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News & Opinion
Apple Updates
Products & Services
Software
News & Opinion
20 Years, 1 Keyboard
Minimal Mac guest poster and TUAW
editor Dave Caolo says the first Mac he ever used was the compact but
powerful (for its time) SE/30 - "definitely an enviable
machine in 1990" - which was connected to a forgettable mouse and an
Apple Extended Keyboard II - a
"massive battleship of a keyboard was an homage to beige plastic, and
laughably oversized for the Mac."
However, Caolo says he loved that Extended Keyboard II so much
that he still uses one today, and he declares that it will have a place
on his desk for as long as it works or as long as Mac OS X
continues to recognize it.
Editor's note: I have one of these keyboards (pictured), and while I
prefer a keyboard with a lighter touch, smoother action, shorter key
travel, and smaller physical dimensions, I do understand the
attraction. cm
Link: Twenty Years, One
Keyboard
Matias Tactile Pro 3 Keyboard Returns to the
Alps
TidBITS' Adam C. Engst says:
"Over six years ago, I reviewed the original Tactile Pro keyboard
from Matias, and I think my article's title summarized things nicely -
'The Majestic Alps and the
King of Keyboards' (29 March 2004). Put simply, the Tactile Pro was
the best keyboard I had used for a very long time, in the genre of
loud, clicky keyboards with great tactile feel."
"If you, like me, are a fan of clicky keyboards with the classic
feel of the old Apple Extended
Keyboard, you'll love the Tactile Pro 3."
Link: Matias Tactile Pro 3 Keyboard
Returns to the Alps
Is the iPad Cannibalizing the Mac?
Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports that Morgan Stanley market
analyst Katy Huberty sees what may be the first sign of iPad Mac cannibalization trouble in July's retail
sales data, outlined in a report to clients issued on Monday in which
Huberty notes that sales trends for the broader PC market, which
includes Apple and everybody else, were mixed.
On the other hand, Mac sales were up 14% year-over-year in July -
outdistancing both the Mac's June sales performance and that of the
overall PC market, but still down from the Mac's previous three-month
average of roughly 25%. Huberty deduces, "iPad momentum is likely
contributing to the moderation of both broader PC and Mac unit
growth."
Link: Is the iPad Now
Cannibalizing the Mac?
'Perhaps the Mouse Is Passé'
PC World's Tony Bradley says:
"A German retailer has prematurely posted (and very quickly taken
down) details and product shots of
the upcoming Microsoft Arc Touch mouse. The Microsoft peripheral is
innovative more in its form than its function, but along with the
Apple Magic
Trackpad it hints at a future where the mouse may no longer have a
role."
Bradley observes that Apple - responsible for introducing the mouse
to mainstream computing a quarter-century ago - has
introduced a new peripheral that it hopes will spark a new revolution
in computer interactivity. The Magic Trackpad is basically the same
sort of trackpad that you find built into most laptops as a pointing
device, but the new, freestanding trackpad is larger and includes
multitouch capabilities to provide more functionality, such as
pinch-to-zoom.
"Perhaps the mouse is passé," Bradley muses.
Editor's note: Trackpads are okay as a compromise on laptop
computers, but the mouse won't be passé as long as I draw breath
so long as there's no better alternative than trackpads, touchscreens,
and trackballs. cm
Bradley also declaims that "wired mice have the obvious handicap of
being tethered to a limited range and constantly getting the wire
tangled or caught."
Editor's note: Why in the world do you need extended range with a
computer mouse (aside from perhaps the odd unusual circumstance)?
Personally, these days I lean toward gaming mice like the Razer Orochi
and the SteelSeries Ikiri, partly because they still offer the option
of hard-wired connectivity, unlike current mainstream mice which are
overwhelmingly wireless. Serious gamers won't put up with the
imprecision of wireless connections. cm
Other editor's note: The USB specification supports cables up to 3
meters (9'10") for low speed devices, which includes most mice and
keyboards, and up to 5 meters (16'5") for high speed devices. And when
that's not long enough, you can always use a powered USB hub to extend
your reach. Really, how far away from your computer are you going to
use your mouse? dk
Link: Has the Mouse
Outlived Its Usefulness?
Microsoft Adds Photo Editing to Mac Office
Cnet's Ina Fried reports:
"Microsoft said Wednesday the next version of Office for Mac will
allow such things as color correction or background removal from within
the new versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint."
Link: Microsoft Adds
Photo Editing to Mac Office
Apple Is Catholic; PCs Are Protestant
The Telegraph's Damian Thompson riffs on Apple as a metaphor for
religion, noting that a crucial aspect of Apple's appeal is "the way
good old Steve Jobs relieves us of the burden of installation and other
tedious tasks by making his designers and engineers do the intermediary
work for us. No Protestant work ethic for straight-out-of-the-box iPad
users! We leave that to PC customers, who peruse their tiny-print
instruction manuals as intently as Calvinists poring over their
well-thumbed Bibles."
This "Apple - the Catholic option?" theme dates back to at least
1994, when novelist Umberto Eco declared in Espresso magazine
(see The
Holy War: Mac vs. DOS) that Mac was Catholic and the intimidating
MS-DOS operating system was Protestant, while then-primitive Windows
(Windows 95 was released almost a year after Eco's column was first
published) represented a sort of halfway house, sort of like
Anglicanism, with "big ceremonies in the cathedral," but "always the
possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with
bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain
women and gays if you want to."
However, Thompson says that Eco's observation that machine code,
which lies beneath both systems, has more to do "with the Old
Testament, and is Talmudic and cabalistic", doesn't really ring true
these days, "judging by the Hasidic Jews playing delightedly with iPads
in the new Apple Store in Covent Garden this week."
Link: Why Apple Is
Catholic and PCs Are Protestant
Also see Charles Moore's Religious Computer
Wars Revisited (2001) and The
Microsoft/Apple Religious Wars Revisited (2005) here on Low End Mac
as well as Is
Apple a Cult, a Religion or a Brand? (2010) on GigaOM.
Apple Updates
Snow Leopard Graphics Update
The Snow Leopard Graphics Update contains stability and performance
fixes for graphics applications and games in Mac OS X v10.6.4.
Products Affected
MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010),
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010), iMac
(21.5-inch, Late 2009), Mac Pro (Early 2009), Mac mini (Early 2009),
Mac OS X 10.6.4, Mac mini (Mid 2010), iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010), iMac
(27-inch, Mid 2010), MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010), Portal, StarCraft II,
Team Fortress 2
- Addresses frame rate issues occurring in Portal and Team Fortress 2
by Valve, on iMac (Late 2009 and Mid 2010), Mac mini (Early 2009 and
Mid 2010), Mac Pro (Early 2009), MacBook (Early 2009 and Mid 2010) and
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) or MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010)
models.
- Resolves an issue that could cause Aperture 3, or StarCraft II by
Blizzard, to unexpectedly quit or become unresponsive.
- Resolves an image corruption issue that may occur when
disconnecting and reconnecting external displays while the system is
running.
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6.4
Link: Snow
Leopard Graphics Update
iMac (Mid 2010) Display Brightness Update
The iMac (Mid 2010) Display Brightness Update 1.0 addresses an issue
with 21.5" iMac (Mid 2010)
display brightness.
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6.4
Link: iMac
(Mid 2010) Display Brightness Update 1.0
Products & Services
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Delivers 1 GB/s Read
Performance in FirmTek RAID 0 Test
PR: Other World Computing (OWC) has announced leading
controller card manufacturer FirmTek utilized four OWC Mercury Extreme
Pro RE 200 GB SSDs to achieve 853 MB/s write and 1000 MB/s
(1 GB/s) read data transfer rates. The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE
SSD was selected by FirmTek to highlight performance gains that can be
experienced by external eSATA port-equipped RAID 0 storage solution
when using FirmTek's SeriTek/2ME4-E controller card, which features
FirmTek's new 6.0.0fc18 driver. Complete test results are available in
SeriTek/2ME4-E
Direct Connect Performance.
SeriTek/2ME4-E + OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD = Amazing RAID 0
Performance
The FirmTek SeriTek/2ME4-E is a must-have controller card whenever
the highest level of external data storage and/or backup performance is
required for intensive audio/video editing, HD video, digital
photography, music, and graphics applications. With four 200 GB OWC
Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration connected to two
SeriTek/2ME4-E controller cards, consistent average write performance
of 851 MB/s and average read performance of 997 MB/s can be achieved.
The 4-port eSATA host adapter card for all Mac Pro and late 2005 PowerMac G5
(dual-core and
quad-core) models with an available PCI-Express slot features Port
Multiplier and Snow Leopard 64- and 32-bit compatibility.
"We're very flattered a well-respected industry leader like FirmTek
selected our SSDs with which to conduct their performance testing,"
says Larry O' Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. "From the
pro user to the professional doing real-time editing of high definition
video, these are proven products that provide the options needed to
meet today's ever more demanding data performance needs."
Link: FirmTek
SeriTek/2ME4E 4-Port PCI-Express Host Adapter w/Port Multiplier
(OWC)
Link: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Line
Software
FreeBSD 8.1 G5 Now Shipping for x86, PowerPC
PR: The FreeBSD Mall is now shipping FreeBSD Version 8.1, the
second release of the FreeBSD 8-STABLE branch in AMD64 and i386
architectures. FreeBSD 8.1 is the product of users deploying 8.0 in the
field and submitting reports of its strengths and weaknesses,
FreeBSD Version 8.1 is the first update to FreeBSD Version 8.0,
which added Virtual Access Points (VAP) support to 802.11 wireless
networking,and allowed virtual machine administrators to create their
own nested jails. The 8.1 release includes new features and improves
upon the features that were introduced in FreeBSD Version 8.0.
The 8.1 release implements a ZFS Loader, allowing users to boot
directly to ZFS. The ZFS pool has been updated to version 14. Also,
NFSv4 support is improved, providing a more secure network filesystem
for server based file serving.
In addition FreeBSD 8.1 updates sendmail to version 8.14.4, OpenSSH
to version 5.4p1, ISC BIND to version 9.6.2-P2, and OpenSSL to version
0.9.8n. Desktop updates include KDE 4.4.5 and GNOME 2.30.1.
In this latest release, core developers focused their efforts on
perfecting the functionality of the operating system to provide users
with enhanced performance. "FreeBSD 8.1 is the product of users
deploying 8.0 in the field, and submitting reports of its strengths and
weaknesses," said Warner Losh, Director of FreeBSD Development at
iXsystems and FreeBSD Core Team Member. "We, the developers, used those
reports from the users to refine and improve the system across the
board."
Other notable features of FreeBSD 8.1 include:
- SMP support in PowerPC G5 systems
- UltraSPARC IV/IV+, SPARC64 V CPU support
- The HAST (Highly Available STorage) framework has been added
- Support for SCTP has been improved
The four-disc CD set or dual-sided DVD is available individually or
on a subscription basis at a discounted price.
FreeBSD is the free, open source Unix variant upon which Mac OS X is
based and an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop, and
embedded computer platforms in its own right. FreeBSD's code base has
undergone over 30 years of continuous development, improvement, and
optimization. It is developed and maintained by a large team of
individuals. FreeBSD provides advanced networking, impressive security
features, and world class performance and is used by some of the
world's busiest websites and most pervasive embedded networking and
storage devices.
FreeBSD Mall is a division of iXsystems, Inc. and provides high
quality FreeBSD software, documentation, support, and services to the
open source community.
FreeBSD can be acquired on CD-ROM or DVD from FreeBSD Mall, or one
of the other CD-ROM and DVD publishers.
Link: FreeBSD
Link: FreeBSD Mall
Link: Download
FreeBSD
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