Tag: Mac OS X
November 01, 2009 by
Jason
The first fully-fledged Beta development milestone of the next generation of Mozilla’s open source browser is currently available for download. Testers and early adopters that have been waiting for Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, to evolve from Alpha stage are now free to access, download, install and start test driving the Beta 1 build. In addition to being the first Beta for Firefox 3.6, the development milestone offered by Mozilla is also the first example of a third-party browser to embrace Microsoft’s latest iteration of the Windows client. Just like the native Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 is designed to play nice with Aero Peek and Thumbnail Previews via the new Windows Aero Taskbar (Superbar) in Windows 7.
As you can see from the screenshot included below, Firefox 3.6 Beta users can now take advantage of the some of the same graphical user interface enhancements in Windows 7 as those running IE8. While Google and Opera are lagging behind when it comes down to tailoring their browsers to Windows 7, the same is not valid for Mozilla. And as Windows 7 became available for purchase on October 22, 2009, customers running the OS in combination with Firefox 3.6 will certainly enjoy the bells and whistles of the new Windows Aero GUI. Read More»
Posted in Firefox, Windows 7 | No Comments »
Say you’re doing a project for school, a presentation, or you simply need to get a hold of an application’s original (512 x 512) icon. Searching Google Images may do the trick, but you’ll often find yourself with pictures that are too small, blurry, modified or just not the one you’re looking for. This short guide will show you how to get your hands on an application’s original icon, right from within itself.
Power users should know that most Mac OS X apps (be they Apple-developed, or created by third-party devs) contain something called a “Resources” folder. This folder is mostly used by the application itself to get the images and sounds it needs to display / play throughout the course of running. Yes, you’ve guessed right: this is the place you need to be to start looking for that app’s icon set. We’ll use Apple’s GarageBand as the example for this short tutorial.
1. The first thing you need to do is navigate to where GarageBand is installed on your computer. If you have it already living peacefully in your Dock, just right-click its icon and select “Show in Finder.” Whether or not you’ve placed the music-making program in your Applications folder, you can simply fire up Spotlight (CMD + Space) and do a quick search to locate the app. Hold down the Command (CMD) key and hit Return (Enter) with the GarageBand selected in Spotlight. Congratulations! You’ve found where GarageBand is situated on your Mac’s hard drive.
Read More»
Posted in Mac | No Comments »
Addressing users of an iPod shuffle (1st and 2nd generation), or iPod shuffle (3rd generation), Apple has updated its Support section with new information on how to update your player’s software.
Apple outlines that it is very important to understand the difference between “update” and “restore.” Failing to do this may result in losing all your songs, or whatever data you have stored on your iPod shuffle. Update does not affect your settings or songs, but only installs the software that controls iPod shuffle.
However, the restore action erases the disk and restores iPod shuffle to its original factory condition. According to the iPod maker, you should use the computer where music is normally synced, if you only need to update iPod shuffle. “Updating on another computer will result in all songs being removed from the iPod shuffle,” the company warns. Additionally, users should make sure to back up the contents of their iPod shuffle. Everything can be synced back to the device, if the items are part of your iTunes Library. Read More»
Posted in Mac, Windows XP | No Comments »
By default, Mac OS X has an interface that will always offer its users very high degrees of usability and eye candy. Although it is already a standard that users of other OSes still dream of, Mac users will always try to give it a little more bang.
If you do not think that the OS X GUI is one of the best-looking OS interface designs out there, just think about the high number of Windows and/or Linux users that will do anything in their power to make their OS look and act as closely as OS X.
If you are a Mac user that is not completely satisfied with how their Mac’s interface looks like and you want to achieve the full OS customization nirvana, you should know that, although you can also do this by hand (this is possible because OS X has an incredible high degree of ease personalization, if you know how to do it), you will need a set of tools to help you in your enterprise.
The tools of this trade are mostly free, with a couple of them still trying to get sold to people that still don’t trust free software or have not yet found the best free alternative. Such solutions will allow you to change almost anything you have ever dreamed of changing in OS X, and more. Read More»
Posted in Mac | No Comments »
October 03, 2008 by
Jason
In just the first months of availability, Google Chrome Beta has made consistent inroads into the territory of Internet Explorer and Firefox. Both Microsoft’s IE and Mozilla’s Firefox started to see their audiences slip a little and ended up losing market share to the new browser from Google. In fact, so did Opera and Netscape with Safari left as the sole browser to gain market share. However, considering that Chrome is based on WebKit open source web browser engine also used by Safari, it is possible that some of Google Browser’s traffic to be in fact interpreted as Mac OS X’s native browser.
Market monitoring firm Net Applications revealed that Google Chrome’s usage share dropped after the initial surge. “Google Chrome usage share has been dropping since its launch, but has stabilized at about .7%,” the outfit stated. This in the context in which Chrome exploded to over 1% of the browser market, more than Opera. Still, at the end of September 2008, Chrome accounted for no less than 0.78% of the browser market, a performance by any standards considering that just a month before, it had 0%. Read More»
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
PWN to OWN. This is the name of the contest that made most Mac users worldwide seriously think about reading a security book or two to learn about securing their Macs ASAP. During the aforementioned contest a Mac running OS X Leopard was the first to give in to the intrusion attempts. It may not have been the brightest day in Apple’s history but it surely was the one when every Mac owner out there gave a second thought to the “Macs are the most secure” theory.
So, if Macs aren’t as secure as we have previously thought (I did too and even bet on the Vista computer that it would be the first to be compromised), what can we do to defend ourselves against attacks? One way would be to fire up the old integrated Mac OS X firewall and configure it to accept only incoming connections from IP addresses we know.
Although this is a good thing to do, the integrated firewall doesn’t do as good of a job as Apple would want us to believe. If you are not a very experienced user you’ll probably end up just enabling the damn thing and what protection do you think you’ll get? I’ll tell you: not very much because the machine that got “owned” at the PWN to OWN contest had the default settings and it went down pretty fast. Read More»
Posted in Mac | 1 Comment »
Although many people have their favorite web apps setup as their homepage on their browsers, there are times when running a web app inside its own window – in a separate process – could come handy. Think about having your browser clogged up with way above 30-40 tabs open and crashing at random times.
Then, you will just have to open it again and fire up the web interface you were working with at the time of the crash. A desktop web app will automatically eliminate the need of restarting your work flow all over again just because a buggy web browser decided that he had enough.
That’s only a quick example why one would need a web app to run on its desktop. To be able to do it, you will have to use an application developed by Mozilla and named Prism. It enables the end user to easily integrate any type of web application into a friendly desktop environment. Read More»
Posted in Internet, Mac | No Comments »
February 10, 2008 by
Jason The beginning of 2008 has not been kind to Windows Vista. Microsoft’s latest operating system, applauded as the most secure version of Windows available on the market, needs to start licking its many wounds. The Redmond company has been performing a vulnerability counting game throughout 2007,comparing Vista with XP, as well as with direct competitors Linux and Mac OS X, in terms of the volume of security vulnerabilities affecting each platform. And as it looks that Microsoft transformed the vulnerabilities comparison in somewhat of a tradition over the course of the past year, the company is bound to a recount.
“As part of our regularly scheduled bulletin release, we’re currently planning to release 12 Microsoft Security Bulletins– seven Critical and five Important. These updates will require a restart and will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and the Enterprise Scan Tool. As we do each month, the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool will be updated. Finally, we are planning to release seven high-priority, non-security updates on Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) as well as two high-priority, non-security updates on Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS),” stated Bill Sisk, Microsoft Security Response Center Communications Manager. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
December 20, 2007 by
Jason When it comes down to the Windows Vista vs. Mac OS X face-off, consumer perception is an important factor in bringing to center stage the most secure operating system of the two. And driven by an immutable Apple marketing ideology, Mac OS X manages to position itself in the limelight. OS X is nothing short of the Holly Grail in terms of protecting its users, while Windows Vista, via the inherent associating with the Windows line-up of products, is situated at the very opposite pole.
But at the same time, statistics manage to paint an entirely different picture of the two platforms. A new perspective over Vista vs. Mac OS X begins to take contour, one that is largely in the advantage of Microsoft’s latest Windows client. Apple has not reacted in any manner to the vulnerability and update counting games that tilt the balance in Vista’s favor. Not that it would have many avenues to deny hard facts. Read More»
Posted in Mac, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 1 Comment »
November 01, 2007 by
Jason
The long awaited and much anticipated launch of the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system, codenamed Leopard, has resulted in the usual round of craziness from Apple’s adoring fans. Early adopters camped outside stores to be first in the queue, and what a queue it was! Early estimates suggest that around 9 percent of OS X users upgraded to Leopard in the first couple of days of it going on sale, and at $129 a pop that’s a welcome boost to the Apple coffers.
There’s been a fair amount of excitement surrounding the launch but the claimed 300 ‘New’ features have been widely dismissed as hype, and one or two commentators have pointed out that a couple of them bear an uncanny resemblance to features in Windows Vista, which Leopard is clearly designed to challenge. Read More»
Posted in Mac | 1 Comment »
Loading ...
