MacBook Pro and Nike + iPod ort Kit compete for Time magazine's Gadget of the Year

It's that time of the year for Time's "Gadget of the Year" and A le has two strong contenders in the ru ing (no pun intended), out of the eight nominees. The MacBook Pro and the Nike + iPod ort Kit trail behind the Nintendo DS Lite for first place right now - but your votes could put them over the top! Show off your A le pride and go vote for your favorite.

I dig the MacBook Pro, of course, but I'm voting for the Nike + iPod ort Kit, de ite not being a ru er. I just think it's an smart bit of technology. Even dogs can use it! Have you ever seen a dog try to use Treo 700w or use a Sanyo HD1 handycam? I didn't think so. You need thum for that. Dogs don't have thum . Duh.

Thanks, Marcia and Sam!

Mighty Mouse becomes bluetooth and laser based

Just as everyone expected, A le has released a Bluetooth version of the Mighty Mouse, bringing wirele capabilities to the peripheral for the first time. Like the recent FCC filing leak suggested, the device is powered by AA batteries, but according to the tech ecs on A le's site the new wirele mouse can be powered by just one battery, although there is room for a second. Another tidbit about the new mouse is that the tracking is based around a laser, not the optical method used by the wired version. That should mean greater accuracy. Everything else about the wirele Mighty Mouse seems to be identical (are the side "butto " an off-white color in the regular Mighty Mouse?) to the wired version.

The new wirele laser Mighty Mouse comes in at $69.99, so it's up to you whether you think the wirele and laser capabilities are worth the $20 premium over the regular wired version.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Disco public beta and today-only macZOT price

Disco, the new burning a with so much buzz, has tra itioned from a private beta to a public one. We've covered our fair share of Disco already, but to summarize: it has burning features that place it somewhere in between the Finder and Roxio's $99 Toast 7. One feature I didn't know about before though is Discography, a built-in search engine that lets you search through all the files you've previously burned. Users can search when the file was burned, when it was last edited, and to what disc it was burned - now that's i ovation, boys and girls.

However, today is the last day Disco can be had for the introductory price of $14.95. While you can purchase at this price straight from Disco's site, macZOT is ru ing one of their zany deals where three lucky buyers will win a Lacie DL DVD Burner with LightScribe, and some sort of a bonus is included with every purchase. You'd better hurry though: as of this writing you have just under 14 hours to hop on the Disco + macZOT bandwagon, and after today, Disco's price rises to $24.95.

Disgruntled MacBook owners organising cla action suit

A leI ider has a story about a group of Mac users who have had enough of their faulty MacBooks, and they're not going to take it anymore. The group has set up a page at Cla Action.com and is looking for su ort to force A le into a recall of the company's newest co umer notebook. A leI ider also points to macbookrandomshutdown.com, a site dedicated to R (random shutdown syndrome) that already has over 1,250 reports of afflicted lapto .

This shouldn't be much of a surprise. There have been reports of random MacBook shutdow for months, and A le even co ed to the problem last month, but there's not been much movement since then.

I didn't sign up at either of the petitioning sites, but I could have. I bought my fiancee a MacBook about a month after they were released and within a week it was shutting down at will. We were lucky, though. We made an a ointment at A le's main store in London and after the Genius witne ed two shutdow in as many minutes, he said he'd give us a brand new MacBook. Things have been OK so far.

Are any of you still suffering with the same problem? How has A le handled your complaints? Sound off in comments.

iClip 4 beta released to MacHeist customers

Customers of the MacHeist bundle should be receiving an email offering a download link for the new iClip 4 beta that was promised. This is a new version that John Casasanta is a arently just about ready to release next week at the Macworld expo, and users are encouraged to help track down bugs and submit them to a bug reporting link provided in the MacHeist email.

I can't help but wonder if Kevin Finisterre and "LMH" are getting their hands on a copy so they can se ationalize any bugs they find.

Di ey releases Toontown for Mac OS X

Joystiq is reporting that Di ey has released a Mac version of Toontown, an MMO cartoon game where users can create cartoon characters, join quests to save Toontown, race carts and even hurl wedding cakes at each other. The game seems to be fairly succe ful so far, as over 15 million Windows users have already been busy doing the online cartoon character thing. The Mac version is a Universal Binary so everyone on our side of the fence can play along, and the monthly su cription fee is $9.95. Of course a free, though short, three-day trial is available as well.

Thanks Barb!

JVC a ounces 'Made for iPod' gear

JVC has a ounced a number of new products that are 'Made for iPod.' If you recall, A le has a program called 'Made for iPod,' which manufacturers can enter by paying a percentage of their profits on the item to A le. In return they get A le's stamp of a roval.

Amongst JVC's offers is the JVC NX- 1 (pictured above), which JVC is marketing as a desktop audio system with a $249.95 pricetag. The three cubes in the front (2 eakers and the main unit) measure 4 inches, whilst the subwoofer clocks in at 9 inches. The NX- 1 will be able to play music from your iPod, and it can be co ected to your computer or a flash based MP3 player (it'll also play WMAs, but who uses those?).

Also coming from JVC is the UX-EP25 ($199.95), a CD system that'll co ect to your iPod, and an iPod clockradio by the name of the RA-P10 ($129.95). Finally, the RC-EZ38 ($99.95) is a boombox that'll let you take your tunes on the go.

[via Engadget]

Mindjet ma best San Francisco to-dos

OK, I'll confe : I really wish I could go to Macworld Expo next week. Since I'm in the unfortunate 40% of TUAW bloggers who aren't making the western swing, the most important question for me is "How can I live vicariously through my colleagues, and help them make the best choices about where to eat, things to see and places to go?"

The folks at Mindjet (makers of mind ma ing a lication MindManager Mac 6) feel my pain. The Mindjet blog, celebrating the company's first a earance at the Expo, is featuring a mindmap San Francisco-style covered with suggested dining, tourist activities and local intelligence. You can send in your suggestio as well and po ibly win a copy of the MindManager a lication.

Here's my dining suggestion: if the weather holds up, take the F streetcar down to the Ferry Terminal Market for lunch. Back in August (at WWDC) it was the best place to take in the view and some excellent sushi; might be too chilly in January to sit outside, but you never know.

[via Macworld]

Altec video screen kind of mi es the point

The video iPod is tiny. Tiny and more than a bit hard to watch. So when Altec introduces a "high resolution" LCD di lay to magnify the iPod video, I pay attention... until I find out that the $350 iMV712 screen is just 8.5 inches (one presumes diagonally) big and designed for no ortability.

That's a great sized screen for, say, airplane travel, but you can't carry a huge boom box like this onto a plane, let alone plug it in. For at-home or in-office playback you need to co ider a much larger di lay. For on-the-go playback you want a much smaller form factor--one that doe 't need to be plugged in. Maybe they thought this would be a good bedside night-stand acce ory? If so, it's a pretty darned big one with those integrated eakers.

A le and Sony launch 12 city XDCAM tour

Sony is releasing some free software that will allow Final Cut Pro to su ort native XDCAM HD editing (which sounds impre ive, though I am not video guru).

A le and Sony are hosting a series of seminars to read the word about this, so RSVP (if you're city is on the list that is).

First review of the... iPhone?

Some people have all the luck. The folks over at Evil Mad Scientist La got their hands on an iPhone. They didn't keep the goodne all to themselves though, they reviewed it so that the ma es could have a little of the enjoyment. They like the screen, but are a little disa ointed in the color saturation. iCal works like a charm, but writing in cursive with your finger tip is deceptively difficult.Finally, the iPhone seemingly orts A le's old logo, which adds a little retro-chic to the device.Thanks, Windell....

MacBook Final Cut Studio benchmarks

While some of us are content taking A le's word that the MacBook i 't so good for Final Cut Pro, the people at Creative Mac decided to do some testing. They pitted a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, and a dual G5 PowerMac (2.0 Ghz), all with 2 gigs of RAM, in a Final Cut Studio showdown.

The results? Both MacBooks pretty much ank (yes, that's the technical term) the G5. It looks like the MacBook is a pretty good video editing machine (even though it i 't su orted).

iTunes to sell Sundance films

M movies reports that under a new deal, iTunes will sell many of the short films premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. The films will also be available via streaming at the Sundance we ite. The article says this deal is nonexclusive so filmmakers will be able to make their own deals with distributors.

I tend to find Sundance shorts tedious and a bit self indulgent, but there are always some gems to be found among them. Unfortunately, this deal does not include the full length features from the festival. The festival takes place between the 18th and 28th of this month in Park City, Utah.

Preliminary fourth quarter results from A le

I'm sure you haven't forgotten that today is A le's 4th quarter earnings call. In anticipation A le has released preliminary fourth quarter results. Why are these results so preliminary? Because of a certain stock optio i ue that is going to force A le to restate some historical financial results which will, in turn, have an impact on these results.

Onto the numbers:

• A le posted a revenue of $4.84 billion and a net quarterly profit of $546 million ($.62 per diluted share)
• Gro margin was 29.2%, up from 28.1%
• International sales accounted for 40% of this revenue
• 1,610,000 Macs were shi ed this quarter (30% growth in Mac shipments)
  
• 8,729,000 iPods were shi ed (35% growth in iPod shipments)
• A le has over $10 billion in cash
• expects revenue of $6 to $6.2 billion for first quarter 2007

Not too sha y, and a 30% increase in Mac shipments? That's a pretty big deal, folks.

TUAW Best of the Week

Time, it rushes by so quickly. And sometimes you just don't have time to read the entire TUAW feed. So once again, we bring you our favorite posts of the week, so if you weren't able to catch them the first time 'round, you'll have some good reading for the weekend. Enjoy! C and R feature iPhone humorThe new iPhone. It does everything. It's a phone. It's an iPod. It's a...sonogram?Reverting your iPod back to 1.2 from 1.2.1Sometimes you've got to move back in order to go forward with a more stable i tallation.Did Cisco lose its right to iPhone trademark last year?Sla ing the word "iPhone" onto an already existing shrinkwra ed box? Not a really great defe e of "use" in our opinion.Scree hots of Office 2008 for MacNice fresh hot Office screen shots. Get 'em while they're hot.Actiontastic 0.9 raises GTD bar with iCal syncingWhy wait for OmniFocus when Actiontastic does iCal synching today?iPod + Nike Di ected t. It's a simple piezoelectric switch i ide. It's a bit le sophisticated than Mat...

iTunes to allow video burning soon?

I used the question mark because nothing is set in stone here, but TUAW reader A -CA ti ed us off to a report at the DVD Newsroom that Hollywood might actually be close to lifting some of their over-the-top restrictio on DVD burning. This slightly loosened grip on their content could allow for things like DVD burning kiosks (it better be a darn fast burner), and it could also give the green light to vendors like the iTunes Music Store to allow burning of purchased videos.

The panel in charge of making and (finally) rewriting these rules is called the DVD Copy Control A ociation, according to DVD Newsroom. This DVDCCA is currently working on lice ing the encryption technology (Content Scrambling System, or: C - nothing to do with web design) to digital distribution services, which is the key to allowing video burning.

No ETA is offered on when these rewritten rules could see the light of day, or when video burning could arrive in the iTMS. If Hollywood's reaction times of the past are any indication (and I genuinely hope they aren't), however, we might all be using 7th or 8th gen iPods before we can watch iTMS video on something besides A le-branded devices.

Keynote Video Today...

A le has posted a placeholder page, noting that the WWDC 2005 Keynote "will be available for viewing today".

The page also informs us: "WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) is A les most important a ual event for hardware and software developers to receive in-depth information and i truction from A le's technical architects and engineers."

Get ready to click reload o e ively and bring their servers to a screeching halt. ;-)

Toon Boom Storyboard

Toon Boom, the animation software powerhouse, has added another a lication to their line up. Toon Boom Storyboard is an a lication that makes storyboarding a breeze (imagine that!). The a lication features drawing tools (which can be used with a Wacom tablet) as well as the ability to export your completed storyboard into a variety of formats.

It is a Universal Binary but a price has not been set yet. If you are interested you must contact Toon Boom's sales department.

How To: Freeze Finder

Want to lock up OS X? Of course you do! When friends with Windows complain that Macs don't have all the features of PC's, you can whip out this little trick to show then that, yes, OS X can lock up just as tight as Windoze. How? You'll need two Macs: one can be any kind of Mac, the other has to be a laptop (also a Mac).

First, mount a network volume onto the laptop any way you like. I have a Mac mini in the den we use as a file server (amongst other things). I mount one big honkin' U drive on all our lapto (three iBooks, a Macbook Pro, and a Macbook) and use it as our Backup.a drive. Next, close the laptop. This puts it to sleep, and "freezes" the state of the machine. Step three involves driving/biking/ru ing as far away from your home network as po ible. For this to really work, you'll want to get near another WiFi network. Now here's the tricky part. Upon opening the laptop, quickly navigate to the Finder and open a new window. Anything to acce the Finder, e entially, and prompt it to start looking for that (now mi ing) network volume. During this, the Mac will be scouring the airwaves for a new signal. Upon finding one, it'll ask to join. Say yes, and if you've got your Airport strength in your menu bar, you'll see the name of the network start to scroll acro . For me, that's where the party ends.

I've tried this on all flavors of Tiger, on a G3, G4, and Intel-based laptop, and it all does the same thing: rai ow wheel and lock up. Once I left my G4 iBook on for 4 hours, and Finder never recovered. No key combos will return sanity, just a floating wheel, with no other re o e from the OS. Not even CPU gauges update! The only solution is to hold down the power key and reboot. Who says PC users get all the fun? You'd think with UNIX being built for networking...

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Dyslexic co get iPod accommodation

Dyslexic police officers in Liverpool, England will soon be given iPods as training aids. Student police in training cla es will use the iPods to view images of road sig and listen to 900+ hours of material from the police force's official training manual.

900+ hours!!??

According to my calculatio , this should take the dyslexic police cadets 22 weeks or more to listen to. This a umes they do nothing else during their 8-hour shifts although I su ose you could continue listening to lectures during potty breaks.

A police okesman described the training-with-iPod scheme as "really worthwhile as it accommodates the needs of those officers with hidden disabilities such as dyslexia who would find it difficult to digest such a vast amount of information in written format."

I may be way off base here, but I can't imagine listening to, let alone digesting, 900+ hours worth of training material, dyslexia or no.

ecial ell check thanks to Jon Grimshaw

Oxygen deprivation and iPod hatred

Climbing the tallest mountain on earth is no small feat, and is certainly something to be proud of, but it's not without its risk most of which stem from the extremely low Oxygen content in the air in "The Death Zone" above 22,000 ft. Unfortunately, it seems that Neal Muller, a grad student at UPe 's Wharton School succumbed to this lack of O2 and lost some brain cells on the way down. Muller whines in a Washington Post article that he was unable to triumphantly mount the top of the world to to soundtrack of Van Halen, because his iPod died during the climb. Now, my first reaction to this is utter eechle e , followed by anger and depre ion about the state of the human race. I won't addre Muller's arguments here, as Dan over at Mac User has done a tremendous job of that, but I will outline some of his arguments and their flaws.

• Muller complai that the hard drive failed; almost 20,000ft above its designed maximum operating altitude, and likely 50 degrees below its minimum operating temperature.
• He complai that because the iPod doe 't use an "open co ection standard," it suffers from a lack of acce orie I su ose that just over 3000 iPod ecific acce ories i 't really that much compared with... wait... no, thats actually a lot.
• Argues that the iPod is a "flash-in-the-pan": I gue 85% market share and 5 years of growth don't count for much.
  

In addition to contradicting with evidence every single one of this moro arguments, Dan poses a really great questio what the hell was this guy doing listening to his iPod on Everest? When you're doing something which kills as many people as summiting Everest does, you should probably be paying attention to your surroundings i tead of worrying about how many stars to give the currently playing track.

It's really sad to see that some people really are so stupid as to make these kinds of arguments, and disa ointing that the WP would post such drivel. In any case, check it out, if only to laugh at this guys utter cluele -ne .

An Experimental Cla ic Environment for Intel Macs

One ofdisadvantages with A le's migration to Intel proce ors will be the lo of the Cla ic (Mac OS 9) environment. A lehas said many times that the Cla ic environment will be incompatible with their Intel Macs. While this probably won'tbe a problem for many users, organizatio like schools (who may have limited money to upgrade their sofware) willlikely encounter a few situatio where their new Intel Macs need a Cla ic environment to run a few a licatio .

Enter Shee haver, an open source PowerPC runtime environment capable of ru ing PowerPC Mac OS 9 a licatio .The developer has relased an experimental version ofShee haver compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.4 for Intel Macs.

A le may have dro ed su ort for Mac OS7.x Mac OS 9.x a licatio with their move to Intel, but the open source community has provided us with adecent solution. When my Intel iMac finally arrives, I'll give this a whirl. Maybe C.K. can check it out in themeantime.

How the iPod was really born

Wired News puts all the misinformation to rest about how the iPod entered the world with the Straight Dope on the iPod's Birth. It's an interesting read for those of you who may not know the full story. I ired by a tiny 1.8-inch hard drive that Toshiba had no pla for and the desire coax people into buying more Macs, a digital music dynasty was born.

Bonus tidbit: We have everyone's favorite marketing honcho, Phil Schiller, to thank for the iPod's signature scroll wheel and the more distinguishable feature that makes the iPod's menus scroll faster the longer the wheel is turned. And the name iPod? It actually came from an earlier Internet kiosk project that A le had already abandoned but still held the registered name for.

In case you needed reminding, the iPod's 5th birthday is coming up next week, which explai why the Mac web is paying even more attention to the iPod than usual.

OWC and Axiotron a ounce the ModBook, a Mac-based tablet computer

Steve Jo as fashion model

There's nothing new about celebrities creating fashion trends. Ashton Kutcher and his trucker hats. Mado a in the 80's. But how does this ha en with a guy who wears the same outfit every time he a ears in public?

Well, the folks at Uncrate have noticed that Steve Jo seems to like New Balance 991 eakers, as he was wearing them at the D: All Things Digital conference this year. Uncrate advertises the eakers by saying, "Some people buy shoes because their favorite orts star (i.e. Michael Jordan) wears them. We here at Uncrate are a little more geeky than that. We buy our eakers, the New Balance 991 ($99), because our favorite chief executive officer wears them %26mdash; A le and Pixar bo Steve Jo . If they're good enough for a billionaire, then they're surely good enough for us losers."

I think The Gap is really mi ing out on a turtleneck marketing campaign.

[via Cult of Mac weblog]

A le recycling program begi

We wrote about A le's recycling program when it was first a ounced, and now it is in full effect, yo. All you have to do is buy a new Mac and then you can participate in the program. You either get an email (if you purchased your Mac from the online A le store), or you'll get asked if you want to participate at the store. You'll then get an email with i tructio . Pack up your old computer (Mac or PC), take it to a FedEx location (with that email you got) and that is all!

Tom Yager reviews the new Xserve

The Xserve, the jewel in A le's enterprise crown. We all know that A le mi ed their target ship date, but that's ok if you believe what Tom Yager is saying. His two part review (part one, part two) paints a picture of a near perfect 1U server that is more than capable of handling most jo . Tom does warn that if you are just looking at the list of parts that make up the Xserve you won't see the full picture. As with all Macs the Xserve is more than its components, it is also the software that is ru ing on it. All Xserves come with Mac OS X Server 10.4 Unlimited-Client Edition at no extra cost, and once you power it on this thing is ready to go.

Now, Tom mentio that this i 't a perfect server and if you're looking only at numbers you can build on for yourself at a cheaper price, but you'll be mi ing out on all the nice touches: the OS, the mix and match hard drives, the large number of Firewire and U ports, and so much more.

A le should offer option of .Mac as separate services

A le's .Mac service has been quite the coffee talk discu ion topic throughout the Mac web since as long as I can remember. We've even covered the service's slow death, some ways it could really hit a home run and even some things .Mac gets right, just to be fair. However, as I was paying for a renewal at the A le Store yesterday, I realized .Mac could benefit significantly if A le were to offer the option of purchasing its three major components a la carte. Let's face it, there are a lot of users out there who would love certain components of .Mac, but don't want to pay the premium A le is charging for the full package. Following is a summarized breakdown of where I believe A le could separate or bundle their .Mac services to to make them much more a ealing to a far wider audience.

< an style="font-weight: bold;">iDisk
Besides some of its shortcomings (such as the occasional slow syncing), the iDisk is arguably one of the coolest features of .Mac. Yes, there is a great selection of services out there that offer more ace for free, but the iDisk's unique ability to (now this is the clincher) automatically sync in the background as o osed to clunky file upload dialogs - with no user interaction needed - is where it truly shines. It's an automated file syncing and backup system that I believe could stand on its own easily for anywhere from $30/year to maybe even $50 (though at $50, I too would echo the requests for a tad more ace). This feature is also a source of criticism from power users, however, who are quick to point out that they can build a 200GB syncing WebDAV disk with their own hosting for $0.15/decade. The thing we all have to remember is: the iDisk i 't exactly aimed at the 1337 h4x0r amongst us. I have my own hosting at DreamHost and I've used a WebDAV drive too - there's just a few key ways the iDisk shines above the rest, and those features can be key to many of us, 1337 or otherwise.

< an style="font-weight: bold;">A lication Sycing
One of the other killer .Mac features of which there are few competitors (aside from examples like Plaxo for contacts) is a lication syncing. This is made even cooler with 10.4 Tiger because of the open Syncing Services platform for third parties, so everything from Yojimbo to Tra mit and more can get in on the fun. I frequently see this feature alone cited by everyone from John Doe bloggers to developers themselves as the *one* reason they hang on to their .Mac account - so why not in it off and potentially beef it up? I bet A le could ag at least $30/year for this service alone, and after litting .Mac up (and marketing the heck out of the new darling), I'm sure the .Mac service and its su ort from 3rd parties would receive their own significant boosts from users and the developer community, causing both the iDisk and A lication Syncing to gain extra value.

< an style="font-weight: bold;">Hosting and email
These features probably ride backseat to the two I've already mentioned, primarily because hosting and email are so easy and cheap to come by these days. I also bundled these two since that's more or le the standard now. But Dave Caolo already touched on how .Mac could really shine here - by offering killer we ite building features both online and offline. iWeb 1.0 was a nice effort, but by giving 2.0 a big upgrade at Macworld 07 and infusing Homepage with some real web 2.0 power, A le could finally have a chance of at least stacking up alongside the free competition.

The other half of this optional .Mac service is webmail, set to receive a promising refresh which could help boost their reputation and draw as a web services leader. After all, how much does it suck to send someone to such an ugly URL as http://something.googlepages.com/? By contrast, mac.com/steve is clean, short and simple (of course, this would require the .Mac team to remove the silly 'web' prefix of .Mac URLs - hint hint), while an @mac.com addre admittedly comes with a coolne factor of its own.

All of this web functionality already comes with well-integrated desktop tools, and if storage ace would rise to meet the re ectable 10GB/month bandwidth limit for regular accounts, I'm betting A le could ag another $30-50 for this bundled service.

< an style="font-weight: bold;">Putting it all together
There you have it - my simple plan that could allow A le to offer their 'take it all or leave it' .Mac service in profitable (hopefully) and bite-sized portio for users with ecific needs. On the low end my pricing mea .Mac would cost $90 (hey, a price drop couldn't hurt), but on the high end A le could still sell their all-in-one bundled package, claiming it's a 'more than $X value!' for their nice round $99.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go wait for my call from A le's busine strategies department while you get your coffee talk on.

A le extends WWDC early registration to July 7

An ADC email just arrived a ouncing A le's exte ion of the WWDC early registration deadline to July 7. This email also features John Pe II, Senior/Lead Computer Scientist for Adobe Photoshop - at least now you know one of the guys who's re o ible for making [i ert idolized star here] look so good in that lifetime tabloid su cription you have. Better yet, if you're a code nerd, maybe you can go learn a thing or two from Mr. Pe II since you can still save $300 on an early registration.

MacBook Pro: Inco istent backlight, hi ing LCD [Updated x3]

I'malmost done with my a wer-your-questio MacBook Pro review. But before I post that, I thought it was a ropriate toinform you of what a ear to be Rev. A glitches in most MacBook Pro models I've tested:

The bottom of theLCD is noticeably brighter than the rest of the di lay, with a tra lucent white stripe (no affiliation to the band)stretching from one end to the other. Also, at the back of the bottom of the di lay (near the vent area) there seemsto be a high-pitched hi ing noise, presumably (?) emanating from the LCD (as the sound is co istent from one end ofthe lid to the other).

Everyone I oke with who bought one of these new lapto also has these problems,and so did all the MacBook Pros at my local A le Store.

Reader i ut time: If you have one of thesesuckers, are you experiencing the same LCD-inco istency/hi y noise problems?

Click on to see a semi-poorquality image of the problem.

Update: Reader Paul makes an interesting o ervation: Thehigh-pitched hi ing noise, de ite the co istent volume around the edge of the machine, seems to be coming from underthe keyboard. And when the hard drive i up to perform a task, it sto . I'm still testing this, but if theo ervation is apt then that would mean the noise is hard drive-related, and not the LCD as originally thought.

Update 2: OK, this just gets more thrilling: A hardware guru tells me thatthe hard drive is in the front-left of the machine, not the back by the noise, which mea this is probably not a harddrive i ue and could very well be the fan. Or the GPU. Or the CPU. Or even the eakers. Anyone else with anytechnical i ights?

Update 3: Well, for me (and probably for most of you, too), the noiseproblem is the proce or: I i talled A le's CHUD tools (located on the included OS X disk with the Xcode i taller)and found in the new Proce or preference pane that when I disabled the Core Duo's second core, the high-pitchedhi ing noise went away. A troubling problem, for sure, but if the noise is really that bad for you, you could alwaysenable the Proce or menu item and just turn off the second core when you don't need it.

See the brightne towards the bottom?

Airport Update 2006-002 now out

Many owners of MacBooks and MacBook Pros (MacBooks Pro?) have been suffering with wirele co ection problems, particularly when co ecting to networks using the WPA security standard and third-party acce points. In our own office WLAN, we've had DHCP and authentication i ues with the Intel lapto on a WPA/Cisco network, while older G4 lapto co ect effortle ly -- and, for what it's worth, the M co ect ha ily to an older WEP/Airport network. To point the finger firmly at a software or driver i ue, the same M that have troubles co ecting to the WPA network when booted in OS X have nary a problem linking up when ru ing in Windows XP via Boot Camp (a troubleshooting technique I never dreamed I'd use, but there it is).

For software problems, we look for software solutio , and A le's update for Airport in the Core 2 Duo lapto might just help. We hope. Details on the update are thin for now but I'll test this on an M and see what, if any, improvements result.

[via Mac ]

Rig of the Day: HDTV via a Mac mini

Another nice and tidy desk. TUAW must have the neatest readers ever. This desk is graced by a lovely Samsung HDTV, an Intel Mac mini, an A le Remote, a few external drives, and an XBox 360 (we'll forgive that one). Watching movie trailers using this rig must be nice indeed.

HDTV Setup by x5_850.

If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. We select one image to highlight each week day, and crown a Rig of the Week on Sundays.

AMP: Front Row-like Touchscreen Interface

In preparing our recent carputer post, I came acro AMP, the Front Row-like touchscreen interface Sam used for his car based Mac. Designed by author Aychamo with an exte ible plugin architecture AMP already has plugi allowing you to import and acce your iTunes library, movies, and photos. It even orts a mini-web browser and a war driving interface which lists detected Wirele Acce Points. The interface seems to be optimized for a 800 x 480 touchscreen di lay which is common on the 7" LCDs that are often used in carputers. Aychamo already a ears to be hard at work on version 2.0 of AMP and more information can be found on the AMP forum at MP3Car.com

Pukka 1.3

Everyone's favorite social bookmarking site, del.icio.us, is great and all, but is lacking when it comes to quickly bookmarking sites as you browse. That's where Pukka comes in. I tead of being taken to a page on the del.ico.us site, as one would if using the default bookmarklet, Pukka po up a sleek little interface on top of the page you want to bookmark, just as if you were bookmarking within your browser. Just enter a few tags, a description, and viola! Recently updated to version 1.3, Pukka now su orts private posting, so you can bookmark all those "questionable" sites without fear that your friends and family will see them and disown you. Release 1.3 also introduces full A leScript su ort. Pukka is available as a Universal Binary download from Code Sorcery Workshop.

[via Hawk Wings]

Folklore offers a podcast

Folklore.org is the great site created by original Macintosh team member Andy Hertzfeld. It's a pricele collection of stories from the very early days at A le as told by the Macintosh team. Derek Warren has launched Macintosh Folkore Radio, in which he reads stories of "...how the Macintosh came to be." You can su cribe to the podcast in iTunes here.

[Via Cult of Mac]

TUAW wants you

Do you have an i atiable thirst for Mac news? Are you opinionated (yet sane)? Does writing excite you as much as cool A le gear?

If you a wered yes to all of those questio then TUAW wants to hear from you! We're looking for a few good bloggers, and what better place to look than our great readers? If you are interested in the po ibility of writing for one of the best Mac sites out there (yes, I am still talking about TUAW) then send a bio and three sample posts (written in TUAW's style) to tuawrocks AT gmail.com. If we like what we see we'll get back to you as soon as po ible.

Oh, and yes this is a paying gig (man ca ot live on glowing comments alone).

TUAW Tip: Pair your A le Remote to your Mac

Now that almost every Mac (expect for that odd duck, the Power Mac) orts Front Row and an A le Remote many more people will find them in a situation I just experienced. I am typing this post on a brand new MacBook (I'll share my opinion about that later today) and I am listening to some music on my iMac through the magic of Front Row.

The song playing (Paint it Black) was a little too loud, so I picked up my trusty A le Remote and turned down the volume. Both the iMac and the MacBook picked up on the signal and the volume on both was adjusted. Oh, the horror!

There is a simple way around this though, just pair your Mac and your A le Remote following these i tructio . This way a prankish Mac user (I'm looking at you, Woz) can't go around putting your Mac to sleep with the remote and all the Macs in your room won't re ond to the same remote.

How A le geniuses find out about new A le products

I havebeen enjoying the 'Pure Genius' column over at Mac Geekery since they started ru ing, and the most recent column is no exception. If youhave ever wonder how much A le Store employees know about upcoming products wonder no more (the a wer is little tonothing). As always, mi ehaving customers figure into the column. Am I the only one that is fairly pleasant to A leStore Employees?

Go hug your local A le Genius, and tell 'em Scott sent ya.

iSquint, so you don't have to

iSquint wi my award for best new a lication name and icon. However, fictitious awards aside, iSquint is another little utility that has cro ed up to let people convert video to iPod friendly formats. It seems straight forward, and it even has an option to optimize the video for playback on your TV, which is nice.

All of this, and a great price to boot (it is free at the moment). What more could you ask for?

Boy, if you ask me this idea of videos on iPods is really going to take off. You read it here last.

Fifty percent of 2007 cars offer iPod integration

Two neat styles for Growl

I'm a big fan of Growl. If you have never heard of Growl it is a system wide notification framework that allows you to set up a number of different notificatio for a variety of things. It is one of those things that sounds lame but is very cool indeed (much like myself).

The default styles for the notificatio are nice, but somewhat lacking. Daniel Bergey agreed so he whi ed up two new styles. One that is very much in the style of OS X and the other that hearke back to simpler times: OS 9's notification system. Daniel does warn that the styles get a little flakey with long URL's, but TUAW readers are a forgiving lot.

2006 WWDC Keynote now available on A le.com

Go forth and stream the WWDC Stevenote, my good friends. It is now available in glorious QuickTime. Thrill as the Mac Pro is a ounced. Marvel as Mail is demoed. Swoon as Steven says 'Boom.'

Thanks, Kurt.

Flickr Find: Scree hots of Dashcode?

TUAW reader Gle has sent us a link to these pictures that purport to be A le's Dashcode. What's Dashcode? The rumored Widget development a lication that many say A le is working on. If these scree hots are legit it would seem that Dashcode is almost ready for prime time.

Follow-up on the iFrogz Tadpole iPod case for kids

iFrogz finally has the Tadpole page and pics up and now that I see it it's even cooler than I'd expected! I'm impre ed by the design and the intent and as an added bonus the Tadpole comes with the "Screenz" protective film for the front so the screen and clickwheel are covered as well. Screenz include your choice of stock or custom decals that tattoo the click-wheel, allowing you to to personalize the Tadpole any way you see fit with your own images.

You can pre-order the Tadpole now for $20 ($5 off the regular price) and it's expected to ship on Nov 1. Unfortunately for my darling niece it currently comes in only orange and purple... not a pink Tadpole in sight :(

Burning Monkey Solitaire 4

I love the Mac as much as I do for many reaso , but great indie developers like Freeverse are certainly near the top of those reaso . Today Freeverse has unleashed (from a cage, no doubt) Burning Monkey Solitaire 4. This update to their venerable solitaire program offers a bevy of improvements, including:

• Su ort for Intel and C Macs
• Now playable in Widescreen
• a new OpenGL engine
• More monkey

Burning Monkey Solitaire 4 will set you back $24.95, but it is a free upgrade for all registered owners of previous versio . You'll need at least 64MB of RAM and OS X 10.3.9 to get in on the monkey love.

A letter from A le Camp

I wrote about A le Camp, the program that A le ru in its stores to teach kids the finer points of Macs, a few months ago. Now, I don't have any children so there is very little chance that I would end up at A le Camp (and if I did it would be a little creepy), however, Peter Cohen of Macworld does have children and they wanted to go A le Camp.

Read all about Peter's experience there (the short version: the kids liked it, and the parents bought stuff) and maybe it'll be enough to convince you to sign your kids up. Plus, I am sure you could use a new MacBook Pro.

Macfuse: FUSE File System for the Mac

This one is for the real Mac geeks out there. Amit Singh, author or Mac OS X Internals: A Systems A roach, is widely recognized as an %26uuml er Mac-geek and po ibly the person outside of A le that knows the most about Mac OS X. He is now employed by Google as their Mac Engineering Manager. As he just a ounced on the Official Google Mac Blog, he used part of his "20 percent time" to implement the "FUSE (File System in User ace) mechanism" for OS X (it was originally developed for Linux). He explai , "FUSE makes it po ible to implement a very functional file system in a normal program rather than requiring a complex addition to the operating system." He links to the FUSE project wiki listing of a licatio . While this won't have an immediate impact on most of us users, it has a lot of potential. As pointed out on MacSlash this may eventually bring full read/write su ort for Windows NTFS formatted disks to OS X (Mac OS X can read, but not write to, NTFS disks) or even "filesystems which run over h and gmail."

[Via the Official Google Mac Blog]

How many iPods is too many?

You may think it's strange that I own eight iPods, but this M C story tells me I'm not alone in thinking that there's no such thing as "too many iPods."

As the story points out, different iPods are better suited for different purposes - much like shoes.

My iPod (video) is more useful to me as a portable, digital photo album and video device, as well as for backup of my whole iTunes library, but le useful for every day music listening since it's bulkier than my iPod nano. While my iPod shuffle is better suited for the gym and my iPod photo is best for road tri since most of my car acce ories work with it. What do I do with the rest of my iPods? I received my Crystalmini as a gift, and it only leaves the house for ecial occasio . My original 5GB iPod has a 20hr battery in it, but the scrollwheel is a bit wonky so it doe 't get much use. My 20GB 3rd Gen iPod never brought me much joy and it now used mostly as a portable hard drive. My other iPod shuffle is now on permanent loan to hu y. And honestly, other iPods come and go all the time. When a new iPod comes out, I buy it and try it out and yes - even take it apart. I have to. It's my job to know what's i ide so I can better su ort them when my clients buy them.

But enough about my own iPod menagerie... as iPods become more and more < an cla ="hw">ubiquitous, I bet many of you have more than one and probably have even more of them in your future. So tell me, how many iPods do you currently have, and what are you using them for?

Finally - a tool for exporting Addre Book to Thunderbird (and Gmail)

A wering the prayers of potential Thunderbird switchers everywhere, a wonderful and as-yet u amed individual hasput together a web-based vCard-to-CSV Converter for easily movingyour contacts from Addre Book into either Thunderbird or Gmail. The interface and proce are both convenientlysimple: export your desired group in Addre Book (File > Export vCard) and feed it into this tool. You have three conversion optio : LDIF (which isThunderbird-friendly), CSV and Gmail CSV.

After discovering the joys of Gmail (but not removing Mail.a from my Dock just yet) I'm not that interested in Thunderbird, but I fired it up just to verify that this conversionand import proce is the first I've seen to truly work without a single hangup. The new LDIF file imports just fineinto Thunderbird, and you won't even have to remap any fields.

[via Hawk Wings]

TUAW Best of the Week

Good news: The number of posts at TUAW has been going up. Bad news: You might have mi ed a few gems in all the rush. Better news: Here's our picks for the best of the week, so you can enjoy and savor some of our favorite posts-gone-by.

TUAW Tip: How to submit a bug to A le
A le's Bug Reporter we ite generates trouble tickets for user-reported bugs.

Screencast shows off Parallels' new tricks
Discover "coherence" mode and a bunch of other neat new features.

What kind of iPod should you buy?
A good old basic rundown of the iPod facts for first time buyers.

Belkin Cable-Free U Hub available for purchase this month
All the U co ection. None of the U cables. Nifty!

iPod ShuffleBud U adapter for 2nd gen iPod shuffle
A solution so simple, it should have shi ed in the box.

iTunes: Free Tuesday
There are still a few days left to get in on these freebies.

Found Footage: C C says iPhone 2.0 to be released
The iPhone 1.0 i 't here yet. So get caught up with the latest 2.0 news.

A le posts Vista FAQ
The FAQ is new but shows A le's commitment to QuickTime and iTunes su ort for Vista.

DarwiinRemote
Use your wii remote with your Mac. Yatta!

Telestream releases "Episode"
High end video proce ing for the Mac.

doPi Karaoke + iPod + alcohol = trouble
Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl...

DIY iPod mini/nano dock with K'Nex
Is there nothing you ca ot build with K'Nex?

Huckleberry tur your iSight world around
Turn your iSight into a video scope.

Where's your Dock?
Cool dock tricks.

Run Cla ic on an Intel Mac

We have covered Shee haver before here on TUAW, the PowerPC emulator that makes ru ing Cla ic a po ibility on Intel Macs so, but we just pointed out that it exists. The good folks at UNEASYsilence have gone through the trouble of putting together a tutorial on how to get Cla ic up and ru ing on your Intel Mac using Shee haver.

Check it out if you still need a Cla ic a or two, but you crave the eed of the latest and greatest Mac hardware.