If you haven’t already peaked at Apple’s frontpage, you would see the pretty large graphic that welcomes us to 2007 (above). Their bold title is this: “The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007.” Steve must have some big thing up his sleeve, if this year will top the past 30. Apple hasn’t publicised this much since the revealing of the original Mac, back in 1984 when they said:

On January 24^th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984″

Now the Mac was pretty revolutionary, don’t you think? So I wonder what they’ll introduce this year to top that. Will it be something new about Leopard, an iPhone perhaps, a builtin DVR inside iTV? It won’t be over until Jobs springs on us that ever familiar phrase “One more thing…”

I have been reading up on this ubiqutous ‘Month of Apple Bugs’, and in light of this article, I have become increasingly angered with the website. The article on AppleGazette makes very valid points, as to why effectively the MOAB project has lost all of its credibility. I want to state upfront that I’m not writing this as an Apple Fanboy (though I am), I am writing this as a user of OS X and Windows, and various Apple products.

The MOAB project aims to show off a vunerability in Apple products over the 31 days of January. The first bug was understandable, a Quicktime based Buffer Overflow that has a “vulnerability in the handling of the rtsp:// URL handler allows remote arbitrary code execution.” This affects Windows an Mac OS X. This is a real flaw in Apple software, and can allow the execution of malcious code, via this buffer overrun, so it is critical.

The second vuneralibility however is debatable. In my eyes, this flaw is neither OS X, nor Apple. This flaw is based within the popular VLC Media Player. Now lets stop here for a second. VLC? Yes, the cross platform and open-source media player available on Windows, Linux, *nix and other platforms. However you look at it, I have no idea how this is an Apple Bug. Yes remember the title of the project. Other than running on OS X, and the actual vunerability allowing execution of arbitrary code (as with the Quicktime flaw above) which as you can see it would allow execution of code on OS X. But does this mean the problem is anything to do with Apple themselves? NO. Do we blame Microsoft for 3rd party software that has holes in it which can cause Windows to get a buffer overrun? Abosultely not. We blame the software developers. Why should Microsoft (or in this case Apple) deal with an application that they do not develop? It makes no sense. If you call your project ‘Month of Apple Bugs’ then please use Apple bugs, and not an open source software that has the same vunerability in every other distribution!
As AppleGazette pointed out, they do state on their website:

Are Apple products the only one target of this initiative?
Not at all, but they are the main focus. We’ll be looking over popular OS X applications as well.

Yeah they do defend themselves, but for goodness sake, if you create a title, which is then missleading what do you expect people to do? How is an OS X application an Apple Bug. It is only on the same OS. I’ll re-iterate myself: Do we blame Microsoft for flaws in developer ‘x’ software? Hell no. The developer is blamed. It seems that they are only seeking attention by putting Apple and Bugs in the same title. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for this. After all publicising vunerabilities helps to get them fixed faster, and thus leading to a more secure application. However I don’t like the other statement on their website:

John Doe has written a ‘post’ in his blog, saying he debunks the XXX bug, what’s that?
No worries. It’s probably someone begging for attention or PR-brainwashed.

Maybe they should have a look at their answer, because when you post titles of the project on social websites like Digg, del.icio.us, forums, etc, people will be miss-lead on what the actual flaws are on. Posting an open-source software bug on the second day is no good way to get started, and with their title it seems like they are the ones begging for attention.

The third vunerability is similar to the first one in that it is a vunerability which allows the execution of arbitrary code through Quicktime, but in Windows. Specifically it is “A vulnerability in the handling of the HREFTrack field allows to perform cross-zone scripting, leading to potential remote arbitrary code execution.” I understand that this is Apple bugs, and again this makes sense, even though the proof of concept “uses Microsoft Text Driver ADODB connection which requires an anonymous FTP login to the exploit location, for an unknown reason“. After all, Quicktime is Apple software. It’s like Microsoft patching flaws in Microsoft Office for Mac.

How many actual flaws do they have that are Apple software / OS X bugs? I would like to know, as it seems to me they have little. Displaying a flaw in an a open-source and cross-platform (Windows & Linux included) which is not even developed by Apple on the second day is really shoddy. I for one am quite annoyed, not for the fact that they are displaying Apple bugs, but because they don’t! Granted we have only seen three, and 2 out of these 3 were Apple software (Quicktime) related. I am saying this for all the Diggers and those alike who like to skim read articles and are a lot of time miss-informed by such things.

Get your act together MOAB, this is not a good start (a pretty bad one at that).

For Christmas we decided to get our dad the new SonyEricsson watch (made by FOSSIL). In more than a few not so unobvious ways he pointed out that he wanted the black version, and it was damn hard to find. I looked everywhere on the internet and I couldn’t find one that actually had it in stock. Or so I thought. On SonyEricsson’s online shop, they said that they had it in stock, which I was quite surprised at, and the price was cheaper than anywhere else (which surprised me even more). The key thing is it arrived before Christmas. It was great to see my dad’s face at Christmas, because he thought that we wouldn’t be able to get one.
I took some post-christmas photos of the unboxing, it didn’t seem fair to take photos while my dad opened his present . All of the following is based on my dad’s opinions of the watch.

The actual box of the watch (not the packaging), is designed like a real watch, so you can stow it away safely. It is really versatile and looks really sleek. The watch itself is extremely cool, and not surprisingly it is only compatible with selected SonyEricsson phones. However the phone does excel at what it does, as it displays the name of the person who’s calling the user as well as being able to play/pause the music being played on the phone, and skip a song. What is extra special, is the the watch can display accented characters (ie, á and é), which is important, as we are Hungarian and a lot of names have accents in them.
A feature, which my dad pointed out, is that if you have a bluetooth headset also paired with the phone, you can chose to accept the call, and the voice is forwarded to the headset. This means the watch doesn’t interfere with the headset, and you don’t need to even touch the phone. It also needs to be pointed out that although the watch itself is relatively heavy (~150g) it doesn’t feel heavy at all when it is on your hand, and you really don’t notice that extra weight. The digital time and date on the watch is received from your phone, so you don’t need to enter that in manually.

You can head over to my Flickr page to check out all of the photos of the watch, as well as the certificate card that comes with the watch to show that you own a genuine SonyEricsson watch.

A friend of mine informed me today that she got a iMac for her birthday. So far only one non-techy friend of mine has had a Mac, so now it is two! She said she got the “huge one” and commented that (on Mac OS X) “It is really different“. I hope she enjoys using it, with that massive screen, it really is humongous. I guessed it was the 24-inch one (judging by her comments), but it could have been the 20-inch one as well. I’ll make sure to ask her. I don’t think I even blogged about the release of it! BTW: That is not hers above, just some random one I found on Flickr. Now to somehow get all my other friends to get Macs (James, Ben I know you’re reading this!)… There should be a word for a person that has transitioned from Windows to Mac. I should invent one…

Sadly this isn’t the Nintendo Revolution. It is however a brand new, and fantastic mouse! It’s fast, responsive and uses a laser. The best feature though, not including the fact that it’s cordless, is its scroll wheel. This is a unique wheel which can do both the normal ‘click to click’ mode and a free scroll mode. The free scroll mode allows the wheel to spin on its own for easy navigation where you have lots of pages. It truly is very ergonomic. You can also change it so that after a certain speed, it will automatically change from click to click, to free scroll mode. I use this all the time, and I love it!

I have been using it for around a week now, and is much better than the Mighty Mouse. I got rid of it after the scroll wheel failing me, and after trying to fix it numerous times (and replaced by Apple once, after which it worked for a while). I have configured the thmub button to turn on expose, and the forward and back buttons move through the tabs in Safari. The supposed ’search’ button I didn’t have a need for, so I re-routed it to skip to the next new news item in NetNewsWire. When I press down on the scroll wheel, it triggers the desktop in expose. One minor annoyance, is that you can’t actually set Expose functions. You have to set it to a key (ie, I use F8, and F10) which you then change in OS X’s Keyboard System preferences pane to activate Expose, or whatever you want it to do. This does have the added benefit, that in any application, you can customise any of its shorcuts to a button. Another neat feature, is that you can customise these settings on an per application basis. So one click may trigger forward tab in Safari, but that same could activate the Cut tool in Photoshop, or something similar.

Click on to read the rest of the review, or to see the unboxing photos, go to the flickr page.

What I was annoyed about, is that on the CD that it came with, it had no Mac software. I was actually outraged, after it had the Universal and the Mac ‘Finder’ Icon on it I thought that they would have the decency to actually have the installation software on the disc. But no, even though the disc is only a mere 80 or so MB, they had the b***s (excuse my language) to actually direct people to their website. I am quite appauled, it doesn’t make much of a difference, and I know plenty of companies who can get two pieces of software (mac and windows) on one disc (eg, Canon). Imagine if you didn’t have the internet. Not that anyone without the internet would buy this mouse, but that’s not the point. The software was however easy to install, but it would have been better if it could just intergrate with OS X’s system preferences, but that would never happen. I can only dream.

All in all it is a great mice, however I have a quite major nitpick. If I put the mac to sleep, and wake it up, the scroll wheel will be stuck in click to click mode. This means that the Desktop expose function stops working, and instead switches between click to click and free spin mode. This is really annoying, fortuantely it can be fixed by removing and replacing the USB adapter (which is really tiny!) Though this is easy to do, it is quite frustrating, and shouldn’t be happening in the first place. It is quite interesting that Logitech used their own proprietary USB adapter that uses the RF, 2.4GHz spectrum, instead of using something like bluetooth. Oh well.

The battery life is quite good, around 4/5 days on a single charge, with around 5 hours usage per day (average). But I haven’t tested this that extensively, so I’ll report back on that later. Other than that, it is a great mice, and I recommend it to any true geek who can use all those buttons and wants good comfort. Head on over to the flickr page for all the photos and the unboxing.

I know it’s later than the actual end date of the contest, so sorry! But James you have won the contest. Please send me an email to contest [at] theminiblog [dot] co [dott] uk with your choice of prize. Would you like the £15 iTMS voucher or the £10 by paypal. Make sure to include an email that I can reply to with your details and confirmation. Enjoy your prize!

There comes a time, when your shiny white Apple keyboard gets so dirty that you can’t bear one second more. For me, that day was today. I love the Apple keyboard, it is nice, ergonomic and looks very sleek. However the only ‘disadvantage’ (if you could call it that) is that it is white. It gets dirty easily and you can see really clearly everything. A simple wipe of the keyboard with a damp cloth was not enough. There was still remains of tons of different things, and I wanted it off. You never really notice how dirty your keyboard is, unless you use a white keyboard, or something of a similar colour. But with the Apple keyboard, the outer shell is clear, so you can see everything there too.
This little how-to guide will show you how I cleaned my keyboard to perfection. Click on for the detailed guide (with lots of photos).

Digg This

UPDATE: I’ve been dugg, TUAW’d and del.icio.us‘d.
UPDATE 2: I had to change the photos to get them from flickr as I am burning through my bandwidth really quickly. I am at 18GB, and my max is 21GB per month!

The very first thing you need to do, is grab a camera, anything in which you can later use to read the keys is enough. Take a picture of the keyboard, a few would be helpful, so that you can remember what keys go where. You musn’t miss this step, otherwise you will be spending hours trying to find out what key goes where. It is not a pleasant experience. If you can zoom in on your camera, and see the keys then you are fine. But if you can’t then transfer the photos onto your computer and put them on the screen, or print them out.

Note: Reader Mark kindly pointed out that a view of the keyboard can be seen in the Keyboard viewer, that can be found in the International section of the System Preferences. Thanks Mark, this will save many users some hassle. I completely forgot about this!

A few of the keys (right shift, enter/return (both), backspace, space and the zero (number-side key)) contain these ‘attachment clips’, as can be seen above, that are used to make sure it is evenly pressed down. Please make a note of which one is attached to which key, this will save you a lot of hassle. I forgot, and I can’t put it back into the remainding place, because the key doesn’t operate properly.

The next step is start removing each key one by one. The easiest way, is to tuck your finger under one of the buttons between the small gap that separates the directional keys from the rest of the keyboard. You need to be careful and don’t rush. If you pull too hard it could break the clip that holds it onto the keyboard. That would be really annoying, as well as frustrating.

What you need to do next is gather up all the keys and put it in a re-sealable bag. For this I used a standard zip-lock bag that you can find at any grocery store (used for freezing food). It is perfect and allows plenty of room for all the keys, and the water to come.

Next comes the water. Make sure you use warm water. Fill it up about 3/4 full so that all the keys are engulfed with plenty of room to spare (for the keys I mean).

Once you feel that you have enough water in the bag, add some soap. For this I used a ‘foaming’ soap that comes out as foam out of the bottle. You can use a ‘gel’ type soap as well, however that is probably harder to lather. Give a good few squeezes of the bottle so that there is plenty to go around.

Next you need to seal the bag tightly, making sure that there are no gaps in the bag. After this, shake! Not too vigorously, as you don’t want the bag to pop and the buttons going anywhere. Shaking for about 3-4 minutes, with a short break in between (~ 1 min) will allow the soap to clean the buttons and fill all the nooks and crannies.

Now you need to open the top fully and wrap your fingers around the top portion. Then rotate the bag upside down letting the water trickle out. If you want you can rinse it through with cold water to remove any excess soap, though this is rendered useless by the next step.

Empty the keys into an empty bath or wash basin. I then used the high-power setting of the shower head to remove the remainding soap and dirt from the keys. It will most likely not be fully clean, because of the grease/oil used to lubricate the attatchment clips. Rinse for a minute or two.

Transfer the keys onto a clean towel. Grab the keys in a bunch and shake before you put them onto the towel. This will remove a lot of water, so the drying time is reduced. The way you do this next part is upto you. I mixed the keys in the middle, and with a firm but gently grasping action rubbed the keys against the towel. Do this for a minute or two, until the keys are mostly dry, but not totally. Leave this to dry for around 5-10 mins, during that time you can do the next few steps.

You don’t just want the keys clean, but the surface of the keyboard! Grab a paper towel/kitchen towel and damp it in water. Make sure you use sparing amounts, as not to get any onto the electronics; it can seep through the hole where the keys affix to. If you have a keyboard duster, then you can move onto the next step once most of the dirt is removed. However if you don’t then you will need to spend a while to remove all the dirt and grime, it is quite painstaking!

With the duster go over the key spaces and push quite hard to shift away the dirt. This is really important, as the grease from the attachment clips can cover the surface, causing it to attract dust, which is harder to separate. A good idea is to do this over a sink, or outside so that you don’t make a mess. After all we are removing the dirt, you don’t want to put it onto the floor, do you?

Alass, your keyboard surface is now clean! Go back to your keys now, and place them onto a table close to the keyboard, making sure that each one is free of water. If it isn’t then go back and use a kitchen towel (or something similar) to remove the rest.

We now start the long and arduous process of grabing a random key and placing it back onto the keyboard, using those photos that you took earlier on. Then you are finished.

The photo above is a macro shot of the new clean keys. Don’t they look beautiful. You can now go and type away on your clean and non-repulsive keyboard. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, feel free to ask any questions.

FAQ

Q: Why don’t you put it through the dishwasher / washing machine?
A: Yeah, I’ve heard that one too. But I use my Mac a lot, and it will take much longer to wait for everything to dry. Even then there is a risk that the keyboard won’t work. Dishwashers and washing machines have chemicals in their detergent, as well as salt, which could damage the electronics. The heat could fry it too. Yes, you could remove the detergent and the heat, but then there isn’t any soap. This was much simpler for me. If you want to, you can try it, but I can’t be held responsible for any errors you make.

Q: There seems to be some sort of oil under the keys. What is it, can I remove it?
A: This is from the grease that lubricates the ‘attachment’ clips so that they can move freely. As long as you don’t remove it from these clips, it is fine to clean it from the keys and the keyboard. If you find that it doesn’t work, you can always remove the clip (not really ‘essential’ for the smaller keys), buy some more lubrication grease at a DIY or electronics shop, and then use it sparingly on the clips and replace.

Q: Does this work for the Bluetooth keyboard, or on laptops?
A: From what I know, the cleaning process for the bluetooth version of Apple’s keyboard should be the same. However if you are going to try and clean underneath the white plastic, be careful as you could damage the electronics. Make sure to remove the battery first though!
For laptops, the keys a very different, as they contain two ’scissor’ clips which can be very hard to refit. They also come loose very easily so if you do clean it, then be very careful. Underneath the keys, the electronics is tightly packed, so you should only wipe with a dry cloth or a duster. I wouldn’t venture into this area, as I would hate to pay to replace the keyboard, they are very expensive. If you do though, anything you do is at your own risk!

Q: Why don’t you try [insert idea here]?
A: I probably never heard of it, or I was weary of trying it incase the keyboard failed. This worked absolutely perfect for me.

Q: What is the point in this? Can’t you just buy another keyboard?
A: I suppose I could but the nearest Apple store is around 50/60 miles away. I know I could go online, but why should I pay money for a new keyboard when this works perfectly. It’s not like I don’t have any time. It didn’t even take that long.

Q: It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to do this, this is useless!
A: If that’s what you think, I’m cool with that Now onto the point: For those who are inexperienced, or are scared of doing it incase something goes wrong, or just don’t know how to do it, it is very useful and can be of great benefit. That’s what most people have said, anyway.

Q: So how long did it take?
A: Not as long as you might think. The whole process took around 50 mins. Around 25 was spent cleaning the keys, 15 for the whole keyboard and another ten for putting it all together and finding all the keys. I nearly lost one!

Q: What kind of a geek are you, can’t you remember the layout of the keys?
A: I know where 98% of the keys go. I can touch type pretty well, however with the ’symbol’ keys like the square brackets, tilde (~) and ‘§’, as well as the page up, down and those sorts of keys, I would probably get them confused. I took the picture so that it would save me time, and I did use it in the end. Also on the number pad keys, I wouldn’t know where the add, subtract, divide and multiply symbols would go. It saves time.

Part deux of the gaming news round-up over the last few weeks.

• Could the Wii not support game saves to SD memory cards? According to the manual it is, but not according to the console itself. That’s what Joystiq found out. Lets hope Nintendo fix this in time for the release, as we wouldn’t want to replay an entire game when at your friends house, do we? [link]
• Engadget’s Wii software walkthrough video and gameplay walkthrough videos allow you to see what it would be like if you owned a Wii. Shortly it will come true for a lot of people, or at least we hope.
• Microsoft revealed the HD download service for US Xbox 360 owners. These will allow you to download 720p HD TV shows from CBS, Comedy Central VH1 and more. Deleted TV shows can be re-downloaded for free in either HD or SD. Movies are ‘rent-only’, whereby you have two weeks to watch a movie, but after you start watching, you have 24 hours to finish the film. After that the film will no longer play. During the 24-hours, you can watch the film an unlimited number of times. [link]
• Engadget open the retail version of the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and have a play around with it, naturally with tons of photos (above) [link]
• The PS3 gets dismantled before it is even in circulation. The four part videos take you through a detailed disassemblement of the PS3 showing the CPU, heatsink, the blu-ray drive, etc. [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]
• PS3 kiosk is a fake! The PS3 behind the glass in retail outlets are not even functional, no, it seems that Sony may be scared of the PS3 overheating or exploding, so they placed a separate version enclosed in the kiosk. The actual console is very well ventilated to make sure the heat dissipates as much as possible. My, my… [link]
• Size comparison of the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The PS3 is the largest, and the Wii is the smallest (though it’s not like we didn’t know that) [link]
• The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player is fully functional in PC’s. Hook it up using the USB, and some Toshiba drivers you can not only view the files on the HD-DVD, but if your PC can handle it, it can also play back the movie. Nice. What’s more, the Mac recognises the drive instantaneously without any drivers, but there is no software to playback the video. Oh well! [link]
• A DVD ‘enhanced’ version of the Wii will be released to the US and Japan in the 2nd half of 2007. The current Wii’s contain the DVD drive, however they do not have the software capable to play movies. The most likely reason for not including the software, is to avoid licencing fees which would increase the price of the console. [link]

While I was unable to post during the last two weeks, there has been plenty of gaming news floating around, so be prepared for a awfully long post.

• New Halo 3 Info: 1up.com have revealed lots of new information about Halo 3. There will be three different editions of Halo 3, a standard, a collectors and a Legendary edition. New brute weapons, Spike Rifle and Spike Grenade. The Mongoose ATV, like the Warthog, however there is no turret. A new assault riffle as the starting weapon, Bungie hope to improve the tactics of the game, so it is more fair. Save multiplayer, and single player gameplay videos and watch them again. The left and right bumpers are being used as the reloading buttons for your weapons, so what happens with the X button now? [link]
• PS3’s SIXAXIS controller is completely disassembled to reveal its innards. A layer by layer documentation takes you through the motion sensing parts, the non-replaceable battery, and the rest of the gadgetry. [link]
• The Wii house of fun in London. SPOnG managed to take a look around Nintendo’s secret house which is kitted up with Wii gear, for the press. They took lots of photos and described their experience with the various games and such. Photo shown above. [link]
• 70GB Hard drive for the Xbox 360 spotted. While the photo could be a fake, the most likely explanation is, Microsoft wants you to be able to store those Movie and Video downloads somewhere (currently for the US only, more in the next post) The video marketplace allows you to download various movies, tv shows and short films, some in HD, which obviously needs plenty of space. [link]
• Sony fanboys hijack the Nintendo Wikipedia entry and cover it with “nintendo sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1″, for a mere few minutes, until the Wikipedia admins notice. “In the short moments before Wikipedia admins could get the correct page back up, the assailant successfully misled several would-be Nintendo fans to assume the company had gone out of business, then deciding to ’switch teams.’ [sarcasm]” [link]
• Engadget get down to business, and get hands on with their final production unit of the Wii. Plenty of high-res images of the unboxing, the console and all its accessories. What more could you want? [link]

I split down the post into two separate articles. It’s probably more helpful for the eye.

I have seven MacHeist invites to dish out, and I will hopefully get more soon. To those who are unaware, and have been sitting under a rock for the past few weeks, MacHeist is created by the founders of MyDreamApp. The idea is, you follow cryptic messages and use all your geek knowledge to complete various missions. At the end, you will receive a code to put into the MacHeist safe to unlock the freebies for that mission. Lots of different applications (Mac-only, duh!) will be available to unlock during the six different missions. The first mission has started, and is nearly over, and you unlock three pieces of software in total that amount to a saving of $40.95. I won’t give any spoilers, so if you are seriously interested, then leave your email in the comments below. I will try to send out the email as soon as possible. This is based on a first come first served basis.

The presence of GreenMyApple was quite mysterious, that is because they weren’t there. Outside the Olympia Hall where the expo was taking place, there was a Greenpeace rep, handing out GreenMyApple leaflets, with a huge banner and even a flag. The leaflet can be seen above, it isn’t the best quality as I scanned it in after it had been crumpled up a bit in my bag! A pdf version is available here, which I created. This uses the same scanned images, but is at a higher resolution.

I was actually keen to go to their stand, as I wanted to talk to one of their reps and collect some information. I honestly had no idea how ‘bad’ Mac’s are in respect of the materials they are made from. I am all for saving the environment, as long as there is truth behind what Greenpeace say. They were nowhere to be found, so when I came home I did some digging around on the internet and found that their stall was taken down by MacExpo organisers who “claimed they received complaints from unnamed sources“. Speculation has it, that it may have been Stevie, who didn’t like the reporting that Greenpeace did a while back. They gave Apple a ranking of 2.7/10 for the enviromentally friendliness of Apple’s hardware. A detailed overview can be found here (PDF). Though this is purely rumour, I can’t see anyone else who would actually protest against such a thing, especially as it is for the environment.

The volunteers for Greenpeace have said that they will go back tomorrow (ie, today) to MacExpo to continue their campaign. Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace International campaigner at the expo said, “This reaction is totally over-the-top. Apple refuses to address our criticisms on their products, both for the recycling and for the use of harmful chemicals.” He added, “Instead of hiding their head in the sand, Apple should be a world leader in the greening of the electronics industry, not lagging behind.” He finished by saying that Apple should use cleaner components when making their product, to provide a free take-back program for recycling old Macs; and they challenge “the world leader in design to also be a world leader in environmental innovation” for Apple to have a “product range on the market by 2007 which is free of the worst toxic chemicals”

[via MacNN]

UPDATE: The real reason that GreenMyApple were thrown out of MacExpo, is because they were using ‘viral tactics’ to spread Apples, literally. Many companies were annoyed, that there marketing things were being replaced by green apples, and were randomly placing them in their booths. “The problem came to a head when one woman complained that they had placed an apple in her child’s pram and were taking photographs of him without her permission.” [link]

Parallels had quite a small stand, with only one rep, but they certainly impressed me. I’ve never actually had a chance to see parallels in the flesh, and I’ve only heard about it on the Interweb. Apple don’t install it on their Macs in the Apple store so this was new for me. A few people were around the rep who was explaining Parallel, what it does and how it works. When he started up Windows XP on his MacBook Pro, the speed just blew me away. Maybe it was just a fresh install and nothing else was running in the background, but it booted Windows from the BIOS screen in around 30 seconds. Wow! As it was a small booth (around 5 foot by 6 foot) there was only one Mac, which we were unable to try out. However it still had a huge impression on me, and would consider buying it, in the case that I got a Intel Mac. It is a lot easier and faster than booting up Windows in BootCamp, although not everything may work perfectly. There are bugs and flaws, which will get ironed out in future releases.
They had a special offer for those at MacExpo, where you could get Parallels for £39.99 instead of the RRP of £49.99. If I had a Intel Mac, I would have most certainly taken up that offer.

Parallels

The much awaited revision of Firefox, 2.0, has officially been released. After a number of blunders yesterday it has finally been pushed out the door.  A lot has been added to Firefox, in the background as visually. The UI has been improved and re-done, and gives it a much more elegant feeling. Firefox 2 now has built-in phishing protection for sites that pose themselves as paypal and sites alike. This is another step making Firefox a very secure browser. There is also a built-in session saver, so you don’t need to hunt for pesky extensions. The session saver will automatically restore the windows and tabs that you closed down last when exiting Firefox. This can also be done if Firefox crashes. Many more features such as inline spell checking, enhanced searching, advanced handling of RSS feeds and live titles. For a full list click here, or you can use the link below to be taken to the firefox download page.

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Apple has updated the MacBook Pros, for the first time since its launch in January of this year. So what do the updates feature? Well the Firewire 800 port is now also built-in into the 15″ model, whereas before it was only in the 17″. The other main update, was that they finally receieved a processor bump, upto the new Core 2 Duos, which had been in speculation before. According to Apple, the Core 2 Duo makes the MB Pro upto 39% faster than its Core Duo counterpart. The 2.16Ghz model ship with a standard RAM of 1GB, while the 2.33GHz models ship with 2GB. This is much appreciated to those who felt that the previous RAM allocations were not enough, and no-one wants to buy RAM from Apple as it’s way too expensive. RAM is expandable upto 3GB now.
The Superdrives are now 6x dual-layer, while the 17″ MB Pro has a Superdrive of 8x Dual-layer. A lot of people commented on how Apple had only included a single-layered burner in the original MacBook Pro, most thought that it was because it was so thin. I guess the manufacturers have caught up. There is also a build-to-order option of a 200GB hard drive for those who need large drive space on the move. Apple also released a MagSafe Airline power adapter so that you can charge while on a flight that has a EmPower socket or a 20mm power socket. Apple notes: “The MagSafe Airline Power Adapter is not compatible with automobile power ports.” This is most likely because the cars don’t provide enough juice (ie current, ampage) to power the MB.

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A lot of gaming news has happened while I was away, so I thought I’d summerise it all.

• Sony sues games importer Lik-Sang out of existence. Sony originally filed a motion against Lik-Sang in August of 2005 for exporting PSP’s to the UK before the release of the console there. Just last week a high court judge in London ruled that the sales were illegal in Europe and blocked them, even though Lik-Sang argued they broke no Hong Kong laws.
  Last week, Pascal Clarysse, Marketing Manager of Lik-Sang.com argued; “Fighting multiple lawsuits in different countries at the same time and paying high premiums to expensive lawyers is an overwhelming situation for a small company like Lik Sang. Launching separate court actions with separate claims and different judges is completely unnecessary, except for the fact that it helps reaching one single target: outspend Lik-Sang to death. Pay beyond.” [link]
• Could there be a Xbox 360 Dashboard update waiting for us in a weeks time. Xbox Live’s Major Nelson mentioned on his podcast that he has been testing out the Xbox 360 Wireless Communicator on his development kit, which has “excellent” sound quality. Major Nelson goes on to say that “even if you went to the store today and bought it, you couldn’t use it until you have the fall upgrade to the dashboard.” With the Wireless communicator being released on 31st October, it makes us wonder whether the dashboard update would be released on or before the 31st; and that day is just looming. [link] Major Nelson’s Podcast, mentioned at around 1:16:30.
• Sony has cleared up good and bad things about the PS3. Some of the postive notes are: HD Movies can be stored on and played directly from the hard drive, although codec support is yet unknown; Reports are that within 10 seconds of selecting the movie from the menu, its playing. The bad sides include: no HD cables in the box for definite; PS3 does not upconvert DVD’s, and will not enhance PS1/PS2 game’s graphics; no included remote, one can be bought separately for $24.99, and uses bluetooth not IR, so say goodbye to your universal remote. [link]

After all the problems that Sony has stuffed us with, you’d think they’d have learnt by now to get things sorted out in time for the launch. But apparently it seems they haven’t learned a thing. Not only is the PS3 already been delayed for us in Europe, but we are supposed to suffer another delay?
According to the Spanish gaming site MeriStation Ken Kutaragi recently admitted that supply problems for Japan and North America could force the European PS3 launch to be delayed until May. This would mean that the Japanese and Americans might have their PS3’s nearly six months before the rest of the world. This has not been verified yet, so take it with a grain of salt. It is also worthwhile to note that Kutaragi also supposedly said that Sony has not modified its European launch plans at this time.

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UPDATE: Sony has come out and denied this story. A Sony spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz: “Any reports of a further delay to the launch of the PS3 in Europe are categorically not true. We are still fully committed to a March 2007 launch date. Ken Kutaragi has not done any media briefings since the Tokyo Game Show, and the story is not true.” [link]

The Chicago Tribune has posted a photo of Oprah and Bono checking out the new (RED) iPod nano’s at the Michigan Avenue Apple Store in Chicago. Not only that, but someone spotted the Apple Cube Store in NYC changing their Apple logo to a red one (photo here).
Also, on Apple’s website, they are now advertising the (RED) iPod, and have a link to the online Apple store to buy it. However, there is no mention of it on the online Apple store. Maybe they are just waiting until Bono and Oprah officially reveal it on TV. As you can see from Apple’s PR shot to the right, the nano is a more vivid red than the artists rendition. I think it looks really cool, and wouldn’t mind buying one (If I needed one), and it’s for a good cause.

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Oprah and Bono are getting ready to unveil a new red-coloured iPod nano to support the PRODUCT(RED) scheme on TV tomorrow. The red nano is expected to debut tomorrow, in a 4GB model, for the same price as the other 4GB iPods ($199) and Apple has agreed to donate $10 from each nano sale to the PRODUCT(RED) charity.
Bono’s new charity is helping raise awareness of AIDS, and has partnered with many other companies such as Motorola, American Express and Converse. The income from the sale of each PRODUCT(RED) product is donated to The Global Fund, where it is destined to help women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.

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It seems that Sony has decided to skimp with the cabling of the PS3. It has a blu-ray drive, the Cell processor and a HDMI port, everything needed to view High-def content, except the high-def cable. The latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reports on the cables that will be included with the Japanese version of the PS3. Those who buy 60 GB or 20 GB models will get a power cord, USB cable, ethernet cable and standard composite AV cable.
This is really disturbing. Sony are advertising the superiority over the 360 that it can play true 1080p high-def content, but it doesn’t even come with a high-def cable! Even the Xbox 360 comes with a basic component/composite combo. They could at least include it with the 60GB version. I am absolutely outraged! Even though I wouldn’t buy a PS3 anyway, but considering how Sony claim the PS3 to be better than the 360, and they skimp on ways like this, which doesn’t save much money anyway!

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A Dutch Xbox 360 fan site (X-life) is reporting that Microsoft will be officially supporting the DivX and XviD formats within two months. This means that no 3rd party software will be needed to stream XviD and DivX files to the 360, and presumably, it also means that XviD encoded DVD’s will also be able to be played on the 360. However this is just a rumour so far, as it has not been confirmed by anyone else. The following excerpt, was translated from Dutch, during a Microsoft retailer training session.

After the event I had a short talk with the host and asked him whether there’d ever be support for DivX and Xvid playback. Much to my surprise, he started telling me that Microsoft is working hard to implement this and a firmware update is expected within 2 months allowing you to play DivX and Xvid directly on the 360.

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