journals

To: Steve Jobs Re: WWDC

By UnnDunn, June 18, 2007

Let's be honest, Steve. If you want to keep wowing keynote attendees, you can't regurgitate last year's topics.

Dear Steve,

It’s a shame when your premiere mid-year keynote presentation could be a rehash of what has gone before. Your annual Worldwide Developer Conference keynote is supposed to be where you make developers feel good about coding for Apple, where you can rally your base of Mac developers and energize them into creating the quirky, innovative apps that will define your computers in the next year. So what happened? Why does everyone feel so empty inside, as if nothing has changed between June 10 and today?

Let’s talk about Leopard. Leopard is your baby, your big answer to Windows Vista. After all, you’re Apple. You’ve shipped 5 major operating system releases in six years, each of which had significant new features. And yes, Leopard does have its share of new stuff. But here’s the thing, Steve: most of your keynote demos weren’t new to us.

Sure, you announced some completely new stuff. The new Stacks feature of the dock raised eyebrows, Spotlight searching over the network is nice to have, and 64-bit top-to-bottom was well-received by the content creation people.

But the new feature that was best-received was the new Finder. I have to say, that worries me. First,…
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Cheaper, Environmentally-Friendly Lighting Is Easy

By moreApple, June 15, 2007

Home Depot says, "You can achieve the same level of brightness with a 17-watt energy efficient fluorescent light bulb as you can with a standard 60-watt bulb. Yet the lower wattage bulb uses as much as 72 percent less energy than its incandescent counterpart and it lasts 10 times longer, too!"

The time has arrived to switch many of your lights to Compact Fluorescent bulbs.

These bulbs run up to 300 degrees F cooler and thus are much more efficient while outputting similar light. There are hundreds of models for all different size bulbs. They save hundreds of pounds of pollution over their lifespan while also lowering your energy bill (paying for themselves easily) and lasting longer than regular light bulbs.

Home Depot says, “You can achieve the same level of brightness with a 17-watt energy efficient fluorescent light bulb as you can with a standard 60-watt bulb. Yet the lower wattage bulb uses as much as 72 percent less energy than its incandescent counterpart and it lasts 10 times longer, too!”

The key is finding out exactly what wattage and voltage your current light bulbs are and choosing the right color temperature.

The color temperature Ive liked so far, for computer and home use, is 2700 K (Kelvin). 2700 K Compact Fluorescent bulbs are also known as Warm white or Soft white but the only way to be sure it is 2700 K is to look for that spec. Some are labeled Warm white but arent 2700 K. It’s good…
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Safari for Windows

By Liam, June 14, 2007

Introduction and Installation

I don’t ever watch the actual WWDC keynotes, nor do I take that much interest in them, but I will have a look at the Engadget or Ars feeds after it’s all over to see just what kind of carnage took place. In this case, that carnage was the announcement of Safari 3, which has been ported over to Windows. The reasons why are pure speculation, ranging from allowing the widest range of developers to be able to test iPhone applications without having to pay for Macs all the way to wanting web developers to take Safari and therefore WebKit seriously, as they have come to do for Firefox and Gecko. (Lack of) reasoning aside, Safari 3 is here, at least as a beta. Not only that, it’s here for Windows. In this review, we’ll see not only how Safari stacks up as a web browser, but how Safari stacks up as a Windows application.

Downloading Safari is much like downloading iTunes from Apple. You select a radio button, the click a button and download/run the installer. There is an option for Windows that downloads Safari plus the omnipresent Quicktime, but users can opt to download only…
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WWDC 07 Keynote First Impressions

By Nick, June 12, 2007

Ah, another year, another WWDC. This year’s keynote centered on Leopard, the next big update to Mac OS X. Secondary topics centered on Safari and iPhone (of course). I’m going to spare you a lengthy introduction and jump right into the heart of the matter.

Leopard

That’s it? Those are the top secret features we’ve been waiting for? A tweaked Finder and Dock? A transparent menubar? Okay, okay, I know that there are still a lot of Leopard features that we have yet to see, but Apple has had two chances to show us the big ticket features. I’ll basically echo the general assessment I made regarding Leopard from WWDC 2006: meh.

As far as this section goes, I will only discuss things that have changed in Leopard since we saw it last year (or that I have enough to go off to make anything remotely close to resembling an opinion), otherwise I’ll end up repeating a lot of what I said before.

The “New” Desktop

Oh come now, Steve; don’t give me a see-through menubar, a Dock with even more eye candy, and one new feature—stacks—and tell me that it’s a new desktop. A new desktop is a paradigm…
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Popular Mechanics reveals Microsoft Multitouch Platform: Milan

By Eric, May 29, 2007

Based off of Jeff Han’s multitouch technology, Microsoft has developed a new platform of computing, which they are calling Surface (codenamed “Milan"). This revolutionary technology surrounds the concept of being able to touch your computing. The multitouch technology is most simply a glorified touch screen, one that can sense multiple touches, including movement. As can be seen from the early conceptual video by Jeff Han here, the use of the technology is nearly endless. We have already seen it in the iPhone, slated for release next month.

Microsoft has taken it a step forward by putting it into a coffee table. Quite seriously however, Microsoft has really raised the bar by integrating wireless technology and the ability to simply place a device on the surface and transfer files to it tirelessly by dragging it to the device itself, right on the surface. Be sure to check out the entire video at Popular Mechanics. Microsoft is going to be selling the technology initially for commercial use, as in hotels. It will cost around $5k-$10k, possibly by the end of 2007, so keep your eyes out!