mac

Hands-on with the MacBook Air

Say what you will about Steve Jobs, but when he pulled Apple's latest laptop out of a standard inter-office envelope I stood in awe--of both his showmanship and of the laptop's remarkably slim design. Though the MacBook Air is not quite the thinnest laptop ever, it is among the thinnest we've seen (the Fujistu LifeBook Q2010 and Toshiba Portege R500 both measure 0.8 inch thick, but neither tapers to 0.16 inch like the Air).

These data can't really convey the MacBook Air's wow factor--thus the envelope trick. Yet even with that visual I … Read more

Not much music at Macworld 2008

Music was hardly mentioned in today's Macworld keynote by Steve Jobs.

iTunes got a major update, but it wasn't related to music--rather, Apple introduced movie rentals starting at $2.99. The biggest limitation seems to be the requirement to finish the movie within 24 hours of starting it--contrast this with Netflix, which gives you physical DVD rentals and 6,000 on-demand movies over the Internet without any time limit, starting at $4.99 per month. Apple TV is also becoming a much more interesting product, with no personal computer required to rent movies direct from iTunes. (Netflix and … Read more

Security reseacher issues warns against rogue MacSweeper

F-Secure is warning Mac users to beware of a rogue software application that is making the rounds.

The application, MacSweeper, purports to clean a user's Mac, but in reality will "always" claim to find something wrong with a user's system and seek payment to remove the unwanted file or spyware, security researcher F-Secure noted in a blog posting Tuesday.

"It's a scam...when you visit the MacSweeper Web site with a PC and click on "Scan", it will tell you that you have security vulnerabilities in folders that only exist on a … Read more

MacBook Air missing more than an optical drive

The new MacBook Air is svelte-as-can-be, but it's also missing some key, traditional Mac functionality that might leave some users disappointed or in a lurch. First off, the battery is apparently not user-replaceable. This means you can't swap out batteries to extend operating life, and you'll likely need to seek authorized service to get the battery replaced when it inevitably loses capacity or if it fails altogether.

Since the MacBook Air lacks an optical drive, you can't boot from an inserted DVD like the Mac OS X Leopard install disc unless you purchase the optional, $100 … Read more

Apple releases the "MacBook Air," but will it measure up?

Apple has put the "Wow" in computing, today announcing its MacBook Air. What had been rumored to be a MacBook with wireless broadband built in turned out to be nothing so pedestrian. Apple, the Arsenal of computing, surprised many with an insanely thin new MacBook Air

Intel and Apple started collaborating on the project a year ago and the result is nothing short of spectacular. Whether it's something that you'll actually want to buy is an entirely different question, however. At $1,799.00, it's not cheap, but no one buys excellence for pennies.

Here are some of the more incredible/interesting aspects of the design:

Dimensions: 0.16" to 0.76". 13.3" screen. As demonstrated, it fits within an envelope. It is dramatically thinner than anything else on the market. The option of flash-based memory.… Read more

Apple flies in the MacBook Air

With Macworld kicking off today, that tangled web of rumor, innuendo, and outright fabrication known as the Internet has been abuzz with all kinds of supposedly inside top-secret documentation, downloaded directly from Steve Jobs' frontal lobe.

Naturally, we didn't believe a word of any of the oh-so-fake "leaked" Steve Jobs keynote addresses and product spec sheets, but one area where most of the speculators were at least partially right was in Apple's latest laptop, the MacBook Air.

As was heavily predicted, the new laptop is not quite an ultraportable, but still very small. Mimicking the 13-inch … Read more

Ultimate liveblogging tool: CoverItLive

CoverItLive is a new hosted service for blogging events in real time, or "liveblogging." It's a useful tool for people covering major industry events, speeches, sports, and the like. I first saw the product in use when I was watching the CrunchGear team cover the Bill Gates keynote at CES.

I've liveblogged several events myself in the past, but I've used tools not designed for the job. My hack has been to set up a unique Twitter account for each event and embed a widget from that account into my blog (example: YouTube's Steve Chen interviewed at the NewTeeVee Live conference). … Read more

The one Mac feature you can't live without

I was reflecting on my friend and colleague's, John Newton, post about his recent adoption of the Mac. He asked us to suggest which applications he should get (Adium, Handbrake, NeoOffice, etc.) and it got me thinking, "Beyond third-party applications, which features on the Mac itself could I not live without?

Pushed for just one, I think it might well be Expose. Given that through the day I tend to open more and more windows, it can get confusing to find my way back to the one I need at a given moment in time. I use the Dock, yes, but I find Expose the best tool of all for sorting through the clutter to hone in on the application I need, and the window within that application that I need. Invaluable.… Read more

Macworld leads tech out of the desert

Apple has the third week of January all to itself this year, and although it probably won't top last year's Macworld, the company will likely make everyone forget about the Consumer Electronics Show.

Trade shows are a necessary evil in the tech industry. Everyone claims to hate them, but the opportunity to have all the major players in the same town at the same time is too much of a draw. And usually, the parties are decent, leading more than 140,000 business types to CES in Las Vegas this week for a chance to make deals and … Read more