SnowLeopard
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Psystar licenses Darwin Universal Boot Loader to third parties, chaos ensues
Like the proverbial kid brother, Psystar has amused us for years now, following Apple around, mocking it, claiming some sort of moral high ground for its Open Macs. Now, hot on the heels of Snow Leopard, the company is back with yet another ambitious project. For a fee, Psystar will license you its Darwin Universal Boot Loader (providing you're an OEM). By shipping machines with the DUBL pre-installed yet relying on the consumer to install his own Snow Leopard disk (which he obtained legally, of course) you should theoretically be able to avoid any sort of sticky legal situation of the sort that has dogged Psystar for years. If that weren't enough, the boot loader supports up to six different operating systems per machine and apparently configures itself, ahem, "automagicly." Is this the last nail in the coffin, the final puzzle piece that will bring us a world where third party machines running OS X fly off the shelves with abandon? Somehow, we doubt it. But it would be amusing to buy a computer with a "Psystar Certified" sticker next to the one that says "Intel Inside." Your move, Apple. PR after the break. [Via Apple Insider]
VMware Fusion 3 supercharged for Snow Leopard
The latest release of VMware's top-notch virtualization software "Fusion" has been announced and some of the new features are definitely worth taking a look. For the uninitiated, virtualization is the act of simulating a guest operating system while running a host operating system. Put simply, it allows you to run Windows without having to reboot. VMware Fusion 3 features highly improved Snow Leopard support. Most notably, Fusion now sports native 64-bit compatibility and support for the 64-bit kernel. What this means for the average user is improved performance for both the host and guest operating systems. Further, with support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3, gamers will now be able to play more demanding 3D games without the use of Boot Camp. Fusion 3 will also work beautifully with Microsoft's latest operating system by enabling the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac via Unity, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D. VMware Fusion 3 is available for pre-order now and will be on store shelves October 27. Suggested retail price is $79.99US and on the day of launch upgrade pricing of $39.99US will be available for existing customers with previous versions of VMware Fusion. I use Fusion 2 when I'm at my home office and while the performance has been good, I am really looking forward to Fusion 3's 64-bit support. Any other Fusion users out there, how will you make use of VMware's latest foray into the desktop virtualization game?
Psystar to pursue OEM licensing program despite legal woes
Legal issues? What legal issues? Psystar has announced that it plans to license its virtualization technology for OS X to third-party vendors despite its continuing legal issues with Apple. The Psystar OEM Licensing Program, designed to allow Intel machines to run Snow Leopard -- actually, certified machines from Psystar running the company's Darwin Universal Boot Loader -- can support up to six operating systems at a time in a single piece of hardware. "Once a product is certified, consumers can purchase it off the shelf or through standard channels and when labeled Psystar Certified would allow the installation of Snow Leopard simply by inserting the retail OS X DVD," Psystar said in a press release issued today. The cost of this licensing program is not available at this time. Apple and Psystar go to trial in January 2010. [MacDailyNews via Apple Insider]
How would you change Snow Leopard?
Ah, Snow Leopard. It's the same cat you're used to caressing (or beating, as the case may be), but in a much, much colder climate. Or something like that. OS X 10.6 promised Leopard users a "refined" experience, and one that would only cost upgrading users $29. At that price, most Apple fanatics figured that picking it up on launch day was a no-brainer, but as we've come to sadly expect from Cupertino's software labs these days, all wasn't perfectly well with the big snowy cat. Even now, users are still kvetching about broken functionality and mental pains that are literally indescribable. Even if you're not in that camp, we're eager to hear how your Snow Leopard experience has been. Are you satisfied with the upgrade? Will you never, ever install an Apple update again before a million others try it first? Are you already looking forward to 10.7 Windows 7? Tell all in comments below -- you never know who could be tuning in.
Skype 2.8 for Mac gets update for Snow Leopard
Skype 2.8, with hot fixes for Mac OS X 10.6, is available for your downloading pleasure. It's a micro update of the summertime release of Skype 2.8; the version number is now up to 2.8.0.722. The release date is listed as September 17. Version 2.8, originally released in July, included features like screen sharing & improved audio codecs that had been around in the Mac beta and the PC version of Skype for awhile. Version 2.8 also included Skype Access, which is a pay as you go public Wi-Fi service based on the Boingo network. This latest update adds a bunch of fixes for Snow Leopard. Skype has very detailed release notes if you are so inclined. Skype is a very popular solution for free audio and video chatting and instant messaging. The app also provides many paid services to allow you to call cellular and wired phones anywhere in the world at low rates, and to forward calls to your chosen phone when you are offline. Skype [iTunes link] also runs on the iPhone, but only works on Wi-Fi. (Thanks AT&T and Apple.) You can download the update to Skype by using the 'check for updates' feature built into Skype, or go to the Skype Mac web page and grab it there. It's a 44 MB download. Thanks to Ben for the tip and additional information from Skype Journal
Force Snow Leopard's Dictionary.app to reuse definition window
The Dictionary.app in Snow Leopard has been driving me nuts. If you use LaunchBar or Spotlight (or probably any other method of sending a word to Dictionary.app), it opens a new window. And then another. And then another. This might be handy if the window bar was updated to show the word that you had looked up, but it doesn't, meaning that the extra windows are just clutter. Before 10.6, Dictionary.app reused the same window for each new definition. If you wanted to go back to a previous word, you could simply use the "Back" button. As we've heard countless times, Snow Leopard has been about subtle refinements, but this was a step backwards to me. I was surprised that there isn't a Preference setting to reuse the same window or open a new one. In a fit of frustration yesterday, I posted a bounty on Twitter and asked Rob Griffiths to see if he knew of an answer. Rob is the proprietor of MacOSXHints.com which I consider essential reading for Mac users (I have even submitted a few tips of my own over the years). I knew if anyone could find an answer, it was Rob. Well, it turns out they don't call him Rob "The Hints Guru" Griffiths for nothing. Not long after my cry for help, Rob figured out how to Force Dictionary to show definitions in one window. As you might expect, it involves entering a command in Terminal.app while Dictionary.app is not running: defaults write com.apple.Dictionary ProhibitNewWindowForRequest -bool TRUE Voilà! Dictionary will now revert back to the 10.5 and earlier behavior of using one window for all definitions. Rob must truly be credited for discovering this gem, because (as of this writing) Google comes up 100% empty when looking for 'ProhibitNewWindowForRequest'. When was the last time you tried to Google something and came up completely empty? That doesn't happen often anymore! Turns out that Rob used another tip from his site to find hidden preferences (something else which has gotten more difficult in Snow Leopard). It's the circle of life... or at least, tips. Thanks again, Rob. Now where do you want me to send your Ferrari? (You'll have to read Rob's post to get that joke. It also explains how to undo this change if you decide you want to revert to the standard 10.6 behavior.)
VLC 1.0.2 includes 64-bit Mac port and security fixes
VideoLAN's popular cross-platform open source media player VLC 1.0.2 is now available with an important security update. The rest of the release notes are rather terse and nerdy: "BEWARE: this release is not compatible with Tiger. This version introduces many fixes, notably for SSA decoding, v4l2, MacOS interface, ogg/theora, x264 modules and security issues. It also introduces the port to 64bits for Mac OS platform and 2 new languages (Kazakh and Croatian)." I'm not sure what "Mac OS interface" fixes were included (the app looks the same to me, but perhaps it refers to minor fixes rather than major changes), but two things probably jumped out to you: the first is that the app is not compatible with Tiger, although this is not new with 1.0.2 (downloads for older versions of Mac OS X are still available). The second is the "big" news: VLC is now 64-bit. Again, this is not a change that end-users are likely to notice, but if you have been following news about Snow Leopard you know that 64-bit has gotten a lot of emphasis, and it's great to see VLC is keeping up. Someone recently asked why I would use VLC on the Mac when I had QuickTime Player or Apple's built-in DVD app. My answer was two-fold and simple: I use it because when I want to watch DVDs I can press command+D (to open the DVD), press enter, and VLC automatically takes me to the main menu of the DVD, skipping all the ads and previews and other nonsense that the movie companies try to force you to watch every single time you put in a DVD. The other big reason I use VLC is because is has an option (under the "Video" menu item) called "Float on Top" which, as you would expect, keeps the video window above other windows. I was disappointed to see that even QuickTime Player X does not offer a similar feature. VLC may not be beautiful to look at, and its advanced preferences are enough to make a normal person go cross-eyed with confusion, but it is a video playback workhorse, especially when paired with the US$3 iPhone remote control app (iTunes link). Update: 64-bit versions of VLC have been suspended due to lack of Mac developers. However, some may be looking for a 64-bit version of VLC to use with HandBrake. In that case you can still use vlc-1.0.2-intel64.dmg which should be available on the VLC website and mirrors. The file is 19,682,357 bytes (19.7MB in Snow Leopard, 18.7MB in Leopard). (Why is there a difference in file sizes?)
Read that email again. And again.
Something seems rotten, at least for some Mac users, with the Apple Mail program. Apple support boards are lighting up with reports of email messages being downloaded multiple times. This problem seems to be mostly with POP mail accounts, but even IMAP users are seeing it. There is another Apple support thread here with 10 pages of comments from unhappy Mail users.I've noticed it myself twice. In the morning I bring up Mail and read what's come in overnight. Then a little later I re-open Apple Mail and the same messages download again. Of course my POP account is set to delete everything from the server, and my settings have not changed.This is the first really bad behavior I've seen from Apple Mail since OS X came out in 2001. This most recent glitch seems to have popped up in the 10.6.1 update. There are enough people reporting it that it seems like there is an issue for some users, but obviously not everyone is seeing it. There have been some suggestions posted, but while they worked for some they did not work for all. Are you seeing this strange behavior? Did it start with 10.6.1? Let us know, and hopefully Apple will kick the code for the next update and put this bad boy to rest.Thanks to Mark for the tip.
Snow Leopard tip: Minimize to icon
The more we use Snow Leopard the more niceties we uncover. This week I found a simple little check box that has made my life infinitely more awesome. Yes, my entire life. First, a bit of background. When Mac OS 10.0 was released in September of 2001, we all went crazy with the genie effect, watching windows slip in and out of the newly-introduced Dock with silky smoothness.* Window after window slid into place. The problem was this: minimized windows moved neighboring icons aside, making everything a bit smaller and harder to identify. Eventually the whole mess became unusable. Sure, you could mouse over or check the identifying icon but ancient eyes like mine aren't meant for such strain. Snow Leopard has come to the rescue. Now you can minimize windows "behind" their parent app's icon. Here's how. First. launch System Preferences and click "Dock." Then, select "Minimize windows into application icon." As Jeff Goldblum said, "There's no step three." Now, minimized windows scoot behind your Dock icons and there's no more crowding. *OK, jaggy, halting smoothness. Still, it was cool. Mostly.
First Look: Minimalist time tracking on Mac using Minco
Mauritius is a minimalist island nation in the Indian Ocean, and from that tiny set of spots on the map comes a new Mac time-tracking application for anyone who needs to keep track of how much time they spend on tasks. Minco, now in public beta from Celmaro, is a minuscule Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard app that works with any application that supports iCal. When Minco is launched, all you'll see is a tiny clock icon in the menu bar. Clicking the icon opens a glossy transparent black display that shows either the time you've spent on a project or the revenue you've gained from doing billable work on that project. Clicking on the time or revenue counter starts the counter, which then disappears from view. When you stop the timer, a new calendar item is placed into iCal so that you can keep track of how your day was spent. The iCal integration works the other way as well. Creating a To-Do item in iCal adds it to your Minco timer so that you can start tracking time. When you start up the timer, the iCal item shows up in your calendar with the phrase "...working" attached. Publishing that calendar could be used to show co-workers or clients what you're currently working on. If you want to keep a log of what you do during your work days, Minco also writes your time log to a standard .csv file that you can import into Numbers or Excel for analysis. The company is considering writing other export adapters, although the existing adapter is amazingly flexible. Celmaro provides a 14-day free trial download, and the software is available for US$9.95. I found it very unusual for a company to be charging for beta software, but then again, Minco is much more stable and usable than a lot of beta software I've used.
Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL boost video encoding app by 50 percent
It'll take some time before we see the true impact of OpenCL and the newly-open-sourced Grand Central Dispatch on OS X, but we're definitely intrigued by this early report from Christophe Ducommun, developer of MovieGate, who says that shifting his app to use the new tech has increased performance by around 50 percent on the same hardware. Testing on a 2007 2.66GHz quad-core Mac Pro with a GeForce 8800GT, MovieGate MPEG-2 encode speeds went from 104fps under Leopard to 150fps under Snow Leopard, and decoding CPU usage dropped from 165 percent to 70 percent. Now, yes, that's just one app, and most users don't have four cores to play with, but it's still an eye-opening result, and we're definitely hoping it's the start of a trend. [Via MacRumors]
Snow Leopard selling faster than Leopard
They aren't flying off the shelves, but early signs are that Snow Leopard boxes are far exceeding sales of Leopard, and 4 times higher than sales of Tiger. That's the assessment of the NPD group, which tracks retail sales for many industries. The firm also notes that sales declined about 25% from week 1 to week 2, again, far better than both Leopard and Tiger. Tiger was released in April of 2005 and Leopard hit the streets in October of 2007. Of course, Snow Leopard sells for US$100.00 lower than the price of previous versions of Mac OS X, so that could be a large part of the success of the release. Stephen Baker of NPD noted, "As we head into the fall selling season, and the release of another major OS upgrade, it will be instructive to see if that upgrade (Windows 7) -- currently projected to sell at ASPs much higher than Snow Leopard -- can deliver the same incremental increase in consumer demand that Snow Leopard has enjoyed." As we've noted, the update to Snow Leopard has been a bit bumpy for some, but by most measures of satisfaction and sales Snow Leopard is not at all like the mammal it has been named after -- which is, sadly, endangered and diminishing in numbers.
It just works. Usually.
The latest festival of issues with Snow Leopard alongside a round of people unhappy with the latest iPhone update both suggest that Apple might need to work a little harder on pre-release testing. One thing Microsoft does rather well is gets a lot of people testing software releases in extended public betas. Of course that didn't go so well for Vista, which was a mess for many people, but it seems to have gone better for Windows 7. Apple, secretive as always, doesn't get really wide testing of new software builds, and when those updates finally get released there seems to be an ever increasing, ever louder response from customers that things aren't going swimmingly. Snow Leopard was supposed to be a cleanup of Leopard, but it appears that some people are having lots of issues. In my own case, some fonts were pretty messed up, and Keychain was jumbled pretty badly. The fixes in both cases weren't onerous, but they were nasty enough that it made me wonder how thoroughly the release had been tested. I still don't hear new mail sounds from MobileMe, a problem that has been going on at least since Leopard was released. I'm not alone in this, but not everyone has the problem. Most of the people I know had flawless upgrades, and of course here at TUAW we are more likely to hear about problems, which is also true of the Apple forums where people are able to report the smallest or the largest bugs. Therefore, from my perspective it's hard to say for certain if things are slipping away from Apple quality control, but it's starting to look that way. Apple was quick to release 10.6.1, which was a good effort, but it is not quieting down the roar of users who don't think that this latest release of Snow Leopard 'just works.' What's your perception? Does Apple have some work to do?
Default Folder X adds Snow Leopard Support
One of my favorite little utilities has been updated to fully support Mac OS X 10.6.1. Default Folder X makes it easy to navigate when both saving and opening files, and it has saved me constant hours of prowling around for folders where I save and open stuff. It's been particularly valuable when I'm working on a new book, because I have graphics and text strewn all over the place in folders on multiple disks. This new update also adds improved capabilities in Mac OS 10.4 and 10.5. In Snow Leopard I saw some nasty strange screen drawing anomalies, and that is now fixed with this most recent version. The developers also say there are improvements when using Final Cut Pro, QuickTime Player 7, and other applications that export files using QuickTime.You can try the utility for free for 30 days. Otherwise it is US $34.95, or $14.95 for users of versions bought before June 1, 2007.It's nice to see this utility updated, and while I love it dearly, it would have been so nice if more of this functionality had been built in to OS X natively. Until then, Default Folder X is a great solution for opening and saving files in a completely quick and sane manner.
LANrev speeds mass deployments of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
When you only have a handful of Macs in an office or household to upgrade to a new operating system, it's no great problem to run around with the installation DVD and upgrade one machine at a time. But when you're supporting a large office or school environment, it's impossible to take the time to manually upgrade each machine. That's where tools like Apple Remote Desktop and LANrev come in handy. LANrev 5.2 has been released today, with full compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard. LANrev uses a proprietary imaging process that saves the home directory and OS settings of each machine during an automated OS deployment, so that the users are back up and running as quickly as possible afterwards. IT professionals can not only roll out Snow Leopard faster using LANrev, but the application also tracks Snow Leopard machines for asset inventory and provides for remote management of Macs. LANrev has an asset inventory for storing license numbers and purchasing information, which is critical for audits. LANrev can track the location of stolen Macs and provide law enforcement officials with information to locate and recover the machines. For those who are concerned about power usage, LANrev does automated power management of large Mac installations, putting Macs to sleep or shutting them down when they're idle.Unlike Apple Remote Desktop, LANrev works in cross-platform environments, so it's useful for situations where a small group of Mac users may exist in a Windows world -- or vice versa. No pricing info is available on the LANrev Web site, so be sure to contact one of their distribution partners if you're interested in this professional administration tool.
Mac 101: Camera-specific application launching
Courtesy molenlavapit.com If you're the proud owner of a multi-camera/single Mac household then you've probably run into the problem of what happens when you plug in a camera not necessarily being what you intended. For instance, my wife used to have an issue where iPhoto would always launch when she plugged in her iPhone. This was because her Canon camera launched iPhoto whenever it was plugged in via USB. Creig Sherburne has discovered that in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, however, camera/application management woes are tackled via an Apple utility that comes with the system. The latest iteration of Image Capture (version 6.0 at least) includes a preference setting for specifying which application to launch when connecting a camera. There's an even option for having no application launch, which is a nice feature if your Mac is running on scarce resources and some rogue program is taking up memory when trying to open. Lest you think that by not upgrading to Snow Leopard you're in the lurch (though if you can, you should, it's only 30 bucks) fear not. There is a third-party solution for this issue; Cameras prefpane from Flexibits, which we noted back in July, beautifully (and freely!) solves this problem for Tiger and Leopard users. Got any other handy, camera-related tips? Let us know in the comments! [Via Daring Fireball]
Apple's Grand Central Dispatch goes open source -- get at those cores, people
Grand Central Dispatch may not exactly be a household name to the average Apple user, but it's certainly a hot topic among developers, who may know it better as "libdispatch," and are no doubt thrilled that Apple has now made the whole thing open source. Among other things, that means developers are now able to take full advantage of multi-core processors in Snow Leopard, which obviously has some fairly big implications for applications as soon as those developers are able to get a handle on things. Know what you're doing? Just like to get in over your head? Then you can find the complete source code and other necessary information at the read link below.[Via Slashdot]
What's up, Dock? Give your Dock a little class with Dock Library
Let's face it; the Mac OS X Dock is pretty boring. I mean, other than the little glowing blue LED underneath active applications that a lot of people can't see anyway, it's just a boring, opaque white reflective shelf. Wouldn't you like to add some excitement to it? Well, you still can't relive the glory of your high school athletic prowess and put that dusty third-place trophy for shot-put on the shelf, but you can make the Dock look nicer with Dock Library. It's a shareware application from Dative Studios that enables quick switching of your Dock styles. TUAW covered this little application in 2008, but we have a lot of new readers who may not be aware of how Dock Library works. Dock Library doesn't come with a bunch of built-in styles; for those, you need to go to sites such as LeopardDocks.com or LeopardDocks.net, both of which have a variety of free Dock templates ranging from the commonplace to the absurd. After installing Dock Library, I chose the nice "Coffee Table Rounded" Dock design (see below), which looks like beautifully finished wood and has rounded corners. What's really nice is that those blue LEDs really show up under my active applications now, and that Dock Library works with Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard with no issues. I'm curious to find out what bizarre or cool Dock templates our readers would like to see -- your ideas might be just the thing to stimulate some creative designer to submit a new template to the LeopardDocks sites. Leave your comments below.[via Download Squad and Sizlopedia]
A roundup of Snow Leopard compatibility announcements
Now that the shock of Mac OS X 10.6's early release has worn off, many developers are announcing that their products are now completely compatible with Snow Leopard. Here's a list of the latest devs to speak up. Realmac Software announced that RapidWeaver 4.3 is now available. This newest version of Realmac's popular website development tool adds several improvements, but the main attraction is full compatibility with Snow Leopard. Existing owners of RapidWeaver can update for free by using the built-in Check for Updates feature, or download the update here. Users of Cocktail, the Mac utility from Maintain, can now rest assured that the application will run properly under Snow Leopard. Cocktail 4.5 Snow Leopard Edition has not only been tested for compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6, but it also adds 64-bit support and major speed improvements to Pilot. Maintain also updated Automator actions and the help files, and Cocktail 4.5 contains an updated version of the Sparkle software update framework. The update can be downloaded here. Read on for even more Snow Leopard update news.
Mac OS X 10.6.1 update now live
Well, that was fast -- just over week after Snow Leopard officially shipped, the first update's on the books. Nothing major in the changelog here, but we're told Flash has been updated to a newer, more secure version. Let us know how it goes for you, eh?
