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Leopard's Dock doesn't work on the side
Rogue Ameoba's got a legit complaint with the Dock in Leopard: it looks horrible sitting on the side. Personally, it's not really a concern for me, because I've never moved my Dock from the bottom of the screen (seems weird to have it on the side, like the workspace is off balance). But they're exactly right-- Leopard's "perspective Dock" just looks strange in the vertical. The icons seem to float in space, and the whole perspective looks weird.Of course, they have other problems with the Dock as well-- the reflections of the Desktop and the Windows happen in Leopard no matter where the Dock is, right? But yeah the angles that normally look like a shelf for the icons to sit on when the Dock is on the bottom of the screen look literally "off the wall" when the Dock is on the side.With something like Cleardock, this is easily fixed. And we're still looking at a dev build of Leopard, so maybe Apple has a trick up its sleeve to fix it before release. But would you put the Dock on the side of your screen if it looked like this?
WoW Insider's PTR voice chat hands on
Voice chat is now available on the 2.2 PTR, so I downloaded the test realms, rolled up a gnome Warlock, and put on my Logitech headset to try it out. What I found was a pretty intuitive voice chat system that does most everything Blizzard promised to do, and will likely replace Teamspeak or Ventrilo for a lot of smaller guilds.Unfortunately, it's complicated enough that it probably won't be extremely widespread-- players who haven't found the need to join up on voice chat yet probably still won't feel a need to do so. But for guilds who don't want to pay for a separate server and friends who group together often, the ingame voice chat should work just fine.The rest of my impressions, including a complete walkthrough on how the chat system works, are after the jump.
TUAW Tip: Safari's reset button
Brandon sent us a great tip that I should have known was in Safari, but that I hadn't found yet. For you paranoids out there, the Safari 3 beta offers an easy way to clean up every single thing you've ever done, including the history, passwords, cookies, and even favicons and Autofill text. Under the Edit menu, there's a "Reset Safari" option which reveals a checklist that lets you hit the reset button on your browser. Firefox users like myself will notice that this was "gently lifted" from the Clear Private Data function under FF's Tools menu.And it's not just for paranoid browsers out there-- the blogging engine here at TUAW, Blogsmith, is a great program but sometimes hiccups when the cache gets overwritten or pushed out of sync. When it does, the Reset options let me flush the cache in just a few clicks without losing any of my browser windows. If you ever run across a browser-based application that's not doing what you want, this is definitely an alternative to try before actually restarting the browser.
Apple "not going to enter a public debate with Fred Anderson"
In a remarkably candid and defensive statement issued today by key members of Apple's board of directors (including Eric Schmidt and Al Gore -- heard of 'em?), apparently, "We are not going to enter into a public debate with Fred Anderson or his lawyer." It goes on to say:"Steve Jobs cooperated fully with Apple's independent investigation and with the government's investigation of stock option grants at Apple. The SEC investigated the matter thoroughly and its complaint speaks for itself, in terms of what it says, what it does not say, who it charges, and who it does not charge. We have complete confidence in the conclusions of Apple's independent investigation, and in Steve's integrity and his ability to lead Apple."Kind of sounds like Steve just wrote it on his iPhone and sent it on over, right? Anywho, no real updates from the SEC since yesterday's allegations that Steve was behind the whole backdating scandal, but it looks like Cupertino Co. are getting off without sanctions and Jobs still lies in legal limbo for the time being, despite Apple's wholehearted support of their Jobs-in-Chief.
Jobs and Apple not out of the Options scandal woods yet
The Wall Street Journal has the best summary (subscription maybe required) of the Apple options backdating scandal that I have read to date. They take a look at Apple's filings and point that that Steve 'recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates,' though he was not involved in the improper backdating of options which he was granted. The WSJ also talks to a number of experts about what this could mean for Apple and everyone's favorite iCEO.I also found out, thanks to this article, that some options that Pixar granted to employees are also under investigation. Steve didn't receive any of those, but they were all granted while he was CEO of Pixar.Remember folks, just because Apple's internal investigation says that His Steveness has done nothing wrong that doesn't mean that the Feds aren't going to take a look for themselves. This story is far from over.[via Blogging Stocks]
Apple takes $84 million charge, defends Steve Jobs in options scandal
While Apple's surely enjoying the perks of having a monumental amount of iPods unwrapped just days ago, everything's not exactly kosher in Cupertino. Aside from the mysterious mouse the firm just patented, the company is facing another bevy of off-the-wall lawsuits, all while trying to fish its CEO out of potentially hot water. After the Securities and Exchange Commission found that ole Steve was granted 7.5 million stock options without the proper authorization of Apple's board of directors in 2001, there was widespread speculation that Mr. One More Thing may suffer the same fate as Apple's former CFO Fred Anderson, who resigned after a similar debacle in 2004. It seems, however, that things just might work out okay after all, as Apple finally filed its required forms with SEC, recognizing a "total additional non-cash, stock-based compensation expense of $84 million after tax, including $4 million and $7 million in fiscal years 2006 and 2005, respectively." Aside from taking the lofty charge, the company also stated that while Jobs was "aware of the favorable grant date recommendations, he did not financially benefit from these grants or appreciate the accounting implications." So all those out there holding your breath to see if Macworld would ever be the same if this went south, it looks like we'll be seeing jeans and a black shirt all over again in just a few weeks.
Apple to file Annual Report today
The New York Times is reporting that Apple will be filing their delayed annual report today. The report will likely contain information gathered from Apple's internal investigation into the options backdating scandal. The article gives a nice overview of what this whole rigmarole consists of, as well as pointing out that most people in the know don't think Steve Jobs did anything wrong.Apple wouldn't comment for the story (shocking, isn't it?).
Apple forges financial docs
We have written about the Apple stock options story before, but things just keep getting worse. The Associated Press is reporting that former Apple execs forged documents in order to maximize options payouts. The article also goes on to say that Steve Jobs has retained his own legal counsel, apart from Apple's, which is never a good sign (though I would retain my own legal counsel if I were involved in something of this nature).Apple shares dropped on this news.
Fred Anderson resigns from Apple Board
In a comment under yesterday's report on the outcome of the Apple stock option investigation, SubGenius wisely proclaimed "Fred is going to be the fall guy." Congratulations, SubGenius - you win a brand new star! (or at least you will when the star system is working again)Fred Anderson, who valiantly served as Apple CFO from '96 to '04, informed Apple that he believes "it is in Apple's best interests that he resign from the board at this time." His official resignation was Sept 30, 2006. Of course just because Anderson resigned from the board doesn't mean he did anything wrong or that he's covering up for anyone else.. this kind of thing happens all the time. He probably just wants to spend more time with his family and improve his golf swing.
Apple's Special Committee Reports Findings of Stock Option Investigation
Back in August, Apple announced they had found some stock option irregularities and launched an internal investigation to get to the bottom of things. This voluntary audit netted a warning of de-listing from NASDAQ because they had to delay filing their Q3 earnings results (fortuately, NASDAQ cut Apple a break). Today, the big fruit has issued a press release with the findings of this audit, which was performed by a special committee of outside directors, independent counsel and accountants. This crack team had to shuffle through over 650,000 emails and documents (Spotlight to the rescue!), as well as conduct over 40 interviews of current and past employees.In summary, the investigation's results go a little something like this: No misconduct by current members of Apple management was found The most recent evidence of 'irregularities' points to 15 stock option grants made between 1997 and 2002. Said grants were apparently issued before their approval dates Steve Jobs knew about the grant dates, but he apparently didn't know about the slight-of-hand accounting implications, nor did he benefit from any of them The data found 'raises serious concerns' of two former officers related to the accounting, recording and reporting of these grants. Apple will provide details to the SEC Mr J is quoted apologizing to Apple's shareholders and employees for these problems, especially since they happened under his watch, saying "They are completely out of character for Apple." He continues saying "We will now work to resolve the remaining issues as quickly as possible and to put the proper remedial measures in place to ensure that this never happens again," i.e. - somebody's in for a whole lotta iButt woopin'.In the collateral damage department, Fred Anderson, Apple's former CFO from 1996 to 2004 who now serves on the company's board of directors, has decided now might be a good time to resign from said board.Finally, Apple and the audit committee agree that the company will ultimately have to restate their historical financial statements to "record non-cash charges for compensation expense relating to past stock option grants." At this time however, the company is still working to analyze their findings and determine which periods will need restating, as well as the differential amounts.
Nasdaq warns Apple of non-compliance
Following reports of possible stock option improprieties by Apple executives and continuing internal and external investigations of these concerns, Apple has announced that it will delay the filing of its Q3 quarterly earnings reports until it is satisfied that the issues have been properly accounted for and addressed. Delay of the filing puts Apple out of compliance with Nasdaq regulations, and continued non-compliance without taking proper measures are grounds for Nasdaq to cease listing of Apple shares. Apple has said it's stock will remain listed pending a hearing and decision by the Nasdaq listing qualifications board. Despite these issues, perhaps because Apple itself–and not a third party, uncovered the irregularities, Apple stock has remained fairly stable.
On improving the iPod's aging UI and experience
The iPod is the 800-pound gorilla of the DAP industry - there's no doubt about it (well, almost). In its 4+ years of existence, the player has quickly won owner's hearts because of its ease of use and seamless iTunes management experience, amongst other reasons. I personally have owned one of every generation of iPod since the original 5 GB model with the *gasp* mechanical scroll wheel, before all this fancy touch wheel stuff you young whipper-snappers are spoiled with today.In all this time, however, the iPod's famously simple UI has more or less remained that way - staggeringly basic. While I personally am no fan of devices that add features and options simply for the sake of claiming 'it has more', I'm starting to think that there are a few areas that the iPod's UI and experience are in serious need of an update. Music (and video) collections are getting larger, people are interacting with their devices and the libraries on their computers through increasingly new (and truly useful) ways, and I think the iPod needs to catch up with the times.
Location Switch Automator action
Location Switch is an Automator action that adds some painfully missing features to Mac OS X's built-in Locations option (y'know, that feature you never touch in the Apple menu?). Location Switch can a whole host of application preferences and settings based on which location you chose, such as sound volume, SMTP servers, default printer, etc. Before you use it, however, the action requires some customization on your part, so check out the accompanying ReadMe file for instructions, and open the action in Automator to give it your personal touch.Location Switch is available free from Automator World, but if you enjoy it, consider sending its creator, Charles Schoenfeld, a donation at his site.[via Hawk Wings]
iChat Extender - tweak iTunes status message, chat bubbles
iChat Extender is a little app that lets you tweak various settings of iChat that unfortunately don't have a pref pane of their own. Features such as the format of the 'iTunes now playing' status message and the style of chat bubbles can easily be adjusted with this handy and free app.For more fun with little apps, check out the developer's other utilities such as illis, an iTunes controller and Growl notifier, as well as Star, a menubar utility for rating your iTunes tracks and notifying you when a track is un-rated.All of these utilities are free and Universal Binaries.
Google Importer - search Google with Spotlight
Google Importer is a Spotlight plug-in that can add a Google search to the list of results Spotlight returns. It is installed as a System Preferences pane with options to adjust how many results are gathered from Google, whether to show a link to an actual Google results page, and how many seconds to wait after the last key is typed to begin searching Google. Note: that last option only adjusts how long Spotlight waits to search Google, not the rest of your computer like many users have been asking for.I haven't tinkered around with this, but it sounds like a nice idea as long as it doesn't hang the Spotlight search too much. Google Importer is donationware and available from Caffeinated Cocoa Software.
Creammonkey is great - but where are the scripts?
I found a Safari plugin by the name of Creammonkey, which is more or less an attempt at bringing Greasemonkey's abilities to Safari's side of the fence. For those unfamiliar with Greasemonkey: it's a Firefox extension that allows savvy javascript ninjas to add functionality to websites and services, such as enabling colored labels in Gmail or displaying in-bound links for a site you're visiting.It's hard to argue that the idea of adding functionality to websites isn't cool. Even in its infancy, the promises of Creammonkey sound really slick, but my one problem so far is: where are the scripts? Creammonkey is more or less a platform, and I'm having a really hard time tracking down any scripts to plug into it - including those pictured in this screenshot I borrowed.So, to the devs of Creammonkey (or the fantastic folks at PimpMySafari): could you put together some links to scripts that'll help make Creammonkey shine? Also, to you TUAW readers: does anyone care to link scripts they've found or created? Let's get this javascript party started.
TUAW Tip: Hit esc for some word suggestions
It appears that while typing a word in many OS X apps, such as iChat and Yojimbo, hitting the Esc key will present a drop-down list of word completion options. I *think* this might be a Cocoa-related service of Mac OS X (sorry, Firefox users), but I'm always hesitant to toss out a guess like that because I am constantly surprised as to which apps are actually Cocoa (Finder, for example, is still Carbon, even in Tiger). I get this popup in Ecto, Stickies and Mail as well, but not in any input areas on websites in Safari, so feel free to experiment with this handy but (as far as I know) undocumented feature.
Saft offers new tab behaviors
Since I'm on spring break and the only destination I have in sight is my couch, I figured it would be a good time to wipe my Macs since I haven't done it in a while. This time around, I decided to learn how to create a clean backup image with Carbon Copy Cloner, but this post isn't about my adventures in getting responsible and efficient with backups. It's more about the fact that I just noticed Saft offers some really handy new tab abilities in Safari that I don't think we've mentioned on TUAW.I guess since version 8.2.6 (it's up to 8.2.8 now) Saft has offered new options for tab placement that you can see in my screenshot. These can really come in handy, depending on your behavior with surfing/researching on the web and how you manage tabs.
Spice up iChat with Chax
Chax is one of those addons that makes you go "ahhh, at least someone's listening." This is a powerful, feature-packed and altogther necessary preferences plugin for iChat. The developer's site offers a lengthy list of features this fantastic plugin brings to the table, but for now, here's a short rundown to get your mouses clicking: Save and restore window positions for individual screen names (To Kent Sutherland, the developer: I cannot thank you enough for this. The fact that iChat doesn't already do this is just plain silly.) Display Address Book nicknames instead of full names Option to auto-accept text chats, skipping new message notification window Option to open images sent through direct connect directly in Preview (thank you!!) Unread message notification in the dock Change the delay of or disable auto-away (thank you!!) New message windows cascade properly instead of always appearing on top of each other Built-in log viewer There are over 25 features that Chax enables, all wrapped up in its own clean, easy to use preference pane that is simply added to iChat's preferences. Kent also offers a list of upcoming features on his site, but I'd like to echo one of his requests: please don't ask him for tabbed chatting. Developers like him are (usually) under enough pressure as it is, which brings me to a request of my own: this plugin is free, but please consider donating if you wind up appreciating it even half as much as I do. Great stuff like this really deserves some love, and PayPal for some reason doesn't do hugs yet.[via MacOSXHints]
iPhoto 6: First Impressions
So I just finished installing my copy of iLife 06, and since I'm the most interested in the new iPhoto and iWeb apps, I thought I'd post a few initial thoughts at least on the new iPhoto, which is technically now at version 6. I've been playing with and poking at it for roughly 20 minutes, so this will obviously be just a raw rundown of what I've noticed is new and different so far: Starting, using and quitting the app is noticeably faster. I'm running it on a PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz with 1.5 GB RAM, but I've still noticed a general increase in speed and responsiveness. Finally, finally, finally - the iPhoto Library folder (in ~/Pictures/) organizes your images the way an application like this should. Basically, under a new "Originals" folder are folders dated by year, and in those are folders named by album, with images arranged accordingly. Thanks Apple! iPhoto 6 now joins Mail and iTunes with unified toolbar goodness. Full-screen viewing/editing is responsive and absolutely gorgeous, though I have one minor complaint: there's no way to get out the current album of images you're viewing unless you duck out of full-screen. Not a big deal, but a minor nuisance. There's a new Advanced preference pane with the option: "Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library." If this functions like the similar option in iTunes, I assume this means iPhoto doesn't necessarily need to move, copy and/or duplicate images you have sitting somewhere else on your Mac. The toolbar at the bottom of iPhoto's interface is now customizable, allowing you to toggle which buttons you actually have available down there. I haven't played with any of the photocasting or iWeb features yet, but we hope to have some demos, links and video examples ready for a vidcast by this weekend or early next week, so stay tuned!
