Friday, June 29, 2007

[iPhone] IPHONE FREAKY FRIDAY!

Hello true believers! Today is the day that the iPhone is released from AT&T stores and Apple stores...how exciting, eh? I've purposely been avoiding posting news bits about it all week, just because the whole net is FLOODED with stuff about the iPhone. Instead, like many of you, I've been keeping abreast of what is going on without trying to read the same junk over and over again.

With lines forming all across the country for this cool new device, there are plenty of questions about what it can and can't do. One of the prevalent discussions is about the iPhone using the EDGE network over the 3G one. This morning, I read an interview that Steve Jobs and AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson gave to the Wall Street Journal, that addressed a couple of key questions, including the one about the 3G/EDGE networks. The primary concern of a lot of folks is that the EDGE network is way too slow to handle full internet applications, even if it is great at handling maps and email. According to Jobs, they knew that going into this whole iPhone deal...and that is why they integrated Wi-Fi into the device. Now it can piggyback nearly everywhere there is an open Wi-Fi source...granting it great speeds for internet easily. The best part about that, the device is configured to just find the Wi-Fi automatically...no having to find it yourself.

Of course this could lead to more people actually turning on security for their wireless networks...I had this discussion with my girlfriend's parents...as they never turned any kind of security on for their network...and I'm willing to bet half their neighborhood is piggybacking their Wi-Fi. Anyway, I digress. According to the article, T-Mobile just launched a service that allows cellphone calls to roam onto wi-fi networks...supposedly to help users get better coverage and save a little on their cell bills each month. We could likely see more use of Wi-Fi in years to come, and less of the 3G, especially with things like the import ban on items with 3G chips.

We'll have a lot to see about in the coming weeks and months after the release.

What say all of you, dear readers?

-Mike Leader

Friday, June 22, 2007

[Tech] A NEW APPLE UPDATE, AND UPDATE TROUBLES...

Hi folks. Sorry, I wasn't feeling up to a creative title today. Lack of sleep this week is stripping away my creativity, so I apologize in advance for anything I post today that might be considered boring. ;)

So with the release of OS X 10.4.10 ("Tiger Ten" sounds like a cooler nickname than "Delta", doesn't it?) there are a whole host of folks updating...and as of late I've noticed quite a bit of concern about updating the Mac OS, due to unrecoverable crashes after the install. This happened back during the past couple of updates, and thanks to one of the best posters over at cubeowner.com (good post Fangy!), this article was pointed out to me from back in March of this year.

Basically it is written by someone who feels there is a huge bug in the Apple Software Update system. This "bug" occurs during the "Optimizing System Performance" stage...in which he recommends that you do NOTHING while your computer does this. Because it is running update_prebinding, if you launch an application that accesses the libraries not yet "prebound", it can cause a whole host of errors in the system.

Recovering from something like this can be extremely difficult, if not impossible if you do not have a backup. (BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER! That can never be said enough.) If it is really bad, you'll have to boot into FireWire Target Disk Mode and hope that you can run the combo updater from another machine.

One should always be careful when doing the Apple Software Update. Not because the OS is buggy or bad...but the nature of the update program can cause problems with your system if you're working while it's working. Do it at night when you're about to go to bed, so it can handle it all while you count sheep.

Great...now I've got an odd craving for a lamb curry. :P

-Mike Leader

Thursday, June 21, 2007

[YMS News] A PACKAGE TO CALL YOUR OWN...

Who doesn't love opening a package that is meant for them? Christmas, Hanukkah, birthdays, anniversaries, etcetera...they all have packages for us to open. While we can't send everyone a special thank you package for being such great customers, we did think of something. Now, in honor of the YourMacStore.com 8th Anniversary, we are debuting "packages" for you to purchase!

Now these aren't going to be covered in wrapping paper and a bright red bow (or any other color bow for that matter), but they will help you get the upgrades you want for your computer easily, and with a bit of a discount on them as well. We have some great Macbook pro packages, and some really cool ones for the Cube. If we get some feedback on them, we're likely to create more...so let us know via email or by commenting here on this site!

-Mike Leader

[iPhone] A QUICK JEST FROM THOSE AT THE ONION...

Because it's funny...and I'm a bit busy at the moment for a full post...

Apple's untold iPhone functions!

For example:

* When moved from hand to ear, makes Lightsaber sound effects


heheh

-Mike Leader

Friday, June 15, 2007

[YourMacStore News] HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MEANS WE LOVE OUR CUSTOMERS!

Greetings everyone and happy Friday! While I know that many of our readers do enjoy the commentary and news we provide, we also appreciate that many of you would like to see price updates and new item updates from our store as well. So to really kick off that aspect of the blog, we have this entry.

So without further ado...


YOURMACSTORE.COM ANNOUNCES ITS 8TH ANNIVERSARY!

That's right everyone, our company is 8 years old today, hooray! In honor of this day, from June 15 - July 15, we're going to be offering a flat 10% discount on all orders of $200 or more. This discount will be automatic, so there's no coupon to enter. This is our thank you to all of you for your patronage over the years. If you have any questions, just email yms@vintagecomp.com and we'll be happy to answer them for you.

Thank you very much!

-Mike Leader

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

[update] SAFARI ON MY PC...

Well, I promised everyone yesterday a little update on this. I didn't get much of a chance to use it last night after work and before work this morning...but it did seem to not give me much trouble at all for a beta. The interface really doesn't match how my XP looks at home though...unless I have iTunes running. But hey, eventually I'll have an iPhone and I'll need them all to synch up on that computer too. :)

Since I use Firefox extensively on the home computer and it's what I need there...I do plan on putting Safari 3 onto my older PC laptop to see how that goes. Since I use it mostly for just web browsing, it might not be bad for that. Firefox seems to give it trouble sometimes, and I don't need all of what it has while I'm on the go.

Well that IS until I get my new Macbook Pro. :)

-ML

[Product Review] APIOTEK AND THE READER...

Once upon a time...in the land of Aisatsea, the pretty cool APIOTEK 18-in-1 Card Reader was born. The folks across the seas in Eporue and Acirema had not seen this amazing little gadget yet and were sure to be happy with it...

Apparently my children will fall asleep after the first 2 sentences of that fairy tale...I'll have to write more for future use. Anyway, one of the fun things that we do here at YourMacStore.com is to import new and interesting accessories and hardware from manufacturers that we trust in Asia. APIOTEK is one of our newer partners, and when we happened across their 18-in-1 card reader, we were quite excited. Not only is it just a card reader, but it's designed for your Macbook! You can see by the picture in the previous link that it's designed to slide right into the port designed for it on your Macbook, and be flush with the computer. The only part that would stick out away from the unit itself would be the card that is inserted into the card reader.

Now, the 18-in-1 lives up to it's name (you can see from the links provided), but what it does above and beyond that is pretty cool. Right now, it handles pretty much all of the flash memory cards available on the market, but it is already ready to handle 16GB and 32GB cards when they become more available. Nothing like being ready for future items, so you don't have to update to handle the newest product!

As show in prior links, YourMacStore.com is currently carrying this product at $28.95

-Mike Leader

Monday, June 11, 2007

WWDC Wrap-Up & Evaluation

Well, pundits can go on and on and on about this and that over what Steve Jobs presented at the WWDC Keynote today...Oh wait, that's my job. ;)

Now for those of you who want to see the full Keynote, you'll be able to download it from the Apple website later...but please be aware...it could take a long time to download. Just be advised. :) (For those of you who can't wait, you can peep a clip over at C/net News - Thanks MHC!)

I think out of everything that really excited me as an end user (not a developer), was the design additions and changes to the Desktop. Now for those of you who really know me, you know that my home computer's desktop is always a mess...it never looks organized. But with Stacks enabling me to keep things organized into groups in the dock, it'll be great for home use. However, the work application is great too! No more "where did I put that sales file from 2003 at?" You move from Stacks over to the new Finder (thank you!) and the Coverflow feature...it's a great way to look at any file, BUT combine that with the QuickView function, and you can quickly view any file's contents in the finder window, or even expand them to full screen size.

The explanation of the folks at EA getting on board with Mac really is lost to me, unfortunately. I don't feel the need to play Madden on my Mac, or Need For Speed either. Now if they'd just get those folks over at Cryptic to get City of Heroes on the Mac, I'd be happy. ;) But this isn't about me. So that news from EA is good to hear...but I don't really think that it'll bring in a lot of new people. Also changes to iChat...oh good...maybe I'll actually use it now! ;) Cool background features and things to play with aren't too bad. They'll make making home movies more fun...who wouldn't want to be the Star Wars hologram? I can think of tons of uses for that!

Now, as I'm about ready to head home for the day, I'll be downloading Safari for my PC to see how that goes. (YES, I have a PC...I can go both ways if I want to...wait that came out wrong. :P) I've heard good things so far from friends...but will my stupid PC be able to manage it? Stay tuned for a report tomorrow on that.

Well, have a good night and a better tomorrow folks...Keep on talking about this...it's all we're getting until the next Macworld. Excelsior!

-Mike Leader



oooh oooh! Widgettttttttttttttsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss....

WWDC UPDATE #7

- iPhone -

June 29th, 6pm. All hell breaks loose! (ok I said that.)

They've been trying to come up with a solution for developers...and they have a sweet one. Since the iPhone has the Safari software, it gives them the capability with web 2.0 and AJAX apps. You can write apps for web 2.0 that will work on the iPhone and integrate with iPhone services. Instant distribution, easy to update, very secure (just like transactions with a bank or Amazon). NO SDK NEEDED.

He's now going through different apps...email, maps, yada yada. There you have it! That's it for the Keynote Address!

I'll keep my ears to the internet for further updates today...right now, I'm going to take a break and have some lunch! :P (Thanks to the folks at applegazette.com, Gizmodo and macrumors.com!)

-Mike Leader

WWDC UPDATE #6

Feature #10...

TIME MACHINE!

Jobs points out that almost NO ONE backs up automatically, and that we're all "walking time bombs". Time Machine makes it easy to use with a 1 click setup, automatically backs up everything on your computer...to a serve or external drive as well...even wirelessly! With Time Machine, you can look back at files individually, with Quick Look, and restore specific files, or an entire computer. Looks quite nice. "Our goal was to make it so simple that people would use it." Looks like old excuses aren't going to work...we might all have to go back to "umm the dog ate it!" ;)

that's just 10 of 300 features. I hope he's not going to go on...I may die of exhaustion if it's taken an hour to document 10 of them! Basic version is going to be $129...and that Premium version? It's $129. :) To quote...

"Leopard shipping in October. Basic version, $129. Premium version, $129. Business version, $129, Enterprise version $129. Ultimate version, $129"

Ohh...one last thing...

Safari...

18 million users. Marketshare has climbed up to 4.9%. IE has 78%, Firefox 15%, others 2% Dreaming big means...SAFARI ON WINDOWS! Safari 3 on Leopard, now runs on XP/Vista. Will contain all of the Safari innovations. Jobs has called Safari the fastest browser on Windows...with Google/Yahoo search built in. Apparently public beta tests are available today!

New features include removable tabs. Allows a user to drag a tab around in the window structure, or pull it out and make it it's own window. Oooh...Jobs is demoing iBench with Safari vs. IE. At 6.64 seconds vs. 13.56 seconds. iBench shows Safari to be twice as fast as IE. 500,000 downloads of Firefox a day. Over 1,000,000 downloads of iTunes a day. Over 500M downloads of iTunes to Windows machines.

What there's more! next up...


IPHONE!

WWDC UPDATE #5

DASHBOARD! (we all love widgets!)

Jobs is very happy with the over 3000 widgets designed for the OS. Since developers and fans write their own so often, Apple is going to be doing their best to keep up. (He demos a Movie Times one that helps select a movie and order the tickets through Fandango. - Woot! Steve likes Pirates 3! I knew he was a pirate!) Apparently you'll be able to use Safari to create a widget from a webpage. Oh wow...he saw something on Yahoo he liked, clipped it out with "scissors" and now it's a widget. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn! (someone just mentioned that he previewed this last year...but NOW it works! cool!!!) All widgets are live and will update automatically. This "Dash Code" is available NOW, but it ships with Leopard automatically.

Feature #9 - iChat

Looks like parts of Photo Booth are coming to iChat, and Jobs goes on to tell some heartwarming stories about families keeping in touch with it. So we're looking at better Audio for it (AAC-Low Delay), Tabbed Chats, and Photo Booth effects. It will also apparently allow you to create Backdrops and there is an iChat Theater to share chats. Oh wow...anything that works with Quick Look will work with iChat Theater! He's sharing an Excel file with Phil Schiller. They're now making jokes using the Backdrop features...Phil's mouth is now on Steve Ballmer's (CEO of Microsoft) face...too funny.

more to come...

WWDC UPDATE #4

CORE ANIMATION! WOOO! (shush, I think it's cool!)

Designed for designers, but is easy to use. Utilizing flashy animation inside an application that is handled by the OS, not the application. Automatic Animation, Text, images, video, open GL. Offering higher production values to developers for their applications. This is going to be fun.

Next up, Boot Camp!

Boot Camp is going to be built in to Leopard, allowing you to run XP & Vista at native speed. Should be used as a compliment to Parallels and VMWare. Jobs explains how happy they are to have Parallels and VMWare to help with giving their users more options.

Next up, Spaces!

Group applications in Spaces, and you can easily transition from one to the other. His example shows a game in one, and Safari & Mail in another. This helps to work with multiple desktops running on the same computer. Audio only comes through on a space if it is active...so you can quickly shut off that music when taking a call! ;)

WWDC Update #3

Ok. For .Mac users, it's now also going to be used as a HUB between your computers...no matter where they are. That's the quick way to say it...

Next, Quick Look. Let's you instantly preview files without opening applications for them. Works with all popular file types and plug-in modules will be available for developers. The demo looks like the movie/album viewer in iTunes. To demo how it works, Jobs found a pdf, selected it, hit the space bar, and a preview window opened without launching the application. Cool! It expands out from all finder views, windows, lists or Cover Flow.

(Crud, my audio from the conference just died! Well back to text updates...)

Feature # 4 - Leopard is 64-bit from top to bottom. This makes it the first OS to go 64-bit. One version of Leopard runs 32-bit and 64-bit applications side by side! Demo shows that a 32-bit system is having issues uploading a 4GB photo. The 64-bit version took 28 seconds, 32-bit version took 81 seconds to run filters on the 4GB photo.

next, feature #5 - CORE ANIMATION!

WWDC Update #2

Ok now we're on to the OS! Some stats quoted by Jobs:

*Tiger - most successful Apple release
* 22 million active OSX users, 67% use Tiger, 23% use Panther, and 10% use older versions

More items:
300 features in Leopard and we'll see 10 today.
New Desktop (Dock is narrower, new menu bar, consistent window look, prominent active window)
Utilizing "Stacks" to keep desktop clean - downloads have stack in the Dock, and all stacks either stay in dock, or on a grid. Stacks are using Core Animation!) First note of Jobs saying "BOOM!" :)

Woo! New finder! Sidebar has search function built in that has "smart searches" that are customized. Finder now works like iTunes...view it in ANY way, and has Cover Flow. The sidebar is also the place where you will see the shared items from the local network. Cover Flow will allow to browse a computer like browsing a PDF. Over a network too. You can play video with it as well.


Looks like .Mac subscribers will have new goodies as well...more on that next.

WWDC Update #1

Ok folks here we go...

First thing is a new Mac/PC video. PC impersonating Jobs, talking about shutting down Apple, now that Vista has sold "tens of dozens of copies" and that the ipod killer Zune is out. He's admonished by Mac. Hooray!

Steve then presents an award to the Intel team for all their hard work last year. Yada Yada.

Bing Gordon, Chief Creative officer for EA Games, comes out on stage for an announcement. (EA? weird.) Well it looks like Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, NFS Carbon, Madden 08 & Tiger Woods 08, and Harry Potter & the order of the phoenix will be on OSX this year and next.

"The only thing better than living on a mac, is living at Hogwarts" - Bing Gordon

[WWDC] UPDATES FOR TODAY...

Ok folks, I'm going to keep this simple. While I'm not at the conference, I will be blogging throughout the day as I get updates. Keep checking back. :D

-Mike L.

Friday, June 8, 2007

[Op./Ed.] APPLE PULLS A SEAGULL ON THE SUMMER...

Now let me first explain myself. This is one of those expressions that you and your friends come up with after seeing something in a movie that you liked. Who didn't love the seagulls from Finding Nemo? "Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine." This is what pulling a seagull means...and I honestly think Apple is doing this over the summer.

Let's take a look at the BLITZ that has hit the media and internet over the past couple months. Here it is...stream of consciousness...

First was the announcement of the delay of Leopard...people were upset...but yay, the iPhone is on target for June...Next thing we know...whammo!..The macbook pros are gone from retailers, and a whole new setup has been released...Woo, another way to spend money on Apple!..The speculation about the iPhone is at an an all time high (some even claim it's going to be pay as you go)...the WWDC is just about to it, everything is at a fever pitch...Sun leaks info on the new file system...there's something about Core Animation...

And we're still waiting...oh brother, Monday is going to be hectic. I'll do my best to cover the WWDC on Monday morning and provide input and thought for all of our great readers...but it's likely going to be a lot of information.

Now back to my Seagull point. All of the tech talk lately has been about Apple...they've done a successful job of keeping their name in the spotlight without taking any huge hits. Oh there have been hits, but nothing that they can't weather. Now that attention is going to start paying off...with their name in constant speak (hey it's funny), and the good hype built around the forthcoming release of the iPhone, Leopard, and now the current release of the Santa Rosa chips in the Macbook Pros. (miiiiine...my precious!)

All in all, it looks to be like a great summer, and rest of the year for Apple. I think we'll all know this for certain come June 29 when lines form for the new iPhone. While they won't be around the block, they'll be there!

[Tech Post] REMEMBER WHEN YOUR G4 WAS COOL...

Ok, no remembering here really...'Twas a ruse...a diversion. I bring this up because copies of ATI Radeon product for the G4 have disappeared off of retailer shelves, and the folks at ATI do not look like they're planning on making any more of that design. Sad I know. It's always tough when your computer feels like it's being left behind and can't compete...but hey, that's what we're for here at YourMacStore...to help you modify and upgrade your Mac so it can compete!

What's that? Yes, we have a solution, and it doesn't involve some kind of inferior card. It involves the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 64MB ADC/DVI for Power Mac G5, and a bit of tinkering on our part. Our awesome techs here have taken that card for the Power Mac G5, and modified it so it can work on a G4...in two instances. We have one model that will handle Quicksilver/Digital Audio and another that will handle MDD.

While these items are not the ideal solution (the only ideal one would come from the folks at ATI), they work and work well. We've tried to keep the price low on them, and we've given them our own Warranty, so you can purchase without a real worry. See! Here's the YourMacStore.com Team working to help customers like you stay on top of things with their G4s! :D

Thursday, June 7, 2007

[YMS News] PRICE UPDATES

Hi folks! I had planned today to do some good blogging, but I've decided to take the time, starting today, to go through the YMS catalog and update our prices. I really want to see if we can continue to bring you good prices and good service on all of the Mac products we offer, and to do that, I have to wade into the catalog like Rambo into a squad of communist soldiers. So while I may not be posting much today, at least know I'm thinking of all of you! :)

If any big news breaks, y'all know how to get in touch with me. (especially you Mac-Forums.com folks who know how to instant message me!)


-Mike Leader

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

[Tech] ANYONE FOR SOME CORE IMAGE?

One of the cooler items we have in stock here at YourMacStore is the ATI Radeon 9600 family of video cards. However, the primary one that's available on the market right now is the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 64MB ADC/DVI for Power Mac G5...not much right now for the G4. The card I just linked to is ONLY for the Power Mac G5, because it uses an AGP 8X slot. If you tried to insert this into a G4 slot, you'd get nothing, not even power. They're just made that way.

Now with the unavailability as of late of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro cards, we've been trying to come up with a solution on our end for our valued customers. There's plenty of demand for the 9800 and the 9600 for G4s, but nothing from the manufacturer if the line is discontinued...just no product available. (Even the Radeon 9000 Pro has disappeared from the market...maybe ATI will get around to making an announcement about this in the near future.) To remedy this, we here at YourMacStore decided to take the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 64MB ADC/DVI for Power Mac G5 card and modify it so it could be used with a G4. With this in mind, we went to work on the card for the G5s, and we now offer two of these modified cards for G4 users. One is for MDD/FW800, and the other one is for QuickSilver/Digital Audio. While they no longer carry a manufacturer's warranty, we do warranty them as used parts from our company. This modified Radeon 9600 Pro supports Dual monitor, Quartz Extreme, and Core Image...


and it's much cheaper than Retail upgrades!

-Mike Leader

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

[Apple News] MACBOOK PRO'S ROAD TRIP...TO SANTA ROSA!

The web is a flurry of Apple Activity (or should I say iActivity - I swear I'm TMing that, Apple! In the immortal words of the seagulls from Finding Nemo, "mine mine mine mine!") because of the announcement early this morning of the update to the Macbook Pro line of Apple laptops. Reports of oceans rising (from fanboys like myself all drooling) soon followed Apple fans finding out that the new Santa Rosa line of processors from Intel are now included in the newest Macbook Pro update.

The new "Santa Rosa" (the newest Core 2 Duo chip) processors are going to really push the Macbook Pro laptop to the forefront of that product type globally. With processor speeds of 2.2GHz or 2.4GHz, the new Macbook Pros will also have a 4MB L2 Cache. This
"Smart Cache" that will be shared between the two core as each needs it. They will also see the addition of the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics controller, for some really good 2d & 3d graphics work. But one of the two true kickers for this update...is that the new Macbook Pros will be able to utilize 4GB of RAM (667MHz DDR2)! Now the extra 2GB of RAM is a tad expensive to add on...but I am sure you can find it elsewhere quite soon! (We at YMS are working out a new deal with a GOOD memory manufacturer to bring you lower prices and better quality memory...stay tuned!)

Oh yes, I mentioned a second kicker didn't I? Say goodbye to the old fluorescent (CCFL) displays of the past...and say hello to LED displays! That's right, in keeping with Apple's greener policies, they have switched their laptops to mercury-free, LED displays. Now while I haven't seen one of these up close and personal yet, there is talk that these new displays are better for the eyes, AND can add 30% more life to a battery, because they use even less power. Apple, my eyes thank you already. :)

Now, who wants to give me $3,000 so I can get one right now?* :)

-Mike Leader

*TOTALLY WORTH THE PRICE

Edit: Just because y'all asked...the stats posted on the Apple site -

The 2.2 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

* 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440-by-900 LCD display;
* 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
* 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
* 120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
* a slot-load 8x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
* DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
* built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
* built-in iSight video camera;
* Gigabit Ethernet port;
* built-in AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
* two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
* one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
* Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
* the infrared Apple Remote; and
* 85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.4 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

* 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440-by-900 LCD display;
* 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
* 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
* 160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
* a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
* DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
* built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
* built-in iSight video camera;
* Gigabit Ethernet port;
* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
* two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
* one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
* Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
* the infrared Apple Remote; and
* 85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.4 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

* 17-inch widescreen 1680-by-1050 LCD display;
* 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
* 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 4GB;
* 160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
* a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
* DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
* built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
* built-in iSight video camera;
* Gigabit Ethernet port;
* built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
* ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
* three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
* one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
* Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
* the infrared Apple Remote; and
* 85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

Monday, June 4, 2007

[Apple News] iPHONE'S RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCED! (and other iPhone stuff)

Wooohoo! June 29th is the release date! Well, Steve Jobs did promise that it would be out before the end of June...and well the 29th is cutting it close, but it works. The announcement came on Sunday (I was sleeping in that day...come on, who makes important announcements on Sundays outside of some religions?), and was heralded in by three different TV spots about the iPhone. The spots are available over at the Apple website.

On the cool side of this announcement we've got solid news on the product's release, and that's always good for consumer confidence. On the bad side of this announcement, there's always some "insider" knowledge that is going to be said just to get a website some attention. (Note my post from awhile back about the death of the Mac mini.) Over at Gizmodo, there's an unfounded rumor (since the author there didn't backtrack his information and make it available for others to read, I had to dig up his resource's article, and then verify that HIS source was a completely unverifiable rumor) that there Apple will unveil plans for 3rd party iPhone applications at the WWDC. Anyone remember playing "telephone" as kids? When someone says that he heard someone else mention that something is going to happen...it doesn't mean it's true. Put the rumors to rest and learn to live a factual world, PLEASE. (You know I've also heard from someone who knows someone who lives with a guy who's ex-girlfriend's uncle's brother-in-law who was in a car accident with a guy who used to clean the bathrooms at Apple's head office and he heard that the iPhone can predict the New Zealand lottery numbers...I can't roll my eyes enough, can you?)

Anyway, we're all happy that the iPhone releases in a couple weeks...aren't you?

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In other Apple News, over at the iTunes store in the podcasts section, Apple has made available an audio file and a video file of the D5 conference from last week. So you've heard about the Gates/Jobs co-interview, now you can see it and hear it. Totally worth the free download...heck, I'm listening to it now. :)