Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category
Streaming media to your PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 from your Mac
First up, Sony’s Playstation 3.
MediaLink. Your PlayStation 3 has been craving the media on your Mac. Finally, complete Macintosh and Playstation 3
integration is upon us. MediaLink can stream Music,Video, and Photos to your Mac. It does so by taking advantage of the UPnP technology of your router.
Enjoying your media through the PlayStation 3 has never been this easy, on any platform — and the Mac isn’t just any platform. Its our favorite platform, so we’ve taken great care to create a seamless solution. MediaLink can stream and copy the following formats to your PS3: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV-MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-H.264, DIVX, XVID-AVI, WMV, ASF-JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP-RAW, PDF, PS, EPS, TGA.
Microsoft’s XBOX 360.
Connect360. Your Xbox 360 is capable of playing back your music and videos and viewing your digital photos. With Connect360, your Mac’s ready to share.
Connect360 automatically indexes your iTunes and iPhoto libraries and shares them to your Xbox 360. You can then use the Xbox 360 Dashboard to browse and play your media, organized in the exact same way that it is on your Mac. Connect360 can stream the following formats: AAC, Apple Lossless, WMA-MP3, WAV, AIFF-H.264, DIVX, XVID, MOV, AVI, WMV, ASF-JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, RAW
The Nintendo Wii.
Wii Transfer. Wii Transfer can share your movies, music, and pictures directly to your
Nintendo Wii using the Internet Channel. Copy Miis from your Wii back to your Mac and save them as images. Browse iTunes playlists and iPhoto albums on your television. Convert your movies to formats the Wii understands, either streaming directly from your Mac or for playback in the Wii’s Photo Channel. Wii Transfer can even manage saved game backups copied to an SD card. Wii Transfer supports the following formats: MOV, AVI, MPEG4, H.264, DivX,-MP3, AAC. Plus a few other stragglers.
No matter which console you own, it’s going to set you back twenty big ones. But in my opinion, It’s more then worth it. Especially if your computer and console have already gone wireless.
OS X + MAMP = Really Easy Web Server
Setting up your own personal web server is always more work and less fun then you think. Enter MAMP. MAMP stands for Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP. MAMP is a packaged bundle that automagically installs the aforementioned services on your Mac OS X computer, whether it be a Macbook or a MacPro.
“MAMP is installed in the typical Mac fashion: very easily. MAMP will not compromise any existing Apache installation already running with your OS X.
Furthermore, if MAMP is no longer needed, it is sufficient to delete the MAMP folder and everything returns to its original status (i.e. MAMP does not modify any of the “normal” OS X)” -MAMP.info
MAMP provides 22 programs and libraries available for your use, free of charge. You can grab the .dmg at MAMP’s SourceForge page and if you wanna learn more before you install follow this link to MAMP’s homepage.
FoursquareX – it’s Foursquare for OS X!
As you may or may not know, Foursquare is a very popular iPhone app that gives you and your friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things. ( Click here to learn more about Foursquare )
FoursquareX is an OS X version of the mobile foursquare app. Developed by Eric Butler and utilizing Snow Leopard’s Core Location service, FoursquareX is a perfect example of a great port. Slightly enhanced features and beautiful OS integration make using this app nothing less than fun and intuitive.
It’s functional and free so why not give it a try today! -
FoursquareX ( Requires OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard )
MacBook Pro finally going quad-core with Intel Core i5
Apple has been taking its sweet time when introducing a quad-core MacBook Pro to the market. It seems however, that Intel itself may have pulled the veil off of this long awaited product.
AppleInsider recently acquired an E-mail invite to Intel’s Retail Edge Program. Included on this invitation is a promotion for a new MacBook Pro featuring Intel’s new Core i5 mobile architecture. Specific details are still non-existent but at least we can confirm that Apple is finally getting ready to unleash a new wave of power into the Macbook Pro lineup.
Whether or not we see the whole line-up adopt the Core i5 or not is still up in the air, but more than likely we will see the i5 in the higher end 15″ and 17″ models.
Apple purchases Lala, but why?
I’m sure you’re on the same track as me when you think “subscription service”, but I feel like Apple has other plans for its recent acquisition.
How Lala works. Lala’s Music Mover quickly matches the songs on your computer to Lala’s licensed catalog. Songs you already have and playlists you’ve created are instantly added to your Lala collection for free. The number of songs you can add is unlimited. Lala users have been purchasing the rights to stream their music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song
As stated above, the idea with Lala is to be able to listen to your music anywhere on the web. Simple sync your home music with Lala and you’re good to go. Whether or not Apple will stick to this business model or not is still unknown, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Here is what others think Apple has in mind for Lala:
“The deal makes sense. It seems inevitable that Apple will eventually launch its own cloud-based streaming music service. And that’s exactly what Lala is — an iTunes in the cloud, with some interesting pricing mechanics.” -TechCrunch
“Other music industry insiders are wondering what Apple is buying exactly. Lala’s licenses for streaming music with the major music labels are not transferable to any acquirer.” -NYTimes
Atom support hacked back into OS X 10.6.2

We’re not surprised by this but we sure are glad to see it out so soon!
All you netbook owners, current or prospective, may exhale your sigh of relief.
The support for Atom is acquired by actually injecting a different kernel into OS X itself, so, your talking a pretty serious hack. Rest assured, most hacks can be fine tuned to make it much easier and or automated.
We can thank the hacker teateam for this gem. He can be found on the InsanelyMac Forums
So here’s to hoping Apple leaves the door open to Atom users in 10.6.3 and showing us how great of a company they really can be.
The Mac mini Server
Listing at $999.99, The mini Snow Leopard server doesn’t carry a very mini price tag. But it’s only $100 more than a Mac mini equipped with the same CPU and RAM and an optical drive instead of the second 500GB HD.
So Apple is basically charging you $100 to remove the optical drive and install an additional 500GB HD. Which, in all honesty isn’t that bad of a price for a 2.5″ 500GB SATA drive. This second drive in place of the optical drive brings the mini’s total internal storage capacity to 1TB! Pair that with it’s GeForce 9400M and you have HD ready media center. Set this next to your beautiful Plasma or LCD and you could experience a truly wonderful experience.
So although it may be a slight investment, Your getting 1TB of internal storage and 4GBs of RAM in box less than 2″ high and 6.5″ long. So, great storage capabilities, a solid amount of RAM, a speedy 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and a powerful 9400M make for a pretty powerful system in a small, functional package.
16 GB of RAM for your new 27″ iMac and where to buy.
If you bought yourself a nice new quad-core iMac and your looking to max out the RAM, you may notice that Apple charges almost as much as you paid for the machine itself. $1400 to be exact. 4GB sticks of DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) are not cheap, but I can tell you that you can find them for a bit less than the $350 a piece Apple charges.
- [G.SKILL - F3-8500CL7S-4GBSQ] Running $249.99 a piece, these quality sticks are $150 cheaper then Apple’s stock selection. If you max out your iMac with these it will set you back an even grand, about $400 cheaper than Apple’s 16GB offering.
- [Mushkin - Enhanced Essentials 996644] You can get a pair of 4GB sticks (8GB) from Mushkin for $489.99. That means if you wanted a full 16GB you could do it for about $980, $420 cheaper than Apple.
- [RamJet -MBALX4G] At $235.99 a piece, these are the least expensive chips I was able to find. 16GBs can be yours for as little as $970.
MBALX4G
The New Apple Remote
Is over innovating a possibility? If so, the new Apple Remote is a victim of it. Apple’s Last remote was perfect. Simple, stylish, and functional. Yet Apple managed to completely ruin the svelt feel of the Apple Remote by introducing this new overly designed product.
It starts out at the same price point, $19 so I can’t complain. But other than the price there isn’t much else to love. It features the same 5 buttons, but this time they made it look like there are three buttons instead of two. The remote itself is just as thin and a bit taller and longer than its predecessor. A silver matte finish coats the entire device except for the buttons which have a black matte finish.
Not digging the new remote either? Well head to your local Apple store and stock up as it seems they haven’t pulled the old ones yet.
Fancy this one? you can pick it up online @ the Apple Store.
Photoshop.com Mobile App now on iTunes
Adobe’s new iPhone/iPod Touch app allows you to edit and share your photos on the go. A free photoshop.com account is required. However, signing up allows you to store 2GBs of images online to be edited and/or shared.
Editing Features Include:
- Basic: Crop, Rotate, and Flip
- Color: Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black and White
- Filters: Sketch and Soft Focus
- Effects: Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow, White Glow, Soft Black and White
Find out more by going to mobile.photoshop.com/iphone/






