journal: mac

ThinkSecret officially stops publishing

We knew it was coming since December when ThinkSecret announced its settlement with Apple, but it is now official: ThinkSecret is no longer publishing new content. Not only that, though; the site has been taken offline completely. Visiting thinksecret.com now results in a 403 Forbidden message. MacRumors notes that ThinkSecret published for so long after the initial settlement has to do with advertising obligations.

It should be interested to see which site--if any--takes ThinkSecret’s mantle. AppleInsider, perhaps?

Farewell ThinkSecret.



Stacks revisited

Back in early November, as part of my review of Leopard, I wrote a review of Leopard’s “Stacks” feature. If you haven’t yet read my initial review, please do so, so you know what on Earth I’m talking about here. wink

Earlier today, Apple released Mac OS X 10.5.2, which addressed numerous issues, including some involving Stacks. Where does this leave Stacks now? Let’s take a second look…

Changes in 10.5.2

There have been two major complaints regarding Stacks:

  1. It’s hard to tell which stack is which at a glance.
  2. There’s no equivalent to Tiger’s behavior, and Stacks are arguably inferior.

My friends, lo and behold, Apple hath heard your cries!

Stacks in 10.5.2 add an assortment of new options. The ability to view as a fan or grid are still there, of course, but now there is a third option: List. First a brief history lesson: both fan and grid view have the advantage of being very visual with their larger icons, and you can drag items out of a stack. +2 over Tiger. At the same time, you couldn’t view a large number of files in either mode; you would have to open a Finder window to access something…
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Mac OS X 10.5.2 released, Mac users everywhere rejoice

You read that right. The mythical 10.5.2 update is now available via Software Update. The update weighs in at a hefty 180 MB, though some in MacRumors Forumsnote that it came in at a morbidly obese 341 MB for their particular Mac.

Updates about left and right, from the option to turn off menubar transparency to the option to turn off stacks. Mac OS X 10.5.2’s lot in life seems to be to squash massive amounts of bugs and fix Leopard “enhancements” that have been widely panned.

What’s that? You want full release notes? Here they are!

Download. Install. Visit DT and tell all.



I’ll Take The Fast One, Not the Fastest One

It costs $1,600 to go from the Fast Mac Pro to the Fastest one, for a 10% speed increase.

I’ve been a Mac user since around 1987. The first Mac I purchased was a Mac SE/30 followed by a IIci.

I create graphics and animation for corporate clients, which involves a lot of rendering of video/3D and encoding. This all takes a lot of time. So for many years now, I have been upgrading my own personal workstation about every three years and I would normally just get the fastest Mac workstation available at the time. I think this year, I will pick the slower one.

For years, Apple would offer three main configurations of their professional Mac for people to purchase. They would typically be Fast, Faster, Fastest based on the speed of the CPU included in each configuration. They have also been known to offer a single processor version at various times, creating a forth and slowest version.

Recently, Apple has announced updates to their Mac Pro line. These include:

SlowerFastFasterFastest
One 2.8 Ghz quad core Intel processorTwo 2.8 Ghz quad core Intel processorsTwo 3 Ghz quad core Intel processorsTwo 3.2 Ghz quad core Intel processors
$2,299$2,799$3,599$4,399

So if I were to repeat my purchasing behavior from the last ten or so years, I would just go and order…
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Fun Stuff: Inside Apple HQ

Have you ever wondered what an average cubicle at Apple headquarters looked like? Admittedly I haven’t. But if that sort of thing interests you, Office Snapshots has a collection of photographs from inside the Apple campus, including the obligatory cubicle photos (somehow I expected Apple’s cube to be, I don’t know, less mundane), a shot of a conference room, a cafeteria, and what Apple employees do for fun.

Anyway, check it out. 


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