Have you ever wanted to put DVDs on your iPhone or Apple TV but just didn’t know how? Here’s how. This video goes through the process of converting video using the free Mac ripping software, Handbrake, step by step.
Apple has finally released the Gold Master version of Xcode 4 after releasing it earlier today and then pulling it suddenly reverting back to the sixth beta preview that was previously released. Why this happened isn’t known and I don’t expect Apple to explain it.
However, now it is back and I highly recommend it. I have to say it is a welcome addition to my developer tools since the crazy multi-window interface of Xcode 3 wasn’t something I liked using.
Xcode 4 introduces a fully updated integrated design environment for Mac and iOS developers — the type of environment I’m more comfortable in. It offers a lot of really nice new tools that were first introduced at last years WWDC.
Check out the new features in Xcode 4 and if you are a registered Mac or iOS developer get a copy of Xcode 4 GM now.
It looks like Nvidia’s fastest graphics cards could be headed for the Mac — courtesy of an unofficial hack.
The Russian hacker known as Netkas has hinted that he’s cracked Nvidia’s Fermi ROM, the firmware underlying its most powerful cards, which are currently Windows-only.
In a post titled “On the mac’s fermi ROM,” Netkas posted a winking smiley face — a hint that he’s cracked the drivers for Nvdia’s most powerful line of graphics cards.
Netkas is a highly regarded hacker, most famous for his Hackintosh EFI Bootloader hack, which allows generic PC hardware to run Mac OS X.
Given the hacker’s reputation, it is “certain that he has found a way,” says HardMac, which follows graphics hacks closely. Hardmac reckons Netkas was able to adapt the ROM of Nvidia’s Quadro FX 4000, which has Mac drivers.
HardMac is hoping to see Mac ROM for Nvidia’s GTX 580, the most powerful Fermi card available.
There’s a thriving hacking underground that unofficially adapts Mac drivers for Windows PC cards, which are usually much cheaper than their Mac counterparts.
I think performer/journalist Mike Daisey has very important things to things to say about Apple, the electronics industry, and modern industrial production.
Go see his hilarious but upsetting one-man show at Berkeley Rep, or watch this great TechCrunch interview:
Proving that fact is always more interesting than fiction, ad man Steve Hayden remembers the making of Apple’s 1984 ad in AdWeek this week.
Marking the 27th anniversary, Hayden describes the utterly chaotic process behind the making of what’s been called “the best TV commercial ever.” Everyone hated it, and no one wanted it to run except Steve Wozniak, who offered to pay half the costs himself.
The first version of the spot was more Jetsons than Metropolis. The intention was to remove people’s fears of technology at a time when owning your own computer made about as much sense as owning your own cruise missile. We wanted to democratize technology, telling people that the power was now literally in their hands.
AdWeek: ‘1984’: As Good as It Gets
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Even without Apple, Macworld 2011 was packed and there was a great vibe. Check out some of the most interesting products on the show floor.
Above: These wholesome twins at the ShedWorx booth were so nice. ShedWorx develops VoltaicHD video conversion software for the Mac.
Columnist Jeff Yang has a great piece on how Steve Jobs used his extreme focus to make Apple into the new Sony.
There’s tons of great stuff in here. It’s a very well-informed piece.
Here’s Yang talking about how Jobs’ study of Zen has influenced his approach to design, which I’ve never seen discussed before:
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Macworld 2011 is in full swing. Even without Apple, the show is packed and there’s a great vibe. The best thing is the people. Check out some of the many friendly faces and interesting products on the show floor.
Above: Three-year-old Hope Malabed takes a break with an iPad. There’s lots of kids with iDevices at Macworld.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Macworld 2011 is in full swing. Even without Apple, the show is packed and there’s a great vibe. The best thing is the people. Check out some of the many friendly faces and interesting products on the show floor.
Above: Cute girls in short tube dresses. Good thing are weather here is unseasonably warm! They are promoting MacKeeper and boy did they get a lot of attention!
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Dolly Drive, a new cloud-based storage solution specially tailored to Mac specifications, launched Thursday from the Indie Spotlight at Macworld in San Francisco and looks to be one of the smartest plays — and best values — to come out of this year’s show.
Remote storage accessible from anywhere, any time, Dolly Drive is designed to work exclusively and specifically with Apple’s Time Machine, giving Mac users an inexpensive, seamless method for creating secure, redundant (in some cases, perhaps, primary) backups that can be accessed to restore digital files from any location with an Internet connection.
With tri-level security including authentication encryption, data transmission over secure tunnel and multi-leveled, complex authentication protocols for third-party access to data at Dolly data centers, a Mac user can feel confident in the security of data stored for as little as $10 per month for 250GB. Other pricing plans prove Dolly Drive is serious about delivering value for a service that should be attractive to computer users of any sophistication level.
No other remote storage solution we’re aware of is engineered to work directly through Time Machine, nor is any so dedicated to serving Mac users.
This is definitely one of the nicest finds we’ve seen at Macworld 2011 and well worth further exploration.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — The biggest booth at Macworld used to be Apple’s. Until 2009, when Apple pulled out, the first thing attendees would see was Apple’s giant booth.
That spot is now occupied by, of all things, Sanho Corp., maker of the HyperMac line of external battery packs. The company is best known for being sued by Apple. Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sanho for using its MagSafe connector in the HyperMac batteries.
HyperMac’s booth is front and center of the show hall. It is draped in a couple of big banners, giving it by far the biggest presence at this show, which is made up mostly of small companies in small booths.
Getting sued by Apple must be good for business.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — The corridors are crowded, the booths are hopping and the registration desk is doing brisk business.
Against expectations, Macworld 2011 is doing pretty well on opening day. Of course, there are a few caveats:
But against the odds, Macworld looks prettty healthy this morning. Macworld isn’t dead! Long live Macworld!
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — The world was supposed to go paperless decades ago, but we’re still swamped with paper. You can take pictures of business cards and receipts every now and again, but for serious paper junkies, something like Fujitsu’s ScanSnap S1100 Mobile Scanner may fit the bill.
The ScanSnap S1100 is claimed to be the smallest scanner in the world. Powered by USB, the sheet-feed scanner can suck up everything from receipts to multi-page AT&T phone bills.
Launched at CES earlier this month and being shown at Macworld this week, the ScanSnap S1100 can scan directly into desktop software like iPhoto and Word, or cloud-based apps like Google Docs and Evernote. The scanner costs $199.
Business isn’t usually this cool, but who wouldn’t want this iPhone-dock-cum-desk-phone? Just plug in your iPhone, and it becomes your office phone.
Brand new at Macworld 2011, Altigen’s $169 iFusion Smartstation iPhone dock features a Bluetooth speakerphone and receiver that you can cradle under your chin, Don Draper style.
Paired with the company’s PBX app which provides eneterprise-level phone management features, it allows your iPhone to replace your office phone as well as your home phone. Bye bye landlines.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Apple is perceived as closed and proprietary, but the company has been very generous to the open web, and that generosity has benefited Apple in turn, says pundit John Gruber.
Speaking at Macworld 2011’s opening Industry Forum, Gruber noted that most of the best browsers on the market today are based on Apple’s WebKit, an open source browser engine developed and supported by Apple.
Apple allows its competitors to base their browsers on Apple’s technology, including Google, Nokia and Palm. Indeed, Palm’s entire webOS is based on Apple’s Webkit.
Why does Apple do this?
Because an open web is beneficial to Apple. Ten years ago, most software vendors developed for Windows and Apple was locked out. Napster is a good example, Gruber said. Napster was built for Windows, and Apple users were was largely excluded until third-party Mac clients were build much later.
These days, software companies build for the open Web. Twitter and Facebook, for example, were built for the Web.
“When Windows was the baseline platform for the industry, Apple was left out,” Gruber said. “But these days, if companies develop for the Web, Apple is included.”
This wouldn’t have happened if Apple hadn’t supported and encouraged the web as a development environment, partly by giving Webkit away.
“Apple has benefited tremendously from the rise of the Web,” said Gruber. “And the Web has benefited from contributions from Apple.”
SAN FRANCISCO, Macworld 2011 — Proving that the show can go on without Apple, Macworld 2011 opens today and is bigger and better than ever.
Well, bigger and better than last year.
This is the second year of Macworld without Apple, but the show has attracted 10% more exhibitors than 2010 and is on track for 25,000 visitors, organizers say.
“The show is shaping up good,” Macworld general manager Paul Kent told CultofMac.com. “If the numbers go right, we’re going to have about a 25% increase in attendance.”
Even though San Francisco is the most expensive city in the frickin’ country you don’t have to break the bank to enjoy it.
In this post we’ve have put together a super savings guide to help you navigate the show and the city.
Procrastinators and cheapskates rejoice. Today is your lucky day!
The popular coupon site Johnny Funcheap is offering Expo tickets for just $10. That’s a $15 savings (normally $25).
Just enter the priority code FunCheap.
Macworld 2011 starts on Thursday, January 27 and runs until Saturday, January 29. The show floor is open from 10am – 6:00pm all three days.
Master storyteller Mike Daisey’s one-man-show “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” is a theater piece that every Apple fan should see.
It’s a laugh-out-loud monologue about the world of Apple, but it delivers an important message: The products we love are made under inhumane conditions.
NOTE: This is a guest post by ex-PC user Mike Wilson. It was originally published at Gears of Biz.
I have a MacBook at home and a Mac Mini at work. I absolutely love my Macs. I can’t live with out them. However, there are still things I hate about my Macs that I wished weren’t a part of my life. So don’t hate me for taking a couple shots at my machines… It’s all in good fun.
Below are those Top 5 things I hate about the Mac.
Gossip rag Valleywag claims Tim Cook is gay. The evidence:
1. He appears to be single, a “lifelong bachelor.”
2. It’s the subject of gossip inside Apple.
2. Two “well-placed sources” say so.
If Cook steps into the CEO role, Apple’s other executives will encourage him to come out, Valleywag says. This would be a good thing for Silicon Valley and for gay rights.
Being gay is certainly no problem here in the San Francisco Bay Area. No one bats an eyelid. But Apple’s other execs are concerned about public perception, Valleywag says. Could it spell trouble for the Apple brand?
Apple’s increasing use of tamper-resistant screws is a form of planned obsolescence, says one critic.
As previously reported, Apple is using proprietary five-point security screws in the iPhone 4 and new MacBooks Airs. The special screws were first used in the 2009 MacBook Pro to stop users from replacing the battery.
The screws are unique to Apple and serve one purpose only: to keep users out.
The plan, says iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, is to force customers to upgrade their gadgets sooner than necessary. They also make them reliant on Apple for expensive repairs and upgrades.
“It’s a form of planned obsolescence,” says Wiens. “General Motors invented planned obsolescence in the 1920s. Apple is doing the same thing.”
Designer Charis Tsevis built this photo mosaic of Steve Jobs for the Italian magazine Panorama. Look carefully: it’s all Apple products. Can you spot the original iSight camera? Check the detail of the eye below.
Apple has released another software update for the late 2010 model MacBook Air. The update isn’t currently showing up in Software Update, but it can be downloaded directly using this link.
Apple’s comments on what the update does are rather sparse all they say is that:
This update resolves an issue with some MacBook Air (Late 2010) systems that prevents the system from sleeping.
The new MacBook Air has had a few problems with the sleep/wake features of Mac OS X as well as video problems being reported by early adopters (myself included). However, I have not seen or experienced the problems that people continue to complain about regarding external monitors and video.
Try this update out and let us know by leaving a comment how it works out for you.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQQwNbkmmo
The news of Steve Jobs’ health problems has saddened a lot of Apple fans. Rather than sit around speculating what may or may not be wrong with Steve’s health, we want to do something to try and lift his spirits. But we need your help.
We’re asking all our readers and anyone else who’s a fan of Steve Jobs to use their creativity and join us in making an awesome Get Well Soon video message.
Click on the YouTube video above and submit your own video reply. You can upload video or record a quick message with your webcam. It’s the easiest way we can think of to get a bunch of video messages that we can edit together into a big group message.
Uniquely express your well wishes to Steve and upload it. The more video replies we can get the better. It’s your choice if you wish to make your message funny or dramatic or sincere. Just make it you. Spread it on Twitter with #getwellsteve.
Let’s let the world’s best CEO know that we care about him.
Here are step-by-step instructions showing how to use YouTube’s Video response feature. And again, please spread the word.
