nutMac

Camino issues a maintenance releases to 1.5.1

Camino 1.5.2 contains the following improvements over version 1.5.1:

• Upgraded to version 1.8.1.8 of the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine, which includes several critical security and stability fixes.
• Large download lists and corrupt site icons will no longer cause Camino to stop loading pages or opening windows.
• When viewing the source of a frame, Camino now uses cached data instead of requesting the frame again.
• When JavaScript code wants to focus a minimized window, Camino now properly restores the window from the Dock.
• Pages which perform actions when the tab or window is closed now function properly.
• Camino no longer adds site icons for local files to the site icon cache.
• Upgraded the “Block flash animations” code to use Flashblock 1.5.4.1.
• Upgraded the bundled Java Embedding Plugin to version 0.9.6.3.
• Improved ad-blocking.

Technorati Tags: Camino, Mozilla, Firefox, web browser

Was there any doubt? Of course to the Leo Laportes of the world who couldn’t ever imagine that Apple could possibly know what they are doing, news like this might come as a shock, since he would have it known that Apple is the biggest bunch of retards for not allowing this sooner…

Steve says:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone…

Of course you do. You wouldn’t have put an operating system of such stature on any old cell phone…

we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc.

And the fact that 1.0 firmware was hacked, slashed and otherwise rendered completely helpless to persevering programers who would have there way with it is certainly cause for alarm, in my books.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Who would of thought that was so much to ask… LEO!

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch.

Signed, sealed, delivered! I hope Leo Laporte has enough humble pie to go around because he need to take quite a helping for himself.

To the Merlin Manns, John Grubers and Macalopes out there, thank you for being the voice of reason in all of this.

[tags]iPhone, 3rd party apps, Steve Jobs, Leo Laporte, SDK, developers[tags]

Apple has just announced an official release date for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

Packed with more than 300 new features, Mac OS X Leopard goes on sale Friday, October 26, at 6:00 p.m. at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, Apple announced today. And, beginning today, customers can place pre-orders on Apple’s online store. “Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.”

I just spent a few minutes reading through the full set of over 300 new features, and I must say that this is the first time I have been excited for a new OS X release. My favs are the new features in Automator, Safari (most of which I have now in the beta), and the advancements in graphics and media which I suspect software developers are going to take up rather quickly.

Technorati Tags: Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard

Path Finder from Cocoatech has just been updated to 4.8 and I must say it looks HOT! Here is what’s new according to the press release;

• new unified interface
• folder options and preferences on a per folder basis (AWESOME)
• menu optimizations
• Path Navigator improvements
• more powerful list view controls

For more on this bad a$$ upgrade visit http://www.cocoatech.com/news/archives/2007/10/02/.

Technorati Tags: Path Finder 4.8, Path Finder, Cocoatech, Leopard, OS X 10.5

Realmac Software Release RapidWeaver 3.6.3
Brighton, England - September 19th, 2007 - Realmac Software today announced an update to RapidWeaver, its award-winning website creation application for Mac OS X.

RapidWeaver 3.6.3 sees numerous improvements to the application, including:

• Greatly improved memory usage when exporting websites
• Fixed an issue with using the bold and colour attributes on a string
• Fixed some issues with the main view displaying incorrectly
• Option-Double Clicking on photos now opens the files in a Photo Album

along with various other fixes and enhancements.

For an in-depth list of new features please visit: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/ or the new http://iloverapidweaver.com/ website, designed by Realmac Software to evangelize RapidWeaver on the web.

Pricing & Availability
RapidWeaver 3.6.3 is a free upgrade for registered 3.6 users, and is priced at $49 for new users and just $25 for users of earlier versions. RapidWeaver 3.6.3 is available to download and buy from today.

System requirements
RapidWeaver is a Universal Binary, requiring Mac OS X v10.4.3 or later. A free trial copy of RapidWeaver can be downloaded from: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/

So it’s been a week or so since the new iMacs and their respective keyboards were introduced and I have been intentionally quite about the matter simply because I don’t like to fuel unfounded rumors and complaints when I have no solid proof or experience. So I just kept my mouth tightly closed until I got to my local Carbon Computing to actually put both of these new Apple Inc. offerings to the test.

Here is what I can tell before even walking in the door; Apple Inc. seems hell bent on ripping off a much larger chunk of the market share than previously enjoyed in years past. Why? Who offers more, MUCH MORE, for that much less? Lets put it this way, to get the fastest mac mini at 2.0 GHz with the most amount of storage (160 GB) available to it and a 23″ Cinema display will run you about $1773. Now have a look at the base model 24″ iMac; more processor power, twice the storage, the ability to run multiple monitors on a graphics card that far exceeds the sad excuse for video output on the mini, built-in iSight… for $1799. I don’t know about you but that is the best way to spend $26 no matter where you come from!

Now I am all for cheaper computers and better savings and all, but where are the savings coming from? Not off the profit margins! Apples shareholders are not known for taking a hit an keeping quite about it. Granted many of the components come down in price over time, but with all the components they’ve added to the new iMacs I really wonder how they managed to drop the price so far. I hope it’s not been in shoddy manufacturing processes.

My thoughts after physically touching and seeing the iMacs side by side with their white predecessors? WOW on looks! The new iMacs look stellar by design and function. The new, glass covered screens are true and brilliant. Not enough good can be said about that improvement from flat to glossy (actually makes me jealous just owning a regular HD 23″ Cinema). The ports are still a bitch to get at but it’s all about keeping the visible faces clean so I fully understand there, but just on USB on the side would have been nice. Though the guts aren’t all that different from the previous iMacs, and it’s hard to gauge when simply opening the basic apps and such, but the new iMacs seem to be zippy enough. Keep in mind that I come from the Mac Pro world so it’s hard for me to be a judge of that sort of thing.

But that keyboard… mmm I don’t know. My impression of laptop keyboards is that the feel cheap and flimsy, so to model a desktop keyboard after that of a laptop seems wrong to me. I gave the new keyboards a spin and just could get behind the feel. Now I have read a lot of reports on the new keyboards improving peoples typing speed and reducing arm fatigue so I am sure I will end buying one for those reasons, but I have serious doubts that it’ll hold up to my regular key bashing abuses. It’s pretty sharp looking though, and very light weight. If I were one to care about this sort of thing, it would honestly suite my setup better; aluminum Mac Pro, aluminum Cinema display… aluminum keyboard perhaps?

Technorati Tags: iMac, Apple Inc., Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Cinema dispay

I am really not one to toot my own horn but… toot toot! My super awesome team at seyDesign.com has been pulling a great number of all nighters to pull off a new store front, a new RapidWeaver theme and a new WordPress theme all launched not but an hour ago.

Not one to stand still for very long, and certainly not one to rest on my own achievements, I felt it was time for a drastic overhaul of the original store and time to branch out into new areas.

Thanks to Chris Pavlicek of Varsis Studio for yet another amazing Photoshop layout concept that I eventually turned into what I think is our finest RapidWeaver theme, waVy.

I also want to give a great big thanks to Ollie Levy from Vortex Themes who worked tirelessly and without complaint to my never ending demands. He is solely responsible for porting the seyDesign themes to WordPress. He did a brilliant job of maintaining the original integrity of the RapidWeaver versions.

Thanks again guys.

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Technorati Tags: seyDesign, seyDoggy, Vortex Themes, Varsis Studio, WordPress, RapidWeaver

Today is the date of the original deadline served to the Internet radio broadcasters for paying up retroactive royalty payment totaling in the millions for some broadcasters. This date has been moved to June 15th 2007, but a few days back, in a bid to deal a small but political blow to the RIAA, I started the movement to stop the buying of music on the original deadline date, May 15th (today).

The movement met with criticism, stating it was pointless, useless, not sending the right message, hurting the wrong people, etc… The point I think the nay-sayers are missing is that this issue is localized to the United States. Other, obviously freer countries don’t suffer under the thumb of such organizations as the RIAA and the MPAA and so on. So this movement was more to show our American friends that we feel their pain and offer our support.

Living outside of America we have little way to impact the situation on any governmental level but we can always speak with our wallets. And that’s what today and this movement is all about. Will it change the overall outcome? Probably not, but a petition doesn’t sting nearly as much as lost revenue. Consider us and all the other international supporters on American Internet Radio, the constituency who vote with their wallets.

So I stick to my guns; DON’T BUY MUSIC TODAY, MAY 15th, AND STAND UP FOR INTERNET RADIO.

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Technorati Tags: RIAA, Internet Radio, boycotte, May 15

This really is a bit of a fluff piece but us Mac users have to find something to cheer about in out tiny Mac-o-sphere. I don’t know much of it’s history or origin, but I stumbled upon a great mac app rating site today, CoolMacApps.com. All I could really get from it was this:

CoolMacApps.com was born out of frustration… and out of an addiction; An addiction to cool software, and a frustration with the current top-ten lists and file repositories out there.

This was little more than a fun way to waist a few minutes in the day, and only served to confirm my feelings about a great number of apps I was aware of. One thing that came as a surprise on this app voting site was RapidWeavers placement in the number 1 spot. Not that I ever doubted RapidWeavers strength and ability, but what shocked me is that it has beet out some of the more generic, globally used apps like FireFox or Adium.

Recent polls have shown that only 8% of North Americans have engaged in deep internet activities like building web sites. On the flip side, nearly everyone has used a web browser or IM client. I find it hard to imagine that RapidWeaver, a web building tool, would beat out such staples to mac computing as a web browser and an IM client. It’s just not in the numbers.

What’s really at play? Well… Web 2.0, meet Community 2.0! I happen to have a bit of an insiders knowledge of the whole RapidWeaver machine. If I was a betting man, I would always put my investment dollars on the company with the ravenous, blood thirsty, go-to-battle-and-die-for-your-app kind of community backing that RapidWeaver has behind it. If you want to see what I mean sometime, go to the RapidWeaver support forum and just arbitrarily flame the app in any old thread and watch the blood bath that ensues. You’ll want to change your mailing address before embarking on such suicidal endeavors, mind you (and let it be known that I don’t actually condone forum trolling).

This isn’t to say that the ratings are rigged in anyway; I really do believe that RapidWeaver is an excellent app. But I do think that RapidWeaver does have an unfair advantage when the owners simply need to put out a single call to the one gathering place that you will likely find 90% of all RapidWeaver users and the hordes will flock by the thousands to pledge their allegiance to their beloved RapidWeaver.

Who did I vote for? Here is just a few: RapidWeaver (of course), Quicksilver, Sticky Windows, Parallels, TextMate, iClip, Inquisitor and NewsFire.

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Technorati Tags: CoolMacApps, Rapidweaver, FireFox, Adium, web 2.0

Now I don’t mean to infer that because I am a web developer and because you are reading this blog that you must be a web developer yourself, but I bet that a fair number of you are (just a hunch). I realize that I don’t actually talk a great deal about web design and that’s because that is not the whole premise of this site. nutMac is more about speed of workflow and productivity and the tricks and tools that help. That being said, I can’t ignore my own industry anymore than I can own arm, so I want to speak to the web designers and developers out there for a moment.

It can be said that we, the web designers and developers of the world are the uncounted workforce. A recent article on A List Apart has recognized this fact stating that:

People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession.

Does this accurately reflect you? I know this article struck a cord in me. Not just because I care to know just how I rate and rank with the global community but because I think it’s important to be counted in a notoriously unregulated market. I find every time I bid on a new project or negotiate a new consultation contract, I am testing the waters with pricing all over again. There is far too much uncertainty in the market today.

One of the misconceptions I battle on an ongoing basis is this: most people looking to hire you for a web site think that a “web designer” can do it all. Now granted, a great many of us “designers” can cover more than a few fields, like adding a bit DOM scripting or embedding a flash file in a page but the reality is a “web designer” in the strictest sense will design the look and feel and basic functionality of your site.

How do we battle the uncertainty and misconception? I am not sure entirely, but one thing that is certainly going to help is the survey A List Apart is conducting. It’s an 18 page, online questionnaire designed to learn more about the web industry. If you work in the web industry in an manner, please take a moment to fill out this survey and help our industry become a better known, more standardized one. Click here to take part.

Technorati Tags: A List Apart, web survey, web design, web industry