desktop pictures and news of the latest tech stuff. So please, if you have some money and want to see us continue to improve help us by donating.

You may donate if you have a wordpress.com blog by going to your dashboard, and clicking ‘upgrades’ then, ‘gifts’ then send the gift of what ever amount you like to ‘thehastingsband’

If you don’t have a wordpress weblog or would like the donation to go toward the hardware we use to maintain the site, you may go to paypal.com and send any amount of money to forrestertech@gmail.com.

Your donations will go to making sure we are providing the newest information and that we have enough storage space to post the images and stuff that we want to post. We also want to provide video and audio posts in the near future and we can’t do that without money to pay for format support.

Thanks

Leopard Desktop

This is the leopard ’space’ desktop picture it is free for download and use on any mac or PC

Apple Patents Holographic Display

 On March 20, 2008 Apple was granted a patent on a holographic display technology. This would enable Mac users to display images in true 3-D. They stated that to do so would require much more computational power and bandwidth than most current computers. They also said in the application that the current 2-D systems are not adequate because, even with 3-D rendering they appear unrealistic and flat. Below are images and text clips from the actual patent application.

Click images to enlarge.

Claims include:
A three-dimensional display system, comprising:providing a projection screen having a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function;determining the left and right eye locations of at least one observer;projecting left and right three-dimensional sub-images toward the projection screen; andmodulating the sub-images respectively in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to respectively direct the left and right sub-images substantially exclusively to the respective left and right eye locations.

A three-dimensional display system, comprising:providing a projection screen having a spatial filter defining a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function;determining the left and right eye locations of at least one observer substantially facing and in proximity with the projection screen;projecting left and right sub-images of a three-dimensional image toward the projection screen; andangularly and intensity modulating the left and right sub-images respectively in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to define respective discrete light paths that respectively direct the left and right sub-images to reflect from the projection screen substantially exclusively to the respective left and right eye locations to provide a three-dimensional viewing experience.

Descriptions include:
Although much more realistic, a dynamically presented holographic image also requires far greater computational ability and bandwidth than is generally required for a two-view stereo display. Effective means are also noticeably wanting for dynamically recreating the original wavefront, or an acceptable facsimile thereof, in real time and at commercially acceptable costs. Thus, a need still remains for highly effective, practical, efficient, uncomplicated, and inexpensive autostereoscopic 3D displays that allow the observer complete and unencumbered freedom of movement. Additionally, a need continues to exist for practical autostereoscopic 3D displays that provide a true parallax experience in both the vertical as well as the horizontal movement directions.

iPhone SDK

Apple has finally released the iPhone software development kit. This will enable third parties to write applications for the iPhone in the same environment Apple uses to write their applications. The only drawback is that you have to host your application though Apple’s online AppStore. There is a video available on www.apple.com of the announcement. In the announcement they talked about the structure of the iPhone system software and demoed many apps including SuperMonkeyBall, on the iPhone. I found the following article on infoworld.com.

iPhone SDK exceeds developer expectations

Apple also bolsters the iPhone’s enterprise chops with ActiveSync, remote data wiping and better VPN support
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Apple’s iPhone SDK offers far more than many developers expected, according to developers that InfoWorld spoke with after the long-awaited SDK unveiled today. “It looks like this is what everybody wanted,” said Tony Meadow, principal at Bear River Associates, a mobile application development vendor. “Apple is doing it the right way.”

Forrester Research analyst Simon Yates, concurred, saying that the Apple SDK should please three core constituencies: Developers, enterprise IT and consumers.

“This is direct competition for RIM BlackBerry, and it gives Apple access to millions of Exchange and Outlook users, said Yates.

“This is a giant step toward the business market,” concurred Rado Kotorov, technical director of strategic product management at business intelligence vendor Information Builders.

[ Get the whole scoop on the iPhone SDK, how to make the iPhone fit in the enterprise, and the latest security issues that the popular smartphone raises in InfoWorld’s special report. ]

Developers get a solid database and a familiar API tool set
What pleased Meadow and other developers was a set of functionality that will let them write native iPhone applications through access to the iPhone APIs.

In addition, Meadow thought Apple hit the right note by offering SQL Lite as the built-in database layer. SQL Lite, an open-source database, is widely used by the mobile developer community and runs well on small devices. “It will make it easy to store data,” he said.

Cocoa Touch, the built-in set of APIs that re-creates the Cocoa tool set used to handle the user-interface-generated events in Mac OS X is targeted at the iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s unique touchscreen as well as their gesture-based UI. “It’s an elegant way to deal with the interface paradigm,” said Meadow.

IT gets better, more secure connections
Also garnering praise from mobile industry watchers is the planned inclusion of Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, the technology required to synchronize mail, calendar, and other data directly with Microsoft Exchange rather than use third-party gateways or synchronization services. Apple licensed the technology from Microsoft and will include it in the iPhone 2.0 software planned for release this June. (All the additional features described here will be released with that software update, Apple said.)

The iPhone also will gain remote wipe and lock and on-device data encryption, two features that caused much IT criticism. Plus, Apple will enhance the VPN capabilities it added to the iPhone in late 2007, adding support for Cisco IPsec and two-factor authentication, certificates, and identities. Information Builders’ Kotorov said he was particularly enthusiastic about iPhone’s deepened support for VPNs. Apple will also provide a way for IT to enforce security policies on the iPhone, though the mechanism was not described at the Apple press conference.

Users get push messaging and desktop equivalency
The licensing of ActiveSync benefits not just IT but users in Microsoft Exchange-based environments. They not only can access the same calendar, contacts, e-mail, and other data as they can from their desktop, but they also gain push e-mail. In push e-mail, the iPhone gets a new message almost as soon as it is sent — a feature beloved by users of the BlackBerry, which pioneered the concept. Previously, the iPhone had to poll the server periodically, typically at 15-minute intervals, so unless users manually polled the server, an urgent message might not be seen for some time.

Still, IT won’t be completely happy
As welcome as the SDK and enhanced business-oriented features are, people still have more they want Apple to offer.

A common request is availability from more than one carrier. Currently, the iPhone only works on the AT&T network. “Companies don’t want a single carrier for voice and data,” said Forrester’s Yates.

Second, the iPhone isn’t supported by management tools like LanDesk and lacks a consistent set of management tools like those from Credant Technologies and LanDesk, which support BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Palm OS devices. This means that IT has to manage the iPhone separately from other devices as well as separately from PCs. “What [Apple] needs to do is natively integrate into management tools that companies already use for their other mobile devices,” Yates said.

Perhaps worse, the iPhone requires IT and developers to push applications to users through the Apple iPhone store. Apple says it is doing so in a way that will be IT-friendly, though it did not specify any details: “We’re working on a model for enterprises for them to distribute applications to their end-users, specifically with a program for them to target their end-users. We have a model we’re building for that,” said Phil Schiller, a product marketing exec at Apple.

Ephraim Schwartz is editor at large at InfoWorld. He also writes the Reality Check blog.

New Podcast Episode!!

We have finally, after a long wait, released a new podcast. This is in my opinion our best one yet and it is the first to be wirtten recorded and edited using Apple’s Garageband 6. This edition includes tales of our lab’s building a G3 iBook from spare parts, A short review of the Apple iPod Touch, information about the recently announced USB 3.0 and much more. This podcast was recorded with corresponding visual effects, and high quality compression. Will work on any iPod and almost every other MP3 player. This edition also contains a new theme song that works best onvery high quality headphones. For any comments or questions you may email me at forrestesoftware@hotmail.com.

You may download it by clicking the following link.

Click Here.

Intel Announces USB 3!!!!!!

Here are two articles written by other bloggers then edited by me. If you are one of the other bloggers and do not want this content on this site you may email me at forrestersoftware@hotmail.com to tell me. I will take your content off imeadiatly.

Intel announces, demonstrates USB 3.0

By Joel Hruska | Published: September 18, 2007 – 10:12PM CT

One of the announcements to come out of the IDF keynote this afternoon was Pat Gelsinger’s discussion and demonstration of USB 3.0 technology. Although still in the prototype stage, USB 3.0 is aiming for 10 times the bandwidth of current USB2.0 solutions, or approximately 5Gbps. Since this requires fiber optic cabling, USB 3.0 will add a length of optical data cable to the mix, though USB 3.0 will retain full compatibility with USB 2.0 (and, one assumes, USB 1.0 as well).

Gelsinger expects the final version specifications to be finished by the first half of 2008, with USB 3.0 peripherals realistically appearing in 2009 or 2010. There are an increasing number of devices that could potentially take advantage of the additional bandwidth, including external hard drives, flash readers, video cameras, and the all-new USB-compliant llama expected to be genetically delivered from the Andes sometime in late 2011. Obviously a USB llama wouldn’t be much use without a USB 3.0 device—ever tried downloading from a llama over an old 10BaseT network? Yeah. It’d be worse.

As for the other, official features of USB 3.0, there remains quite a bit of information we don’t know, and it would have been nice for Intel to have included additional information. USB has long been criticized for relatively high CPU usage. This has inevitably become less of an issue as CPU performance has improved, but devices capable of using USB 3.0’s higher bandwidth capabilities could make CPU usage a problem again unless the issue is addressed during spec development. Issues like cable length, available power provided, and the number of devices per channel are all unrevealed as yet, and possibly unresolved. The Inquirer has a few more details on the spec (and the rest of the keynote) if you’re interested.

As far as future market competition, its target of 5Gbps puts USB 3.0 ahead of current eSATA (3Gbps), which is really the only other device protocol under active development that might challenge it as a peripheral interconnect. Although an IEEE 1394c protocol has been developed and published as of June 8 2007, no company has announced an intent to produce a product or chipset that utilizes the standard. FireWire remains supported in certain sectors, but I’d personally be surprised if the combination of USB 3.0 and eSATA doesn’t push FireWire out of the market completely. As for the nascent specification, the proposed 5Gbps speed is great and all, but hopefully the development committees will acknowledge some of the other concerns regarding the USB 2.0 protocol and incorporate solutions for them, rather than carrying them over into another product generation.

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Gelsinger demos USB 3.0, PICe 3.0 and other new toys
Intel Fall 007 Kicking ass

By Charlie Demerjian in San Francisco: Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 10:46 PM

PAT GELSINGER GAVE the afternoon keynote at IDF today, and it started off with some rather tame enterprise parts, then moved on to the fun stuff. First up was virtualisation, and a show and tell of the virtualisation vendors.

The one interesting one was presented by John Fowler of Sun with its upcoming, unannounced VM on its unannounced Tigerton/Caneland box. The most interesting bit is that, because it is running on Solaris,and you run Windows under that, the IO and storage are Solaris based and simply exposed. If you run Windows under Solaris, you get a real fault-tolerant file system on a toy OS.

The one time Itanium was mentioned was in a new Hitachi Virtage blade. This blade is running Montvale, aka Montecito v.07. Other than that, the red-headed step-chip was absent from just about everything.

Next was security, and they gave the quick rundown of VPro 2007 aka Weybridge. We told you all about it here, check it out if you are into virtualisation security. The next-gen VPro is called McCreary, coming in 2008. It will have a TPM v1.2 on the chipset, AMT 5.0 and a technology called Danbury. We will have a full write up on Danbury later today.

Going to I/O, we have the announcement of PCIe 3.0, Quickassist and USB3.0. PCIe 3.0 has twice the bandwidth – that would be 10Gbps – dynamic power management and supports accelerators. This used to be called Genesseo, but now has some marketing name related to Quickassist.

USB3.0 is probably going to be the biggest one of the bunch. They are aiming for 10-times the bandwidth, which would put it at about 5Gbps. For this you need optical, and USB 3.0 cables have an optical link in the current form. Backwards compatible, loads of bandwidth, optical and hopefully available in 1H/08.

Another optical link was the FCoE announcement, aka T11. It does just what it sounds like; puts fiber channel over vanilla ethernet. Intel has 10GigE adapters in copper and fiber for that, buy 12.

Then comes storage. Intel is getting into SSDs and they were showing of prototypes and vague specs. The specs were SATA 3.0, 10-50x the IOPs and a 4.5x power savings, all with twice the write speed. What this is over was not stated, but I don’t think it will be all that slow in any case.

Gelsinger then mentioned Skulltrail and pointed to a box without any more comment. There are several of these boxes at the show, so more info will be forthcoming.

The system diagrams for Nehalem were also shown off, but that is old news, see here and here. They then demo-ed probably the most important bit of the show, a 2S Nehalem system running. Getting one CPU up is easy, the second is much much harder with a new interconnect. Intel did it.

In general, there was a lot new here, more than can be covered in a single story. Much of it will be on your desktop in a year or two, most of it not esoteric server side technology. All I have to say looking back to the spring IDF is …. Yo! µ
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My thoughts.

My initial reaction to the new USB is wow 5 gb!!!!! Holy shit that’s a lot of data to go in one second. Then I thought about it and realized: Ya that’s fast but that number is not the actual speed you’ll get it is the original data throughput. Also I don’t think they will be able to deliver something quite that fast right away. From just over 400 megs to 5 gigs is a long way to jump overnight. I must admit that no matter what it’ll be fast and well worth installing in a machine. It’s just questionable weather they will actually deliver something as good as they say it is.

Good new computer for cheap

    The Forrester model C100 is auctioning on ebay for a reserve price of $300! This computer is very good for a casual gamer and is great for anyone who just wants to serf the web and get their job done. This computer is also excellent for those people who like to do lots of customizing, because it is a low priced machine that still has very good specs.

Here’s a list of the features:

80 gig hard drive

1 gig or high speed ram

2.66 ghtz processor

6 USB 2 ports and built-in networking

Auto overclocking that will automatically speed up your processor to get optimal performance and reliability

Logic board is specially designed so that the parts in the computer will not make very much noise and will last a very long time.

Here’s the link to the page on ebay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK…

2000 Views!!!! yay…

We already have 2000 total views to this site and more on the way. Today is our best day so far. We had 33 views at 6:50 this morning and the number has been growing ever since. I would like to thank all of the people who have found our site useful. I would especially like to thank those of you who have come to this site more than once because you liked what you saw. I will try to continue posting all of the newest technology news. There will most likely be more post to come today in order to boost the number of views over the next few days. Thanks!

Christopher Maunder

Owner/CEO

Forrester Technologies

Mac OS X Leopard

    On the 26th apple released it’s new OS 10.5 Leopard to the public. This will be the new most powerful operating system in the world. As Mac OS X is every time they release a major update. I took this short list of 300 new features of leopard from apple’s website…

There are a few screen shots below this short list…

Google Map AddressesView a detailed map of any address in Address Book. Just hold down the Control key while clicking any address and select “Map of” and Safari will show you its location in Google Maps.

 

 

Synchronize with Yahoo!Synchronize Address Book on your Mac with your Yahoo! address book. Just enter your Yahoo! account information in Address Book preferences to get started.

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AppleScript

 

Full Unicode Support for AppleScriptCombine strings from multiple languages, now that all text is fully Unicode.

Scripting Bridge for Objective-CQuery and control applications with integrated AppleScript support using other languages such as Ruby, Python, and Objective-C — thanks to the new Scripting Bridge architecture.

Enhanced Application Object ModelEasily create scripts that are both generic and portable, now that script statements can target applications by name, bundle identifier, creator code, or POSIX path. New application properties can be used to determine if an application is running and whether it is frontmost.

 

Read/Write Property ListsCreate and edit Mac OS X property lists. Support is built into Leopard.

Scriptable System Preferences & ApplicationsDo more with AppleScript. A number of system preferences in Leopard are now scriptable, including the Dock, Security, Exposé, Accounts, and Networking — as well as a number of features in iChat.

 

Updated Language GuideHave examples and constructs of the AppleScript language at your fingertips. AppleScript Language Guide, updated for Leopard, is the essential guide for scripters and developers.

Descriptive Error MessagesDetermine the cause of script errors more easily with improved descriptive error reporting.

Updated Folder Action SupportEnjoy greater reliability with folder actions, which are triggered by the file system instead of the Finder. Folder actions now have their own server, and each folder action now runs its own copy of the new Folder Actions Dispatcher application.

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Automator

 

Starting PointsStart creating workflows more easily than ever. Starting Points automatically displays a sheet in new workflow windows, from which you choose categories representing the things you want to do. Then select options from contextual pop-up menus.

Improved Automator InterfaceQuickly create and edit workflows with new interface improvements. Choose actions from category groups, custom groups, and smart groups, view results of actions inline, view the workflow log with a single click, and access iLife content with the iLife media picker.

 

UI Recording and PlaybackAdd even more capabilities to your workflows. Use a new action called Watch Me Do that lets you record a user action (like pressing a button or controlling an application without built-in Automator support) and replay as an action in a workflow.

Command-Line Utility for AutomatorGain access to other languages for running Automator workflows, as well as the ability to set the initial value of variables contained in the targeted workflow.

 

Workflow VariablesAutomate more productively by creating workflows that can store and retrieve data during execution. Workflow Variables let you use the same information at different steps of the workflow, giving you added functionality and flexibility.

Workflow LoopingRepeat a workflow for a specified number of times or a specified time duration. No more need to save as an iCal plug-in or use the Automator Loop Utility.

New Automator ActionsCreate more useful Automator workflows with actions for RSS feeds, iSight camera video snapshots, PDF manipulation, and much more.

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Boot Camp

 

Boot CampRun Windows XP and Windows Vista on your Mac at native speed with full compatibility. (Windows not included.)

Boot Camp AssistantInstall Windows without affecting your existing files. Boot Camp Assistant carves out the necessary disk space required by Windows automatically.

Copy Files Between Mac OS X and WindowsCopy, open, modify, or delete files in Mac OS X that you saved to your Windows partition. Leopard understands the Windows FAT32 disk format.

 

Restore to Mac-Only PartitionEasily delete Windows and restore the disk space being used by the Windows partition back to Mac OS X.

Microsoft WHQL-Certified Windows DriversEnjoy the unique hardware features of your Mac including the iSight camera, trackpad scrolling, keyboard backlighting, and volume keys using fully compatible Windows drivers.

 

Automatic PC Key RemappingUse whatever keyboard you wish. Boot Camp automatically detects Apple keyboards and remaps PC key commands to appropriate keys.

Convenient Boot Camp Task Bar ShortcutUse the Windows task bar to restart your Mac into Mac OS X, change Boot Camp settings, and access Boot Camp-specific help.

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Dashboard

 

Web ClipClip out any portion of a web page and turn it into a Dashboard widget. Just click the new Web Clip icon in Safari and select the portion of the page you want, then click Add to see your Dashboard spring to life with a brand-new widget. The widget is “live” and will update as its page of origin does. You can even customize your widget’s frame.

 

Movies Widget in DashboardWatch movie trailers right in Dashboard, then click to buy tickets. A cool new movie widget puts movies and showtimes just a click away.

 

Sync Dashboard Widget Settings with .MacUse widgets the same way on all your computers. Just sync Dashboard to your .Mac account and the settings for your widgets can follow you from Mac to Mac.

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Dashcode

 

Dashcode IDEQuickly design, code, and deploy your Dashboard widget. Dashcode is a completely integrated development environment.

Code SnippetsDrag and drop commonly used blocks of source code into your project, giving you a head start implementing your custom widget.

Widget UI Layout CanvasDrag and drop components from an included library of GUI controls to assemble a working widget that looks the same during design and runtime. No artistic ability required.

 

Instant-On JavaScript DebuggerKeep your development time creative, productive, and rewarding without interruption with Dashcode’s instant-on JavaScript debugger.

Advanced Source Code EditorBe more productive with professional features such as syntax highlighting for CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, as well as Code Sense code completion.

 

Automatic Packaging and DeploymentDeploy your widget in one click. Dashcode organizes all the files that make up your widget, including images, stylesheets, and JavaScript. Adding new files is handled automatically by the project manager.

Widget TemplatesHit the ground running by choosing one of Dashcode’s included templates, each a fully functioning widget ready for customization. No need to write any code.

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Desktop

 

New LookEnjoy an elegant, distinctive new look across the entire system. The semitransparent menu bar and reflective Dock frame your desktop picture. The active application window stands out with a deeper drop shadow and a distinctive toolbar color. One look at Leopard and you’ll know you’re in for something special.

StacksOrganize files in a neat stack on the Dock. One click and the stack springs open, revealing items in an elegant arc or an at-a-glance grid.

 

Downloads StackFind your downloads quickly in one dedicated stack. Downloads from Safari, iChat, and Mail are automatically saved to the Downloads stack. Say goodbye to desktop clutter.

Sorting StacksOrder the files in your stacks any way you wish: by filename, date added, date modified, date created, or file type. Just Control-click the stack and pick an order.

.Mac Sync for Dock ItemsMake your Dock look the same on all the Macs you use. Change the Dock on one and it will automatically be updated on the others.

 

Spring-Loaded DockItems in the Dock are spring-loaded. Just drag a file, hover over any application in the Dock, and press the Space bar — the application opens instantly. For example, to add a picture to your iPhoto library, just drag the image file and hover over the iPhoto icon in the Dock. Press the Space bar, and once iPhoto opens, you can drag the image into your iPhoto library. If you drag a file and hover over a stack, pressing the Space bar opens a Finder window showing the contents of the stack.

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Dictionary

 

Wikipedia in DictionaryHarness the power of Wikipedia when you’re connected to the Internet — it’s built right into Dictionary. You get a great Mac OS X user interface with super-fast searching and beautifully laid out-results.

Apple DictionaryGet to know your Mac even better. A dictionary of Apple terms is built into Dictionary.

 

Front and Back MatterAccess a wealth of content found in the front and back matter for the New Oxford American Dictionary, such as grammar, spelling, and pronunciation guides. Or access reference materials such as the chemical elements, weights and measure, and conversions.

Japanese-English DictionaryTranslate English to Japanese and vice versa. This capability is now built into the Leopard Dictionary.

 

Japanese Language SupportIn Leopard, the Dictionary application supports the Japanese language right out of the box, with an industry-leading Japanese dictionary and thesaurus provided by Shogakukan. The dictionary contains over 200,000 words with rich descriptions and examples, and the thesaurus contains 25,000 words covering 6,000 categories.

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DVD Player

 

Improved Full-Screen InterfaceEnjoy DVD Player’s dramatic new full-screen interface, which puts all your DVD’s features right at your fingertips. Mouse over the top or bottom regions to access onscreen semitransparent displays for a wealth of controls and settings.

Image BarWith the new Image Bar in DVD Player, you can watch a movie in full-screen mode and still have access to all your chapters and bookmarks. Just hover at the top of the screen and jump to a chapter, bookmark, or video clip of your choice.

Time SliderGo exactly where you want to be in your DVD. Use your mouse to scrub forward or backward in the new Time Slider, or choose a specific point in the movie to start playing.

 

Auto ZoomFill the whole screen with a movie in DVD Player. Just turn on Video Zoom and click Auto Zoom to remove your media’s pillarbox or letterboxing.

Chapter ThumbnailsSee dynamically generated thumbnail images representing each chapter of a DVD. You can even create your own chapter thumbnails as you watch, using any frame from the movie.

Time SkipSkip ahead or skip back five seconds to replay that moment you missed or just see something one more time.

Scratched Disc RecoverySmoothly play back even DVDs that may be damaged. New technology in Leopard can locate and avoid scratched areas of the disc.

 

Float Above Other ApplicationsWatch a DVD while working in another application. Leopard DVD Player lets you keep your movie at the front of your desktop no matter what else you need to do.

Parental ControlProtect children and other users from inappropriate content by requiring authorization to play movies.

Video Quality ImprovementsEnjoy even higher-quality video with Adaptive Video Analyzation technology that applies deinterlacing and inverse 3:2 pulldown on demand.

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Finder

 

New SidebarUse the sidebar to do even more. Now items are grouped into categories (places, devices, shared computers, and searches) just like the Source list in iTunes. Start finding what you want with a single click.

Cover FlowFlip through your files in the Finder just like you flip through your album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays the first page of every document. You can also click through multipage documents and play movies.

Back to My MacConnect to any of your Mac computers at home from any Mac on the Internet. Your home computers appear in the shared section of the sidebar. Just click and you’re in.

 

Instant Screen Sharing from the FinderStart an interactive screen sharing session with other Macs on your network. Just select the Mac from your sidebar and (if authorized) you can see and control the Mac as if you were right in front of it. Change a system preference, publish an iPhoto library, or add a new playlist to iTunes.

Icon PreviewSee files for what they really are. Leopard displays icons that are actual thumbnail previews of the documents themselves.

 

Path BarSee the path of a file when you view it in the Finder. Just choose Show Path Bar from the View menu and the path is visible at the bottom of the Finder window. You can also drag files to any location in the Path Bar.

New Folder of OptionsTake control your view options. Adjust the grid spacing to move icons closer together or further apart for the currently viewed folder, or with one click make this view the default for all your folders.

Folder SharingTurn any folder on your Mac into a shared folder. You can share any folder in your home directory from the Sharing system preference. You can customize access privileges and even authorize specific contacts in your Address Book.

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Fonts

 

Printable Font BookPrint out comprehensive previews of your fonts, including sample text in varying sizes or all available glyphs. Just select fonts in Font Book, choose Print from the File menu, and select any of the three built-in report types.

 

Language CollectionQuickly access the fonts you use most often. Fonts are grouped according to your default language preference.

System Font ProtectionNever worry about accidentally deleting a system font. Leopard will warn you when you’re about to perform an action that will remove a required font.

New FontsUse new built-in fonts such as Arial Unicode, Microsoft Sans Serif, Tahoma, Papyrus Condensed, and Wingdings.

 

Font Auto-ActivationAutomatically activate fonts as you need them. When an application requests an installed font that’s currently disabled, Leopard activates that font and keeps it active until the requesting application quits.

Braille SupportTake advantage of new Braille support for VoiceOver with Apple Braille Regular, Apple Braille Outline, and Apple Braille Pinpoint fonts.

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Front Row

 

Front RowSit back and enjoy all of your digital media full screen on your Mac with Front Row. Now built in to Mac OS X Leopard.

AppleTV like interfaceSit back and be amazed. Front Row works just like Apple TV. You control it from a distance using the elegant six-button Apple Remote that came with your Mac. Simple menus, elegant transitions, and beautiful content previews make your digital media shine.

 

DVD Playback in Front RowFront Row works like Apple TV so you can enjoy all of your digital media on your Mac using the ultra simple Apple Remote. Front Row in Leopard includes playback of DVD movies as well. Just pop in a DVD and enjoy.

Streaming iTunes ContentEnjoy your iTunes library — and more. Front Row lets you play iTunes content located on other Macs and PCs in your house.

 

Movie PreviewsWatch previews of Hollywood blockbusters directly from Front Row.

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Graphics

 

Core AnimationCreate incredible animated user experiences in your applications, combining 2D graphics, OpenGL rendering, and video.

Updated OpenGLRun even the most up-to-date OpenGL-based applications that take the most of the latest technologies.

 

New Core Image FiltersTake advantage of over 20 new Core Image filters built right into Leopard, including Disc Blur, Linear Bump, Comic Effect, Hexagonal Pixellate, and Spot Color.

Multicore EnhancedGet optimum performance from Core Image, Core Animation, and OpenGL, all tuned to tap the power of your Mac’s multicore processor.

 

EXIF Color Space SupportEnjoy improved color reproduction of digital photos, as ColorSync now recognizes the EXIF sRGB information embedded in image files by many popular digital cameras.

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iCal

 

Improved iCal InterfaceEnjoy a cleaner look that gets out of your way so you can focus on your calendars. The new iCal toolbar has the Leopard look, running across the top of the application window. The search bar is where you’d expect it, in the upper right corner.

Inline Editing in iCalEffortlessly add attendees or change an event’s time directly on the event itself. The new Inline Inspector window appears when you double-click any event, making it faster and easier to change details on the fly.

Event DropboxShare the information you need for a successful meeting. Simply drag photos, video, or any kind of document into an event. Send email invitations to attendees and your attachments go along for the ride.

CalDAV Group SchedulingSchedule a meeting with colleagues, check availability, and book conference rooms when using iCal with a compatible CalDAV server like iCal Server.

 

Auto PickFind the earliest time that everyone is available for your meeting — with a single click.

Availability WindowCheck availabilities before you invite people to a meeting and find the best time for everyone. If your calendar is administered through a CalDAV server, just click Show Availability to open the Availability window.

DelegationPut a colleague or assistant in charge of your calendar if you’re out of the office.

Offline Calendaring View your calendar, modify events, and queue invitations even when you don’t have Internet access. iCal syncs your changes the next time you get online.

Office HoursSpecify your working hours for a given week so that others know when you’re available for meetings.

 

Reserve Rooms and EquipmentReserve meeting rooms and equipment as you create your meeting invitations. If your calendar is administered through a CalDAV server, iCal automatically displays availabilities when you add a room or resource to your meeting.

Default AlarmsHave iCal automatically create an alarm for each event that you create.

Turn Off All AlarmsDisable alarms for all your events with a single preference setting.

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iChat

 

Photo Booth EffectsTransform your video chats using new Photo Booth effects. Choose among the dozens of effects built right into iChat — distortions such as Squeeze, Stretch, and Bulge, or other video effects like Sepia, Glow, and X-Ray.

Backdrop EffectsDrag an Apple-designed backdrop or your own photo or video into the video preview window to create an effect that will fool your buddies into thinking you’re chatting from your living room, the beach, or the moon.

Screen SharingCollaborate with a buddy via iChat. Work on a Keynote presentation together, surf the web as a team, or help each other with an iMovie project. iChat initiates the connection (asking permission first) with an audio chat so you can talk things through as you work or play. Trade views of each other’s desktops. Even drag files from one computer to the other.

New Message ViewsSee chats in new ways. In addition to the balloon and text-based views, Boxes allow you to view your chats as rectangular boxes stacked on top of one another. Compact view shrinks the text and buddy icon so you can see more text in your chat window.

Custom Buddy List OrderCustomize the order of your buddy list with a drag and drop if you have groups enabled in your buddy list.

Disable AlertsTurn off alerts for a particular chat by disabling “Use Alerts in this iChat” in the View menu. This is especially useful when you’re in a busy chat room.

AppleScript AlertAutomate iChat tasks using scripts. Use scripts to check the status of a buddy, select menu items, or set iChat properties.

 

RecordingSave your audio and video chats for posterity with iChat recording. iChat asks your buddies for recording permission before the chat starts, then stores completed audio chats as AAC files and video chats as MPEG-4 files — so you can share with others or sync to your iPod.

Multiple LoginsIn Leopard, iChat allows you to log in to all your chat accounts simultaneously, whether you use .Mac, AOL, Google Talk, or Jabber.

InvisibilityChange your status to “invisible” in iChat, and you won’t be seen by anyone. But you can still see the status of anyone on your buddy list.

AAC-LD CodecEnjoy crystal-clear audio with AAC-LD compression technology. It combines the advantages of perceptual audio coding with low delay that’s optimal for real-time audio and video conferences.

Animated Buddy IconsUse an animated buddy icon in iChat. Select any animated GIF, or better yet, create one yourself using Photo Booth.

Persistent Chat WindowsPick up right where you left off by choosing to have iChat remember open chat windows and their contents even if you quit and restart.

iChat Theater Show nearly any file on your system through an iChat video conference. Put on an entire photo slideshow, click through a Keynote presentation, play a movie, and more — in full screen, accompanied by a video feed of you hosting.

More SmileysHave fun with the cool new collection of smileys built into iChat.

Watch for My Name…Receive an alert when someone calls your name in a group chat. And never miss a comment directed to you.

 

Clear TranscriptImmediately clear the conversation in your iChat window. Just select the iChat conversation you want to clear, then choose Clear Transcript from the Edit menu. If iChat is saving your chat transcripts, your subsequent chats will be saved to a new file.

SMS ForwardingRegister for AOL’s Mobile Forwarding service and receive instant messages on your phone when you’re away from your computer.

Tabbed Chat Consolidate your chat windows into a single tabbed window. Each chat is represented by a tab on the left side of the iChat window. Turning on tabbed chats is as easy as selecting “Collect chats into a single window” in iChat preferences.

File Transfer ManagerManage your transferred files in one central place. Monitor transfer progress, locate transferred files in the Finder and open them, directly from the File Transfer Manager.

Hide Local VideoRemove the picture-in-picture view from your iChat video conference if you prefer not seeing yourself in the chat. Just select Hide Local Video from the Video menu.

iChat Hot KeyBring your iChat window to the front anytime with a dedicated keyboard shortcut.

Auto-Start iChatSet your iChat status to Available the moment your computer starts up. In iChat preferences, select “At user login, set my status to Available.”

Set Default IM ApplicationSet your default instant messaging application from within iChat.

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Imaging

 

Improved Tethered Camera SupportControl your camera directly from Image Capture, allowing you to take pictures and download them in a single, convenient step. More camera models from Canon and Nikon are now supported.

 

Enhanced Wireless CaptureWirelessly import images from many 802.11-enabled digital cameras and Bluetooth devices.

 

Network Scanning SupportTake advantage of new Bonjour-based network scanners. Leopard leads the way with the technology required to allow scanning over a network.

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Instruments

 

Analysis TemplatesSelect one of the built-in Instruments templates to perform specific analysis tasks, or choose your own collection of instruments and save your layout as a custom template you can use again later.

Record and ReplayRecord your application user interface events to easily create an ad-hoc test harness you can replay over and over.

 

Create Instruments with DTraceMonitor system activity from high-level application behavior down to the operating system kernel, all thanks to the power of DTrace and the instrument builder.

 

Visual AnalysisImprove the performance of your applications by viewing the relationships between UI events and performance metrics such as CPU load, network and file activity, and memory usage.

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International

 

Russian LocalizationMac OS X Leopard is fully localized in the Russian language.

Polish LocalizationMac OS X Leopard is fully localized in Polish.

Portuguese (Portugal) LocalizationMac OS X Leopard is fully localized in Iberian (Portugal) Portuguese.

Enhanced International Font SupportEnjoy enhanced support for international fonts. Several fonts have improved Russian and Polish support; the Korean system font now supports the full set of modern Hangul; there are two new fonts in Tibetan; all built-in Arabic fonts now support Persian; and Leopard supports three additional Arabic-based scripts in Geeza Pro, Uyghur, Kurdish, and Jawi.

 

JIS2004 SupportLeopard is fully compliant with the JIS2004 standard, as UI elements in all applications are rendered using JIS2004 characters by default.

Expanded Font Set in JapanesePut updated Japanese fonts to work. The included Japanese font families, Hiragino Gothic and Hiragino Mincho, are considered among the most beautiful of Japanese fonts, and they now support Hyogaiji, the new standard for Japanese character sets defined by the National Language Council and Japan Industry Standards.

Spotlight Language SupportEnjoy even more language support with Spotlight. A new Chinese tokenizer intelligently parses the search characters to factor in their relationship and meaning with one another, ensuring the most relevant results. Spotlight also has improved support for German and Thai and faster indexing in Japanese.

 

Expanded Keyboard SupportTake advantage of over fifteen new international keyboard layouts, including Tibetan, Kazakh, and Persian-QWERTY.

New Input MethodsTake advantage of new input methods for Chinese, Arabic, and Japanese languages. Leopard also offers two new input methods for Chinese — Pinyin and Zhuyin. Enable the Input menu in the International pane of System Preferences to bring up Character Palettes for several languages. Advanced predictive input for Japanese guesses characters based on context, with improved accuracy in Leopard. And localized help is provided for all of the CJK input methods, including English.

Russian Spell Checker

Danish Spell Checker

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Mail

 

StationeryChoose from more than 30 professionally designed stationery templates that make a virtual keepsake out of every email you send. Templates feature coordinated layouts, fonts, colors, and drag-and-drop photo placement. Stationery uses standard HTML that can be read by popular email programs for Mac and PC.

Forward as AttachmentForward an email as an attachment instead of an inline message. Select the message or group of messages you’d like to forward and choose “Forward as Attachment” from the Message menu. You can also drag and drop Mail messages into applications like iChat and they’ll be sent as attachments.

Duplicate a Smart MailboxMake a Smart Mailbox work even harder. Duplicate it if you want to access your Smart Mailbox from more than one Smart Mailbox folder or if you want to create a similar Smart Mailbox with slightly different criteria. Just hold down the Control key, click the Smart Mailbox you’d like to duplicate, and select Duplicate.

To-Dos Create to-do items directly from email messages or notes in Mail. Simply highlight text in an email, then click the To Do button to create a to-do from a message.

 

RSSSubscribe to an RSS feed in Mail and you’ll know the moment an article or blog post hits the wire. Even better, you can choose to have new articles appear in your inbox.

Data DetectorsAct on information in Mail immediately. Mail automatically detects text fragments like appointments and addresses, and lets you choose smart actions with a click: create a new contact, map an address, or create an iCal event.

Improved SearchFind the right email at the top of the search results list, thanks to smarter relevance ranking in Spotlight. And everything you create in Mail — to-dos, notes, and, of course, email messages — appears in a Spotlight search of your system.

Rich Formatting OptionsAdd style and layout to your email messages with richer formatting in Mail, such as bulleted and numbered lists, indentations, and background colors.

Photo BrowserQuickly and easily browse your entire iPhoto library to find the photo you need for your message.

Custom StationeryCreate your own stationery templates with graphics and attachments and reuse them to your heart’s content.

 

Simple Mail SetupAutomatically configure new email accounts. Just enter your email address and password. Mail knows the email settings for 30 leading email providers, including Yahoo!, AOL, Gmail, Verizon, AT&T, British Telecom, and Comcast.

Safari RSS IntegrationAdd news feeds to Mail directly from Safari. If you’ve already read an article in Safari, it will show up as read in Mail.

.Mac Sync for NotesAccess notes from anywhere, including your other computers, by syncing them with your .Mac account.

NotesWrite handy notes you can access from anywhere — including graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that automatically group them. Your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, so you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.

Archive MailboxCreate an archive of your mailbox to back up important messages or to transfer your mail to another computer.

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Networking

 

New AirPort MenuGet a clearer picture of your surrounding networks in the AirPort menu. Secure wireless networks are identified by a lock icon.

 

Self-Tuning TCPLet Leopard adjust TCP buffer size automatically. Get optimum application performance, especially in high-bandwidth/high-latency environments.

 

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Parental Controls

 

Simple Account SetupEnable parental controls for any account and create a safe environment for your child to work, play, and communicate on the Mac.

Time Limits and BedtimesControl exactly how much time your children spend with the computer each day. Limit total daily usage and define hours the computer can or can’t be used (set differently for weekdays and weekends). Built-in flexibility allows you to make adjustments on the fly as schedules and schoolwork change.

 

Dynamic Web FilterProtect your children from websites with unsuitable content. Apple technology automatically trys to detect inappropriate content and prevents those web pages from appearing. You can override the filter by identifying sites you wish to explicitly allow or disallow certain websites.

Activity LoggingKeep an eye on your children’s computer activities. Leopard logs websites visited and applications used. It also maintains a list of people who have chatted with your child using iChat and a transcript of each text chat session.

 

Remote Control & MonitoringEasily set up and monitor parental controls on your child’s Mac from any Mac on your home network.

Web Filter OverridesOverride the dynamic web content filter to allow your children to view certain blocked sites or prevent them from viewing sites that normally aren’t blocked by the filter.

Wikipedia Content FilterLimit access to profanity in Wikipedia.

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Photo Booth

 

Control EffectsEnjoy more control over some of the Photo Booth built-in video effects. Change the focus of the distortion with a click of the mouse. If you see a slider in live video, you can adjust distortion level as well.

BackdropsReplace the background of your scene with a picture or video, making you appear somewhere you aren’t. Photo Booth includes photo and video backdrops that you can use, but feel free to use your own.

Proof SheetsSelect one of several proof sheets to use when printing a snapshot using Photo Booth’s built-in print layouts. Just choose the proof sheet in the Print dialog.

 

Video RecordingUse Photo Booth to make movie clips. Capture those precious moments and send them to your friends in an email message. You can even choose a frame from your movie to use as your account picture or iChat buddy icon.

Photo Booth with Burst ModeCapture multiple shots during a brief moment in time with Photo Booth Burst. Four successive shots are taken and presented in a unique four-up layout that’s completely interactive.

 

SlideshowShow off your Photo Booth pictures by viewing a full-screen slideshow. You can even view your photos as an index sheet so you can see them all at once.

Export MoviesExport your four-up photos or movie clips as an animated GIF to use on your website. Or use it as an animated iChat buddy icon.

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Preview

 

New User Interface for PreviewEnjoy powerful new features wrapped in a simple and elegant user interface — striking the perfect balance between simplicity and capability.

Smooth Zoom and ScrollSmoothly zoom and scroll through even the largest image files. Preview uses the power of Core Animation.

Improved PDF AnnotationsTake advantage of new PDF annotations in Preview. Add Stickies-style notes and links to websites or other pages within the PDF. Mark important areas in ovals or rectangles and highlight text. All annotations are saved with the PDF so you can share them with others.

Relevancy Ranked PDF SearchHarness the power of Spotlight. Preview now uses Spotlight to perform relevancy ranked searches on PDF documents, making it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Personalized AnnotationsFacilitate collaboration by automatically including your name in annotations.

 

Improved Color AdjustmentEnhance your image files using several Core Image-powered adjustments for easy control over color, exposure, and sharpness. The semitransparent control panel is reorganized for ease of use and now includes Tint control.

More Image Manipulation OptionsEdit your images in Preview. Crop, rotate, resize, and save images in a range of image formats. Selection tools make it a snap to cut and paste images from Preview directly into other applications.

Instant Alpha Background RemovalEasily remove the background from an image, leaving just the subject. Simply select Instant Alpha from the Tool Select button on the toolbar and click and drag in the area of the background you wish to remove. You can also use the Extract Shape tool to select a specific area of the image to keep, automatically excluding the rest.

More Image Printing OptionsEnjoy more printing options in Preview. Print several different images on a single sheet of paper. Or print multiple copies of the same image to cut out and share with friends.

Auto LevelsSee the best picture. Preview will intelligently analyze your image and apply the appropriate white and black level corrections.

 

PDF Manipulation in PreviewRe-create your PDF as you like. Move individual pages around, or remove pages altogether. You can even combine PDFs with a simple drag and drop.

Batch Image OperationsSave time when rotating or resizing a group of images in Preview. Just click the thumbnails in the sidebar and you can change multiple images simultaneously.

Send Images to iPhoto or ApertureFile away your photos directly from Preview. Use Preview to inspect an image, then send it to your iPhoto or Aperture library in one click.

GPS Metadata SupportGet real information from your photos. If your image has embedded GPS metadata, Preview will show you exactly where that perfect photo was taken. Open the Image inspector and select GPS. Preview pinpoints the location where you took the photo on a world map. From there you can even open the GPS location in Google Maps.

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Printing

 

Simplified PrintingGet the best-quality printouts with the least effort. The Print dialog is preconfigured for the most common print settings, while powerful presets optimize your settings without cluttering the screen with unused options. For most documents, simply click Print to produce great output.

Quick Print PreviewGet a live preview of your document in the Print dialog so you know how it will look before you print it.

Printer SupportJust plug in your USB printer and you’re ready to print. Leopard now supports over 2,000 of the most popular models from vendors including Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark, and more.

 

Authenticated PrintingManage printer access with the Kerberos network authentication protocol.

Location-Aware PrintingPrint in multiple locations with ease. Leopard detects when you’ve changed locations. So as you move your Mac between work, school, and home, Mac OS X figures out which printer to use and sets it as the default printer. You can choose another printer whenever you want.

Enhanced Precision PrintingGet the best quality from select Canon and Epson printers. Leopard can use enhanced numerical precision to unlock the printing potential of pro-level color ink jet printers, using up to 16bits per color channel.

 

CUPS v1.3Tap the power of CUPS v1.3. It gives Mac OS X Leopard powerful print job spooling capabilities and enables CUPS-based printer driver development.

Printer Drivers via Software UpdateMake sure you always have the latest printer drivers. Download directly to your system using the familiar capabilities of Software Update.

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Quick Look

 

Quick LookLook inside any document without launching an application. Use Quick Look with documents, images, songs, and movies and get a large-size preview of the file. Flip through multipage documents, preview movies, even add images to iPhoto. You can use Quick Look in Finder, Mail, and Time Machine.

 

Full Screen PreviewPreview files full screen.

Multi-selectQuickly preview multiple files at once in a light table view or individually with slideshow controls.

 

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Safari

 

Fastest Web BrowserBrowse briskly. Safari is the fastest web browser on any platform.

Enhanced Find Instantly and graphically locate any text on the current web page. Safari highlights every instance of the word you’re searching for and even dims the rest of the page so you can focus on the results of your find.

Movable TabsRearrange your tabs with just a drag and drop. Change the order in which they appear or separate them out by pulling them into a separate window.

Pull Tab into New WindowSeparate a tab into its own window with a simple drag and drop.

 

Easily Create Tabbed BookmarksSet a bookmark for an entire set of tabs so that you can view them later, all at once.

Merge All WindowsCombine all your open browser windows into one single, tabbed window.

Full History SearchEasily find web pages you have visited. Safari indexes all of the text in websites that you browse. Even weeks later, Safari will be able to find a web page that matches your search.

Reopen WindowsGo back to a set of windows you were viewing after closing them or even after quitting Safari.

Resizable Text FieldsResize any text field to the size you want because the original design was too small or you just have a lot to say. The contents of the web page will reflow to make room for the resized text field.

 

Preview Controls for PDFsGain new control over PDFs you see on the web. With Preview controls built into Safari, you can zoom in and out, navigate PDF pages with the sidebar, even open the PDF in a separate Preview window.

Remove History Items PeriodicallyChoose the time interval at which you’d like your browsing history to be automatically deleted.

Desktop PictureTurn any photo you find on the web into your Desktop Picture with one click.

Warning Before Closing Tabbed WindowHave Safari warn you before closing a window with multiple tabs, just in case you meant to close a single tab.

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Screen Savers

 

Arabesque Screen SaverFill your screen with a multicolored, never-ending work of Arabesque art with the new Arabesque screen saver.

Shell Screen SaverEnjoy the display of colorful shell patterns with the Shell screen saver.

 

Word of the Day Screen SaverExpand your vocabulary with the Word of the Day screen saver. Each day the screen saver will offer up five new words for you to learn.

Clock Overlay on any Screen SaverKeep track of the time on any screen saver by overlaying a digital clock. Just select the “Show with clock” option in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane of System Preferences.

 

Collage for Picture Screen SaversMake an amazing screen saver collage. Choose any picture screen saver or one of your iPhoto albums, and watch as the images gently fall on your desktop, one at a time, to form a stunning collage.

Mosaic Display for Picture Screen SaversCreate a screen saver mosaic. Choose any picture screen saver or one of your iPhoto albums and Leopard will turn it into a beautiful mosaic on the fly.

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Security

 

Tagging Downloaded ApplicationsProtect yourself from potential threats. Any application downloaded to your Mac is tagged. Before it runs for the first time, the system asks for your consent — telling you when it was downloaded, what application was used to download it, and, if applicable, what URL it came from.

Signed ApplicationsFeel safe with your applications. A digital signature on an application verifies its identity and ensures its integrity. All applications shipped with Leopard are signed by Apple, and third-party software developers can also sign their applications.

Application-Based FirewallGain more control over the built-in firewall. Specify the behavior of specific applications to either allow or block incoming connections.

Stronger Encryption for Disk ImagesGive your data even more security. Disk Utility now allows you to create encrypted disk images using 256-bit AES encryption.

 

Enhanced VPN Client CompatibilityConnect to a broader range of VPN clients. Leopard supports Cisco Group Filtering as well as DHCP over PPP, which allows you to dynamically acquire additional configuration options such as static routes and search domains.

Sharing and Collaboration ConfigurationShare any folder on your Mac by setting it up as a shared folder in the Get Info window or in the Sharing pane of System Preferences. You can also create and edit access control lists, share with individuals in your network directory, or contacts in Address Book.

SandboxingEnjoy a higher level of protection. Sandboxing prevents hackers from hijacking applications to run their own code by making sure applications only do what they’re intended to do. It restricts an application’s file access, network access, and ability to launch other applications. Many Leopard applications — such as Bonjour, Quick Look, and the Spotlight indexer — are sandboxed so hackers can’t exploit them.

 

Multiple User CertificatesHave more flexibility in choosing a digital certificate for encrypting email messages. With support for multiple user certificates, you can use the Keychain application to associate your certificates with various email addresses.

Enhanced Smart Card CapabilitiesLet your smart card do more. Now you can use a smart card to unlock FileVault volumes and your keychain, and configure your Mac to lock the screen when a smart card is removed. Leopard supports the PIV standard for Federal employees and contractors.

Library RandomizationDefend against attackers with no effort at all. One of the most common security breaches occurs when a hacker’s code calls a known memory address to have a system function execute malicious code. Leopard frustrates this plan by relocating system libraries to one of several thousand possible randomly assigned addresses.

Windows SMB Packet SigningEnjoy improved compatibility and security with Windows-based servers.

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Spaces

 

SpacesOrganize your activities into separate spaces and easily switch from one to another. Make a space for work or play. Choose from a number of convenient options that make moving from space to space fast and easy.

Bird’s-Eye ViewView all of your spaces onscreen at the same time. With a drag and drop you can move an application window from one space to another or reorder your spaces.

 

Add and Remove SpacesEasily add or remove spaces in the Spaces pane of System Preferences.

Application BindingAssign an application to a specific space. Anytime you run that application, it will open in its assigned space.

 

Bump Over to Adjacent SpaceMove a window to another space by dragging it to the edge of your screen. Spaces will switch to the new space and take your window with it.

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Spotlight

 

Search Shared MacsSearch any Mac on your network. Use Spotlight to find files just like you do on your Mac — by name, contents, or even metadata. You can search any connected Mac with Personal File Sharing enabled or a file server that’s sharing its files.

Advanced SearchesUse a richer search vocabulary. The Spotlight search field now supports Boolean logic with AND/NOT/OR and parenthesis syntax. Search category labels such as “author” or “width.” Use ranges in your search including “greater than” and “less than.” Spotlight also understands quoted phrases and dates.

Dictionary Definitions in SpotlightQuickly find the definition of any word by entering it in the Spotlight search field.

 

Calculations in SpotlightFind answers fast. Just activate Spotlight and type in a simple or sophisticated equation, and Spotlight will instantly show you the result. Enjoy support for over 40 functions ranging from simple math to logarithms to trigonometry.

Spotlight Application LaunchingLaunch applications quicker. The Spotlight default item is now the Top Hit, so if you search for an application, all you have to do is press Return to launch it.

 

Web History SearchSearch your recently visited web pages with Spotlight. Spotlight indexes the names of the websites you have visited as well as the content in the sites themselves. Search any attribute of a recently visited web page and you can go right back to it in Safari.

Search by FilenameFind files faster. If you know the filename you’re looking for, narrow your search results so that Spotlight searches only filenames.

Search System FilesUse Spotlight to search system files.

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System

 

Icon Mode in Open and Save PanelsView your files as icons in the Open and Save panels, just as you would in the Finder.

iLife Media Browser in Open PanelAccess iLife content from any Mac OS X application. Now the iLife Media Browser is integrated into the Open panel.

Live Partition Resizing in Disk UtilityYou may be able to gain disk space without losing data. If a volume is running out of space, simply delete the volume that comes after it on the disk and move the volume’s end point into the freed space.

 

Help Menu SearchEnjoy more helpful Help. A new search field in the Help menu displays all relevant menu items in the active application. Highlight one and Leopard opens the menu and highlights the command.

Guest Log-In AccountsAllow anyone to surf the web and check email as a guest on your Mac. When they log out of the guest account, Mac OS X purges the account, removing any trace of their activity. So each time someone logs in as a guest, he or she gets a fresh, unused account.

 

Grammar CheckLet your grammar set a shining example. A built-in English language grammar checker helps ensure that you don’t make errors in grammar.

Scroll Non-Active WindowsScroll any open window, even if it’s not active. Simply position your mouse over the target window and scroll.

Empty Trash ButtonEmpty the Trash from the Trash itself with the Empty Trash button.

Eject All PartitionsEnjoy greater flexibility when ejecting a partitioned USB or FireWire volume. You can eject just one of the volumes or all the volumes at once.

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System Preferences

 

New Parental Controls PreferencesConfigure all aspects of parental controls — content filters, curfews, and remote control — in one central place.

Improved Network Preferences InterfaceEnjoy a simpler, more elegant view of your network preferences. Network status and configuration details are combined into a single, easy-to-understand view.

.Mac Sync for System PreferencesGet yourself a .Mac account and your System Preferences can stay in sync across all your Macs. No matter what Mac you use, you’ll feel right at home.

 

Advanced Account OptionsMake changes to the user ID, login shell, and home directory for any account. Just hold down the Control key and click an account in the Accounts pane of System Preferences.

Hot Corner for Sleep DisplayGet more use out of those hot corners. In addition to launching Exposé or starting a screen saver, you can now use hot corners to put your display to sleep.

 

Mouse Controls for ExposéControl Exposé with any button on your mouse. Specify the mouse controls in the Exposé and Spaces pane in System Preferences.

Mouse Controls for DashboardLaunch your Dashboard widgets with any button on your mouse. Specify the mouse controls in the Exposé and Spaces pane in System Preferences.

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Terminal

 

Improved International SupportGet more out of Terminal. The Core Text API for text layout reduces setup time and makes Terminal behave flawlessly for international users, with an increased character set.

InspectorEnjoy convenient access to window information, display settings, and advanced options with the Inspector window.

Merge All WindowsCombine all your open Terminal windows into a single window with multiple tabs.

 

Movable TabsRearrange your tabs with just a drag and drop. Change the order in which they appear or separate them out by pulling them into a separate window.

Window SettingsSave the window settings and shell configurations to a profile that you can reuse later.

Pull Tab into New WindowSeparate a tab into its own window with a simple drag and drop.

 

Tabbed WindowsKeep multiple Terminal sessions going in a single, tabbed window.

Adjusting Window SettingsCustomize the look and feel of Terminal with new window settings. You can set the background color, text color, and opacity of your windows.

Window GroupsSave the configuration of all your open windows as a window group. The location, window settings, and shell configurations of multiple windows can then be recalled instantly.

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Text Edit

 

AutosaveEnsure that your edits aren’t lost. Have TextEdit automatically save copies of your document at a specified time interval.

OpenDocument and Word 2007 FormatsTake advantage of TextEdit support for the Word 2007 and OpenDocument formats for reading and writing.

Smart LinksHave TextEdit automatically turn Internet addresses in your document into clickable links.

 

Select Line PanelJump to a specific line in your document if you know its number. Or jump forward or backward by a specified number of lines.

Print Header and FooterPrint page numbers, the date, and the document title on each page of a TextEdit document.

 

Smart QuotesMake your document look more professional with curly (“smart”) quotes. TextEdit can automatically substitute smart quotation marks for straight quotation marks as you type.

Smart Copy and PastePreserve proper spacing around copied text.

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Time Machine

 

Back Up EverythingAutomatic backup, built right into your Mac. Never worry about losing a file again. Time Machine stores an up-to-date copy of all your Mac’s files on an external hard drive, personal file sharing volume, or Mac OS X Server. That includes system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents.

Automatic BackupEnjoy effortless setup. The first time you attach an external drive to your Mac, Time Machine asks if you’d like to use that drive as your backup. Say yes and Time Machine takes care of everything else. Automatically. In the background. You’ll never have to worry about backing up again.

Go Back In TimeSee what your computer looked like in the past. Select a specific date and let Time Machine find your most recent changes, or do a Spotlight search to find exactly the file you’re looking for. Once you do, click Restore and Time Machine brings it back to the present.

 

Automatic Stop and ResumeNever skip a beat. If your Time Machine backup is interrupted — because you took your portable on the road or put your Mac to sleep — Time Machine will simply stop backing up. When you reconnect to your backup drive again, TIme Machine automatically picks up where it left off.

Do Not Back Up ListBe selective. By default, Time Machine backs up your entire system. But you can also select items to exclude from a Time Machine backup to save space on your backup disk.

Browse Other Time Machine DisksBrowse other Time Machine disks with your Mac. Just plug in the drive and your Mac will recognize the Time Machine backup volume, even if it has backed up a different Mac.

Migration Assistant SupportMigrate easier. Move individual users and folders from an existing Time Machine backup to set up new systems with ease. Then just start up the new Mac and you’ll be right where you left off on the previous one.

 

Manual BackupCreate a new incremental backup at any time. Hold down the Control key and click the Time Machine icon in the Dock.

Quick Look Before RestoringQuickly preview your files before you restore them to make sure those documents are really the ones you want.

Restore Your MacRestore everything on your Mac. Time Machine will put all the files right back where the originals were — as if nothing ever happened. You can even restore your files to set up a brand-new Mac.

Preserve Access PrivilegesBack up the entire system and all users at once, while maintaining the access privileges associated with your files.

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Universal Access

 

Alex — A New VoiceGive yourself a new voice. Meet Alex — a new English male voice that uses advanced, patented Apple technologies to deliver natural breathing and intonation, even at fast speaking rates.

Plug-and-Play Refreshable Braille Display SupportQuickly set up popular, refreshable Braille displays. VoiceOver detects and configures as soon as you plug them in. No additional software or setup is required.

Braille Output During OS InstallationFor the first time ever on a desktop computer, you can use a Braille display while installing or upgrading your operating system.

The Braille PanelSee a virtual Braille display — a visual representation of VoiceOver Braille output onscreen along with an English text translation.

Customizable Braille Display Input KeysCustomize a Braille display more easily than ever before. Just choose a VoiceOver command, then press and hold the input keys. A tone sounds to let you know the command has been assigned successfully.

 

Contracted and Non-Contracted BrailleOutput Braille in standard contracted format or non-contracted “computer Braille.” VoiceOver automatically converts contracted Braille under the cursor so it’s easier to edit, then contracts it again when the cursor moves.

NumPad CommanderControl VoiceOver using only the numeric keypad just like JAWS and Windows-Eyes. This makes it easier for screen reader users to switch from a PC to a Mac and provides easy access to your favorite VoiceOver commands.

Portable VoiceOver PreferencesInstantly reconfigure your VoiceOver preferences. Just plug in a flash drive containing your preferences and Leopard instantly reconfigures to work and act just like your Mac — without leaving a trace when you leave.

Faster Web and Page NavigationQuickly navigate long documents or web pages. Jump to key elements like headers, tables, and links and by text attributes like underlining, bold, italics, and color — even text phrases.

Hot SpotsMonitor up to ten different areas onscreen and be alerted when there’s a change. Then jump directly to any hot spot to investigate or take action.

 

Drag-and-Drop SupportUse drag-and-drop actions by keyboard only, in accessible applications.

Integrated Interactive TutorialLearn VoiceOver unassisted in a safe environment. A built-in tutorial lets you practice as you learn.

Misspelled Word DetectionHear when a word is misspelled while reading text. Choose a tone or a spoken description.

Positional Audio EffectsBenefit from many new sound effects in VoiceOver. Audio cues provide an improved sense of location.

Highlight by Word or SentenceSet the VoiceOver cursor to highlight each word or sentence being read as it is spoken.

New VoiceOver UtilityCustomize VoiceOver more easily. A new VoiceOver Utility layout includes many new options and preferences for customizing VoiceOver.

Improved Application AccessibilityDo more with VoiceOver. Bundled Leopard applications and utilities have been enhanced for improved accessibility.

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UNIX

 

UNIX® CertificationMac OS X is now a fully certified UNIX operating system, conforming to both the Single UNIX Specification (SUSv3) and POSIX 1003.1. Deploy Leopard in environments that demand full UNIX conformance and enjoy expanded support for open standards popular in the UNIX community such as the OASIS Open Document Format (ODF) or ECMA’s Office XML.

DTraceMonitor virtually any aspect of your application with DTrace, integrated into the Darwin kernel. Ruby, Python, and Perl have also been extended to support DTrace, providing unprecedented access for monitoring the performance characteristics of those languages.

Cocoa BridgesUse Ruby and Python as first-class languages for building Cocoa applications, thanks to Objective-C bridges as well as full Xcode and Interface Builder support.

 

AutoFSAutomatically mount and dismount network filesystems on separate threads to improve responsiveness and reliability.

Wide Area BonjourAccess your Macs, at home or on the road, with a single consistent host name. Use this host name whether you’re behind a NAT gateway or hopping across DHCP servers.

Kerberized NFSSecurely connect NFS clients and servers using MIT’s Kerberos, rather than trusting system-reported IDs.

Directory UtilityGraphically manage all local and remote directory entries and services in one place. You don’t have to rely on complicated command-line operations.

Streaming IOSet up high-bandwidth data transfers in your applications, without having to worry about different hardware architectures and optimal caching strategies.

 

Multicore OptimizedTake full advantage of modern architectures with multiple processor cores with improved scheduling, memory management, and processor affinity algorithms.

Scripting BridgeUse Objective-C, Ruby, and Python programs to automate Mac applications. The new Scripting Bridge enables them to easily generate AppleEvents using a concise, AppleScript-like syntax.

Ruby on RailsWork in a developer’s dreamland. Leopard is the perfect platform for Ruby on Rails development, with Rails, Mongrel, and Capistrano built in.

64-Bit ApplicationsMake use of all your existing devices. Leopard is the first mainstream operating system to completely and seamlessly support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications on the same platform.

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Xcode 3

 

Code FocusEasily visualize your code’s structure as you type with a unique highlighting effect, or use your mouse to select a code block to fold out of the way.

Improved Performance EditorGet work done quickly with the improved editor in Xcode with snappier searching and the ability to load large files at least four times faster.

Instant-On DebuggingEliminate the jarring transition from coding to testing with the instant-on debugger, moving smoothly from writing your code to running to pausing at any point to start debugging.

 

Interface Builder with AnimationsCreate powerful user interfaces and add great effects to your applications.

Message BubblesView your build errors, breakpoint definitions, and debug values right alongside the relevant source code.

Objective-C 2.0Take advantage of Objective-C 2.0 — easier to read, faster to code, and more secure than ever.

Organizer WindowDevelop your next project more easily, regardless of language and without a project. Just drag a folder into the Xcode Organizer window and click Build.

 

Project SnapshotsExperiment without fear. Record all the files of your project at any point in time as a safety net. Experiment with the confidence that you can always restore your project to a past working state.

RefactoringSafely restructure or rename components of your source code with a single operation that affects your entire project, without risk of changing application behavior.

Research AssistantView context-sensitive documentation that appears just as you need it. Research Assistant provides API overviews, source code references, related APIs, and more.

 

Screenshots:

Download page has been updated!

Our download page was rendered out of date when mydatabus.com deleted our file. I just now began reconstruction of the page but I got it back to where it is usable. All of the links on the downloads page are unbroken and work. The problem is that there are now only two links, but I intend to continue to fix it later.

New Podcast Edition!

There is finally a new podcast out. We had some trouble finding a way to publish it now that www.mydatabus.com decided not to support us anymore, but we did it. We are now using a service by orbitfiles.com that is much faster and easyer to use. We now also have an RSS feed for the Podcast, thanks to our switch to orbit files.

Here is the link.

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2123998295.html

Apple’s iPhone gets Hacked!!!

(CBS) The Skinny is Keach Hagey’s take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.

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It didn’t take long. The iPhone has been hacked, according to the New York Times. A team of computer security consultants said they could take control of a person’s iPhone through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code.

Although Apple built considerable security measures into the device, according to Charles Miller, the main analyst for the firm, “Once you did manage to find the hole, you were in complete control.”

So far, there’s no evidence that the flaw has been exploited, and the firm generously offered to sell Apple a plug-in to fix the leak. Which would ease our worries completely, except Miller is described as “a former employee of the National Security Agency,” and we all know how hesitant that agency has been to spy on American citizens.

Turkey’s Ruling Party Gets Roasted

Turkey’s Islamic-inspired governing party’s harder-than-expected pummeling of the secular opposition in Sunday’s parliamentary elections topped the Wall Street Journal’s newsbox and, at least visually, the front pages of the The New York Times, and Los Angeles Times today.

While the LA Times seemed most concerned about of the “specter of bitter quarrels over the feared erosion of Turkey’s secular traditions” that would arise from the ruling party’s new mandate, the WSJ focused on the silver lining, emphasizing that “the wide margin of victory paves the way for more pro-Western and business friendly policies.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times asks, but doesn’t answer, the question at the heart of it all: “Can an Islamic-oriented government that is popularly election be democratic and aligned with the West?”

Perhaps it was the absence of an answer to this question that relegated the story, teased with a colorful lead photograph women in headscarves waving celebratory flags, to A3.

Iraq Update: Not So Fast

Meanwhile, there remains a little less than nothing to celebrate in Iraq. In the latest wholly depressing dispatch, a top U.S. training official told USA Today that “military offensives and a changed focus on increasing security” (Um, does this mean we weren’t focusing on security before?) have slowed the training of Iraqi forces. Admitting the news was “a hard pill to swallow,” the general said American troops would need to remain in Iraq for at least two more years to prevent “a bloodbath.”

Democrats: The New Money Party?

Downers like this do have an upside – if you are Democrat, reports the Wall Street Journal. With more than a year to go before the elections, Democratic candidates have raised $100 million more in campaign contributions than Republicans, putting them on track to win the money race for the White House and Congress for the first time in recorded campaign finance history.

The reason? “Democrats have taken the lead by exploiting widespread disapproval of President Bush and the Iraq war to develop a more robust online network of new, small donors, as well as to gain traction with deep-pocketed business contributors.” That, and Democrats are way better at surfing (and milking) those wild and crazy “internets.”

A NOTE TO READERS: The Skinny is now available via e-mail. Click here and follow the directions to register to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.

© MMVII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Teen Hackes iPhone to work on other networks!

    seventeen-year-old George Hotz of Glen Rock, NJ has finally found a way to make the iPhone run on other networks besides AT&T.

When Apple release this amazing smartphone in june Steve Jobs also announced that until the two-year contract with AT&T ran out the iPhone would only work on AT&T’s cellular network. Hotz changed all of this by making a way to put it on any other network. Hotz says that he will leave instructions on how to do it yourself on the internet, however I haven’t been able to find it yet.

After he made the public release of this hack there were many companies wanting to buy his hacked gadget. He finally did sell the phone to a company called CertiCell for a Nissan 35z and three more 8gb iPhones. [Terry] Daidone, who’s the co-founder of Louisville, Kentucky-based CertiCell, has apparently also offered the young man a paid consulting job, but stresses the company doesn’t have ‘any plans on the table right now to commercialize Mr. Hotz’ discovery’.

1000 views!!!!

Today this blog has exeded 1000 views!!!!! Yay!!!!!! This is not a very big number but looking at the graph we are growing in average number of views per day fairly rapidly. Thanks to all those who have viewed this blog.

My Microsoft Hell!!!

As most of you know I am a long time Mac user. I am, however still stuck in a windows world. Last school year I was going to Hastings High and I tried to take a keyboarding class because it was the prerequisit but I had conflicts with the teacher and she flunked me twice. So… this year I went to the college and got an online keyboarding class. The problem there is that it requires windows. So I got an unused copy of winodws from a friend and set
it up on my Mac three weeks before the class started. I was using it for that three weeks and the night before the class started I shut down the Virtual machine, like I do every night. The next morning got up and tried to start it back up to start my class, and it booted to the login screen and froze, so I restarted it. It wouldn’t boot at all ever again. Then I tried reinstalling Windows on a different machine and the serial code would no longer work! Because of microsoft I lost two whole weeks to work on my class and $124 to get a new copy of windows! Today I wrote a letter to Microsoft to tell them how I felt. Here it is…

” I am a long time mac user stuck in a windows world and I have noticed the quality of products produced by microsoft to be decreasing in quality in the past few years. In the days of 98, I just didn’t like windows because it was not what I knew how to use and it wasn’t quite as stable. I still thought that it was a respectable OS. With windows XP you made almost no improvement. When you guys released Windows Vista half a decade late I actually expected it to be a good bit better than XP. But the only thing Vista had on XP was that it was very pretty, but it contain no useful functions. Even the good features in XP were taken out in vista. I was glad to see that you continued to sell windows XP but I think that you should go back to windows XP and try to improve on it insted of going back to the beginning and trying to start from scratch. You should have learned from apple’s mistake with mac OS X. OS 10.0 was a really bad OS and it didn’t sell very many copies. It took them tree major revisions to create something that was better than mac OS 9. You might say that that wasn’t a mistake because after all they are still selling more copies than Vista is, and you would be right. The difference is, however, the Microsoft has done that every time they release a new OS. and every timw the release a major update something big is left out of the picture.

My recomendation would be to abandon DOS and use unix for the next version and then continue to perfect the unix versions of windows for a very long time. “

Yet another great disappointment from Microsoft.

–
**************************************
Christopher Maunder
Forrester Technologies Co.
Owner /CEO

If the internet has no doors or fences, who needs windows or gates?
**************************************

New Desktop Pics!

There are now two new desktop pictures for download on this site. They were both created in the Gimp image editing program on my laptop. Here they are!!

Site takeover!!!

As of today this web site is operated by the Forrester Technologies Co. The site will continue serving the same purpose as it has for the last three years. The only differences will be that it will be maintained better and updated more often, and that you can expect to see some posts that are dedicated to a product of the Forrester Technologies Co. There will also be lots of posts that talk about our partnership with Apple Inc and there will be lots more software downloads in the near future.

Goa’uld symbiotes Take over The World!!!

Baby Goa’ulds are being sold in Wal-mart stores across the US.

    Disguising themselves as harmless aquarium fish the goa’ulds have found a new way to invade earth through Wal-mart’s pet department. If you have unknowingly purchased one of these you are instructed to contact General O’Neil, USAF. Caution these are a very dangerous creature. Keep an eye on other residents of the house—watch for any strange behavior (eg. glowing eyes, speaking in a low resonate voice, or demanding worship) These are signs that the person may be possessed by a goa’uld and is very dangerous at this time. This is yet another example the nefarious deeds of Wal-mart.

As you can see, even pets aren’t safe from these dastardly invaders. There have been countless reports of cats and other earth dwelling creatures becoming infected. In these reports cat have been said to exhibit egocentric behavior such as demanding that they be served, laying around the house acting god-like, and having a generally superior attitude. They have also been known to appear to be plotting to take over the world at any moment.

Bloggers’ search for anonymity–Article-BBC Click

 

Bloggers’ search for anonymity

 

By David Reid Reporter, BBC Click

The internet has given the individual unprecedented power to reach out to millions but some governments are cautious, even hostile, to giving their citizens free access to ideas they deem too democratic and dangerous.

Bloggers can face harsh penalties from some regimes

Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia: they are all popular with holiday makers but they also censor and even lock up journalists and bloggers.

This is why the media rights group, Reporters Without Borders, has published The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.

“There is another side to the picture post-card,” said Robert Menard, secretary general, Reporters Without Borders. “There are around 100 people in jail in Tunisia and the entire media is controlled by the powers that be and there are bloggers who have been locked up just for criticizing the Tunisian president.”

In many countries a journalism student covering a demonstration of school children would be commended for his initiative.

In Syria, student Mesud Hamid posted photos on the net of Kurdish pupils demanding equal rights. He was arrested while taking an exam at university.

“I was tortured,” he said. “For one year and three months I was held in a cell measuring one metre by two. I didn’t see the sun or sky for all that time.”

Mr Hamid has since fled to France.

Remaining anonymous

So what do you do if you want to escape detection from authorities who might not like your work as much as you do?

The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents is pretty technical but it also contains some simple tips, so you can say what you think without having to worry the censors or cyber-police too much.

If you want to protect your anonymity you can use a proxy, using a proxy is very simple. Anybody can do it even if you’re not a geek Julien Pain, Reporters Without Borders

“The first thing is don’t write anything under your real name,” said Julien Pain of Reporters Without Borders.

“Even if you are using a pen name, then you have to be careful because the authorities can track you down on the internet.”

You might be tight-lipped about who you are, but your computer is screaming your presence all over the net.

All net-connected computers get assigned an IP address – which ensures that they data you request is sent to the right place.

It can let people know which websites you have visited, which e-mails you have sent and which articles you have posted. But if you are clever you can cover your tracks.

“If you want to protect your anonymity you can use a proxy, using a proxy is very simple. Anybody can do it even if you’re not a geek,” said Mr Pain.

Now there are two ways you can do this. An open proxy is essentially a computer, based elsewhere on the web, through which you can surf, send e-mails or post articles anonymously.

You have to change your IP address to one listed on various sites and, in principle you should be able to work anonymously.

“In principle”, because open proxies can also be used by hackers, so administrators often block them after a few days.

Another option might be a web-based proxy site abroad like Anonymouse or ProxyLord. They are going down well among surfers and bloggers in China.

China’s censorship machine blocks information in various ways

“The authorities would not be able to trace the IP because you’re doing this through a proxy site, and that’s probably the most efficient way now for the readers in China now to visit officially blocked websites,” explained Xiaorong Li, a research professor at the University of Maryland.

Proxies have their drawbacks as they can be blocked.

But for a very effective, albeit technical way of staying anonymous you could use The Onion Router (TOR). This is so called because the data it sends between computers is encrypted in successive layers like an onion. The data also takes an unpredictable path through all the proxies making up the TOR network.

Each proxy peels off a layer of encryption, revealing the next proxy it has to go to. Intercept the message at any point and the identities of both sender and recipient are protected. Not until it arrives, can the message be read.

Firewall of China

There are less technical ways of avoiding censorship. In China filters seek out specific words that the authorities consider contentious.

The mere mention of Tiananmen Square would be enough to get you noticed. But you may, however, be able to fox the filters.

“If you want to put the words June 4th, you put a comma or a period in between June and 4th, so they are not one phrase and that enables this word to evade detection through the filter, because the filter works by phrases: June 4th or 1989,” explained Xiaorong Li.

“If you put some kind of punctuation between the words they become not a phrase but readers can perfectly understand what you are saying.”

There is no sure-fire way of staying anonymous on the web and avoiding detection. But if you are careful about what you do, you can cut down your chances of being caught up by the cyber-police.

Concert in Hastings

New download method!

I have been complaining about MyDataBus.com for a while now but I haven’t done anything about it. Now I am finally setting up a way to host all of our files from someone
else’s servers. I have not gotten all of the files onto the new server yet but I will be working on that over the next few weeks and hopefully by the end of next month we will be independent from MyDataBus.com. Our new download page will be at the following url. Please check it out and email me at forrestersoftware@hotmail.com with comments.

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/chrism 

Free internet from google!

Sign up for our free in-home wireless broadband service

Sick of paying for broadband that you have to, well, pay for?

Introducing Google TiSP (BETA), our new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. Sign up today and we’ll send you your TiSP self-installation kit, which includes setup guide, fiber-optic cable, spindle, wireless router and installation CD.

TiSP in-home wireless broadband is:

• Free, fast and highly reliable
• Easy to install — takes just minutes
• Vacuum-sealed to prevent water damage

Interested? You can learn more about TiSP via the links below, or get started now.

Google has finally created an internet service that is free for everyone unless the person doesn’t have a toilet! There are higher, faster versions of this that you have to pay for but the entry level is faster than most home DSL so I think that it would work fine.

Read more….

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

Installing a typical home TiSP system is a quick, easy and largely sanitary process — provided you follow these step-by-step instructions very, very carefully.

#1   Remove the spindle of fiber-optic cable from your TiSP installation kit. #2   Attach the sinker to the loose end of the cable, take one safe step backward and drop this weighted end into your toilet.

#3   Grasp both ends of the spindle firmly while a friend or loved one flushes, thus activating the patented GFlush™ system, which sends the weighted cable surfing through the plumbing system to one of the thousands of TiSP Access Nodes. #4   When the GFlush is complete, the spindle will (or at least should) have largely unraveled, exposing a connector at the remaining end. Detach the cable from the spindle, taking care not to allow the cable to slip into the toilet.

#5   Plug the fiber-optic cable into your TiSP wireless router, which has a specially designed counterweight to withstand the centripetal force of flushing. #6   Insert the TiSP installation CD and run the setup utility to install the Google Toolbar (required) and the rest of the TiSP software, which will automatically configure your computer’s network settings.

#7   Within sixty minutes — assuming proper data flow — the other end of your fiber-optic cable should have reached the nearest TiSP Access Node, where our Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) will remove the sinker and plug the line into our global data networking system. #8   Congratulations, you’re online! (Please wash your hands before surfing.)

Remove the spindle of fiber-optic cable from your TiSP installation kit.

Attach the sinker to the loose end of the cable, take one safe step backward and drop this weighted end into your toilet.

Grasp both ends of the spindle firmly while a friend or loved one flushes, thus activating the patented GFlush™ system, which sends the weighted cable surfing through the plumbing system to one of the thousands of TiSP Access Nodes.

When the GFlush is complete, the spindle will (or at least should) have largely unraveled, exposing a jack at the remaining end. Detach the cable from the spindle, taking care not to allow the cable to slip into the toilet.

Plug the fiber-optic cable into your TiSP wireless router, which has a specially designed counterweight to withstand the centripetal force of flushing.

Insert the TiSP installation CD and run the setup utility to install the Google Toolbar (required) and the rest of the TiSP software, which will automatically configure your computer’s network settings.

Within sixty minutes — assuming proper data flow — the other end of your fiber-optic cable should have reached the nearest TiSP Access Node, where our Plumbing Hardware Dispatchers (PHDs) will remove the sinker and plug the line into our global data networking system.

Congratulations, you’re online! (Please wash your hands before surfing.)

–>

Note: If you have any difficulty installing, operating or simply living with TiSP, we suggest joining the TiSP Help Group.

Professional Installation Service
You can also choose to request our professional installation service, which dispatches an army of factory-trained, sub-contracted nanobots from the TiSP Access Node. The nanobots travel with exhilarating nano-speed through the sewer system and into your home to perform the installation service, which should be complete within 15 minutes. Note: For your own physical safety and emotional well-being and in consideration of the nanobots’ working conditions, please make absolutely certain that your toilet is unoccupied at the scheduled appointment time.

In-Commode Package Delivery
With professional installation service, you can also have your Google Checkout purchases delivered directly through the sewage network into your bathroom. Each package comes pre-sealed in a watertight and nanobot-resistant bag made of biodegradable corn-based plastic. For a limited time, TiSP subscribers who sign up for a Checkout account will receive free bathroom delivery on their first ten Checkout purchases.

TiSP for Enterprise
We’re actively developing a higher-performance version of TiSP specifically tailored to small and medium-sized businesses, including 24-hour, on-site technical support in the event of backup problems, brownouts and data wipes.

Learn more about TiSP: Frequently Asked Questions

Have a great april fools day!

PS. if you thought that any of this crap was actually true this is your day!

PS.PS. Ok this proves that at least most of it is fake. But google could still be offering free internet sevices. Hell of an april fools joke though! I do think it would be awsome for google to make an internet service weather it was free or not. Think about it google has the best services around in what it does do.

More Pictures Available!

I have just added 2 more high def 1080p images on the Desktop Pictures page. All of the images posted on this page from now on will be High def 1080p or better. There are currently no bandwidth limits on the file that are on the desktop pictures page so you can download as many images as you want! The images currently on this page are intended for use as desktop pictures on your Mac or PC, but you can use them for whatever purpose you wish to use them for.

Apple TV Ships!

From PC to TV — via Apple

By Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret

The race to connect your TV to your computer and the Internet is about to kick into high gear this week when Apple Inc., the company many believe is best positioned to pull off this feat, introduces a slender, wireless set-top box called Apple TV.

This silvery little $299 gadget is designed to play and display on a widescreen family-room TV set all the music, video and photos stored on up to six computers around the house — even if they are far from the TV, and even if they are all Windows PCs rather than Apple’s own Macintosh models. It can also pull a very limited amount of music and video directly off the Internet onto the TV.

The $299 Apple TV device connects wirelessly to home computers and then with a cable to your widescreen TV.

Apple TV is tiny, just about eight inches square and an inch high, far smaller than a typical DVD player or cable or satellite box, even though it packs in a 40-gigabyte hard disk, an Intel processor and a modified version of the Mac operating system. And it has a carefully limited set of functions.

Yet, in our tests, it worked great, and we can easily recommend it for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped on their computers. We tried it with various combinations of Windows and Mac computers, with movies, photos, TV shows, video clips and music. And we didn’t even use the fastest wireless network it can handle. It performed flawlessly. However, it won’t work with older TVs unless they can display widescreen-formatted content and accept some newer types of cables.

Like the iPod before it, Apple TV isn’t the first gadget in its category. Several other companies have made set-top boxes or even TV sets and game consoles that could link the TV to the digital content that people have on their computers. But none has found a mass audience for this functionality, mainly because they tend to be hard to set up and confusing to use. Apple is hoping that, just as the iPod trumped earlier, but geekier, rivals, Apple TV can do the same by making a complex task really simple.

Part of the secret of Apple TV is that, like most of Apple’s products, it doesn’t try to do everything and thus become a mess of complexity. It can’t receive or record cable or satellite TV, so it isn’t meant as a replacement for your cable or satellite box, or for a digital video recorder like a TiVo. It can’t play DVDs, so it doesn’t replace your DVD player. Its sole function is to bring to the TV digital content stored on your computer or drawn from the Internet. Like a DVD player, it uses its own separate input on your TV set, and you have to change inputs using your TV remote to use it.

Apple TV isn’t for that small slice of techies who buy a full-blown computer and plug it directly into a TV, or for gamers who prefer to do it all through a game console. And it’s not for people who are content to watch downloaded TV shows and movies directly on a computer screen. Instead, it’s for the much larger group of people who want to keep their home computers where they are and yet enjoy their downloaded media on their widescreen TVs.

Apple TV’s most formidable competitor is the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft, which, in addition to playing games, can also play back content from Windows computers on a TV. And Xbox 360 can do something Apple TV can’t do, at least not yet, which is to directly purchase and download movies and TV shows from the Internet. But the comparable Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half as much material.

We’ve been testing Apple TV for the past 10 days or so, and our verdict is that it’s a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos, and photos stored on computers. It has some notable limitations, but we really liked it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant.

In our tests, Apple TV performed perfectly in Walt’s house over a standard Wi-Fi wireless network with a Pioneer plasma TV and six different computers — three Windows machines from Hewlett-Packard and Dell, and three Apple Macs. Setup was a breeze, the user interface was clean and handsome, and video and audio quality were quite good for anyone but picky audiophiles and videophiles. We never suffered any stuttering, buffering or hesitation while playing audio and video from distant computers.

The Apple TV menu points to content stored on your home computers.

Unlike any of its rivals, Apple TV can play the copy-protected music, TV shows and movies purchased from Apple’s iTunes online store, the most popular legal downloading service by far. (However, it cannot play copy-protected music in Microsoft’s formats, even from Windows computers.) It worked great with laptops and desktops alike, with Windows XP and the new Windows Vista operating system, and with newer Macs powered by Intel processors and an older Mac powered by an IBM-built G5 processor.

Apple TV’s most important limitation is that it can’t stream much video or audio directly from the Internet — yet. The capability to go directly to the Internet, bypassing the computers in your home, is built in, but is initially being used only to fetch feature film trailers and short preview clips of popular songs, TV shows and movies sold on the iTunes store. Apple TV also won’t allow you to buy media directly from the iTunes store. You must first download content from the Internet or iTunes on a computer, and then Apple TV will grab it from the computer and play it on the TV.

In its usual secretive fashion, Apple refuses to say if or when this direct-to-the-Internet capability will be expanded. But we fully expect Apple to add the capability to stream or download a variety of content directly from the Internet, and that this new capability will be available on current Apple TV boxes through software updates.

In our tests, Apple TV is a pleasure to use. Setup was stunningly simple. We just plugged the unit in and hooked it up to the TV with a single cable (not included). The unit found and connected with Walt’s Wi-Fi network almost instantly. To link to each computer, we just typed into iTunes on that computer a five-digit code number the Apple TV put up on the TV screen. This needs to be done only once.

You can select one computer to automatically synchronize with the Apple TV. Any song, TV episode, movie or photo you download or otherwise add to that one computer is automatically replicated on the Apple TV’s internal hard disk for playback on your TV. We tested this synchronization function with both a Mac laptop and a Windows Vista desktop, and it worked perfectly on both.

For instance, we imported 376 photos Katie had taken on a recent trip to France to a Mac laptop that was synchronized with the Apple TV. In short order, all of the photos were on the Apple TV and we watched them on the big plasma screen.

We also bought some TV shows, movies and songs from iTunes on our synchronized laptop, and they were automatically transferred to Apple TV, where we could watch them. It can, however, take hours to synchronize large files like movies over a slow wireless network.

In addition to your single synchronized computer, you can designate up to five other computers as sources for your Apple TV. From these machines, you “stream” the content over your wireless or wired network, instead of actually transferring them, but the music and video shows up on the TV just as if it had been synchronized to the Apple TV’s own hard disk.

All of these functions are controlled through iTunes on your Windows and Mac computers, just as you would control an iPod through iTunes. (The latest version of iTunes is required.)

In our tests, streaming worked just as well as playing content from the Apple TV’s own hard disk. Even though Walt’s Wi-Fi network is of the older “G” variety, and the Apple TV can handle newer, faster “N” variety networks, every single movie, TV show and song streamed without interruption from both Windows and Mac computers. That even included older or slower computers. This was an impressive feat.

The only downside of streaming as compared to syncing is that you can’t stream photos. These can appear only through synchronization. Apple plans to enable photo streaming later.

On the TV screen, Apple TV presents a simple, handsome list of content for each computer you choose to view. Media is divided into Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts and Photos. You can change among your various computers using a menu called Sources.

There are some drawbacks to Apple TV. It won’t work with most older TV sets, the square kind that aren’t capable of handling widescreen programming. And it works only with TVs that have the newer types of connectors, such as “component” jacks, and the new HDMI cables being used on most high-definition TVs. It works best with high-definition TVs, and it puts out video in high-definition resolutions. But it will also work with “enhanced definition” widescreen sets.

Also, the tiny, simple Apple remote control can’t control the volume on either Apple TV or your TV set or audio receiver, so you have to keep reaching for the TV or audio receiver remote. And you can’t plug in an extra hard disk to add storage capacity, even though there’s a USB port on the back and the built-in 40-gigabyte drive is too small to hold many TV shows or movies.

But, all in all, Apple TV is a very well-designed product that easily brings the computer and the TV together.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com

This article was copyed from http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20070321.html.

If anyone associated with this site would like me to take this off of this blog please email me at forrestersoftware@hotmail.com.

Thank You.

Download bandwidth decreased again!

This is an outrage! They droped our bandwidth again. Now our total download banwidth adds up to 1gb per day. I find this annoying because we have been growing and having more and more people download our files off of tis server. We have also been doing our best to promote the advertisment of mydatabus.com and the return the favor by lowering our bandwidth. So this all comes down to the fact that we ether need them to bring our bandwidth back up to what it was or we need to change download servers. Another option is also to get money and pay for the higher bandwidth offered by my data bus. The only problem with that is that we have no money and no one has been supporting us. What I am saying in this article is that if you want to buy an ad in one of our podcasts or even want me to write a review for a product and post it on one or more of my blogs please email me at forrestersoftware@hotmail.com. I would be more than willing to provide some very cheap advertizing for a young company or any well established company. If you would like to make a donation to the site or one of my software projects you may also drop me an email. Otherwise you can bet all of the money that you aren’t giving us that there will be some major changes in the very near future to our downloads and stuff. Thank you.

Downloads page updated!

There are now more downloads on our cool and totally awsome downloads page. There is a new podcast that was added a few days ago and there are others that may be of interest to our viewers. I would also like to remind all of the people viewing this blog that if you would like to see us continue to expand and provide more free services over the internet you should support our projects by donating money to one of the projects. Such as the code projects that can be seen at macsoft.wordpress.com or our downloads page by clicking on the tab at the top that says “downloads”

Our Bandwidth Decreased!

This is an outrage! Not really that bad but it is frustrating. Thanks to changes at mydatabus.com our bandwidth is now 5gb versus the 20gb that we started with that was just enough to cut it. They say that it is so that the downloads are faster and so that they can add more features but I think it’s just another ploy to get me to pay their price for  more bandwidth that is in my opinion very high. I don’t currently have enough money to pay for it so if we do run out of bandwidth in the near future the problem won’t be fixed until I get more money. I will remind you that if you really like my files that much and want to be able to download them whenever you want to you can send me a donation by simply sending me an email at forrestersoftware@hotmail.com. But I’m not asking for donations I would rather not have to pay for it at all! I’m asking mydatabus.com to raise that minimum bandwidth back to 20gb. That size was perfect for me! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

New Podcast!

There is now a new edition of the open web audio news podcast on the web. Just click on the one at the top in the following table. You can also download any of the past episodes of the podcast on this table through the other links. The podcast #1 is a little bit large and will take a while to download but all of the others are very well compressed so that they will download relativly fast.

Check out my Public Files on myDataBus!
Podcast 3 iTunes and DRM windows vista and leopard. (most recent edition)
Podcast_1
Podcast_2_iPhone_and_MacWorld_Expo
Provided to you by

ASDF

Keep Downloading!

Yesterday I added a few new downloads to the web for free download. This along with the high traffic on this site pushed our download servers to new records. By the end of the day yesterday the servers had reached 5.22% of total capacity. This is amazing considering that there is a maximum bandwidth capacity that totals over 20 TB per-day! All I can say is keep downloading! You are also encouraged to add any of the downloads that you find here to any of your blogs or websites. You can also add the music and movies to Google Videos You Tube or any other file hosting page without any complaint from me. If any file that you see on this site for download looks like a file that you might be at all interested in, please download it and feel free to do with it what you want because I have no legal rights on the files on this site. All I ask is that you don’t modify them in any way from their original formatt. Thank you!