By Robert X. Cringely
InfoWorld (US)
August 13, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - It seems Microsoft didn’t get pummeled enough in the “I’m a Mac, you’re a PC” ad campaign, so it’s coming back for more. This time the marketing marvels at Microsoft have cooked up a new web site detailing the various ways in which the Mac is inferior to a Windows 7 machine. Like, for example, “Macs don’t work as well at work or at school” or “Macs can take time to learn” or “Macs don’t like to share.”

It’s kind of pathetic, really. Most of these arguments are premised on the notion that if you’ve already wasted most of your adult life using Windows, you’ll be more familiar with it than the Mac, so you might as well waste the rest of your adult life. Which is really the only reason why Microsoft continues to dominate desktop market share: It’s harder to switch than to stick with what you got, even if what you got sucks eggs.

[ Want to cash in on your IT experiences? InfoWorld is looking for stories of an amazing or amusing IT adventure, lesson learned, or war tale from the trenches. Send your story to offtherecord@infoworld.com. If we publish it, we'll keep you anonymous and send you a $50 American Express gift cheque. ]

Still, is that the best MSFT can do with its billions in profits? Seriously?

It’s like Redmond has fallen so far behind in the mobile/tablet space that it’s clinging to an era in which the battle for control of the desktop still mattered. (”Remember the good old days when we were kicking the Macintosh’s behind?”) I can’t believe I’m actually writing this, but I’m starting to feel sorry for them.

Meanwhile, of course, there’s that new corporate motto Microsoft is allegedly going to reveal: “Be What’s Next.” So far that tagline has yet to be spotted in the wild, only at an internal Microsoft trade show. But it does reveal the huge gulf between how Microsoft perceives itself and how the rest of the non-Microsoft fanboy world perceives it.

Pop quiz: If you were looking for what’s coming next to the world of technology, is Redmond the first place you’d look? How about the 20th place? Is it even in the top 100?

In a blog post late last month (”Can Microsoft imitate Apple one more time?”), I asked Cringesters what they would suggest for a new Microsoft slogan.

Commenter “engpjp” suggests Microsoft take a page from the pre-second-coming of Steve Jobs era: “Microsoft: Be What’s NeXT.” I think they’d probably get sued for that one.

But the residents of Cringeville came up with some pretty good ones, too. Here are the best, followed by the author’s initials.

* “If you’ve got the solutions, we’ve got the problems” (D. W.).
* “The 500 pound gorilla doesn’t play with toys. Microsoft: We get the Jobs done.” (S. E.)
* Here’s one from the Caesarean section: “We came, we saw, we copied” (C. D.).
* The practical: “Reboot your life (and while you’re at it, your PC)” (R. L.).
* The acquisitive: “If you can’t beat em, buy em” (J. P.).
* The scatological: “Microsoft: We love downloading lots of s**** to your PC” (M. S.).

Here’s one proclaiming hey, at least our CEO didn’t have to resign because of a sex scandal: “We’re not HP” (B. C.).

And this one would sound right at home on that new Windows-vs.-Mac site Microsoft just created: “Lots of people use our software because they have to” (M. B.).

Personally, I like eSarcasm’s somewhat NSFW take on the new Microsoft slogan, especially this one: “Microsoft: Re-imagining the future by clinging blindly to the past.”

Maybe Microsoft should fire all of its marketers and hire the residents of Cringeville instead. We certainly couldn’t do much worse.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 30, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - The lead user interface designer for Office 2011 for the Mac touted the software’s new Ribbon interface today in a video Microsoft released to pump up enthusiasm the upcoming suite.

“The Office for Mac Ribbon is a new user interface built from the ground up that places the most commonly-used controls right at your fingertips,” said Han-Yi Shaw, the user experience manager at Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit. MBU is the Redmond, Wash. company’s internal Mac development team, which spends the bulk of its time building Office for Mac.

Shaw’s comments were among those voiced by several MBU developers and program managers in a two-and-a-half-minute video that gave users the first official glimpse of the new interface, and a small number of other additions and enhancements, slated to appear in Office 2011.

“The Ribbon will make it easier to find [tools and features] without digging into the UI,” said Shaw.

Office for Mac 2011 will feature a ribbon similar to what Microsoft debuted with Office 2007 for Windows, and also applied to Office 2010, the Windows suite launched two months ago.

The ribbon will appear below the standard Mac menu bar and above the content display area in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Familiar interface features, including the classic Mac menu and the standard toolbar, will remain, and the ribbon and toolbar will be collapsible to save screen space.

Some users expressed their displeasure earlier this year when Microsoft announced that Office 2011 would sport a ribbon-esque interface.

Those complaints kept rolling in today after Microsoft posted its video of Shaw and others discussing Office 2011.

“Kinda weird that they talk about the ribbon like it’s an UI achievement,” said someone identified only as “ihxo” in a comment added to a story published by AppleInsider earlier Wednesday.

“Oh, no!! That horrible ribbon is coming to Mac!! Save the women and children first!” wrote “Jaime R” in a comment to a similar story on the Cult of Mac blog.

Microsoft has not set a shipping timetable for Office 2011 for Mac, although it has promised to release the suite in time for this year’s holiday sales season.

Other than the Ribbon, Microsoft’s video also featured the suite’s new template gallery and the revised e-mail client — to be dubbed Outlook to match the name in the Windows versions of Office — that will include a new view to collect all messages in a thread for easier reading and handling.

“We think that Office 2011 for Mac is the definitive version of Office for the Mac,” said Shaw.

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By Ian Paul
PC World (US)
July 28, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Once you’ve seen some amazing pictures of seemingly transparent LCD screens, you may want to create your own optical illusion. After researching the topic, I wanted to give it a try, too. So I’m going to show you the simplest way I’ve found to create the effect. All you’ll need is a digital camera, photo-editing software, and about an hour to produce the image.

In this step-by-step guide, I use Gimp, the free photo-editing software for Windows, Mac, and Linux; but any standard photo editor that can produce layers and perform basic editing will work as well.

TAKE YOUR PHOTOS

Before you get started, you need to determine (and write it down for later reference) your screen’s resolution. Microsoft has two online tutorials–one for Windows 7 users and one for Windows Vista users–that show how to obtain this spec.

Next, you need to take a photo with your computer screen in the frame, and another without your screen in the frame. If you’re using a laptop, the only adjustment you have to make is to fold the clamshell down before taking the second shot. Desktop users must remove their monitor from the desk entirely to achieve the right effect. You should also mark the location where your monitor sits on your desk with tape or pencil. This will make it easier to restore the screen to the right spot later on.

When taking your photo, make sure that you have enough light in your environment, but avoid having a strong light source–like the sun or a bright light–directly behind you, as it could cause screen glare in your final picture, decreasing the illusion of transparency.

The other key is to be sure to take two shots at an identical angle.The best approach is to mount your camera on a tripod. If you don’t have a tripod, you can create a makeshift one. To take my shots I just used my nightstand, with a few boxes piled on top of it. You should also turn off your display or give your desktop a solid color background. This will simplify the task of editing the screen in your photo-editing software later on.

When it comes time to take your final shot, you may want to use your camera flash or to be in a room with a lot of natural light. This is because both light sources help create the transparency effect in your final shot. But if you use a flash, take care to use an angle that doesn’t let the flash slip onto the screen. In the experimental shot above, the shot is pretty good overall, but the flash ruins it.

Tip: Have at least two items that run beside and behind the screen. Doing so will make it easier to line up your final shot later, and it will add to the transparency effect.

After you’ve captured two shots that you like you can upload them to your computer. Here’s how my two photos looked initially:

Tip: If you’re using a laptop, try not to move the base of your computer at all from start to finish of this project. That way, the only adjustment you’ll have to make will be to the screen angle when lining up your final shot.

LAYER YOUR PHOTOS

The first thing to do after you’ve uploaded your photos is to layer them. The shot with the screen should be on top, and the photo without the monitor should be on the bottom. The reason will become clear in a moment. Once you’ve layered the two photos, you need to align them. To do this in Gimp, select the image with the monitor in it, and then click Select, All from the menu bar. Then choose Edit, Copy to copy the entire picture. Now, go to the second photo, and click Edit, Paste As, New Layer.

At this point, you need to align the two photos by selecting Image, Align Visible Layers. Be sure to uncheck Ignore the bottom layer even if visible, and instead check Use the (invisible) bottom layer as the base.

FRAME YOUR SCREEN

Next, you want to use Gimp’s Free Select Tool (in Photoshop it’s called the “polygonal lasso”) to frame your screen. This type of lasso is easy to use since you have to create a closed shape to complete your cut. Don’t use a magic wand or any other tool to do this, as you aren’t going to cut out the contents of the top image; rather, the photo of your monitor is merely serving as a guide.

MOVE TO LAYER TWO

Now that your cut is ready, it’s time to get rid of the first layer so you can cut out the contents of the second layer. Open your layers dialog box, and in Gimp select Windows, Dockable Dialogs, Layers.

Click the eye icon next to the top layer (the image with the screen visible). You should see the image without the screen, with the selection frame that you created in the previous step over the top. To copy the selected area and create a new file, click Edit, Copy Visible, and then select File, Create, From Clipboard.

SIZE YOUR TRANSPARENCY

All you have to do now is create your background desktop image. The best way to edit this part is to go into full-screen view. You should see that your new selection doesn’t quite match up with the edges of the image canvas. To fix this, use the transform tool, but make sure you that have turned off the ‘constrain proportions’ setting. In Gimp that means making sure the link icon is broken in the transform tool dialog box.

Now, use the transform tool to push the edges of your photo until they just barely fill the entire canvas. Once you’ve done that, save your work (make sure you know the location of the saved image) and examine the final product to confirm that the canvas is filled.

At this point, you need to match your photo’s dimensions to your computer screen’s resolution. Click Image, Scale Image, again make sure that the ‘constrain proportions’ setting is turned off, and adjust your photo size to match your screen resolution numbers. My laptop’s screen, for example, has a resolution of 1200 by 800 pixels.

SET YOUR BACKGROUND

The moment of truth has arrived. Set your resized image as your desktop background, grab your camera and tripod and get ready to snap your first transparent photo. In person, your transparent desktop background may not look like much, depending on the resolution of your camera. But bear in mind that the finished product is your final photo–not the actual desktop image.

Take a look through your camera, and confirm that everything lines up. If you followed my earlier recommendation, several items will be running off your desktop screen–for example, a cord extending from the back of the monitor onto your desk, or a book that is partially blocked by your monitor. These items greatly enhance the transparency effect, and serve as guides for your monitor’s angles. Remember to take your time, be patient, and get the best shot you can.

As you can see, my final shot didn’t turn out too badly. I made a few lighting mistakes–but overall not a bad effort for a novice.

WHAT NOW?

After you’ve captured your final image, what you do is up to you. You can put it back into Photoshop and adjust its colors, lighting, and white balance; or if you feel that the image is good enough as is, you can simply declare victory.

Now that you’ve created your first transparent screen, consider posting your image on your favorite photo-sharing site or adding your work to Flickr’s Transparent Screens Pool.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
July 22, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - For the third time in the last four quarters, Apple today reported it sold a record number of Macs, although sales of the iPhone slipped slightly.

The iPad , meanwhile, debuted on Apple’s balance sheet with 3.27 million units sold, generating $2.17 billion in revenues that represented nearly 14% of the Cupertino, Calif. company’s total income for the period.

“That was out of nowhere,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst with Gleacher & Company, about the iPad’s numbers. “Phenomenal.”

Overall, the company posted record revenues of $15.7 billion for the quarter, with a net profit of $3.25 billion. Revenues were up 61% year-over-year.

“Revenues were driven primarily by the iPad, with strong sales of iPhone and Mac,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, during the earnings call with Wall Street analysts Tuesday afternoon.

Marshall agreed, saying that strong Mac and iPhone sales, when combined with a stellar debut by the iPad, produced the record quarter.

The iPad’s number should put to rest thoughts that the tablet would cannibalize sales of Apple’s other products. “The Mac upside and the iPhone upside, along with the iPad numbers, makes the idea that the iPad would take away from Apple’s internal dollars null and void,” said Marshall.

The iPad sales weren’t a surprise: In late June, Apple announced that it had sold 3 million tablets in the first 80 days of availability. Apple is selling approximately 1.1 million iPads per month, according to Apple’s figures, putting it on a pace to sell almost 10 million tablets by year’s end.

In the quarter that closed June 26, Apple sold 8.4 million iPhones, down 4% from the 8.75 million it sold the first quarter, but up 61% from the same period last year. Mac sales, however, set a record of 3.47 million, up 33% over the same quarter in 2009 and trumping the 3.36-million mark of the previous bestselling quarter, the final three months of last year.

Apple set Mac sales records in the third and fourth quarters of 2009, as well as in this quarter, turning a hat trick out of the last four periods.

“The Mac is very healthy,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “That was the one business they might have been concerned about, but it’s looking very good. It’s still far and away from where they once were on an APS [average selling price], but they don’t have to generate a lot of their profit on the Macs anymore.”

Desktop Mac sales were up 18% year-over-year to 1 million, a growth rate significantly less than the 40% increase the prior quarter and the 70% climb of 2009’s final quarter. Apple explained the slippage as part and parcel of its refresh cycle; the company’s primary desktop, the iMac, hasn’t been revamped since October 2009.

Notebook sales were up 41% for the quarter to 2.46 million, a growth spurt dramatically higher than the 28% increase of the prior quarter. “There’s clearly a move to mobility,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, during the question-and-answer portion of the call.

Apple’s executives seemed genuinely surprised by the success of the iPad, which some analysts had once said would do fewer units for the entire year than Apple claimed it sold in just one quarter. “We’ve been pleasantly surprised how fast this product has gotten out of the chute,” said Cook, who added that Apple was “selling every [iPad] unit that we can make,” after an analyst asked when the company would balance supply and demand.

iPad orders are currently backlogged seven-to-10 business days on Apple’s online store, and the supply will likely get even tighter; Apple plans to launch the tablet in nine additional countries this Friday.

The success of the iPad has forced several research firms to revise their sales estimates for either Apple’s tablet or tablet-like devices in general. Before Apple’s earnings call, iSuppli upped its iPad projection from an April estimate of 7.1 million units to 12.9 million iPads for the year. Also on Tuesday, ABI Research almost tripled a sales forecast from six months ago to 11 million for 2010.

“Apple is now a four-product company, that’s pretty darn clear,” said Gottheil, referring to Apple’s iPhone, Mac, iPad and iPod lines.

Gottheil also saw confirmation in today’s numbers that the iPad hasn’t, at least yet, taken dollars from Apple’s own pocket. “Cannibalization isn’t a big issue for Apple, certainly, or for anyone else for that matter,” he said. “As prices for devices come down, it’s more a matter of people having more devices, not having to decide on just one.”

Cook dismissed talk of cannibalization as well, at one point saying it was “too early to tell” if the iPad was taking away sales of iPod Touches or Mac notebooks. Later, he said that if it does happens, it’s actually good news for Apple.

“This is where it’s great to have a lower share, because if it turns out the iPad cannibalizes PCs, I think it’s fantastic for us,” said Cook. “There’s a lot of PCs to cannibalize.”

The one question Gottheil and Marshall had about the iPad was how soon Apple could drive down its cost, and increase the margin it makes on the tablet, which Marshall estimated is currently in the low 30% range. The iPhone, on the other hand, now enjoys a margin of about 60%.

“Will those [margins] scale up over time?” Marshall asked.

Gottheil seemed confident they would. “I think they’re well prepared to ride down the price curve on these devices,” he said. “Ultimately, say in a couple of years from now, tablets should be south of $300. They should be less expensive to make than a netbook , with fewer moving parts and fewer licenses to pay.”

Apple also estimated that it will cost the company about $175 million to fulfill CEO Steve Jobs’ promise to give away a case to all customers who purchase an iPhone 4 through the end of September.

“Seems high to me,” said Marshall of the $175 million. “But that’s an inconsequential number for Apple.”

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By Jackie Dove
Macworld.com
June 24, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Adobe Audition, a professional audio program for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering will soon be available for the Mac.

The software, now at version 3.0 on the Windows platform, offers an audio editing environment for fine-tuning single files or creating multi-track mixes. It also features audio restoration tools, enabling users to transform problem recordings into usable soundtracks.

“Audition has long been a favorite tool for audio editing because of its audio restoration features and the ability to edit audio visually,” said Elaine Montoya, CEO and founder of Zocoloco Studios. “Because I work on a Mac, I’ve been limited to what ProTools has to offer. Now that Audition is going to be on the Mac, it will definitely be my tool of choice for creating high-end audio for our studio’s motion graphics and video projects.”

The Mac version of Audition will not be available immediately. Adobe intends to make a public beta available on the Adobe Labs Website by the end of this year (Winter, 2010) to solicit feedback from the Mac community before finalizing the software for commercial release. Customers can sign up today to be notified when the beta is available. Adobe has not specified a timetable for when a commercial version will be ready. The Mac version of Audition will be Intel-only and compatible with OS X 10.5, 10.6, and any future updates of the Mac OS.
Key features of Adobe Audition 3.0 for Windows now include: Native multi-channel support for 5.1 surround sound; noise reduction and restoration capabilities; new audio effects, including de-hummer, de-esser, and volume leveler. All of these capabilities are planned for the Mac version in the next release of the audio editing tool.

“Audition has been a really popular, really versatile audio tool that’s been on Windows for many years,” said Ellen Wixted, Adobe’s product marketing manager of professional video solutions. “It combines a single wave editing view with a multitrack mixing view. But what has always and continues to set Audition apart is that it has some of the best audio restoration capabilities available…and makes it easy to go in and fix a wide range of audio problems.”

How will the Mac version of Audition compare with Soundbooth CS5, the audio component of Adobe’s Creative Suite? “Soundbooth is designed for people who don’t have deep roots in audio. It offers some of the same functionality; you can record into it, you can do simple editing, and multitrack mixes, but the level of control and the professional depth of the tools is much greater in Audition than it is in Soundbooth,” Wixted said.
The Adobe Audition 3 Windows version is priced at $349, with upgrades available for $99.

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By John Mark V. Tuazon
Computerworld Philippines
June 1, 2010

Apple enthusiasts who are planning to get their hands on the company’s latest masterpiece—the iPad—through official channels may have to wait a little bit longer, an executive from a local reseller pointed out Thursday.

“We are lobbying [to acquire the rights to sell it],” disclosed Joey Alvarez, marketing manager of Power Mac Center. “We’ve been asking for it, but there has been no official word yet.”

Alvarez dispelled rumors going around that the iPad will officially arrive to Philippine shores in July, saying the announcement has been for Southeast Asia only, and that “it has not been specified if the Philippines is included.”

The marketing executive added that arrangements on who will sell the iPad are still not underway, since the 3G version of the device requires a micro-sim. Because of this, it is possible that a local telco will carry Apple’s new opus.

Still, Alvarez promised, the local Apple partner—which recently relaunched their flagship store in Greenbelt—will inform loyal Apple fans when they catch wind of the news.

Power Mac Center in Greenbelt 3 has recently undergone a facelift to mirror the same set of design elements and services available in their Trinoma branch, which relaunched in March.

The refurbished branch will feature a more interactive experience for customers through various demo units of different Apple products, such as notebooks, desktops, and iPods.

They will also offer group and one-on-one tutoring sessions through their tutorial room and a new 20-seater classroom, respectively.

“With the revamped Power Mac Center Greenbelt store, customers can expect a total sensory experience: ‘see’ a more lifestyle-oriented and customer-friendly store; have a ‘feel’ of our products through our demo units; and ‘hear’ the best sounds from our wide array of audio-video products,” Alvarez quipped.

Power Mac Center has been selling Apple products in the country for almost 16 years now. The company likewise recently launched their newly-redesigned website, www.powermaccenter.com, which will provide pertinent information about Apple products and services to customers.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
May 27, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Google today shifted the Mac version of Chrome out of beta and into what it calls a “stable” channel, meaning that it considers the browser solid enough for day-in-day-out use.

The company also did the same for both the Linux and Windows versions.

“We believe that [Chrome] provides not only the stability, performance and polish that every Mac user expects, but also a seamless native Mac application experience that Mac users will feel instantly at home with,” said Mike Smith, a Chrome product manager, in an entry on Google’s Mac-oriented blog .

Google debuted a beta of Chrome on the Mac in December 2009, running through several updates before today.

“Anything that Google can do to indicate that Chrome is production ready is significant,” said Sheri McLeish, an analyst who covers browsers for Forrester Research. “Historically, Google has had long beta cycles, sometimes without a clear end point, so this provides some assurances, especially to enterprises, that they’re driving the browser. It should give IT more confidence in Chrome.”

According to Web metrics company NetApplications, Chrome across its three platforms accounted for 6.7% of all browsers used worldwide in April. McLeish said that the latest survey she had conducted put Chrome in the 8% range of enterprise browser share.

Chrome is the second-fastest browser in JavaScript rendering, lagging only behind the Norwegian browser Opera. Earlier this month, Computerworld pegged Chrome 5 as about 17% faster than Chrome 4.

Google also updated Chrome for Windows — which has been in the stable channel since December 2008 — to the same version number, marking the first time that all three supported platforms carry the same designation. Google maintains three separate “channels” of Chrome: a finished, stable build; a beta build; and a developer preview.

Not included in today’s updates is Google’s planned integration with Adobe’s Flash Player. Currently, the automatic background updating that Google has been testing in beta builds is disabled by default in the stable edition. In a separate blog post , Brian Rakowski, another Chrome product manager, said that Google would switch on the feature with the final release of Flash Player 10.1.

Adobe delivered a release candidate of Flash 10.1 — usually the last step before calling software finished — for Windows, Mac and Linux earlier this month.

Today’s stable editions of Chrome include support for several HTML5 features, such as geo-location and drag-and-drop; synchronization of browser settings to effectively “clone” Chrome on multiple machines; and the ability to use extensions when working in Chrome’s “Incognito” private browsing mode.

Google also patched six security vulnerabilities in Chrome with today’s stable releases. Two of the six were tagged as “high” threats, while the other four rated “medium” on Google’s four-step scale. Access to information on all six vulnerabilities has been blocked by Google, which regularly locks down details until it decides that a majority of Chrome users have upgraded to the patched version.

Chrome 5 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from Google’s Web site. Users already running the browser will be updated automatically.

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By Ian Paul
PC World (US)
May 14, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Are you using your smartphone to its fullest? Probably not–smartphone owners typically push their devices up to only about half their potential. Here are 14 smartphone apps to help your Android handset, BlackBerry, or iPhone become all that it can be.

For more ways to enhance your phone, see “13 Sites and Services to Supercharge Any Phone” and “13 Tips to Supercharge Your ‘Dumb’ Phone.”

Get Free Turn-by-Turn GPS on an iPhone

When Google brought free turn-by-turn GPS functionality to Android, many iPhone users were envious. In March, however, iPhone users gained their own free GPS app with turn-by-turn capabilities, courtesy of MapQuest.

Recently MapQuest added voice-guided directions to its free iPhone app, called MapQuest 4 Mobile. Reviews of MapQuest 4 Mobile for iPhone are mixed, however, with some critics pointing out that the app is not as full-featured as TomTom U.S.A. ($60). The big gripe concerns MapQuest’s rerouting feature, which is not automatic (as TomTom’s is) and requires you to restart your navigation manually if you stray from MapQuest’s planned route. Nevertheless, if you want to try a free voice-guided navigation app for the iPhone, MapQuest 4 Mobile is worth a look.

Turn Apps Into a Social Activity

App-obsessed Android users will love AppBrain. Want to show off all your apps to your friends? Interested in how other Android users rate the apps they have downloaded? AppBrain is the service for you.

AppBrain also creates a personal app catalog that you can share with other AppBrain users. You can peruse the apps of your AppBrain friends and other users, as well. Wondering what Lifehacker founding editor Gina Trapani has on her Android phone, for instance? You can check it out on AppBrain.

Never fear, Apple lovers: Similar services exist for the iPhone, too. Download AppsFire or Appfinder from the iTunes App Store to start sharing your favorite apps.

Communicate With Everyone via Fring

A unifying social networking platform for your mobile phone, Fring allows you to use one app to communicate across multiple social networking platforms, including AIM, GoogleTalk, ICQ, Skype, Twitter, and Yahoo Messenger. Fring eliminates the need to download specialized apps for each social network or communication tool–now you only have to worry about which friends you want to reach. Fring is available for iPhone, Android, and Nokia devices.

Make Your Android Phone Location-Aware

The smartphone app Locale for Android lets you set automatic preferences for your phone based on your location. If, say, you tend to forget to turn your ringer off when you reach the office, just customize your phone using Locale to switch your ringer to vibrate whenever you get to work. Or have it go to silent mode whenever you’re at the neighborhood movie theater. It’s simple, but clever.

Get Around Town

Hopstop is one of the best ways to plan bus and subway routes in cities with massive (and often confusing) transit systems. Hopstop is available in 16 U.S. cities, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

The Hopstop service is available as a mobile Web application compatible with any smartphone that has a browser. For Apple handset users, the Hopstop iPhone app includes phone numbers for taxi services. An SMS version is available for directions, as well.

New Yorkers might want to check out the CabSense app (for Android and iPhone), which helps you find the best location to get a taxi based on the time of day, location, and day of the week.

Find Wi-Fi in Your Area

Apple may have cut Wi-Fi stumblers out of the App Store, but you can still turn to Wi-Fi directories such as JiWire’s Wi-Fi Finder to discover over 280,000 hotspots in 140 countries worldwide. JiWire also has an app for Android.

A similar service, WeFi, can also help you find a nearby Wi-Fi hotspot; in fact, Fring recently released a WeFi add-on.

Master Automated Menus

Dial Zero is a service that promises to deliver the best phone number or strategy for getting a human being on the phone when you’re calling a company’s toll-free number. Just as Fonolo.com allows you to skip automated menu services for big companies, so does Dial Zero. The major difference is that Fonolo.com automates the process, limiting the number of companies it works with. Dial Zero, in contrast, offers instructions and tricks on how you can reach a real person. You can also read user comments (sometimes vulgar) about specific frustrations, as well as tales of success in dealing with phone menus.
Dial Zero is a free application for Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone.

Next: Compare Prices With ShopSavvy

Compare Prices With ShopSavvy

You can find many applications out there that turn your smartphone into a bar-code reader, but the best one I’ve found is ShopSavvy. This app quickly scans any product bar code to do price-comparison shopping online and at local stores. You can also create wish lists or set up price alerts based on your scanned items. ShopSavvy is available for Android, iPhone, and Nokia devices.

Browse Android Apps Easily

If you’re thinking of switching to an Android device but you need more information about the Android Market catalog than you can find on Google’s official site, head to DoubleTwist’s Android app site. It will help you find virtually any Android application available in the Market.

Use Your iPhone as a Mouse

For iPhone users, Logitech offers a handy free app called TouchMouse that turns your iPhone into a wireless mouse by way of your Wi-Fi network. This could be great if you wanted to sit back on the couch and control a laptop hooked up to a TV, for instance. All you need is the iPhone app and the desktop software for Windows or Mac.

Tip: If you find TouchMouse difficult to control, adjust the ‘Scrolling Speed’ option under Settings on the iPhone app.

Slip Away With Fake-A-Call

Sometimes the only way out of an awkward in-person encounter is to get a well-timed phone call. Now you don’t have to pray for a phone call to come in–just make it happen with the help of Fake-A-Call. This free application for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices lets you schedule an interruption or create a phony phone call on the fly. Grab this tool to save yourself from any sticky situation you end up in.

Control a Jailbroken iPhone With a PC or Mac

Veency allows you to view and control a jailbroken iPhone via a Mac or PC using a Wi-Fi connection. The tool is an interesting application to try out if you want to control your iPhone’s iTunes interface while it’s connected to a set of speakers across the room, for example. Or how about typing notes into your device through the Notes app from a full keyboard? Not bad at all.

iPhoneHacks.com has a nice tutorial on how to install the software and run it for both Macs and PCs. You can find a number of VNC clients, such as TightVNC and UltraVNC for PCs and Chicken of the VNC for Macs.
Get a Personal Trainer

The huge range of smartphone fitness apps has made it easier than ever to track your exercise habits. I use RunKeeper on my iPhone to track my weekly jogs, including my speed, distance, and routes; I can even share my workouts via Facebook or Twitter. I also use Lose It to track my daily calorie intake, and for fun I use the GymFu apps to guide my push-ups, crunches, and pull-ups. Check out your smartphone’s app catalog to see what’s available for your device.

Don’t Pay for Ringtones

Android users can use Ringdroid to create their own ringtones, but iPhone users can easily create their own ringtones simply by using iTunes. For more, check out PCWorld’s step-by-step instructions on how to turn any MP3 into an iPhone ringtone.

Tip: This method also works for non-DRM-protected iTunes downloads in AAC format.

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By Macworld Staff
Macworld.com
April 29, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Given the amount of hype that preceded the iPad’s release, it’s hard to believe that it would bear any great surprises not touted by Apple or that it could possibly live up to expectations. Still, when we unpacked our iPads on April 3 and used them over the next three weeks, we found unexpected delights as well as features that made us go “Hmm….”

With the Wi-Fi iPad approaching its first month on the market—and the 3G-enabled models set to arrive at the end of this week—here’s a rundown of what surprised and disappointed us with Apple’s latest mobile device.

Pleasant surprises
Wowed though we were with Apple’s promotional videos of the iPad, seeing (and touching, tapping, and swiping) is believing.

Super natural: Now that iPhones and iPod touches are commonplace, it’s easy to forget just how natural the iPhone interface felt the first time you used it. The iPad, with its larger surface (and, thus, more forgiving nature when it comes to tapping and swiping in the right place) may feel even more natural (and certainly less cramped) than its smaller siblings.

A compelling speaker: It’s those initial surprises that make a lasting impression and the one cited often by our crew of iPad owners was the quality of the device’s built-in speaker. Those of us accustomed to the iPod touch’s speaker (terrible) or iPhone’s speaker (less terrible) had little hope for the iPad’s ability to make sound, yet the speaker is quite loud and not nearly as tinny as most of us expected.

That said, if one were to nitpick the speaker, it would be to carp about the speaker’s one-sided nature. The speaker port is at the bottom of the device. When you turn the iPad to landscape orientation to watch a video, you hear most of the sound from the side of the iPad where the speaker port sits, making the sound unbalanced.

Size matters: The way the iPad’s larger display is put to use—particularly when the iPad is moved to landscape orientation—was also a popular surprise. The Settings, Mail, and iPod apps, in particular, are far easier to use than they are on the iPhone and iPod touch because you can fit more interface elements on screen, which leads to far fewer move-back-a-page maneuvers.

The screen’s the thing for gaming: Another area where the iPad’s larger screen pays dividends is for gaming. It’s one thing to say that the iPad is an oversized iPod touch; it’s quite another to actually play a game on this new device. The larger screen doesn’t just mean you can see more of your game, it means that the entire control interface can be dramatically changed. With the iPhone and iPod touch, game makers had to squeeze controls into a small space; the iPad’s roomier interface allows them to offer more buttons, more control, and thus more complicated tasks.

Two genres in particular will be better served on the iPad: strategy games and first-person shooters. The larger screen affords a larger battlefield view and by allowing players to control the zoom, they’ll be able to order larger groups of tanks, see greater parts of the map, and have a more exact control of the battlefield. First-person shooters play better on the iPad because the interface is simply less cluttered.The FPS genre is also one of the more graphically intensive, and so far games that have made the transition look a world better on the iPad. More important, they play better, too.

Staying put: Speaking of orientation, we give two-and-a-half cheers for the orientation lock switch on the side of the iPad. Now that we’ve become accustomed to a switch that keeps our iPads in landscape or portrait orientation, regardless of how we’ve positioned our iPads, we wonder why this feature wasn’t brought to the iPhone long ago.

Why not the full three cheers? Unlike with the iPhone, where the design of the device makes it easy to tell by touch whether the Home button is on the left or right side of the screen, on the iPad it’s easy to forget which way you’ve turned it, thus losing track of where the orientation lock switch is.

Keyboard control: Moving to obscure-but-cool observations, it’s nice that when using an external keyboard (Bluetooth or docked) with the iPad, many of the keyboard commands you use to create odd characters on your Mac—©?¡™£¢?¢¬, for example—also work with the iPad. Similarly, the keyboard commands for cut, copy, paste, and selecting text (Shift plus arrow keys) also work with an iPad connected to a keyboard.

And the disappointments
When you suggest, as Apple repeatedly has, that a device contains a measure of magic, you set expectations on stunning. Do that, fail to deliver that magic at every turn, and owners find fault. As did we in the following instances.

No accounts: The iPad’s big screen and touchscreen interface make it an ideal partner for around-the-house tasks—reading books, using educational software, surfing the Web, checking e-mail, playing games. That makes it a tempting target for everyone in the house. But this reveals one of the iPad’s shortcomings: You can’t set up accounts or groups of settings, so everyone has access to all e-mail accounts, the Web, and so on. It would be great if the screen lock let you enter different codes—one for Parent 1, another for Parent 2, another for The Kids—each providing different types of access and different settings.

Wasted Home screen space: The iPad’s Home screen is crying out for improvements. Some have suggested that it’s a waste of space to have such a huge screen with tiny, widely-spaced icons. Worse yet, the number of app icons on each line changes when you switch from portrait (4) to landscape (5) mode, or vice versa, so every app icon but one—the app in the upper-left corner—changes location when the iPad changes orientation. If you normally view your iPad in portrait orientation and suddenly switch to the Home screen when the iPad’s on its side, you have to hunt around for the icon that was once in the second position on the third line of icons.

Put that space to work: Taking things a step further, people have asked for a “widgetized” lock screen on the iPhone—a customizable, at-a-glance display of the day’s appointments, new Mail messages, a constant spot for the current iPod track, and perhaps a spot or two for third-party app notifications. It’s something that smartphones have done for ages (and something we hope makes a surprise appearance in the forthcoming iPhone OS 4.0 update as one of those unannounced improvements that occasionally pop up in a final release).

The iPad’s super-sized screen all but super-sizes that demand for some kind of customizable options for the lock screen. Giant wallpapers are pretty, but that’s a ton of space that could be used to display useful information without forcing me to unlock and open five different apps just to check on my day.

Notifications also seem wasteful in their current implementation. Do we really need modal dialog boxes that take over the whole screen? And if you get a flood of them, they just keep replacing each other.

The iPad in iTunes: While the App Store makes it easy to search for apps that have been updated for, or designed specifically for, the iPad, it almost seems as if Apple forgot to update iTunes along the way. If you open the main Apps view (by clicking Apps in iTunes’ sidebar), choose View -> By List, and then enable the Kind column (by choosing View -> View Options), you can see which apps are iPad-optimized—but that’s not exactly user-friendly. Worse, you see even fewer options when viewing the Apps tab for your iPad. In other words, when your iPad is connected and you’re choosing which apps to sync, there’s no way to see which are optimized for the iPad.

Similarly, when you sync your iPad with iTunes, iTunes automatically syncs any apps you’ve purchased since the previous sync; it would be useful if you could tell iTunes to sync only new iPad-optimized apps.

Safari’s pages: Safari lets you open up to nine Web pages at a time, but due to the iPad’s limited memory, you’ll often find that Safari can’t maintain the content of all those pages; when you switch to a different page, Safari will often attempt to refresh it. This can be frustrating, especially if you loaded several Web pages for offline reading—you end up with blank pages.

Safari’s missing tabs: While we’re on the subject of Safari, why is it that the third-party Atomic Web Browser app can use tabs but Apple hasn’t brought that feature to its own mobile browser? In many situations, tabs are far more convenient than the Web pages Safari stores.

Whoops: The iPad is certainly sleek, but it’s also slippery. Apple’s case makes it easier to securely grip the iPad, but it adds heft. A few strategically placed ridges would help.

The heft: At just a pound and a half, the iPad is certainly lighter than a laptop. Then again, it’s the rare individual who holds a laptop in their hands while working with it. In many cases you can put the iPad in your lap or work with it while docked in a stand. But what about those who read in bed? We’re not all cut from the Mike and Carol Brady cloth—sitting bolt upright in bed, chastely reading improving books. If, like many people, you prop your head up with a pillow or two and hold a book in front of your with arms cocked at the elbow, your arms and hands will tire after a chapter or two.

The shining: The iPad’s screen can be quite bright and, thus, overcome its reflective glossiness. But not always. In apps and videos with dark backgrounds or when reading outdoors in sunny weather, the screen’s reflection can be distracting.

The limits of wireless: Don’t get us wrong—we enjoy the iPad’s wireless connectivity, and for many users, the Wi-Fi-only models will be perfectly suited to their needs. But…

But there were times when we were out and about that we really could have gone for some network connectivity, only there was no Wi-Fi to be found. Many of the iPad’s strengths depend on its ability to get online—as such, limiting yourself to Wi-Fi-only connectivity can be a hassle, particularly if there’s something you want to do (or someone you want to impress) that requires a network connection. Many iPad-toting Macworld staffers are looking forward to Friday when they can trade in their iPads for 3G-equipped models with AT&T’s cancel-at-any-time service contract; we expect more than a few readers will feel the same.
The last word

Apple has told us time and again that the iPad was designed as an in-between device, meant to nestle between the iPhone and MacBook. Given its neither-fish-nor-fowl nature, one could reasonably expect surprises—those that delight as well as disappoint. Given that many of our misgivings about the iPad are based on application and OS design, we hold out hope that the solutions to our gripes will be addressed in future updates.

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By Ken Mingis
Computerworld (US)
April 27, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - It took Apple Inc. all of 10 days to remind the tech world — still in the thrall of the iPad launch on April 3 — that it hasn’t taken its eye off the laptop business.

While new iPad owners were wondering whether the Apple tablet would sound the death knell for laptops (and netbooks), Apple was putting the finishing touches on the next generation of its professional laptop line. On April 13, Apple delivered the goods, unveiling updated 13-, 15- and 17-in. MacBook Pros, the two larger models sporting fast Intel Core i5 or i7 processors and all three getting upgraded graphics chips and the prospect of longer battery life.

In other words, the laptop is alive and well at Apple — and I say that as the owner of a new iPad, which I do think will change the way a lot of people use computers and access data and the Web.

Virtually all of the changes rolled out last week are under the hood. (Take a look at iFixicom’s teardown if you really want to see under the hood of the new MacBook Pro.) The by-now-familiar unibody aluminum-and-glass look of the lineup is unchanged.

This is a good thing, since these laptops remain the benchmark for solid construction. They simply ooze quality, from the operating-room-bright LED screens to the glass-coated trackpad to the illuminated keyboard.

Prices range from $1,199 for the 13-incher to $2,299 for the 17-in. version, though of course you can bump up the processor and add RAM — boosting the price in the process. That’s especially true if you spring for the optional 512GB solid-state drive (SSD), the largest SSD Apple has ever offered. That option alone adds between $1,300 and $1,450 to the baseline price (depending on which MacBook Pro you’re buying). But isn’t it nice to dream of all that SSD space?

For review purposes, Apple sent over the basic 15-in. MacBook Pro, though there’s really nothing basic about it. For $1,799, you get a 2.4-GHz Core i5 processor from Intel, 4GB of RAM, integrated Intel HD graphics and a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 256MB of video RAM, a 320GB hard drive, a SuperDrive for burning and playing CDs and DVDs, the usual retinue of ports and wireless connectivity and — probably most important for laptop lovers — a tweaked battery design that Apple says now offers up to nine hours of juice. Weight is unchanged at 5.6 pounds.

Still not enough for you? For $200 more, you can opt for a 2.53-GHz Core i5 processor and a 500GB drive. Spend another $200, and you can move to the Core i7, which clocks in at 2.66 GHz and offers more video RAM (512MB).

Faster graphics, better battery life

Enough with the specs. What’s noteworthy about this revamp — and what Apple officials most like to talk up — is that these laptops are not only faster at data-crunching because of those Core i5 and i7 chips, but they also offer substantially faster graphics — and do both of those things while delivering much improved battery life. My experience so far shows that Apple appears to have hit the mark all around.

Before getting into the details about the 32nm Core i-series processors, I should point out that the 13-in. MacBook Pros still use Core 2 Duo chips. That’s because the Core i3 processor that a lot of Mac fans were hoping for — nay, expecting — didn’t fit the bill for the smallest MacBook Pro. According to Apple, using the Core i3 would have meant relying on the integrated Intel HD graphics subsystem. Instead, Apple went with the more powerful Nvidia GeForce 320M GPU and those Core 2 Duo processors (2.4 GHz in the $1,199 13-in. version, 2.66 GHz in the $1,499 model).

Apple says the GeForce 320M is basically a discrete processor working in an integrated fashion, meaning it uses up to 256MB of system RAM. It also has 48 processing cores, triple the number in the old Nvidia 9400M, and is up to 80% faster, according to Apple.

Even with the newer Core 2 Duo processors and the beefy 320M GPU, Apple says the smallest MacBook Pro now gets up to 10 hours of battery life for ordinary tasks such as Web browsing over Wi-Fi. The company estimates that the larger 15-in. and 17-in. models get between eight and nine hours, depending on which of the two graphics systems you’re using.

Unlike the smallest MacBook Pro, the 15-in. model has both the Intel HD integrated graphics for light use and a GeForce GT 330M for more intensive graphics work. If you’re surfing or writing a Word document, you’re using the Intel HD graphics; if you’re doing video work with Aperture or detailed jobs in Photoshop, you’re using the 330M.

Here’s the catch, and it’s a good one: The laptop switches back and forth between the two without you having to do anything. That’s a change from the last generation of MacBook Pros, where you’d have to stop whatever you were doing when you needed more graphics power, log out and then log back in. Talk about stopping workflow in its tracks.

(One thing this is not is Nvidia’s Optimus architecture, which does much the same thing but with Nvidia chips only. Remember, in this case you’re switching in the background between Intel’s integrated graphics and Nvidia’s discrete chip.)

The 330M, according to Apple, is about twice as fast as the Nvidia GPU in the 13-in. model, and about 20% faster than the Nvidia 9600M GT used in the last MacBook Pro line. That’s something gamers should notice, because it allows for more details in graphically intense games. I’m not a gamer, though. When it comes to graphics, I judge how well a laptop plays back high-definition digital video: Are the colors rich and saturated? Is there any image “smearing” or obvious pixilation?

On those counts, the MacBook Pro’s sharp, LED-backlit screen looks great. In fact, I watched three back-to-back episodes of Mad Men at full-screen resolution with the brightness turned all the way up and they looked almost as good as they do on my hi-def TV at home. As for battery life, at first I didn’t see a major improvement over previous MacBook Pros. Apple says to expect 4.5 hours of use when watching DVDs full-screen at full brightness; I had to plug in the MacBook Pro after 3.5 hours of use. So I created a new account and tried again. Voila! I managed just over five hours of movie watching on battery power. (I haven’t yet figured out what may be running in the background in my account that cuts down on battery time.)

When it comes to more mundane tasks such as surfing the Web over Wi-Fi, editing Word documents, checking e-mail and sending out tweets, the battery life is also better than before. (As with DVD viewing, I saw the biggest improvement logged into the “clean” test account.)

First, I set up the 15-in. MacBook Pro as I would normally, with the screen at about 80% brightness. I also turned off some of Apple’s aggressive energy-saving settings in the Energy Saver preference pane, because I like to keep the screen from dimming on me if I turn away for a minute or two. While doing a combination of word processing, surfing the Web over Wi-Fi and listening to music through iTunes, the battery needed a recharge after 4.5 hours.

That’s about 50% longer more than I get on my own last-gen 17-in. MacBook Pro, but a far cry from nine hours. (Doing the same tasks on that laptop drained the battery in three hours, though the older model’s larger screen means it’s not a direct one-to-one comparison.)

To extend the battery life, I went back to the default settings in the Energy Saver preference pane. This dims the display a bit, darkens it completely after a couple of minutes of idle time and puts the hard drive to sleep when possible. That bumped the battery life to just over five hours. Finally, using the test account, I set the screen brightness at the halfway mark, surfed the Web, did some text editing and listened to streaming radio over iTunes. This time, I was able to use the MacBook Pro for just over 6.5 hours. That’s impressive, given that the new lineup has faster processors and better graphics chips.

The lesson’s pretty clear: When you’re on the go, stick with the default Energy Saver settings and turn the screen brightness down. If you’re working in a dim locale or perhaps on the red-eye heading cross-country, turning the brightness way down and the Wi-Fi off will extend battery life even more. And if you find that your battery time is substantially less than you’d counted on, you might want to set up a new account and see if that helps. It did for me.

Core i5 performance

As solid as the graphics system is — I saw nary a hitch when watching videos or doing some light digital video exports — it’s the Core i5 and i7 processors in the 15-in. and 17-in. models that buyers will likely key in on. That’s because they’re relatively efficient for the punch they pack, and even though they’re dual-core chips, they bring at least a pseudo-quad-core flair to the upper end of Apple’s laptop line. Let me stress the word pseudo here: These are not the same as the real quadcore chips that the iMac desktop line uses.

Both the i5 and i7 have integrated memory controllers, either 3MB or 4MB of Level 3 cache and “turbo boost,” which means the chips can max out at clock speeds higher than the baseline numbers advertised. And they offer hyperthreading, which means the operating system “thinks” it can access four cores instead of two — it’s just that two of the cores are virtual. Having more cores, whether physical or virtual, means software and operating systems can process commands faster because the work is being done in parallel, not sequentially.

When it comes to turbo boost, the concept is pretty simple. In this 15-in. model, the processor starts out at 2.4 GHz and stays there unless taxed. If you get into some heavy data-crunching, both cores can throttle up to 2.8 GHz. Or if the software you’re using is running on one core instead of two, that lone core can throttle up to 2.93 GHz.

It’s like having a turbocharger on your car. If you’re cruising along at 65 miles an hour and stomp on the gas, you’ll feel an extra spurt of acceleration as the turbocharger kicks in. When you let off the gas, the turbocharger cuts out and you’re back to basic cylinders.

Essentially, the system is squeezing out as much processing power as possible from the Core chips when that power is needed most — under heavy load — and then backing off the juice when it’s not. The result is an elegant combination of power and thriftiness.

Comparisons and benchmarks

Here’s how the Core i5 MacBook Pro stacks up against a Core i5-based iMac and my own 17-in. MacBook Pro, which has a 3.06-GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a superfast SSD drive. The iMac — unlike the model I reviewed last fall — has the 2.66-GHz quad-core Core i5 processor. And, unlike this particular MacBook Pro, it has four physical cores and a faster 7,200-rpm hard drive. (The 15-in. MacBook Pro comes with a 5,400-rpm drive.)

First, I did a quick benchmark test of all three computers using Spiny Software’s Xbench 1.3. The new MacBook Pro returned a score of 152.03 — solid, but not stellar. (I expect the relatively slow hard drive is keeping those numbers down.) The iMac, not surprisingly, had a 204.18 score, and my own MacBook Pro topped out at 209 — largely because of the OCZ Technologies SSD I installed right after I bought it last June. SSDs can throw off benchmarks by artificially inflating scores — although they do make your computer feel darn fast. More about SSDs below.

Next, I used Primate Labs’ Geekbench 2.1.5 to benchmark the three computers. The iMac led the way with a Geekbench score of 6,473. The new MacBook Pro turned in a speedy 4,783. And my own MacBook Pro trailed at 4,192. (Bare Feats did its own tests, in case you want even more data, comparing the faster Core-based MacBook Pros with a Core i7 iMac. The iMac won, by a long shot.)

Although benchmarks can give you a rough idea of how one computer stacks up against others, real-world tasks are usually better for putting a computer through its paces. With that in mind, I opened an 88MB video file in QuickTime and chose the “Save for Web” command. This essentially exports the same video into several different versions at the same time — and it pegs the processor while doing so. (I use iSlayer’s iStat Menus, a great free utility, to monitor what’s going on with my computer; it places a series of icons in the menu bar showing you what the CPU is up to, how hot the computer is running, how your network connection is doing, etc.)

Using my own older MacBook Pro — remember, it has the dual-core Core 2 Duo chip, but a fast SSD drive — the video export task took 61 seconds. Doing the same thing on my iMac took just 29 seconds. And exporting the video on the new Core i5-based MacBook Pro took 51 seconds.

That might not sound like much of a leap over my last-generation MacBook Pro. But my laptop would have been left even further in the dust if it had a 5,400-rpm hard drive in it instead of an SSD.

If you want more power than the two Core i5 chips offer, you can opt for the 2.66 GHz Core i7. The i7 can spool both cores to 3.06 GHz or, if you’re maxing out just one, hit 3.33 GHz. Of course, to get that speed, you’ll have to buy the $2,199 15-in. MacBook Pro or get an i7 as an option on the top-end 17-in. model. (The i7 processor would be good for something like high-definition video encoding, because it’s 50% faster than the previous generation’s 2.8-GHz Core 2 Duo processor, according to Apple.)

Benchmark results

How the 15-in. MacBook Pro stacks up to a Core i5 iMac and Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.

That kind of power is great if you’re a video editor or rendering something in a 3D modeling app like Modo. If time is money, you might be able to justify the extra expense. But for most not-quite power users, the i5 should suffice. Not only is it fast and energy-efficient, but it also runs at a relatively cool 115 degrees Fahrenheit during general use. (Watching hi-def videos in full screen through iTunes kicked the temperature up to 153 degrees, but I could barely hear the cooling fans turning.)

In fact, if I were buying a MacBook Pro this year, I’d be fine with the Core i5. Although I typically lust after — and often buy — the fastest processor available, this time around I’d opt for the low-end 15-incher instead of the high-end model and use the $400 I’d save to buy an SSD drive.

Options I’d choose: SSD and high-res display

I’ve been an SSD convert ever since I used a MacBook Air with one; that’s why I installed one in the MacBook Pro I bought last summer. It feels just as supercharged now as it did last summer. I’ve had zero problems with the drive or the laptop itself. In fact, it’s been the best laptop I’ve ever owned, and over the years, I’ve had several.

When it comes to SSD options for the 15-in. MacBook Pro, Apple gives you three ways to spend money: You can go lean and get a 128GB SSD for $300, go extravagant with a 256GB SSD for $750, or go money-is-no-object outrageous with the 512GB SSD for $1,400. Going all out would boost the price of this $1,799 laptop to $3,199, which is almost 44% more. Since I don’t need a lot of room for data, the 128GB drive works fine for me.

Put simply: Any of these Core-based MacBook Pros would be a screamer with an SSD.

I’d also go for another new option Apple is offering on this particular model: a higher-resolution screen. The 15-in. MacBook Pro comes with a 1440-by-900-pixel screen; for an extra $150, you can order one that’s 1680 by 1050 pixels. Like fast processors and SSDs, I like pixels. My 17-in. MacBook Pro has a 1920-by-1200-pixel screen, and I flat-out love it. So the prospect of a higher-resolution screen in the 15-in. MacBook Pro is a welcome addition. In fact, I’d be happier if Apple offered a 1920-by-1200-pixel screen in this model, but I’m not holding my breath.

Although higher resolution can make things look a little smaller, the increased sharpness — and the extra screen real estate — is well worth it. If you’re keeping track, the pixels-per-inch count on the stock model works out to about 106; on the optional higher-resolution screen, it’s 129. (On my own MacBook Pro, it’s 133.)

The standard resolution on the 15-in. model is my only nit to pick. Given that I’m used to a higher resolution, everything on the new MacBook Pro felt slightly oversized, whether it was menus, text or Web pages. That’s why, personally, I’d opt for the upgraded screen resolution in the new model. Again, though, resolution is really a matter of personal preference — and eyesight. The same is true for Apple’s now-standard glossy screens. You can’t get the anti-glare finish on the 13-in. models, but you can get it on the 15-in. and 17-in. versions. But it’ll cost you an extra $150.

Bottom line

All in all, Apple has delivered a laptop that’s more than just an evolutionary upgrade with unseen updates under the hood. It has moved its higher-end MacBook Pros closer to true quadcore speeds, while improving battery life and adding serious GPU performance. Given that the prices across the line are roughly the same as those of the last generation, depending on exactly which model you choose, that should be enough to make these laptops a sweet deal for anyone looking to upgrade.

Me? I’m standing pat for now with the MacBook Pro I have; my new iPad should keep my techno-lust engaged for the time being. But it’s good to see that Apple hasn’t lost sight of the fact that the iPad, as phenomenal as it is, is but one of several options for would-be Mac buyers. For users who need the horsepower of a full-featured laptop, the latest MacBook Pro models should more than fit the bill, offering stylish construction, rock-solid design, long battery life and more than enough processing power to get them through any digital task.

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By John E. Dunn
Techworld.com
April 19, 2010

LONDON - Apple antivirus company Intego has discovered a backdoor malware attack targeting Mac users.

Able to infect both PowerPC and newer Intel-based Macs thanks to being written as a universal binary, OSX.HellRTS.D sets out to take complete control of an infected machine, setting itself up as a server capable of doing pretty much what it wants. This will include, downloading software, spewing email, set up screen sharing, accessing files on the Mac, and copying anything it finds on the clipboard.

The company describes infection levels as currently being very low, but warns that the code is circulating on hacker forums, which will give criminals access to it. No threat vectors such as spam attachments are mentioned because none have so far been used, but an infected file seems the most likely attack method.

As with so many of the small number of Mac-specific malware attacks that come up from time to time, this one is a variant of an attack from 2004, the company said, which will sound quaint to Windows users hit by thousands of variants on most days.

Mac malware is still rare enough to be worthy of an individual press release from a security company, something that hasn’t been true of Windows malware for two decades. Examples are few and far between to the extent it is almost possible to name them all in a short blog, as Techworld did this week.

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By Nick Spence
Macworld.co.uk
April 19, 2010

LONDON - Tickets are now on sale for the annual Macworld Awards 2010. The awards, held on Thursday 24 June at The Northumberland, London, a beautiful new venue in Trafalgar Square, are seen as THE event in the UK Mac calendar. The awards recognise the products and vendors that have made a significant contribution throughout the past year to the Mac industry and lifestyle.

Winning a Macworld Award is a seal of quality for any product. The winners are chosen by the Macworld editorial team and Macworld’s army of enthusiastic readers.

A Macworld Award is considered a benchmark of excellence throughout the industry.

Details on ticket availability can be found at www.macworld.co.uk/awards/book. Bookings made before the end of April 2010 are at last year’s prices.

PR specialists Ranieri Communications recently joined the prestigious lists of sponsors for the Macworld Awards 2010. Established in 2002, Ranieri Communications has evolved into a leading boutique-style consumer technology PR agency.

It has developed a solid reputation within the national, consumer and lifestyle press, while maintaining strong contacts with Mac and IT media.

As well as providing a ‘bread and butter’ press office function for its clients, Ranieri is well known for providing strategic advice, outstanding product reviews programmes, memorable press events, social media campaigns and creative features placement.

The company understands that successful PR is not just about achieving wide-reaching press coverage, but about carefully managing a brand and making sure those clippings help generate sales.Regardless of the size of your business, budget or the goals you wish to achieve, can help you to achieve them through consultative, intelligent and creative communications, the company insists.

Sponsors for the Macworld Awards 2010 include Ranieri, STM, Computers Unlimited (CU), FileMaker’s Bento 3 and G-Technology.

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By John Rizzo
Macworld.com
April 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - There are three good ways to share a single hard drive between Macs and PCs for general storage and backup: You can trade a USB hard drive between them; you can use a network-attached storage (NAS) device (such as Apple’s Time Capsule); and you can also use file sharing to back up data on one system to an external drive attached to another system.

Swap a USB Hard Drive

Macs and PCs both have USB ports to which you can connect a removable hard drive. The only sticky issue is formatting.

If the drive is formatted for the Mac (using HFS Extended or a variant), Windows won’t recognize it. You can fix that by installing Mediafour’s $50 MacDrive 8 on the Windows system; it enables Windows to use a Mac-formatted drive natively.

If the hard drive is formatted in the Windows NTSF format, it will mount on the desktop when you plug it into the Mac, but you won’t be able to copy files to it. OS X can read NTFS drives, but it can’t write to them. You can fix this by installing Paragon Software’s $32 NTSF for Mac OS X. If you’d prefer to save money–and if you’re adventurous–you can try two free programs: NTFS-3G for Mac OS X and MacFuse, which must be installed together.

There is a third format that both Mac OS X and Windows can read and write to natively: FAT32. It’s also the format that most USB flash drives use. FAT32 has some limitations: It can’t store files bigger than 4GB, you can’t boot a Mac from it, and it’s slow. If you want to use FAT32 on a shared USB drive, use Mac OS X’s Disk Utility to erase and reformat a hard drive in what Disk Utility calls MS-DOS (FAT).

Connect to NAS

Macs and Windows PCs can use almost any networked-attached storage drive over a wired or wireless network; Apple’s Time Capsule is actually one of the best choices for shared backup.

Time Capsule is formatted as a FAT32 drive, so Macs and Windows PCs can both read and write to it. For file transfers, it supports the SMB protocol (used by Windows and Linux systems) as well as the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP).

The Time Capsule installer CD-ROM includes Windows versions of AirPort Utility and the Bonjour Printer Wizard, so the PC can set up and manage the Time Capsule and any printer attached to it. No Windows version of Time Machine exists; any Windows backup program should do.

Most non-Apple NAS devices are also formatted as FAT32, but you should check before you buy. You may be able to reformat an NTFS NAS device later. Non-Apple NAS devices usually support SMB file sharing only. If you can’t see such a device in the Finder, try typing its network address–smb://ipaddress–in the Connect To Server dialog box.

Share an External Drive

The third way to share storage between Macs and PCs is to plug a USB or FireWire drive into the Mac, and then have the PC back up to it over the network using file sharing.

The only difference between this and the file sharing described earlier is that you must specify the external drive on the Mac while the drive is connected.

To do so, open the Sharing pane in System Preferences. Select File Sharing in the left column. Click Options, make sure SMB is selected, then click Done. Back in the Sharing pane, click the plus-sign (+) button under the Shared Folders column. In the left panel under Devices, select your Mac, then select the external USB drive. Click the plus-sign button. You can now set the read/write privileges for the shared drive as you would for any folder.

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Iomega, an EMC company has entered into a strategic partnership with MSI-ECS (Phils.) Inc. to market and distribute Iomega’s consumer, SOHO (small office/home office) and SMB (small-medium business) storage solutions for the Philippines market. Under the agreement, MSI-ECS will market and sell Iomega’s full range of smart storage solutions, including the portable and desktop drives for both Windows and Mac users, multimedia and optical drives, and desktop and rackmounted network storage solutions. Shown in photo are (from left) Ronnie Latinazo, country manager, EMC Philippines; Rajeev Mukul, vice-president for Asia Pacific and Japan, Iomega; Jimmy Go, president and CEO, MSI-ECS (Phils.) and Victor Francisco Jr., channelsmanager, EMC.

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By James Galbraith
Macworld.com
February 16, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - The Strobe 500 marks the return to the Mac by scanner maker Visioneer after an 11-year absence. The Strobe 500 is a document scanner that features a removable dock that, when removed, allows it to operate as a USB bus-powered, portable scanner. It can scan color or black and white and scan both sides of a sheet of paper simultaneously at a resolution of 600 dpi.

The beige and black Strobe 500 is a portable scanner about the size of a box of Saran wrap. The scanner can use power from USB (using two USB cables) and scan one sheet at a time, or you can attach it to the included black docking station with its 20-sheet capacity feeder, which requires an external power supply.

Instead of creating its own Mac drivers, Visioneer turned to ExactCODE GmbH and their proprietary scanning driver, ExactScan. Not TWAIN compliant, the software will allow you to scan to an application like Preview or Acrobat, but you can’t pull scans into these applications with the Strobe 500 (or into the bundled Presto PageManager application, for that matter).

The ExactScan software does offer presets to let you scan to Mail, iPhoto, or to a printer. The Strobe 500 ships with a “lite” version of ExactScan 2 that supports only PDF and compressed PDF; there is no OCR functionality built-in, and scanning to JPEG or TIFF files isn’t supported. Also not supported in the lite version is the image rotation or the ability to skip blank pages.

Visioneer says that an upgrade to the standard version will soon be available, for a fee, from the Visioneer Web site. The standard version allows for blank page skipping, rotation, and scanning to JPEG, TIFF and PNG file types. OCR is not offered in the standard version, only in a Pro version, which the company also hopes to make available for purchase shortly.

To test the speed of the Strobe 500, we ran it through a series of timed tests. Compared to recently evaluated sheet-fed scanners, the Strobe 500 was an average performer, taking 14 seconds to scan a single-sided page at 300 dpi to a file folder on our Mac Pro, and 18 seconds to scan the same document into Adobe Acrobat Professional. It took 58 seconds to scan ten images from a mix of single and double sided sheets.

The resulting scans unfortunately were underwhelming, with the Strobe 500 scans containing weird rectangular patches overlaying the scans-an interesting effect, but those shapes weren’t in the original document we scanned. Colors in some of our scanned documents came out undersaturated and soft and when we scanned our text document into Acrobat Professional, a good amount of editing was necessary, more so than with competing scanners.

Macworld’s buying advice

The Strobe 500’s clever docking station allows it to server as both a desktop and a portable scanner. And while we’re happy to see Visioneer back in the Mac business, the Strobe 500’s bundled software and scanning quality leaves a lot to be desired.

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By James Galbraith
Macworld.com
February 9, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1500M is an easy to use, attractive sheet-fed scanner. Its automatic document feeder can hold up to 50 sheets, and it can scan both sides of a document simultaneously at a resolution of 600 dpi.

The compact silver and white S1500M is solidly built and connects to your Mac via USB 2.0. Its fold-up design allows it to take up little desktop real estate when not in use.

Fujitsu’s ScanSnap Manager software offers a colorfully pleasing interface, with intuitive controls and easy to recognize icons. The S1500M doesn’t ship with a TWAIN driver, which would let you initiate a scan from Snow Leopard’s built in applications like Image Capture and Preview, or into TWAIN compliant apps like Acrobat Professional 8, a powerful, and expensive, application which the Scan Snap actually includes. You can, however, use the ScanSnap Manager to send the scanned files to these applications.

The ScanSnap Manager software comes with presets for scanning to a printer, to a folder, or to e-mail. The ScanSnap Manager also shows presets for two bundled applications, CardIris business card scanning software, and Abbyy Fine Reader. The CardIris software worked fine, though a bit of editing cleanup was required. Two of the Abbyy presets, Scan to Word and Scan to Excel, did not work under Snow Leopard during the testing for our April 2010 print issue. We called Fujitsu representatives and pointed me to their Snow Leopard update. I downloaded the ScanSnap update, but still had problems. Fujitsu told me they’d look into the problem.

Before posting the online version of this review, I went back to check on updates and found an Abby FineReader for ScanSnap update for Snow Leopard. After downloading the update, version 4.2, up from version 4 that came with the scanner, the software worked exactly as you’d expect.

In terms of speed, the ScanSnap wasn’t the fastest document scanner we’ve tested, but was still impressively quick, taking just 36 seconds for our 10-page test and 18 seconds for our scan to Acrobat test. Its one-page test result, at 17 seconds, was the slowest score of four recently tested document scanners, which had scores between 7 and and 15 seconds.

In our scanning quality tests, we found the S1500M to be a solid performer, earning Good ratings in all three of our evaluation categories (detail, color and OCR accuracy).

Macworld’s buying advice
For those looking to reduce the amount of paper in their life, the space-saving, easy to use ScanSnap S1500m offers competitive price and solid performance.

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By Sharon Zardetto
Macworld.com
February 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - It’s easy to never go beyond the basics of Open and Save dialog boxes, despite their being perhaps the most-used feature of the Mac interface. Instead of simply working with the basics, make these dialog boxes work for you. (The last two tips here are Snow Leopard-only.)

1. Use Spotlight to search for missing files

You go to open that Quarterly Report you just copied over from a thumb drive, but you’ve totally forgotten where you put it. Let Spotlight come to the rescue, right in the Open dialog box. You don’t even have to reach for your mouse: Activate the Spotlight field by pressing Command-F, and then type in the search term for a file or a folder that you’ve misplaced. (There’s a Spotlight field in the Save dialog box, too.)

Using Spotlight keywords makes searching from within these dialog boxes even more efficient. These special terms limit your searches so that you don’t get as many unwanted results. For example, instead of typing quarterly in the search field when you’re looking for that report, type name:quarterly so you won’t find documents that simply contain the word quarterly. (When you use keywords, make sure there’s no space between the keyword and the colon that follows it; you can leave a space after the colon.)

The two keywords I use most are name and kind. Use name to limit a search to only file names (instead of also looking through a document’s contents). Use kind to specify the file type. When I’m looking specifically for a folder, I type kind:folder FolderName or FolderName kind:folder to avoid scrolling through a long list that includes files with similar names.

2. Customize your sidebar on-the-fly

The Finder’s sidebar gives you one-click access to items you use frequently: Click on a sidebar folder, and the folder opens. You’ll find the same click-and-you’re-there convenience in every Open and Save dialog box. But it’s there I often notice a sidebar organizational problem. (”I need this new folder in the sidebar”; “This folder should be at the top now because I’m using it so much”; “I haven’t used that folder for weeks, it’s in my way.”)

Fortunately, the sidebar in an Open/Save dialog box is not merely a static reflection of the one you set up in Finder windows. Redesign the sidebar’s Places category from within a dialog box just as you would in the Finder. Add a folder by dragging it from the window’s list to a spot in the sidebar. Reorder items by dragging them up or down to new positions. Remove an item by dragging it out of the sidebar and letting go.

3. Save time by opening multiple items at once

You need to open three items in Microsoft Word, or two in Adobe InDesign, or any number in some other application. Unfortunately, you’re already in the Open dialog box and don’t want to switch into the Finder. No problem. If you can see the items you want to open, select all of them, and then press Return or click on the dialog box’s Open button to open all the files at once.

How you select multiple items depends on what Finder view (Icon, List, and Column) you’re using in the dialog box. (Change your view by clicking on the small buttons at the top of the dialog box, or by pressing Command-1, Command-2, or Command-3.) If you’re in List or Column view, you can click on the first item and then Shift-click on the last to select them and everything in between. Alternatively, Command-click to select noncontiguous items. In Icon view, you can also drag a selection rectangle around icons to select them, using a Shift-click afterward to add an item to, or remove it from, the selection.

Tip If you’re in the List view, you can select and open multiple items that aren’t even in the same folder, as long as you can expand the folders to a level that displays all the items you want.

4. Take advantage of Quick Look

When you want to preview a file without opening it, nothing beats Quick Look. Luckily, you can use Quick Look when you’re in an Open dialog box. This is especially helpful if you need to see a file that the application you’re in doesn’t open, such as when you’re placing a document into InDesign or a graphic in a Word document.

In Leopard, you need a special Automator droplet described in Mac OS X Hints (now available for download here). But in Snow Leopard, you can use Quick Look the same way you do in the Finder. Just select an item in the dialog box and then press the spacebar. If you select multiple items, the Quick Look window provides a slideshow option. But, as in the Finder, you don’t need the slideshow to easily see a sequence of files: use the Up or Down Arrow key to select the previous or next item in the dialog box’s list, and the Quick Look window updates immediately.

5. Customize the columns you see in List view

Feeling restricted by the same old three-column setup in your Open and Save dialog boxes? Although the default columns–Name, Date Modified, and Size–are useful, sometimes you’d benefit more from a Date Created or Last Opened column. You can have these columns, and a few more, in Snow Leopard. With the dialog box in list view, Control-click on a column header for a contextual menu of column choices.

Once you have the columns you need, sort, rearrange, and resize them the same way as in a Finder-window list view. When you need more room in the dialog box to see all your columns, drag the bottom-right corner to resize it. These changes are application-specific, so you have to design your dialog boxes for each program; but, once you set them, they remain that way until you change them again.

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By Dave Rudden
GamePro (online)
February 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - GamePro is reporting live from Apple’s press event–check out our feed here. At the event, the company has just announced a device called the iPad, which seemingly merges two of the company’s most popular products–the iPhone and the Macbook. The half inch thin, one-and-a-half pound heavy device looks like a large iPhone–there are no buttons on the device, just a nine-and-a-half inch wide screen with multi-touch capabilities. The product uses Apple’s 1 GZ A4 processor and comes with flash memory totals of 16, 32, or 64GB. In terms of connectivity, it boasts WiFi (including 802.11n), as well as Bluetooth capabilities–some models will include 3G, while others won’t. Those who choose to use 3G can pay $15 a month for up to 250MB of data usage, while an unlimited data plan runs $30 a month.

In terms of games, the iPad is engineered to work with almost every iPhone app and game, displaying the app in different ways–either at its original size in a black box, or in full-screen with the app being run in “pixel double” mode. While the company obviously cherry-picked it for the event, iPhone game Snowcross still looked sharp on the iPad’s screen. But don’t expect the suite of games on the iPad to be relegated to up-rezzed iPhone leftovers–Apple also announced that the iPad will have it’s own development kit that is now available to app developers, allowing them to play to the iPad’s better processing power, larger screen, and higher resolution.

Some game developers have already had access to the SDK. One such company was EA, who created a version of Need for Speed Shift exclusively for the iPad. Taking advantage of the large screen by allowing the player to steer the wheel by gliding your fingers over it and check the rear-view mirror by tapping it, the game currently does not have a price. GameLoft also showed a new version of Nova, its first-person shooter franchise that has been garnering some acclaim on the iPhone. Nova will be available later this year, while Need for Speed Shift wasn’t denoted a date. Neither game’s price is known yet.

On a (potentially) GamePro-related note, the iPad will also have a new app called iBooks, an electronic reader that allows you to fill your virtual bookshelf with books (and perhaps magazines) that are displayed just as they are on the printed page. Just like music has iTunes and games have the app store, iBook will have an iBook Store. The iBook app uses the ePub format, one of the most popular electronic reader formats in the world.

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By David Dahlquist
Macworld.com
January 25, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Mary Bogdan is a New York-based artist whose work has been exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art. She also claims to have an obsession with Steve Jobs that spans back 30 years. In olden times, that’s the sort of thing one might keep to one’s self. But in the Internet Age, the obvious course of action is to not only declare such obsessions publicly but to also commit them to video.

So naturally, Bogdan has produced a video called “Steven Jobs & Me”, which features one of PodBrix’s lovable Steve Jobs plush dolls in a number of settings around the house–some Mac-related, some not.

The video–a slideshow more than anything–is equal parts charming, touching, and just a tad bit creepy. The Mac paraphernalia in many of the shots illustrates just how much Apple has affected Bogdan’s life. A Power Macintosh 7500, a first-generation iMac, a Macintosh Plus, and stacks of old Mac software boxes all make brief cameos. The soundtrack by Kenetic Music adds a dreamy, nostalgic flavor to the mix.

There’s no word on the Apple CEO’s reaction to the video or whether he’s started varying his routes to and from work.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 7, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - There was a time when Microsoft ruled the Web, when its Internet Explorer (IE) browser enjoyed a supremacy only exceeded by its Windows operating system.

That was no coincidence, of course: IE has been bundled with Windows since 1995.

But the days of IE owning a 95% share of the browser market are long gone, assaulted first by the appearance, and then success, of Mozilla’s open-source Firefox, followed by a resurgence of Apple’s Safari on the back of gains in Mac share, the efforts of a small Norwegian developer, and the entry last year by Google into the fray.

Now IE seems to be on the ropes. In the last five years, it’s lost nearly a third of its market share as the once-dead browser space has been reinvigorated with faster, smaller and more flexible rivals.

It looks like the trend will be tough, very tough for Microsoft to turn around.

How tough? Computerworld asked a pair of browser experts, including an executive from Net Applications, the California-based Web metrics company most often cited for browser standings, to explain why IE will lose even more ground in 2010.

That’s what the numbers say. The erosion in IE’s share of the browser usage pie shows no sign of abating, and in fact is accelerating, according to data from Net Applications.

IE lost 7.8 percentage points during 2009, ending the year at a new low of 62.7%, an annual loss rate of about 11%. In 2008, IE lost 8.3 points, for an annual loss rate of 10.5%. That’s a pretty clear trend line.

More troubling for Microsoft is evidence of a quickening in IE’s decline. IE lost an average of 0.94 of a percentage point in each of the last six months of 2009, nearly triple the 0.36 of a point average decline during the first six months. (The difference in 2008 between first half and second half was less dramatic: IE lost an average of 0.6 percentage point each of the first six months of 2008, dropped 0.8 point each of the six months in the second half of the year.)

In fact, if the loss rate of the last three months of 2009 continues — IE fell by more than 3 points from October through December — IE will become a minority browser about a year from now, sometime in January 2011.

The EU makes Microsoft go to the polls. After a year-long battle, antitrust regulators in the European Union last month approved a deal with Microsoft that requires the company to add a browser ballot screen to Windows. The ballot, which appears on any PC that has IE set as the default browser, lets users pick one or more rival browsers to download and install.

The ballot screen will add to IE’s troubles, argued Sheri McLeish, an analyst with Forrester Research. “Certainly another reason [for IE's continued decline] that you can point to is the EU’s browser menu,” said McLeish.

Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president with Net Applications, agreed that the ballot’s potential for change was real, but was less sure that IE would be affected. “This was a long, drawn out battle with extremely high stakes,” he said. “What this means to future browser usage market share in Europe is unknown now, but the bet here is it will be significantly different than it would have been otherwise.”

The browser ballot screen will begin appearing on European users’ desktops in mid-March.

Chrome’s a threat. In the 16 months since Google launched Chrome, the browser has captured an impressive 4.6% share, according to Net Applications’ newest data, and in the process has grabbed the No. 3 spot from Apple’s Safari.

In fact, Chrome boosted its usage share last year more than any other browser. In the stretch from December 2008 to December 2009, Chrome’s share grew by 3.2 percentage points, more than the second-place Firefox, which increased its share by 2.9 points.

Although it’s unclear which rival has been most affected by Chrome’s hard charge, both McLeish and Vizzaccaro said that Google was one factor in IE’s slide. “Given the inroads Firefox has been making in the past few years, the maturation of Chrome, and uptake [of] Safari, Microsoft will be hard pressed not to lose market share, particularly on the consumer side,” said McLeish.

Vizzaccaro noted that Google only flexed its marketing muscle late in 2009, and assuming it continues to do so, will likely grab even more share this year. “Chrome showed up in ads on Google’s search page, which almost never happens,” he said. “[And] Google also announced the ongoing development of Chrome OS to up the battle with Microsoft and Apple.”

Chrome OS , which won’t appear on netbooks until later this year, is based on the Chrome browser; any gains Google’s operating system makes this year will be accompanied by increases in Chrome’s share.

IE8’s fails to hold on to Microsoft’s users. Microsoft may have sat on its haunches, and its laurels, for far too long, long enough to let Firefox and Chrome and Safari and Opera make inroads on IE’s once-mighty share, but it told users throughout 2008 and early 2009 that Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) would change all that.

It didn’t work out that way.

Although IE8 is now the most-used version of Internet Explorer, its growth hasn’t offset the contraction of IE6 and IE7, says Net Applications’ numbers.

Last year, IE8 increased its share by 20 percentage points, but in the same period, IE6 lost 13 points and IE7 dropped 20 points. Net loss to Microsoft: 13 percentage points.

In other words, although Microsoft’s made headway in its campaign to convince people to abandon IE6 and IE7 for the more modern IE8, it’s shedding users along the way.

McLeish put forward one theory to explain the situation. “We should see more migrations to IE8 as people upgrade to Windows 7, but in businesses there’s still a reliance on IE6 because of legacy apps that only work in IE6,” she said. “In these instances an alternative to IE like Firefox may be more attractive because they can run at the same time, whereas IE6 and IE8 cannot coexist.”

Mobile browsing IE has never played much of a role in the mobile space — Opera Mini is the leading browser on phones — and with a recent jump in mobile browsing, it looks like Microsoft will be left even further behind.

“Mobile browsing usage share exploded in December 2009,” said Vizzaccaro, who added that during the month, mobile devices accounted for 1.3% of all those that were used to surf the Web.

Although mobile hardware accounted for a relatively small share, with their individual shares even smaller — the iPhone, for instance, had only a 0.44% share, phones powered by Google’s Android an almost infinitesimal 0.02% — month-over-month increases were dramatic. Android phones, for example, increased their share by nearly 56% between November and December, while RIM and the iPhone boosted theirs by 22% and 20%, respectively.

Windows Mobile — Net Applications tracks it as Windows CE — meanwhile, stayed flat from November to December, at 0.05%. With zero mobile momentum, IE’s won’t be able to take advantage of what looks to be a banner year for mobile browsing.

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By Carrie-Ann Skinner
PC Advisor (UK)
January 7, 2010

LONDON - More than 25 million new strains of malware were created last year, says PandaLabs. According to the security vendor’s Annual Malware Report, the number of new versions of malware identified has topped the 15 million identified throughout the company’s 20-year history.

PandaLabs said that 66 percent of the new malware identified were banking Trojans, and the next popular type was scareware, also known as fake antivirus software that encourages web users to part with their hard-earned cash to download hoax security software that serves no purpose.

The security vendor predicts that the amount of malware in circulation will continue to grow during 2010.

“Windows 7 will surely attract the interest of hackers when it comes to designing new malware, and attacks on Mac will increase. While we are likely to witness more politically motivated attacks the report concludes that, once again, this will not be the year of the mobile phone virus,” said PandaLabs.

The report also revealed that 92 percent of all emails sent in 2009 were classed as spam, and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter became popular with cybercriminals as a distribution channel for malware.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple will report selling another record number of Macs in the final quarter of 2009 when it unveils its financial figures later this month, a Wall Street analyst said Thursday in a note to clients.

Brian Marshall, of BroadPoint AmTech, estimated total Mac sales at 3.3 million units for 2009’s fourth quarter. If Marshall’s calculations are accurate, it would mean Apple broke the record sales of 3.05 million Macs set in the year’s third calendar quarter by 249,000 machines, an increase of 8.5%.

Year-over-year, Marshall’s estimate of 3.3 million Macs would be a 31% increase from the 2.3 million systems Apple sold in the fourth quarter of 2008. That kind of gain would be a return to Apple sales trends during 2008, when the company racked up impressive year-over-year increases ranging from 21% in the third calendar quarter to a whopping 51% in the first quarter.

Assuming Apple beats the industry average growth again in the fourth quarter of 2009 — as seems certain, even if Marshall’s estimate is on the high side — Apple’s sales will have outpaced the average in 20 out of the last 21 quarters. The one exception: The first quarter of 2009, when Apple failed for the first time since 2003 to boost Mac sales year-over-year.

According to Gartner Research, global computer sales will grow by just 2.3% during 2009.

Marshall also joined other analysts in predicting a resurgence of Apple’s desktop sales by pegging the company’s sales for the fourth quarter at 865,000 units, a year-over-year increase of 19% and a quarter-over-quarter gain of 10%.

Earlier in December, retail research firm said that sales of Apple’s desktops — the iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro lines — were up 74% during October and November in the U.S. At the time, analyst Stephen Baker of NPD credited the revamped iMac for the sales surge.

Apple unveiled the new 21.5- and 27-in. iMacs — the latter available with quad-core Intel processors for the first time — on Oct. 20. Since then, however, questions have cropped up about the 27-in. iMacs’ graphics cards and displays, with large numbers of customers reporting flickering screens , a problem multiple authorized resellers said resulted in Apple’s decision to delay shipping the largest, most expensive models.

Apple will issue its official sales numbers for the fourth quarter in the second half of January during an earnings call with financial analysts.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Microsoft’s Windows resumed its usual losing form last month as the operating system’s usage share dropped by about a third of a point even as the new Windows 7 posted a second straight month of impressive gains, Web metrics firm Net Applications said Friday.

Although rival desktop operating systems — Mac and Linux — essentially remained flat, mobile OSes, including Google ’s Android and Apple ’s iPhone OS, took up the slack created by Windows’ dip. Mobile operating systems, said Net Applications, now power 1.3% of all the hardware that surfs the Internet.

Windows finished the year with a 92.2% share, down 0.3 of a percentage point. It was the eighth month in 2009 during which Windows lost share.

As it did in 2008, Windows’ decline again accelerated in the second half of the year, when it lost 1.2 points of share. That compared to a drop of just 0.5 of a percentage point in the first six months of 2009. In 2008, Windows also lost more than twice as much share between July and December as it did in the preceding six months.

But the slip doesn’t mean Windows is in any danger of losing its grip on the operating system market anytime soon: At the pace of the last 24 months, Windows would retain a majority share for another 27 years.

As in November , both Windows XP and Windows Vista lost share in December, while Windows 7 gained ground. Unlike in November, however, Windows 7 was unable to make up for the decline in Microsoft ’s older operating systems.

Windows XP slid 1.3 percentage points in December, its second-largest one-month decline ever. (The record remains November, when XP lost 1.4 points.) Vista, meanwhile, lost 0.7 of a percentage point, a single-month record, to end at 17.9%. December was the second month in a row that Vista lost share, and the third in the last four months, a trend that points to a permanent decline as users abandon it for Windows 7.

Still, the bulk of Microsoft’s losses since the Windows 7 launch on Oct. 22 have been from Windows XP; the eight-year-old OS has lost 2.7 points in the last two months, while Vista has lost only 1 point.

Microsoft’s newest OS, on the other hand, boosted its share by 1.7 percentage points to end December with 5.7%, meaning that approximately 1 out of every 18 machines on the Web ran Windows 7 last month. If it can keep up the pace of the last 60 days, Windows 7 will crack 7% this month, beating Vista to that number by six months.

Windows 7 also reached a milestone on Jan. 1, 2010, when it posted an 8% share for the day. The previous one-day record of 7.6% had been set on Dec. 27, 2009.

Apple’s Mac OS X dipped for the second month in a row, finishing December with 5.1% after a decline of a statistically insignificant 0.01 of a percentage point. Most months, however, Mac OS X posts gains, not losses: December was only the fifth month of 2009 in which Apple’s operating system lost share.

The winner, according to Net Applications: mobile operating systems, which accounted for 1.3% of all OSes powering devices that browsed the Internet in December. Although their shares remained small — the largest was Java Platform, Micro Edition, with just 0.53%, followed by the iPhone OS with 0.44% — month-over-month increases were dramatic in some cases. Google’s Android operating system, for example, increased its share by nearly 56% between November and December, while RIM and the iPhone boosted their shares by 22% and 20%, respectively.

Net Applications measures operating system usage by tracking the machines that surf to the 40,000 sites it monitors for clients, which results in a pool of about 160 million unique visitors each month. It then weights share by the estimated size of each country’s Internet population.

December’s operating system data can be found on Net Applications’ site.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
December 21, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Mozilla on Thursday issued a fifth beta of Firefox 3.6 rather than move on to a release candidate, a decision that will push the final code ship date into early 2010, a company executive said Friday.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 was released as an update to current testers early Thursday, and can also be installed by others who download it from Mozilla’s site.

Beta 5 includes nearly 130 fixes from the last beta , which Mozilla released in late November. The fixes resolved numerous crash bugs, including a major crash problem in the Mac edition’s TraceMonkey JavaScript rendering engine , and other bugs in Firefox’s private browsing mode, the automatic password retrieval component and the fast startup module.

The release of the new beta was up in the air last Monday, when Mozilla said it was only one option for the week. “Beta 5 builds are being tested by QA now, targeting a Thursday release unless we get to RC [Release Candidate] first,” the company said in a weekly status meeting . “We are really, really close to being code-complete & only need 8 more patches and a TraceMonkey merge. If we can go to build today or tomorrow, QA will scrap Beta 5 and we’ll release RC to the beta audience ASAP.”

The appearance of Beta 5 means that Mozilla has pushed back both the Release Candidate — typically the last preview milestone — and the final, finished software.

“Mozilla released a fifth version of Firefox 3.6 to its more than 600,000 beta users as part of its continuing program to gather feedback and get fixes into the hands of the people evaluating the preview,” said Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox, in an e-mail Friday. “We expect to be able to issue a release candidate before the end of this year, but we’ll likely hold off on the official release until early in the new year.”

As recently as September, Mozilla was planning to deliver the final of Firefox 3.6 by early November. Subsequently, Mozilla began using a by-year’s-end window to describe its release plans for Firefox 3.6.

Such delays are not unusual. Last year, for example, Mozilla originally shot for a late-2008 release of Firefox 3.5, but eventually postponed the ship date to mid-2009 in order to add features and quash troublesome bugs in the then-new TraceMonkey.

Firefox controls about 25% of the global browser market, according to the most recent data from U.S.-based metrics company Net Applications. Over the past week, however, Firefox’s share slipped slightly as users tried out Google ’s Chrome, which made beta for Mac and Linux on Dec. 8.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 can be downloaded from Mozilla’s Web site for Windows, Mac and Linux. People using an earlier preview of Firefox 3.6 should see upgrade notices shortly if they haven’t already.

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By Erik Larkin
PC World (US)
December 21, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - A dangerous vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 became publicly known before a fix was available, raising the specter of a high-risk zero-day attack.
The bug involves the way IE handles Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) objects, and could let an attacker run any command on a targeted Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, or Server 2008 PC. Bad guys have already posted sample attack code online. IE 8 is not affected. For more information, see Microsoft Security Advisory 977981. Meanwhile, a bug in the way Windows handles Embedded OpenType could allow a baddie to take over vulnerable Windows XP, 2000, or Server 2003 computers via malicious Websites or poisoned Office documents. The bug can’t harm Vista or Server 2008, and doesn’t affect Windows 7. Read Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-065 for details.
Office File Flaws

Two other patches repair Office flaws in Excel and Word affecting Office XP and 2003, and Office 2004 and 2008 for Mac.
The Excel bug endangers Office 2007, Office Excel Viewer 2003, and the Office Excel Viewer Service Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. The Word flaw also affects Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, Office Word Viewer 2003, and Office Word Viewer. Microsoft rates the flaws as im­­portant; see Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-067 (Ex­­cel) and Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-068 (Word). Microsoft has also released two critical fixes for business networks. One closes a hole in the Web Services on Devices application programming interface; it’s critical for Vista and Server 2008 (see Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-063). The second flaw affects only Windows 2000 systems running License Logging Server (see Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-064).
Java and Opera Bump Up

Sun’s Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Java Development Kit (JDK) Update 17 closes a number of holes, including a serious flaw that allows attacks via Web pages. Java will check monthly to see whether updates are available, but you can check manually, too: Open Control Panel and double-click the Java icon. On the Update tab, click Update now. After updating, you may need to remove old Java versions manually with Add or Remove Programs. For details, or to download the latest Java, head to Sun’s Java SE Downloads page.
Version 10.10 of Opera’s Web browser fixes numerous bugs, including one that might let malicious JavaScript on a Web page launch an attack. Click Help, Check for updates to confirm that you have the latest version of Opera; if not, you can download Opera 10.10 from PCWorld’s Downloads Library.
Fix Shockwave and Mac OS X

An attack on critical vulnerabilities in Shockwave Player versions prior to 11.5.1.601 could “run malicious code on an affected system,” Adobe says. Check your Shockwave version at Adobe’s special testing page, and get the latest iteration (Shockwave 11.5.2.602) from our Downloads pages.

Finally, the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update corrects various problems involving PDF files, H.264 movies, TIFF images, and other things. Get it via Software Update, and read more at About Security Update 2009-006.

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By Ken Gagne
Computerworld (US)
December 21, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Despite the recession, Mac sales continue unabated. Whether it’s a result of the Windows XP-to-Windows 7 upgrade debacle, the hip “Get a Mac” ads, or a halo effect from the successful iPod and iPhone lines, many consumers are probably celebrating their first holiday season as Mac users.

My sister-in-law is one such convert, and as a dutiful relative, I’ve tried to reflect her new status in my holiday shopping. But what do you get a new Mac user? My own power-user needs are very different from hers, but I eventually realized that regardless of the level of tech-savviness, every Mac user has the same basic needs.

Cool stuff

With that in mind, I’ve compiled this list of gifts for the new Mac user and checked it twice. I’ve chosen software, hardware, books and more that are all under $100, with many costing less than $50. You’ll find something here for the switcher in your life — or you can forward this list as a gentle hint about what you might like to find in your own stocking.

(Also don’t miss Computerworld’s 2009 holiday gift guide and ourvideo gift guide for the gadget generation.)

Easing the transition

Despite the Macintosh’s reputation for being easy to use, it’s still a foreign machine to someone accustomed to working the Windows way. However, ever since Apple switched to Intel inside, the Macintosh can run Windows as well as any Dell. It takes a bit of extra software to do it, though.

Each Mac now comes with Boot Camp, which lets users choose their start-up operating system du jour, be it Mac OS X or Windows. A more seamless experience is offered by Parallels Desktop for Mac ($80) and VMware Fusion ($80), both of which run Windows software in the Mac environment. For an extra $20, the Switch to Mac edition of Parallels includes cables, software and tutorials for migrating data and applications from a Windows machine to a Mac.

But the main benefits of the Mac are found in its native operating system, so the sooner your new user makes the transition, the better. Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Snow Leopard Edition ($30), released just this month, describes familiar Windows processes and their Macintosh equivalents, including how to translate data from one to the other. Users interested in the Mac’s tools for producing, editing and organizing digital media might benefit from Visual QuickStart Guides for iPhoto and other programs in the iLife suite.

And for ongoing news of new Mac developments, there’s always Macworld, Seth Weintraub’s blog AppleInk and (need we mention it?) Computerworld’s own ongoing coverage.

Games

Though few people buy a Macintosh for the games, there are some great titles that have made their way to Mac OS X and provide a pleasant diversion for anywhere from a few minutes to an entire weekend.

Peggle ($20) is a casual game akin to The Price is Right’s Plinko, where players drop pellets from the top of the screen and see how many bricks they can hit on the way down. World of Goo ($20) is a physics-based point-and-click puzzler in which imprisoned blobs of goo are assembled into structures that their fellow goo balls can scale to freedom. And Braid ($10) is a 2-D platformer like Super Mario Bros. but with fluid temporal mechanics that send the player backward and forward in time. Each of these games has a free playable demo.

More involved games that would appeal to hard-core gamers include The Sims 3 ($50), Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 ($30), and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ($55).

Storage

Mac OS X has a better built-in backup utility than almost any other operating system — simply connect a backup drive and Time Machine will do the rest. For a new Mac user to take advantage of this feature, he’ll need the hardware to go with it — usually an external hard drive.

Since Macs come with hard drives ranging from 160GB to 1TB, an external hard drive should accommodate that volume while leaving room to grow. A 1TB Western Digital MyBook for Mac comes in at just under $100, depending on where you shop.

If you have a spare hard drive lying around, perhaps from a previous upgrade, you can be even more economical — sticking it in an external case will cost just a few dollars and put an old drive back into service. Be sure the enclosure is the right one for an IDE drive or a SATA drive.

Gloves

If your new Mac user is a student, chances are he or she got a free iPod Touch with the purchase, courtesy of Apple’s annual back-to-school promotion. Mobile devices with capacitive touch screens aren’t the easiest to use during these cold winter months, though — unless you have the right gear.

Tavo Gloves ($30) have specially designed fingertips that conduct electrical impulses to an iPod’s or iPhone’s screen without exposing the user’s hands to the cold. For a less elaborate but more affordable alternative, try Freehands Gloves (starting at $20, although they range up to $70 for cashmere), whose fingertips simply fold back, revealing the finger while keeping the rest of the hand warm.

Gift cards

If you’re not sure what your favorite Mac users want, why not let them decide for themselves? Apple offers three kinds of gift card: an Apple gift card, good for any product in its online or retail stores; an iTunes gift card, which can be redeemed for music in the iTunes Store (all new Macs come with the iTunes software preinstalled); or an iPhone gift card, which can be applied to the purchase of a new iPhone.

The gift of time

If you’re reading Computerworld, chances are you already know a thing or two about IT. Make yourself available as a resource to new Mac users by volunteering your time and expertise. Arrange a day to sit down together and review each piece of software they’re using and might be having trouble with. This could be the most affordable gift of all — or, depending on your patience, the most expensive.

Apple offers a similar support program, One to One, that costs $99 a year but is available only as an add-on with the purchase of a Mac.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
December 9, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - As anticipated, Google today launched the beta of the Mac version of its Chrome browser.

Last month, Google said it would deliver a Mac beta of Chrome in early December.

The browser, which has been in development for more than a year, was joined today by a beta of a Linux edition , as well as betas of browser extensions for Windows and Linux. The Mac edition does not yet support extensions, as Google dubs the add-ons it and third-party developers have created for the open-source browser.

Chrome for the Mac takes the same approach as the one used by the Windows edition, which debuted in September 2008, and until now, was the only version available as a non-developer build. “We returned to the core principles of the Chromium project and focused on delivering rock-solid depth in a few critical areas for the browser, rather than a breadth of features that are rough around the edges,” said software engineers John Grabowski and Mike Pinkerton in a post to Google’s Mac-specific blog .

Grabowski and Pinkerton also spelled out what didn’t make it into the beta, including extensions, bookmark synchronization, and either a bookmark or cookie manager. The omissions had been detailed earlier by Google in a list of bugs and features that had been pushed to a post-beta build. Pinkerton, in fact, had tweeted about the Mac edition’s lack of support for extensions two weeks ago.

In lieu of those features, said Grabowski and Pinkerton, “We focused on features such as sandboxing our renderer process to help provide a safer Web experience for our users.”

Chrome accounts for approximately 4% of all browsers used worldwide, according to the most recent data from Web metrics company Net Applications. In comparison, Microsoft ’s Internet Explorer has a 64% share, while Mozilla’s Firefox — like Chrome, an open-source browser — owns a 25% share.

“In the short term, I can’t see that it will be significant,” said Sheri McLeish, a Forrester Research analyst who covers browsers, talking about the beta release of Mac and Linux editions. “But Chrome is critical to Google’s long-term strategy, and a sign that they’re continuing to invest in technology that’s widely accessible, like a browser.”

Previously, Google had set aggressive market share goals for Chrome of a 5% share by September 2010 and a 10% goal for 2011. “That’s achievable,” said McLeish, “But Google needs to get even more visibility for Chrome. The barrier they face is the inability of people to change habits — Chrome’s market share now is insignificant compared to Internet Explorer, or even Firefox — so they need to take even more drastic steps.”

McLeish compared Google’s current place in browsers to Apple ’s position when it launched its game-changing iPhone. “So far, Google hasn’t been able to seize on the kind of fervor Apple’s gained with the iPhone,” she said. “But that’s not to say that they can’t, as long as they continue to invest outside their core search business.”

Rival Mozilla welcomed Chrome for the Mac. “As always, it’s great to see more choices available for people who want to make informed decisions about the software they use to browse the Web,” said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox.

The beta of Chrome for the Mac can be downloaded from Google’s Web site. It requires Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, or later, and runs only on Intel-based Macs.

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By Glenn Fleishman
Macworld.com
November 26, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - It’s that time of year when travelers brace themselves to suffer the many small indignities of the road. Why can’t it be easier to print on networks that you don’t have regular access to or transfer files among mobile devices like iPhones? Why is it such a pain to create secure, robust networks with colleagues or friends on the fly using 3G mobile broadband as the Internet connection?

A new wireless networking system, Wi-Fi Direct, will soon help Mac users do all that and more. It lets any wireless device maintain a connection to a network base station while also communicating directly with other devices that aren’t on the same network. And it’s (probably) coming soon. 

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced Wi-Fi Direct in October. The technology will start showing up in hardware and software by mid-2010. Operating system makers like Microsoft and Apple–though they sit on the board of directors of the trade group responsible–haven’t yet signaled their support or a firm timetable for including the technology in new equipment. It’s possible that adapters in a lot of 2008 and 2009 computers and mobile devices will be upgradable, but we don’t know for sure yet. Here’s what we do know:

It’ll be a big improvement over what we have now
In the current scheme of things, Wi-Fi networks come in two flavors: infrastructure, which relies on one or more base stations connected to the Internet, and ad hoc, where two or more computers join together over short ranges. (You can turn a computer into a software base station, too, but the OS X 10.2 to 10.6 implementation can’t do much when compared to a hardware base station.)

Ad hoc Wi-Fi’s flaws

An ad hoc connection would seem to do what Wi-Fi Direct promises. But this kind of connection has a host of flaws, starting with poor security options, low speed, and incompatibility. Ad hoc mode has never been standardized or put through a testing and certification program like infrastructure mode has. This can make it difficult or impossible to use the mode between computers running different operating systems or even different wireless networking hardware.

In ad hoc mode, computers broadcast the same network name with a flag that indicates it’s a computer-to-computer network. With no central coordinating hub, each computer has to listen for broadcasts. That means file transfers and communication tend to crawl along at a fraction of the possible speed.

Apple’s version of ad hoc networking–available from the Create Network item in the AirPort menu–doesn’t allow you to use robust security. It instead relies on the outdated WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption standard. (WEP keys can be cracked in between one and fifteen minutes by someone using free software. Once the person is in, he or she can intercept all data on the network or connect to the network.)

Further, you can only select from 2.4GHz Wi-Fi channels. The 2.4GHz band is the only band that the original AirPort (802.11b) and AirPort Extreme (802.11g) adapters and base stations can use. This band is full of interference. Many other communications devices use it–anything using Bluetooth, cordless phones, base stations, and even some baby monitors. Microwave ovens use a 2.4GHz signal to heat food, emitting noise while active. Industrial, scientific, and medical devices also use the 2.4GHz band. The 2.4GHz band is often known as a “junk” band because of all this jostling and crowding. (For more on spectrum choices, see “Understanding Wi-Fi’s two spectrum bands.”)
Software base station’s flaws Apple also offers a software base station, which was added way back in the Mac OS 8 days, but which disappeared between OS X 10.0 and 10.1; it returned in 10.2. To configure and turn on the software base station, open System Preferences, click on Sharing and select Internet Sharing.

If you choose to share a network connection via AirPort, Mac OS X turns on a software base station and your computer becomes a central Wi-Fi hub. However, the AirPort Options dialog box presents nearly identical options as you’d see for an ad hoc network. And you can’t be connected to a Wi-Fi network and share it with other Wi-Fi clients at the same time.

The technology promises a lot
Here’s a common scenario: You’re traveling with one or more people. You have a fast 3G USB modem for your computer and you’d like to share that 3G connection. Today, you could use either ad hoc networking or the software base station to let your colleagues or friends hook up. But you’d suffer from all the problems I’ve talked about here. With Wi-Fi Direct, other people can connect to your laptop with a high degree of security and simplicity.
Easy connections The protocol includes “service discovery.” In other words, when you try to connect with a Wi-Fi Direct enabled device, you’ll see a connection menu that sums up what it can do. For instance, you might see “printing” or “Internet access” listed as options next to a network name. Today’s Wi-Fi networks only show the network’s name.

Strong security Wi-Fi Direct supports the modern Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), the full wireless security standard that Apple has supported for Wi-Fi infrastructure purposes since 2005. All 2003-and-later base stations and all AirPort Extreme Cards in Panther or later could be updated for WPA2 if they weren’t shipped with such support already turned on. (The original WPA was backwards compatible with older gear, and AirPort Cards could be updated, although not the original 802.11b base stations. WPA2 required additional hardware, limiting support to 2003 and later cards and base stations.)

When you select a network to join, Wi-Fi Direct will initiate a special simplified security connection using Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). A typical scenario will have you press a button on a printer or click a button in onscreen software on the device to which you want to connect to confirm access. Then a secure process exchanges strong WPA2 keys. (It may be implemented the other way around, too: press a button in software or hardware on the device to which you want to connect, then try to join the network; that’s not clear yet.)

Versatile connections One of the key differences between existing Wi-Fi connection methods and Wi-Fi Direct is that a single Wi-Fi adapter can maintain a connection to a base station while also connecting to other devices in this peer-to-peer fashion.

While some of these features may sound a lot like Bluetooth, Bluetooth is a slow way to connect. It’s designed for peripherals that have very little room for batteries, and is already found in hundreds of millions of handsets worldwide. Bluetooth will become faster in mid-2010, using 802.11g for up to 25Mbps for data transfers. But even that new version is keyed more towards device-to-device and peripheral connections rather than network connections or very large transfers. 

Speed Wi-Fi Direct will work with the far less frequently used 5GHz Wi-Fi channels, which can carry data at much higher rates than 2.4GHz because of a lack of interference and the ability to employ “wide” channels that use twice the frequency range. (Technically, you can have wide channels in 2.4GHz, but the lack of spectrum in that band makes it impractical. Apple doesn’t even include the option.)

Glenn Fleishman is a regular contributor to Macworld, and the author of Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, recently updated for Snow Leopard

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Now here’s a multi-tasking tablet with a youthful style. Sporting a clean white finish with an orange outline, the Genius EasyPen i405 is both professional and trendy. A graphic tablet especially made to make drawing and painting easy with a working area measuring 4″x5.5″, the EasyPen i405 is convenient for writing, sketching and even signing emails.

EasyPen i405 works with both PC and Mac. It features 1024 level pressure sensitivity with the pen tip moving precisely with your hand so you can control the thickness to suit your purpose. The pen is storable. There’s a clip on the right side of the tablet where you can attach the pen when you’re not using it.

EasyPen i405 has 28 programmable shortcut keys, which you can set to do instant-access on your Office or Internet functions. So whether for creative design or for signing important documents, EasyPen i405 is perfect for you.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
November 9, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Just a week after it last updated Firefox, Mozilla has rushed out a new version of its browser to fix a crash bug that programmers inadvertently introduced.

Firefox 3.5.5, which Mozilla posted for download late Thursday, fixes a small number of what the company called “stability issues” in the release notes that accompanied the update. Unlike almost all interim updates that Mozilla issues about once every six weeks, version 3.5.5 did not patch any security vulnerabilities.

The main bug quashed Thursday was one that was causing a high number of crashes in the Windows version of Firefox 3.5.4, the update that Mozilla launched Oct. 27 to patch 16 flaws.

“We’re seeing lots of crashes in the GIF decoder,” noted Mozilla developer Joe Drew in the message that kicked off the discussion on Bugzilla, the company’s bug and change tracking system. Only the Windows edition of Firefox 3.5.4 was crashing, others reported on Bugzilla. The GIF decoder is the component that parses .gif image files embedded in Web pages.

“This bug was actually caused by bug 514776 which removed the check for null mImageFrame,” said another Firefox programmer, Jeff Mulzelaar, on Bugzilla. “I don’t know why that check was removed.” Information about the bug Mulzelaar mentioned is password-protected and not available to the general public.

Firefox 3.5.5 also fixes a stability bug in the Mac version, and another crash problem in the Windows and Mac editions.

Mozilla’s older browser, Firefox 3.0, was not affected by the bugs. The most up-to-date version of that edition is Firefox 3.0.15, which was also released Oct. 27.

Firefox accounts for an estimated 24% of all browsers worldwide, according to data from U.S. Web metrics company Net Applications.

Firefox 3.5.5 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the Mozilla site; current Firefox users can call up the browser’s update tool or wait for automatic update notifications to appear.

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