Category: Apple Computing

Electronic arts is giving away the game Tiger Woods PGS Tour 12 for the iPhone and iPad.  The game which is a whopping 269mb download is an example of what can be accomplished with the graphics on the iPhone.   The game is currently available from the Apple Store at itunes.apple.com/us/app/tiger-woods-pga-tour-12/id427647815?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 and is the full package of the game.

This morning, Apple introduced the iPhone 4S.  While much of the media had been expecting the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S was introduced including such capabilities as 8 Megapixel Camera, 1080P HD Video and Voice Control.   The Siri application which was introduced a couple of years ago, with Apple, Inc. buying the company last year, is now totally integrated into the iOS and allows the user to control the phone completely hands free. On a more comical side, many folks…

With less than 10 hours to go until the iPhone5 announcement, it is funny to read the hubub on many of the main steam media sites.   It seems that many in the main stream, including the Wall Street Journal want the iPhone 5 announcement to be a failure.   Videos like “Is the iPhone loosing its cool factor” and “Little Buzz Ahead of Apple’s iPhone Event” being the most popular on the site seems that they are pushing that negative agenda….

A few minutes ago I downloaded and tried out a free music player called aTunes. They had a version update to 2.1.0. My impression is it is a good try. There are a couple of features which iTunes doesn’t have but (on the Mac at least) the interface is a little clunky. For the moment Apple doesn’t have much to worry about. However I can see where this project is going so it may be worth considering in the future….

Apple, Inc. has sent out invitations to the media for the upcoming October 4th announcement of their latest rendition of the iPhone.  The iPhone 5 as it has been dubbed in most circles is expected to be much sleeker, faster and have more battery life according to reports around the web.   There is also a rumor that the new iPhone will be voice controlled.  This rumor does not seem too far fetched since most of the software has been available…

The short response is don’t. The long response is it can be done but… It is  very painful to get the TV to work as a monitor. The resoluton of a 720p TV is supposed to be 1200 x 720 (or fairly close). The aspect is 16:9. Unfortunately up to this point I’ve only been able to get 1024 x 768, which is an aspect of 4:3. To get there I first wasted a couple of hours fiddling around with…

Like most people I hate being told how to spend any of my limited money. Especially in this economy. It seems every time Apple releases a major upgrade to their operating system a bunch of older computers are no longer supported. Readers will recall I have a G4 Server in excellent condition. Granted I had to replace the CD drive with a DVD drive, but that was the only hardware change I had to make. In order to get the…

The three readers are Adobe Digital Editions from Adobe, Stanza from http://www.lexcycle.com/, and Skim from http://skim-app.sourceforge.net. Each of the three have their strong points and weak points. Adobe is fairly powerful and fast, but lack many of the whiz bang features of other readers.They concentrate mostly on PDF documents (which is no surprise). Apart from formatting, there really isn’t much there which can’t be found in Preview (built into OS X). It has the look of a Windows program ported…

Jomic is another comic book reader. It is written for the PPC, so the Intel folks will need to install Rosetta (allows the Intel machines to run PPC code). The version I have appears to be a demo. Many of the items in the menu are greyed out. However, I found by a bit of experimentation some of these items do function. Since the program was written for slower machines I’ve observed it is very fast on a faster machine….

Dapplegrey is a front end to DOSBox. It is a way to maintain quick access to the features and programs stored within DOSBox. Minimum requirements are OS X 10.3 and a PPC Mac. Access to programs is quite simple. It is a matter of  going to the “Games List” tab and double-clicking on the desired program. The assumption is people running DOSBox are running old DOS (PC) games. In my case this is true. I do everything else in OS…

This article is a variation/enhancement to a post I found at http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9289 for a FreeNAS server. Of course purely Mac folks would likely want to stick with the AFP protocol. In terms of generalities the NFS server does not necessarily have to be running FreeNAS. It just has to work. FreeNAS is basically a “Swiss Army Knife” of external storage. I find it does a lot of things very easily. It doesn’t work on all machines (I’ve had a 60%…

When an app is installed via MacPorts, or one of the other programs used to bring Linux apps to the Mac, it is stored as a program requiring a terminal program to run. This is fine for some programs such as 7zip but not for others such as pan (a GUI newsreader) and gftp (a GUI based ftp program). I use these programs enough so I’d want them on the dock. After hunting around I found some discussion in a…

The Apple, Inc. Japan website is offering free upgrades for all Macs, iPhones, iPads, and iTouches damaged in the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.   (http://www.apple.com/jp/support/information.html) According to the website, repairs must be requested before the end of June.  Keep in mind that their current policy is subject to be pulled at any time so be sure to get your machine in as soon as possible. For those who evacuated from Japan with damaged machines, no definitive word on what can…

Donut Games has updated their Rat On A Skateboard app for the iPhone.  Version 1.10 is now available from Apple’s App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/app/rat-on-a-skateboard/id404095058?mt=8 For a limited time, Rat on a Skateboard is also available for Free from the Donut Games website.  For other Donut games for the iPhone, check out the Donut Games website at http://www.donutgames.com

Skyworks Interactive, Inc. has released an update for their 3 Point Hoops Basketball App for the iPhone.  Version 3.3 was released today to address a host of bugs in the App.  For information about the update and other Skyworks Apps,  check out the Skyworks website at http://www.skyworks.com/iphone/ The 3 Point Hoops Basketball application is available for .99 cents from the following page: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3-point-hoops-basketball-the/id306597349?mt=8

Apple, Inc. this week took measures to curb the bruhaha caused by the iPhone tracking peoples locations with a new release of IOS.  Version 4.3.3 reduces the size of the tracking  cache, as well as totally eliminating the cache when tracking is turned off.   The cache also is no longer backed up to iTunes, thus eliminating the possibility of the iPhone tracking movements unless done so through the user controlled settings. For more information about the update, you can check…

Nuance Communications, Inc. , maker of dictation software products has updated their Dragon Dictation package for the iPhone and iPad.  Version 2.08 addresses some of the localization issues with the program. You can download the iPad / iPhone App for free from http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?mt=8 or check their website at http://www.nuancemobilelife.com/ for more information about their mobile applications.

Most of our readers know I volunteer for an educational charity on Fridays. I install software on computers which are then given out to students. We have a “special needs” married couple who came in about a year ago and took a Linux box. They wanted to get their webcam running on it. After a couple of weeks I managed to get it more or less working. I thought it might be a good idea to pick up one and…

There are a good portion of our readers who know what I’m talking about. At the same time there are more than a few who don’t. I’ll explain what I mean in the title… Modern Intel Macs can be used to run PC software. When I say PC, I do not necessarily refer only to Microsoft and Windows. In this case Ubuntu is an example of a non-Microsoft operating system. Typically this is done in three ways. The first is…

Apple, Inc. released another update for its iTunes program.  Version 10.2.2 addresses a security vulnerability known as the Man-in-the-middle attack.  For more information about the update, check the Apple iTunes Update page at: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4609