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Episode 619: Shake your boot.ini

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Gotham Geek Guidebook: West 14th Street Apple Store

A friend of mine once told me that one of the most striking characteristics of the Manhattan mini-neighborhood known as the Meatpacking District was the proliferation of "baby giraffes."

Basically, what he meant were the hordes of impossibly skinny young women in mile-high stiletto heels, teetering through the cobblestone streets of the party-heavy neighborhood as though they were juvenile specimens of Giraffa camelopardalis who couldn't quite control their pole-like legs. (In case you couldn't tell, the Meatpacking District's warehouses have largely given way to pricey designer boutiques and the nightclubs that keep Us Weekly's … Read more

Updated: Does Yahoo even know there's an iPhone? Yes!

Update, 10:09 a.m. PST: After reading my original column (see below), Yahoo representatives asked to discuss with me the current and future strategy Yahoo has embarked on. And while I was skeptical of where the company is going and I still think there is considerable work that needs to be done, I'm happy to report that after speaking with the Yahoo folks, it looks like the company has it together. (For starters, it has an iPhone-specific Web page.)

According to Yahoo, it's currently working on bringing that iPhone Web app to the Net, and as the company has pointed out, its integration with the iPhone on weather, stocks, and even mail has helped it parlay that experience into exciting new Yahoo products on the horizon. Obviously I can't get into some of the services that were discussed (and neither can Yahoo), but let me say that this company seems to have its head on straight and should be pretty well equipped to get in on the iPhone Web app game.

Now, I know some folks were a bit upset with the title of this piece (same as the current one, but without the "Yes!") because obviously Yahoo knows there's an iPhone, but the real intent was to highlight the issues that I have seen in Yahoo's mobile strategy and my belief that it has ignored the online side of the iPhone's functionality. But after speaking with Yahoo representatives who highlighted some of the finer points in the company's strategy and its intentions for the future, you can bet that I'll be looking forward to future launches of services.

Oh, and look for that Yahoo home page to get much more user-friendly, too (my biggest pet peeve).

Original post starts here: If you've been following the latest news out of Cupertino and Mountain View, you probably know that Google has developed an app that will allow all iPhone users to surf over to the Google home page and enjoy a page specifically designed for the Apple product.

Not only does the new page consolidate all of Google's services, it makes for easy browsing and a far more enjoyable experience.

But for some odd reason, Google is the only major search engine offering full-fledged support for the iPhone. And while I can understand why Microsoft may be unwilling to support the iPhone's mobile Safari browser, what is Yahoo's excuse?

Simply put, the mobile search experience on Google is fantastic, but when it comes to Yahoo, it's pure garbage.… Read more

Tabulate brings smarter tabs to mobile Safari users

There's no denying the mobile version of Safari found on the iPod and iPhone Touch offers an above-average browsing experience for a portable device. That said, the software is not without its shortcomings, and one of them is how it handles links found on various Web pages. Depending on how they've been coded by the author, links can be set to open up in a new window or tab, or simply in the same page. Usually you don't find this out until you click on them, which can be a juggle considering the device is only capable … Read more

CNBC jumps on Mac ultraportable bandwagon

We're a little more than a month away from the Macworld Expo, and the expectations are starting to get a little clearer for arguably Apple's biggest show of the year.

CNBC reported Thursday that Apple plans at Macworld to introduce a 12-inch Mac laptop with flash memory in place of a hard drive. Apple followers have long anticipated such a product, and several other reports have come out this year predicting a similar type of announcement was nigh.

The ultraportable Mac is said to be 50 percent thinner and lighter than a current MacBook Pro, the largest notebook … Read more

Episode 618: Cranberry juice for copyright law

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Episode 617: Windows apps on a Mac?

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Problems with the Mac promised land

I've definitely learned something in recent weeks about reacting to the inevitable problems that will happen in life--how it can be possible to turn a problem into a huge opportunity, but also how a problem can become an even bigger problem overnight with neglect.

Perhaps it was inevitable for Apple this year, as the nearly unprecedented iPhone hype from this summer was followed by a surge in Mac shipments. Peeved by their experiences upgrading to Leopard, some high-profile Apple customers have taken to the Internet in recent weeks to complain, suggesting that Apple is leading them on with the … Read more

Apple enabling native Windows compatibility...in Leopard?

If what The Register writes is even remotely true, the writing is on the wall for Microsoft's desktop dominance. What does it say? "Game over."

The Register is reporting that Apple may be coding Leopard to run Windows applications natively (meaning, no need for Parallels, Boot Camp, etc.). It's a wild guess at this point, but the clues are there:

Leopard's PE (Portable Executable--a way of encoding executable files) support was uncovered by one Stephen Edwards, who'd been working with Wine, the open source version of the Windows application programming interface (API). He found that Leopard's Dynamic Linker (Dyld) will try to load a PE file. Soon after, Leopard's hunt for DLLs referenced by the PE file appeared as further evidence that the presence of PE support may not simply be a hang over from Apple's use of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI).… Read more