journal: mac

Quickies: Free newsreader roundup, Tetris for Dashboard

By Nick, March 5, 2008

A couple quick notes…

Free Mac newsreaders!

NetNewsWire is the undisputed king of the hill as far as Mac newsreaders go (especially since it went free), but there are a number of other free options out there. Fortunately for us, MacRecon published a short roundup of free Mac newsreaders. It’s worth a look, especially if you’re not too familiar with the other players in the field.

Tetris for Dashboard

Admit it. You spent hours upon hours of quality time with your original Game Boy playing Tetris. Since then you’ve moved on to bigger and batter games, but there’s still no going wrong with a game of Tetris now and then, especially if you have a few minutes of downtime. If this sounds like you, take a look at this Tetris game widget for Dashboard.

It’s Tetris as you know it (and in grayscale too!), but for your Dashboard. This widget allows you to pause and continue games, and as a nice touch, it pauses automatically when you hide Dashboard (Uh oh, boss coming! Hide it!)

The Tetris widget is still in beta, but is a free download from Apple’s Dashboard widget site. Check it out.

Do you follow Deep Thought’s Mac news on a regular basis? Subscribe to our Mac news feed.

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Adventures in troubleshooting

By Nick, March 4, 2008

Well that was a fun evening. It was an evening of twists and turns, of drama, of troubleshooting.

So this afternoon I came home after running some errands, and switched on my MacBook. I used it earlier in the day and shut it down while I was gone. When I reached the login screen, I discovered that my MacBook’s built-in keyboard and trackpad weren’t responding. Neither would accept any input whatsoever. Thinking it was a one-time glitch, I plugged in a USB mouse and restarted.

It didn’t make a difference. Same result.

I logged in with a USB keyboard and mouse and checked System Profiler to see ifmy MacBook still recognized its own keyboard and trackpad. It did. Okay, at least the computer still knew the keyboard and trackpad still existed.

To narrow it down as a software problem or hardware problem, I grabbed my Leopard DVD and booted from it. Same result. Dead keyboard and trackpad. Sigh. Restart. Launch Safari, do a little searching, realize that others have experienced similar problems that required repair. Ugh.

At this point, thinking it was a hardware issue that would require a trip to the repair shop, I called Apple shortly before 5…
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Report: MacBook Air in short supply

By Nick, March 3, 2008

Immediately after its MWSF unveiling, the MacBook Air was panned by many in the Mac community for what it was missing (ports, a removable battery, etc...).

That might not be such a big deal to buyers.

Ars Technica reports that the MacBook Air seems to be selling well, and is hard to come by in some areas. While some are not sure if the shortages is because of high demand or due to supply issues, Ars did note that “according to the Apple Store sales rank widget, the MacBook Air has been the top selling Mac since before the middle of February, outselling the MacBook, the iMac, and the MacBook Pro—this, despite week-long shipping delays.” And for what it’s worth, last time I visited the Apple Store in San Francisco, I couldn’t play with one for even a few seconds because people were taking them for a spin the entire time.

If you’re looking to buy one, Apple has a handy availability checker for the MacBook Air. Now if only I had $1800 to burn…

I’ll say this much: it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the MacBook Air has sex appeal. I know, you’ve drooled over…
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Quick Pick: Secrets

By Nick, March 2, 2008

The idea of an application exposing hidden Mac OS X features is nothing new. There have been countless such utilities since OS X’s inception. However, a new preference pane called Secrets takes this concept to the next level. While most secret feature enablers stick only to the applications included with Mac OS X, Secrets goes beyond that, by allowing users to access hidden features in third-party applications such as NetNewsWire and Adium. Additionally, users can submit their own hidden feature hints. Cool.

Since most applications require a relaunch before the hidden features take effect, a “relaunch” button would be nice, as would the ability to revert to defaults in case something goes wrong.

Secrets is still in beta, so keep in mind that you could run into some bugs. Also, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could cause issues with your OS. But if you’re game, visit the Secrets site.

Do you follow Deep Thought’s Mac news on a regular basis? Subscribe to our Mac news feed.

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Warp: Switch between Spaces with the mouse

By Nick, February 16, 2008

In one of my articles on Leopard, I made the following comment regarding Spaces:

So far I like Spaces. I know you can move a window from one space to another by moving it to the edge of the screen, but I wish there was a way to move to another space by using this same technique without a window. I want to be able to shove my mouse to the side of the screen, leave it there for a few seconds, and watch as I am moved to the other space.

It looks like my wish has been granted. Kent Sutherland (who I keep wanting to call ”Kiefer”), the genius behind Chax, also produces Warp, a small utility that allows users to switch to a different space by simply mousing to the edge of the screen. Awesome!

Warp is donationware; if you like it, be sure to donate a few bucks.