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Run IE on your Intel Mac, if you absolutely have to
If you're a Mac-based web developer, a sysadmin at SomeBigCo, or an Outlook Web Access user, you might find yourself needing to use MS Internet Explorer from time to time. No, not IE for Mac OS X, frozen in amber within Applications folders around the globe; I mean IE for Windows, the hairy scary Active-X enabled browser that for better or worse represents a huge chunk of the web-surfing world.Getting 'real' IE on the Mac, up until now, has meant OS emulation (Virtual PC), virtualization (Parallels/VMware), API translation (Wine/CrossOver) or remote access (RDC). Now there's another option for Intel Mac owners: ies4osx, a Mac port of the ies4linux package. Built on top of the Darwine version of the Wine Win32 API translation layer, ies4osx downloads and installs an official version of IE (you pick from v5, 5.5, 6 or 7) and then runs it inside the X11 environment on your Mac. The resulting browser looks a little weird -- almost like a Bizarro version of IE, with the slightly altered type and menu look of the X11 windowing system -- but this bear can dance. OWA runs nicely, with full rich-text editing and message search, and the administration pages for MS Virtual Server also work pretty well. I wouldn't depend on ies4osx in a production role, at least not with the current build, but for one-off testing of websites in IE it's worth the (free) download. The ies4linux developer plans to roll the Mac-specific fixes back into the main package, so the next version of ies4 will probably support both Mac and Linux users from the same codebase.[via MacApper]
Reminder, TUAW Talkcast at 9pm tonight
We're live tonight at 9 pm ET for a special pre-holiday talk show featuring guest panelist Dan de Grandpre, editor in chief of dealmac.com and dealnews.com. Dan will be joining us to help identify the best shopping strategies for Macs, iPods and iPhones as we creep up on Black Friday and the kickoff of the holiday shopping season.To participate in the fun, check out the Talkshoe page for details; now that the Talkshoe client has been updated for Leopard you should be able to get in without a hitch. You can also call in directly from any phone by calling (724) 444-7444 at 9 pm ET, entering the show ID (45077) and then pressing #-1. Hope to hear you there!
Aspyr delays Guitar Hero III, they are now dead to me
Man, remember how excited we were that Guitar Hero III was coming to the Mac at a reasonable time? Yeah, well, guess what. Aspyr has no love for Mac owners. Our friends at Joystiq say that while the PC version is sitting happily on shelves, we're still waiting on the Mac version. "Later this year," Aspyr says. I'll believe it when I see it.I don't want to get off on a rant here, but who the hell put Aspyr in charge of Mac gaming anyway? Their incompetence has reared its ugly head time and time again. They deliver late, buggy ports all the time, and yet game companies still seem to flock to them for development and publishing jobs.There is something rotten in the state of Mac gaming, and it is Aspyr Media. Have they ever kept a promise for release? Have they ever delivered a worthy, on-time port? Or have they continually and constantly profited off of placing junk on Apple Store shelves, forever confining Macs to the bottom of the list for gaming platforms? I won't tell you what to buy, but I'm done seeing Aspyr's name on Mac games. Until they show that they actually have the capacity to release a game that even slightly compares to the PC release version (or even shows up on time -- I'd settle for punctuality at this point), the Aspyr name is a complete dealbreaker for me in terms of both interest and purchases. As far as I'm concerned, they're out.
Plantronics EOLs VolumeLogic but offers fix for Leopard
I've spoken before of my love for the Octiv/Plantronics Volume Logic audio optimizer plugin for iTunes, which makes your laptop speakers sound like a much bigger system, but when I fired up iTunes under 10.5, unsurprisingly, VL wouldn't work or find its registration info. OK, no problem, surf over to volumelogic.com for an update and... agh! The plugin has been end-of-life'd and Plantronics will produce no more updates. What to do, what to do... time to check out iWOW I suppose -- but what's this?Credited to VL's 'loyal Mac fans,' an update installer and slighly funky Terminal instructions are available to make VL happy under Leopard, at least for now. Undoubtedly a future iTunes or OS upgrade will break the plugin once and for all, and on that day I will mourn for a moment the departure of VL from my Mac... and then I'll move on.Update: Note Zach's comment below -- this fix is unsupported and is at your own risk. Per Ronnie's note, a more thorough review of the resolutions is here.
