THIS WEEK AT MacsWest
• MONDAY June 29
Nothing Scheduled
• TUESDAY June 30
Nothing Scheduled
• WEDNESDAY July 1
Nothing Scheduled
• THURSDAY July 2
Nothing Scheduled
• FRIDAY July 3
1:00 PM Ice Cream Social
• SATURDAY July 4
Nothing Scheduled
We now have Ed Zacho's presentation of "Using Apple's iDVD Application" on the MacsWest's web site.
CNBC: Steve Jobs is back at Apple
He’s back. According to CNBC’s Jim Goldman, at least two Apple (AAPL) employees have told him they saw Steve Jobs at the company’s Cupertino, Calif. campus on Monday. Jobs took a medical leave in January to deal with what he initially described as a hormonal imbalance, but which was apparently serious enough to require a liver transplant. For nearly six months, Apple spokespeople would say only that they looked forward to their chief executive returning to Apple before the end of June. He seems to have made it back to 1 Infinite Loop with more than eight days to spare. n: justify; font: 12.0px Arial;">Jobs was quoted early Monday in a press release announcing the sale of more than 1 million iPhone 3GSs. It was his first public statement since Jan. 21. That press release also signaled a typographical change in the name of the new iPhone — from 3G S to 3GS — a small but welcome improvement in which some Apple watchers thought they saw the master micromanager’s hand. It’s not clear yet whether Jobs’ appearance Monday was a one-time thing or if he is planning to come back to work full time. Apple has not yet returned a request for comment or confirmation.
Apple sees 11 million downloads of Safari 4 in three days
By Sam Oliver AppleInsider
Published: 08:35 AM EST
Apple said Friday that more than 11 million copies of its new Safari 4 web browser have been downloaded in the first three days of its release, including more than six million downloads by users of Microsoft's Windows operating systems.
Introduced Monday following a multi-month public beta test, Apple bills Safari 4 as "the world's fastest, most innovative browser," saying its new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3. The Cupertino, Calif-based company's test also show it to load HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3.
"Safari 4 is an incredible success on Mac and Windows with more than 11 million downloads in the first three days," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Safari users love the incredible speed and innovative features like Top Sites, Full History Search and Cover Flow."
Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies and showcases support for advanced CSS Effects, enabling an entirely new class of web applications that feature rich media, graphics and fonts. The Apple browser is also the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.
With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard this September, Safari will run as a 64-bit application, boosting the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent, Apple claims.
The new operating system will also make Safari more resistant to crashes by running plug-ins in a separate process, so even if a plug-in crashes, the browser continues to run and the user simply has to reload the affected page. Safari running on Snow Leopard also delivers HTTP streaming, making it easy to deliver high-quality audio and video in industry standard formats from any web server without the need for browser plug-ins.
Safari 4 is available for both Mac OS X and Windows as a free download at Apple's Safari website.
Apple's updated white 13-inch MacBook
It now sports a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo processor
By James Galbraith Computerworld
June 5, 2009 07:33 PM ET
Macworld - If price plays a greater role in a shopper's buying decisions during tough economic times, Apple's recent updates to its entry-level laptop, the $999 white MacBook, should help push some cost-conscious consumers over the laptop-buying fence.
As the least expensive laptop in Apple's MacBook family, the white MacBook is popular in the education market and with consumers looking for a lower cost Mac experience. While keeping the same sub-$1,000 price tag and the same white polycarbonate shell, Apple quietly bumped the speed of the laptop's Core 2 Duo processors from 2GHz to 2.13GHz and increased the hard drive capacity from 120GB to 160GB. The white MacBook now uses faster 800MHz DDR2 memory than its last iteration, which used 667MHz DDR2 RAM. These updates amount to not only a better performing entry-level MacBook, but also a system that's faster than the 2.0GHz aluminum unibody MacBook that Apple sells for $300 more.
Aside from the outward appearance and price, these updates to the white MacBook bring its specs up to the same level as the aluminum MacBook. Both systems have Core 2 Duo processors with 3MB of shared L2 cache. They both include 8x DVD-burning SuperDrives, 160GB hard drives, and 2GB of RAM. They both have glossy 13.3-inch LCD displays (a non-glare option is no longer available for the white MacBook) and both have 1066MHz system buses and use Nvidia GeForce9400M graphics.
Apple Pricing Snow Leopard To Sell
The new version boasts better performance and a number of enhancements. Most notably, Apple is offering individual Snow Leopard licenses for $29.
By Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek
June 9, 2009
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217800169
With Microsoft Windows 7 in its rearview mirror, Apple is making Snow Leopard an inexpensive operating system upgrade for Mac users.
Philip Schiller, senior VP of worldwide marketing, told attendees at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco Monday that for $29 they can upgrade from the current Mac OS X, Leopard. The new version boasts better performance and a number of enhancements, most notably delivery of a full 64-bit kernel. Apple also is offering a "family pack" of up to five Snow Leopard licenses for $49.
Schiller also announced September availability of the new OS, a month before Microsoft releases Windows 7. Analysts have been impressed with Microsoft's follow-up to Windows Vista and say Windows 7 is likely to present the greatest challenge to Mac OS X.
In taking a dig at Snow Leopard's rival, Bertrand Serlet, senior VP of Mac OS X for Apple, tried to link Windows 7 to its much maligned predecessor Vista. "Underlying Windows 7, you still have the old technologies [of Vista]," he said.
However, analysts and reviewers say Windows 7 is actually a big improvement over Vista, and offers a user interface that's comparable in ease of use to Mac OS X. If Windows 7 proves popular with consumers, then it could convince many people not to switch to a Mac.
Much of Snow Leopard's performance boost can be attributed to the move to a 64-bit kernel, which offers support for a virtually unlimited amount of system memory. In addition, applications written for the new architecture will run faster. Apple's own applications will run natively on the 64-bit Snow Leopard.
Other enhancements include an Apple technology called Grand Central Dispatch, which makes it possible to schedule processes across all available CPU cores in parallel. Such a feature is important with the use of Intel's multicore processors in Macs.
Apple also is making OpenCL available to allow developers to tap into the processing power of graphics processors when they're lying idle. OpenCL, or Open Computing Language, is a framework for writing programs that execute across CPUs, graphics chips, and other processors.
Other improvements in Snow Leopard include support for Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft's messaging software, and the introduction of QuickTime X, Apple's next-generation platform for running video and other media content.
Support for Exchange makes Snow Leopard friendlier to businesses. While its unlikely companies will toss Windows PCs in favor of Mac, Exchange support will be a major plus for employees who prefer MacBooks.
Bill Turvin showed many of the useful web resources that he uses, and also hosted the Q&A segment. Thanks Bill!
At Friday's Grab Bag presentation, Bruce Merrihew demonstrated many of the great new features in Apple’s just released Safari 4 Web Browser. He also hosted the Q&A segment.
At Friday's Grab Bag presentation, Doris Turner, demonstrated some features in the Apple “Mail” application and at an earlier presentation Doris explained and demonstrated Mac Computer Maintenance.
Jane Burke showed us how she makes Custom CD and DVD Labels using Apple’s IPhoto and Mackiev's Print Shop.
Allan MacLeod shows us how he organizes his files on his Mac Computer.
George Williams presented a Program describing the reintroduction of Mac Computers into the Hawaii Schools. His presentation also demonstrated using Apple iMovie ‘09 and included pictures of students using their Mac Computers.
