Category: Apple Computing

SMK-Link has introduced a new docking stand for the iPad which essentially turned the iPad into a desktop.  The PadDock 10  or VP3650 Ver. 2 allows you to not only use it as a desk top, but also adds speakers, has full 360 degree rotational ability and a really cool option, tilting.   The PadDock 10 has two speakers built into the stand and is currently only compatible with the iPad2. Obviously a bluetooth keyboard would need to be used for…

In this day and age where iPhones and iPads can be tracked using the Where’s my iPhone App, you would think that thieves would take a bit of a more cautious approach.  This time, the perpetrator robbed a woman in a handbag store at gun point.  He took the woman’s purse and her iPhone, sticking the later item in his boot. When Police Office Robert Garland got on the job, he simply used the App to track the iPhone using…

Karelia Software has released an update to their Sandvox Website Creator.  Sandvox is an easy to use website creation package which allows users to create entire websites within a matter of minutes rather than days and weeks. Sandvox 2.5 has included some automatic features allowing notifications to be sent to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even email.  Also included in this version are the following changes: Version 2.5 requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.6.and now has Full screen mode. …

Apple, Inc. has released another update to the upcoming release of Mac OS X, 10.7.3.  The Build 11D50 is a 997mb download and while there are still questions about what Apple has planned, the laast few builds have been fairly stable.   To download the latest build, you will need a Developer account.   The build can be downloaded at: http://developer.apple.com/

Readdle has released an update to the PDF document control software, PDF Expert. Version 3.2 of PDF Expert incorporates a number of enhancements to the package including: Document Search now looks far beyond the file name. It lets you find the needed documents faster and easier than ever before! New sorting panel lets you reorder the files based on Name, Date or Modified Date. Just scroll the document list to the very top to reveal it, pretty much like in…

According to a report by GigaOm, Apple has overtaken all of the other large hardware manufacturers to become the number one purchaser of semiconductors.   The report states that Apple spend a total of $17.3 Billion USD last year on semiconductors.  This change in the top rank has been spurred on by the iPhone and iPad’s popularity and demand. Source: GigaOm

Apple has finally created a support website for the iTunes U.  Introduced along with Apple’s Education Initiative last week in New York City, iTunes U is intended to give students of all ages materials which are downloadable to their iPads as well as instructurs the tools with which to reach the student easily and interactively. Lack of a real support structure has been hindering usage of the facility so far, however Apple eliminated that issue yesterday.   You can check out…

Evi is an app for the iPhone which it’s developers, True Knowledge, as well as several high profile Apple and Mac related websites were claiming was a good replacement for Siri.  However, the reality is much cloudier than that.   After 516 ratings, the average is 1.5 stars with most people complaining that the app can7t even connect to the Evi servers to perform the required tasks. Apple also had issues that were very similar when they first released Siri, however,…

A report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners states that of all of the buyers who purchased the iPhone 4s from October, 2011 to present, only 21 percent of the buyers chose the 64gb model.  Online sales also decreased from 43 percent of total sales to 33 percent by the end of 2011 Source: Appleinsider.com

The latest version of the Google Chrome browser has been released.   Version 16.0.912.77 if primarily a maintenance release, fixing a number of bugs. You can download the latest version from the Google Chrome website at: https://www.google.com/chrome

In the 5 days since the launch of the Textbooks section of the Apple Book Store, they have sold approximately 350,000 books according to Global Equities Research.  They also apparently gave away 90,000 plus copies of the iBooks Author software for textbook production.  If these numbers and trends continue, Apple could well have the largest book store sales in the world within a matter of weeks instead of the normal years that it took Amazon to get to the top….

For those iPhone and iPad users lucky enough to have downloaded iMame prior to its being pulled on the 23rd of December, 2011, there is a nifty new instruction set available on the Internet for adding more ROMs.  iMame came with 10 ROMs but none of them were particulaly exciting from the aspect of the average gamer. The one thing that was exciting was the fact that MAME had made it into the Apple App store.  This has been rectified…

While Apple has put camera’s in most every device that they produce these days, many in the military or government cannot use the devices due to the sensitive nature of their jobs.  That is until now.  The M1 Shop in Singapore has the iPhone 4S models with no camera for sale now.  While the cameras are a bit priceier than the camera laden models, they are worth the price for those who must have the phone but cant have a…

If you are in the middle of renaming a ton of files by hand, stop.  Now there is an easier way that doesn’t involve the command line.   7 Bit Guys’ Stuff has released Easy Rename for Mac OS X, which resolves the problem of doing a mass rename based on the pattern in the file name.  While most UNIX users know how to do such a thing by command line, for those folk who want to do a quick rename…

This week, Apple shook up the education and textbook world with the introduction of iBooks 2.0, iTunesU for k-12 and of course their now ever so popular iBooks Author.  Many educators we have talked to seemed enthusiastic about the possibilities presented with the new application, however, Apple has a caveat in the End User Licensing Agreement which prevents users of iBooks Author from selling books created with the package anywhere else other than Apple’s iBook Store.  While PDF’s exported from…

Apple has released an update to iTunes to reflect the new introductions of software in New York City yesterday.  This new version of iTunes allows users to sync their ipads with the new iBook textbooks purchased from Apple through the iTunes store. For more information about the update, go to: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1426

This morning, Apple announced their new initiative to make education one of their highest priorities.  This announcement has not really changed their stance on the subject of education, but the way in which they did it deserves merit. The first thing that Apple did is to eliminate the physical books and the cutting down of trees to print those books.  This alone will save Billions of dollars each year and definitely help save the forests that are so important to…

Apple held an event this morning in New York to announce a slew of education related items.  The first thing off the blocks was the introduction of the update to the iBooks franchise with a version 2.0.  This new version includes a ton of rich media capabilities and allows the introduction of school textbooks, which was one more thing Apple did this morning. As we so rightly predicted last week, Apple also introduced a publishing tool, iBooks Author for those…

An online study by Adobe Systems Inc shows that tablet users tended to spend about 21 percent more per purchase than other users.  This study shows that they spent even more when compared to smart phone users, by a whopping 54 percent.  This analysis may be the result of many companies tailoring their services for tablet devices in current updates.  However, with the current trend in tablet computing the ease with which purchases are performed on the devices could be…

Mind Console Productions released a new screen saver this week which is a faithful rendition of the original Berkeley Systems After Dark screen saver module, Starry Night.  While similar in look and feel, the Mind Console version of the module was created completely from scratch.  This version of the program requires a minimum of Mac OS X 10.5. For more on the program check out the MacUpdate page for the program at: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/41536/starry-night