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 | A 2.16 or 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Up to 39% faster than its predecessor. A built-in iSight for instant video conferencing on the move. Front Row with Apple Remote to dazzle everyone in the room. Now available in 15- and 17-inch models starting at just £1349 (UK) / €2019 (Ireland). Start your engines.
Performance squared
MacBook Pro is built upon the revolutionary Intel Core 2 Duo — which packs the power of two processor cores (up to 2.33GHz) inside a single chip. It provides 4MB of Smart Cache, L2 cache that can be shared between both cores as needed. It delivers higher performance in 2D and 3D graphics, video editing, and music encoding. And the new engine is only part of the story. MacBook Pro supports drives up to 200GB and up to 3GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory. And now every MacBook Pro boasts both a FireWire 800 port and a double-layer burning SuperDrive. Ultimate speed, performance, and connectivity. To go. That’s MacBook Pro.
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| New model Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros and iMacs appear to be the first Macs to deploy the new wireless 802.11n standard.
While the machines recognise the wireless card as only being an 802.11g device, MacRumors reckons the cards are actually built to support the standard.
802.11n hasn't yet been ratified, but it appears likely it will be agreed soon, leading many manufacturers to begin to make products that implement the current pre-ratified version of it.
With Apple set to launch its iTV product next year, a device which wirelessly streams music and video content from Macs to a TV set, it makes sense for the company to begin moving its architectures to the new standard.
802.11n offers numerous advantages over the current 802.11g standard - most importantly, it enables you to stream video wirelessly without suffering dropped frames. It also lets you surf the web and send email without impacting the performance of the streamed asset.
According to the report, the wireless card inside MacBook Pros has been identified as using an Atheros AR5008 802.11n chipset. The new iMacs use a similar chipset, this time from Broadcom.
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| Rob's rotten luck!
As you've no doubt read Intel and Apple have been working overtime again and released yet another update on the hapless Apple consumer. It was strongly rumoured of course that the Core 2 Duo processor would make an appearance in the Apple MBpro line up but I, for one, didn't expect the upgrade to take place until January.
What does this mean? Well now you get yourself a 64 bit capable machine, almost 40% faster, more memory, better graphics, better 'build to order' options for up to 200G drives. Apparently the machine is superb.
Why am I not happy? Because my MacBook Pro 17" is just 10 days old and now feels "old" and "redundant" already!!
I promise not to moan about it, this is the price we pay for living on the cutting edge.
Oh Pooh!
Rob
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 | Apple release Shuffle Format Utility
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| iPod shuffle Reset Utility 1.0 for Mac
About iPod shuffle Reset Utility 1.0 for Mac
The iPod shuffle Reset Utility restores First Generation iPod shuffle. The restore process completely erases all music and data on iPod shuffle and reinstalls software version 1.1.4.
Note:
iPod shuffle Reset Utility is only for First Generation 512MB and 1GB iPod shuffle. Any other iPod, including Second Generation iPod shuffle is not supported. If you are not sure which iPod you have, see Apple Support document 61688: Identifying different iPod models
Use the iPod shuffle Reset Utility to fix the following issues:
With the iPod shuffle switched on, pressing the Play button will cause amber and green LEDs to flash for a few seconds, and the unit will not play any music, nor can you sync music to it from iTunes.
On a Windows PC, iPod shuffle will appear in My Computer as a “Removable Disk,” however the iPod shuffle volume will not mount correctly. The unit is listed in Device Manager under “Disk Drives” as “Apple iPod USB Device.”
On a Mac, the unit will only be recognized in Apple System Profiler under Hardware -> USB and will not appear or mount in the Finder.
When attempting to restore, the unit may not be recognized at all. However, if it is recognized, the restore may fail with an error dialog “Firmware update failure. Disk write error” or another error. It may take 3 restore attempts before the error appears. Note: iPod shuffle may take several minutes to be recognized.
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| Greenpeace kicked out of Expo
According to Bob Denton, Event Director, the removal of Greenpeace had nothing to do its message or the materials being handed out. Bob said: “They paid money and had the right to be at the show.”
The problem started when a group of 12 Greenpeace activists gathered outside the show entrance and started handing out flyers and apples to attendees. Bob Denton said: “We want people to be cool and calm as they enter the show”.
He explained to the Greenpeace organisers that it would be acceptable for two activists to stand by the stairs inside the show and hand out flyers, but the event management would not allow a gathering outside the main door.
There then followed a number of complaints about the behaviour of Greenpeace activists from four visitors and five exhibitors, one of which was Apple. Allegedly, Greenpeace attendees were invading other stands for mock photo shoots and replacing other exhibitors’ promotional material with their own.
The problem came to a head when one woman complained that they had placed an apple in her child’s pram and were taking photographs of him without her permission.
Bob Denton told Macworld: “I explained to them that I had the right to eject them but that wouldn’t happen if they showed reason.” However, later in the day, “two more visitors and two more exhibitors complained” and he ejected the activists under clause 13 of the terms and conditions that Greenpeace signed.
“They were determined to create conflict,” said Bob Denton, “that was their only objective and I had the right to eject them just as I would if they were drunk and abusive.
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| Apple escape Nasdaq de-listing for the moment.
"On October 24, 2006, Apple received a written notification from the staff of The Nasdaq Stock Market stating that the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has granted the request for continued listing on The Nasdaq Stock Market, subject to the condition that Apple files its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 1 July 2006, and any required restatements, by 29 December 2006."
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| The winning entries include, in third place, Michael Yuan's Cookbook application; in second place, Farzad Sadjadi's Portal and, taking first in the huge international application visualisation competition, Cameron Westland's Atmosphere.
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| Atmosphere
See the weather: A near real time weather simulation application that provides a fun interface into weather forecasting, day/night cycle, moon phases and seasons.
Weather forecasting: View the weather on the timeline, similar to how time machine works. Simply go forward in time to get the weather forecast for your area, or backwards in time to see how the weather was a month ago.
Day/Night cycle: Watch atmosphere smoothly cycle from beautiful sunsets to starry skies.
Moon phases: Now you can howl at the moon in the comfort of your own den! See exactly what phase the moon is in, or use the timeline to see when the moon will be full, a new moon, and more.
Seasons: As the fall passes into winter, watch Atmosphere build up snow and see rain drops turn into snowflakes.
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| System Preferences; Parent Controls now fall under its own Preference Pane
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| Creating a new account to be restricted with Parental Controls.
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| The Dictionary and Thesaurus can now be separated in the new Dictionary application.
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| New Guest Account feature
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| Mail - Control click magic! You can delete Junk Mail, you can bounce Junk Mail, but you can also help Mail identify spam by Marking the email as Junk. This can drastically improve Mail's Junk filtering. Wonderful!
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| Hi Will, ive been listening to your show because I'm thinking of switching over to using macs but one thing that bothers me is security. Apple claim on their website that macs dont get viruses, is this true, because if this was true why are there firewalls and anti virus available to buy for a mac? Could you please tell me your own experiences security on a mac, for example:what security does the mac use out of the box? is the security on the mac enough? have you ever had a virus on your mac? and also if you do use a third party security program,what do you use? I would be very thankfull for a reply.thanks, Luke (North Wales- not far from you)
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| About xCuts
A utility for looking up Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts, something that recent switchers from Linux or Windows probably need to do quite a bit! This widget lets you easily browse or search the contents of its MySQL-powered database, which it accesses over the web using Ajax. The xCuts are organized by Category, Scope, and Object, and you can even drill down to a second cross-referenced level if you need to. Or just use the fast live search form!
xCuts includes tips on the use of certain shortcuts, and it’s designed to let you copy and paste shortcuts to external documents. This resizable widget uses the terrific Script.aculo.us effects library to work its visual magic. When you’re done, click the title to compact xCuts down to a tiny lozenge for later use.
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| Accessory Widgets are self-contained and don't require support from an application or Internet access. Clocks, timers, calculators, and note-takers fall into this category.
Application Widgets are associated with a full-fledged application. This kind of Widget enhances the application by providing a less complicated and often read-only interface. The iTunes Controller and Address Book Widgets fall into this category.
Information Widgets are designed to work with data from the Internet. These Widgets allow you to monitor external events such as the weather, flight status, or stock prices.
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| At its simplest, a Widget is simply a web page that is displayed in the Dashboard rather than in a browser, such as Safari. A Widget is contained on disk in a bundle—a directory that groups all the needed resources for the Widget together in one place. Widget bundles are named with the .wdgt extension. Like any other bundle, a Widget's bundle is managed by the Finder as a single entity.
A basic Widget contains the following files:
• A main HTML file defining the user-interface for the Widget.
• A default background image in PNG format that can be displayed by Dashboard while it loads the Widget. The PNG format is used because of its excellent support for alpha channel transparency.
• An icon image, also in PNG format, used to represent the Widget in the Widget Bar.
• A property list file named Info.plist that contains a Widget's identifier, name, version information, size, and the main HTML page as well as other optional information used by Dashboard.
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| Thanks to Steve Molyneux for the Radio Shropshire plug.
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| Mac Expo London from Graham
It was my first expo event like this for the mac, and my first impression was that it wasnt as big as i thought it might be, but it maybe typical i dont know. Certainly many and various exhibitors were in attendance from the well known (Google and Adobe et al) to the less well known (visual fluid mask, anyone?). The place was busy if not heaving. The layout was sort of four squares with a different theme at each corner (music, video, photography etc) but I think the whole expo was very photo/image heavy. Not so much music or DTP stuff around, but didnt worry me as i was after the photography products anyway.
Because you can walk around the place in a relatively short space of time it might be a good idea to plan when you want to go - if you have access to Apple/Adobe/Google presentation itineries that might guide you to when it would be best to go. Capital radio are with Apple on the podcasting side of things which might appeal more to you than it did to me.
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| Wellington boot
 A pair of Wellington boots
The Wellington boot, also known as a welly, a wellie, a gumboot or a rubber boot, is a type of boot based upon Hessian boots. It was worn and popularised by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and fashionable among the British aristocracy in the early 19th century.
The first Duke of Wellington instructed his shoemaker, Hoby of St. James's Street, London, to modify the 18th century Hessian boot. The resulting new boot designed in soft calfskin leather had the trim removed and was cut closer around the leg. The heels were low cut, stacked around an inch, and stopped at mid-calf. It was hard wearing for battle yet comfortable for the evening. The Iron Duke didn't know what he'd started—the boot was dubbed the Wellington and the name has stuck ever since. (The Duke can be seen wearing the boots, which are tasseled, in this 1815 portrait by James Lonsdale.)[1]
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