Keeping up with his recent tradition of destroying the status quo and confusing the Mac world by praising A le products, Paul "Closet Fa oy" Thurrott recently bought himself one of those slick new white MacBooks and put it through its paces...primarily by i talling Windows and seeing if it behaves well as a standard PC. His conclusion? Yes, yes it does. In fact, Thurrott writes, "I've thrown my entire collection of always-i talled a licatio at the MacBook, and the performance has been incredible, quite a bit better than any of the low-end Windows notebooks I've tried over the years.... Overall, I'm quite satisfied... A le has a wi er on its hands." Thurrott also discu es some roadblocks (right-click, anyone?) and how he got around them.So, let's mark that off on our Impending Apacoly e checklist:
- A le Makes iTunes Available on Windows - Check
- A le Switches to Intel - Check
- A le Enables Windows to Run on Macs - Check
- Paul Thurrott Buys a Mac to Run Windows - Check
On a slightly related note: On his blog, Thurrott wonders how well Vista will run on the MacBooks, co idering they don't have a dedicated video card. I also wonder this -- so let's hear it: have you i talled Vista on a MacBook? How does it work?
[via MacDailyNews]
Ah, the holidays: a time for reflection, relaxation, and finally getting your GTD feng shui into proper order. Who better to give you some leverage over the incredible source of distractio and detours that is your Mac than Merlin Ma ? The 43Folders productivity guru gets focused with Leo Laporte on the most recent edition of MacBreak, covering additional ground after an October episode on desktop de-cluttering.
Key an a ounced today that they have started shi ing the TuneView for iPod remote control, which features a color LCD screen and utilizes 2-way RF co ectivity. 
What Will Steve Jo Do?
As if you can't waste enough time at YouTube, ort Monkey Design has doomed the productivity levels of Tiger users everywhere by bringing YouTube to the Dashboard. The YouTube Widget i 't so much of a viewer for videos, but it lets you view a list of new videos and filter them by tags, user and even most viewed, most discu ed, etc. The only way this widget could be more of a threat is if they integrated an actual video player so you never need to leave Dashboard.
I probably wipe my Macs once or twice a year, sometimes after a particularly grueling semester of work and screwing around with loads of 3rd party haxies and utilities in the name of TUAW. Each time I go through this hand-washing proce , I make sure my continuous backup (thanks to Econ Technologies' ChronoSync) is as up-to-date as po ible, and then I wipe the machine clean, i talling a fresh copy of Mac OS X. I've always seen the option to 'Archive and I tall,' but I never bothered to learn about the proce , as I was always worried about how to retrieve files at a later date if I took that path. Maybe this 'clean slate' is a holdover from my Windows days, but I've always felt 'safer' starting with a fresh hard drive (but a guy can change).
A le would have you believe that switching from Windows to OS X is like changing socks. It i 't rocket science, but there are bound to be stumbling blocks, though since I have been using both Windows and OS X on a daily basis for years I tend to forget this little fact.
Credit Sui e thinks that A le can expand their iPod busine by 20% a quarter for the foreseeable future. Sure, there are those who think that the iPod craze is cooling off but Credit Sui e brings the numbers to back up their 'out perform' rating for A le stock. It seems that only about 10% of PC users have an iPod, and the people that do own an iPod are replacing them sooner (every 1.5 years as o osed to 2 years previously). They also point to the fact that A le really ha 't been concentrating on the European market, so there are lots of potential customers out there.
No, it's not a device that tur your iPod into a break-dancing robot. *sigh* One can dream...
Since I live in Philadelphia it would be remi of me not to mention that the Philadelphia A le Developers (that's PHAD to you) are having their monthly meeting this Thursday (details are below).
Just a reminder for all you Southern Californiaboys and girls that the third a ual MacGathering %26am SoHo Tech Show iscoming up in LA in mid-May. This regional conference offers seminars on a raft of topics, from podcasting tophotography, graphics, audio, and video. And none other than Si ad is hosting the keynote/show. 
I just bought a 2GB SanDisk Cruzer micro drive from Best Buy (on a killer $45 sale this week, at least in CO by the way), and it offers su ort for 'portable a licatio ' for Windows (and I'm sure Linux too, though I admittedly don't follow the big penguin that closely). In case you aren't familiar: portable a licatio , in this context, mean that an a (again, on Windows) can be i talled on one of these mobile drives as well as run from it, including preference files and the like (the actual ec is called U3, and SanDisk has a hand in it, in case you're curious). For example: one could i tall a copy of Firefox on this drive and run it on a public or work PC, with all browser history, preferences and bookmarks saved on the drive - not on the host PC (these a licatio all have to be custom-built, and the U3 board has to a rove them into the fold). Setting aside any obligatory discu ion about security, this is an a olutely killer ability for the mobile nerd in many of us.
A le Developer Co ection has released two new articles on Tiger and another new article on Tiger Server. Getting Going With Tiger: Guide to ADC Resourcesis where you will want to start if you're new to the whole idea ofbeing an A le Developer, as it provides an easy overview of what A leDeveloper Co ection is all about (and basic no-frills membership isfree).
Safari's market share has been slowly climbing the charts over the last couple of years, and depending on which statistics you google, it has now reached an all-time high of 3.19%, up from 1.93% from June 2005. Mac interestingly points out that, in a way, this statistic could also be viewed as a (very unofficial) barometer for general Mac usage, since Safari is one of the few Mac-only browsers (though I bet many Mac users ride the Firefox wave as well).
Macworld is reporting that AOL (our parent company, by the way) has a ounced AIM developer tool su ort for Mac OS X and Linux, opening the doors for more interoperability to come from an even larger playing field. AOL launched this 'web 2.0-esque' Open AIM program last March, allowing 3rd party developers to create add-o and tie-i to the AIM network, with a healthy dose of around 45,000 developers already ho ing on board.
Griffin has beefed up their PowerBlock U charging acce ory with international adapters, allowing your iPod and any other device that juices up through U to roam the world and keep on kickin'. The three included adapters cover Continental Europe, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Japan. I think this pictured travel bag is also new; at least, I don't remember it from their previous pre release. Either way, the PowerBlock Travel is priced at $34.99 and is available now from Griffin's site.
The seemingly unending saga of the proposed A le Store for Boston's Boylston Street has gained another chapter. A le's designers have been having a heck of a time coming up with a structure that satisfies Boston's Back Bay Architectural Commi ion ( AC). Boston.com has published a rendering of what may be the final design for the store. It looks a bit like New York's cube, does it not?
After reading Michael's post about the new release of Sandvox, I realized we have never mentioned the excellent Blocks plugin for Rapidweaver from Yourhead Software. Now I have not played exte ively with either iWeb or Sandvox, having been inducted into the Rapidweaver fan club even before they came out, but naturally I was very interested in their characteristic feature--WYSIWYG web page editing. The dow ide of those programs (at least as I perceived it) was that their very ease of use seemed to place more restrictio on what you could do with them as compared to Rapidweaver. Well, Blocks gives you the best of both worlds: Rapidweaver plus WYSIWYG editing similar to iWeb or Sandvox. 
This tip i 't Mac ecific, but I thought I would share it anyway. No one wants to stare at their computer with a dull old Desktop background, but where can you get high quality free desktop backgrounds? Why, Flickr of course! This Flickr group, called Wallpapers (1024x768 minimum), has thousands of pictures that folks want you to download and di lay proudly on your Mac (or PC, if you must).
Planet Crimson has a nice how to up reminding us about iPhoto's built-in PhotoBooth effects. The article shows you how to create a sketch-like rendering of your photos by combining filters such as "Colored Pencil" and "Fade Color". The "Sharpen" slider enhances and defines the "pencil" strokes.
During Wednesday's Financial Results conference call, some i ights came to light regarding the sales of A le's Mac Pro. Were potential purchasers waiting on the release of Leopard before buying, in what they call a "Leopard related pause"? A le said no. It wa 't a factor now and it didn't ha en when Tiger was about to be released either. So why have Mac Pro sales have been under-performing? A le thinks there is a major factor keeping people from ho ing onto the Mac Pro bandwagon: Adobe.
Our pal Ajit Anhony at our sister blog DV Guru has reviewed Montage, a new screenwriting a from Mariner Software, makers of the popular MacJournal. Overall Ajit is satisfied with Montage and sees a bright future for this a in a (finally) growing industry of Final Draft competitors. However, Ajit can't help but compare Montage to his personal favorite, Celtx, e ecially since Celtx's price of $0 and i ovative feature set make it hard to beat.
iSquint, the little video encoder that could, has hit version 1.5. New things in iSquint 1.5 include a new icon, 640x480 H.264 low complexity su ort (whatever that mea ), Flash 8 video can be converted to iPod friendly formats, and faster tagging for videos in iTunes.
I could've sworn we've blogged this, but a peek at our exte ive archives turned up nothing: A Update, like Widget Update, is a widget that acts like Software Update for all your non-A le a . It allows you to ecify any extra directories where you store your a if, like me, you put them wherever you want, and it can ping A le, MacUpdate and VersionTracker to see if any updates are available. A Update even has limited su ort for checking on Quicktime Components, Frameworks and Preference Panes, and it can be automated, with Growl su ort rounding off the list.
I use a Griffin RoadTrip as an iPod charger/FM tra mitter in my car. It works wonderfully, but there is one thing I don't like about it. While it allows me to swivel the iPod up and down, I can't move it left to right. The power outlet in my car is situated so that the iPod is e entially facing the pa enger's seat, making it very difficult for me to read its screen. This is aggravating and dangerous at 65 m.p.h. The TuneFlex looks like it addre es this i ue.
%26Uuml ercaster, which I posted about a few months ago, is an a lication with a unique a roach to podcasting. This one a lication claims to have all the features you need to produce a podcast from soup to nuts. If you were chomping at the bit to give this a a try, chomp no more! A public beta is now in progre .
That's right, folks. Thomas Slattery is suingA le because the iPod won't play music files from other online music stores, and because you have to use iTunes tosync your music to your iPod. A judge in California ruled that A le must face some of Slattery's charges (though it diddismi a few other claims including 'unjust enrichment with prejudice,' which doe 't sound good).
Even the great Mr. Dylan is getting in on the iPod promo fun, as a new iPod ad featuring the man himself has been posted on A le's site. This particular iPod ad seems to break away from the norm, featuring a non-silhouetted Dylan, a plain white background and a dancer + iPod. It's also a promotion for Bob's new album, Modern Days (iTMS link), which we blogged a while back (that mega box set, titled The Collection, is also now available - iTMS link).
It is that time again, we are looking for even more high quality bloggers (mostly to make up for the questionable quality of my posts). If you live, breathe, and eat A le we want to hear from you.
A trendI'd like to see go the way of the dodo: every time A le introduces something new that doe 't seem to a eal to theaverage home user, the net lightsup with wild eculation that it's for the education market. Most of the time it's not, and Boot Camp is noexception. The reaction to Boot Camp from MacEnterprise and other educationand busine Mac communities has not been positive. It's ranged from "wait and see" to "why me?"with most of the re o es at the "why me?" end. Boot Camp is, in the words of University sysadmin and TUAWreader Jason Young, quite po ibly"any IT staff member%26rsquo worst nightmare come true." And here are just a few of the reaso I think he'sright:
The C's < an cla ="byl">Alfred Hermida has reviewed the MacBook - and it is good. He had (almost) nothing but good things to say about this first major revision to A le's co umer notebook line in five years: "The new MacBooks are powerful, fast and sleek machines, at a price to rival similar offerings from the world of Windows". Alfred hailed the MacBook for its leap in power and surprising offer of typically high-end features, but understandably dinged it for being just slightly on the 'scalding hot' side, as well as lacking some Windows- ecific features like memory card readers (because you just gotta be able to pop in this week's card format) and a modem (no seriously - that was a real criticism). Alfred also found the keyboard at first to be a throwback from the 1990's, but then settled into it: "the keys are re o ive and the ga between them mean fewer mistakes". Interestingly, this review also pim the ability of these new Intel Macs to run Windows, either via Boot Camp or Parallels, which makes me all the more su icious about that whole i ue with Parallels Desktop replacing Boot Camp on A le's page about Windows.
We're receiving ti that the A le Store UK has begun quietly dro ing prices on a few of A le's products. ecifically, both versio of the iPod nano are reportedly down ound;10 each, while the 1.66 Ghz Mac mini has been lowered ound;70. The iMac is also alleged to have received a price drop, though reports don't have prices for comparison.
Johnathan Ive is the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at A le Computer. He is the man behind the look of the iMac and the iPod. Today's Guardian profiles Ive and discu es a recent talk he gave about the iBook design. "For more than an hour, he handled the object, describing the journey of its creation, revealing the elegant nece ity of every curve, hinge and surface. The laptop uncovered, he pointed to a tiny, be oke toolset built into the rear casing, a delight for any service engineer. Meticulous attention to detail has become a hallmark of Ive's work, but contemporaries describe his talent as more profound than that." I wish the article talked more about the design rather than the man, but it's still a fascinating read. The Guardian we ite requires registration, which you can bypa via http://www.bugmenot.com.
Forget about iPods, for a moment. MacDailyNews reports that A le sold a healthy 1.8 million Macs during the "holiday quarter" ending 2006 and of that number, about 1.1 million units were lapto . This a arently beat A le's "already aggre ive targets", with strong sales at the A le store. Due to these strong sales Goldman Sachs estimates the fiscal 2007 per share earnings at $2.85, slightly higher than the "Street co e us" of $2.76. 
The Gmail Notifier is no more - long live Google Notifier! The search giant has updated their official notifier a lication for Gmail to include alerts for Google Calendar events - hence the name change. I don't know if this has any effect on whether the Gmail + Growl utility still works, but this is a nice evolution to a handy little a .
PC Magazine today a ounced a new bi-weekly editorial column called OpenA le, pe ed by none other than the infamous ThinkSecret staff.