6 posts tagged “apple”

View other items tagged “apple:” Photos, Audio, Videos, Books or Links. View “apple” on Vox.

The Little Things In Leopard

Just started going through Apple's newly updated Leopard page and noticed a couple of new things that weren't mentioned before and/or doesn't seem to get the big look-at-me treatment but I thought were Leopards hidden surprises.


Back to my Mac
Didn't seem like they made such a big deal out of this one (I could be wrong) but I thought it's one of the new Finder's best features. As a designer, I have a thousands of files on my main Mac. Stuff like fonts (hundreds), templates, Flash files (a bunch), PDFs and all that jazz. Problem is my main Mac is an iMac which means if I'm out on the road with my laptop, most of that stuff on my iMac is unavailable to me. With this new feature I can supposedly - with a .Mac membership - be able to see my iMac as a network computer when I'm out on the road letting me access all my files that are in there. I think there are other solutions that might be similar/different from this one that I can use now but I think having it default on your OS just makes it so much simpler.

Time Machine through shared hard drive
I sort of found it odd when they came out with the new Airport Extreme with built-in support for connecting an external hard drive to share. Although, it is a great idea for sharing files but isn't that what those public folders are already there for? And yes you could make a case against public folders being unreliable, I still found it a bit of a surprise that it's there. Well anyway, Apple just let out of the bag one of the big reasons, the feature's there: For backing up files for everyone in the home's computer through Time Machine. I thought that was a big help for anyone such as myself administering multiple computers in the house. With this, I can have every computer in the house automatically backing up without the need to spend time and money on multiple external hard drives/DVDs.

Data detection in Mail
This one is kind of like the "look up in dictionary" floating box in Tiger. Leopard can detect data items such as addresses, telephone numbers and give you the option of saving it as a new contact in Address Book. No more selecting each line of text, copying, opening Address Book, creating a new contact, well... you know what I mean.

Saved video and audio chats
This one might be a boon to people who do interviews and the like. You can now save video and audio chats in iChat. To me, this is kind of like the Photobooth of audio and video. Imagine, instead of being able to just make those candid photos for posterity, you can also do video!

So far those are just the few that stuck to my mind. I'm hoping to grab a copy this Friday and test it out.

Post a comment Tags: apple, mac, osx, leopard

Neato

Just found this cool little ajax trick on Apple's iPod page: Scroll all the way to the iTunes Free Download box. Click on "Download" and walla! Pop goes a small form box where you can quickly download iTunes. No waiting for an entire page to load.

Post a comment Tags: design, apple, webdesign

Stupid Mouse

If you have bought yourself Apple's Mighty Mouse and one day found the scroll ball not scrolling down/up anymore. It may be due to gunk stuck underneath the scroll ball. Apple's suggestion on it's knowledge-base doesn't appear to work very well. The bit below is from a thread in Apple's discussion page about how to fix the no-scrolling problem:

Most often I find that any scroll ball or older mouse ball needs cleaning. Contrary to what I read in Mac help about using a bit of water, I think that is tempting disaster!

I use just a bit of isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) on a cue tip and gently rub the ball.

From high school chemistry, 'likes disolve likes.' Your finger tips send a bit of organic oil to the ball and it tends to clog it up...that's my theory anyways. Using an organic solvent like above will disolve and remove the 'scum.' Alcohol is organic and so is the oil from your fingers. Water is 'inorganic' and will not remove the scum. Yes, putting pressure on the ball, rotating it against felt, and all the others may remove the scum. But, it 'ain't' going to 'di-solve' the problem! And, if there is any water around it will absorb and remove that too.

So far I've never had an electronic (electrical) problem using this cleaning method.

And, because I have suffered the nearly 500 problems mentioned in the discussions, I find this a sure fire "solution.'

Just an ole chem teacher from way back!

Steve

So thanks "Ole chem teacher" Steve. Now I can stop posting and get back to work. :)

1 comment Tags: apple

iTunes 7 Interface: A Sign of Things To Come?

iTunes 7
iTunes 7

I just downloaded the new iTunes 7 at work and amongst the plethora of design changes, one thing struck me very much: The scrollbars are not the standard aqua scrollbars found on mac os x. Historically, design changes that happen in iTunes end up being implemented in the rest of the mac apps like when iTunes lost its brushed metal in favor of a gradient all the iLife apps followed suit. Same with the source list: iTunes went blue and lost the paddings - so followed Mail and other countless apps... So with this scrollbar change does that mean the next version of Mac OS X is gonna lose its aqua and go flat? In my opinion it's kinda boring and almost Windows-y. Thoughts anyone?


1 comment Tags: design, apple, itunes

Apple showing some reseller love...

Now here's something new... I just noticed that Apple had redesigned their reseller locator page. It now sports some fancy AJAX stuff for the search AND it uses Google maps to display the results! And not being content they even skinned Google maps! Clicking on the pins on the maps gives you a semi-transparent black balloon as opposed to Google's white box.

I really like this implementation a lot since it now only requires one single page to display all the info that you need whereas before you had to type your location on a separate page, get results from a separate page and get more info and a map from a separate page!

It's nice to see Apple taking something as mundane and (most likely) dismissed functionality as this and coming up with something much more efficient and better designed.

Sidenote: The Apple Retail Store site has also been redesigned.

Post a comment Tags: design, apple, googlemaps

Today is WWDC '06

Well today is the keynote for the Apple World Wide Developer Conference 2006 to be more specific... So around noon I'll be on my favorite mac rumor sites refreshing the hell out of it for the low down on some new Apple stuff and for a dose of reality distortion field as well.

Here's some places you can visit for more info:

The keynote starts at 12pm ET.

My predictions:

  • Intel Powermacs
  • Intel Xserves
  • Leopard preview (duh!)
  • new iPods maybe
  • some hardware (eh...)

Yea... some prediction right? Anyway, I guess we'll all just have to wait and see.


2 comments Tags: apple, mac