Here
's a poser for the experts among you: Does anyone know which time server the February 2008 Archives
Here
's a poser for the experts among you: Does anyone know which time server the 
I've gotten used to using
bluetooth, my old phone and Salling Clicker to control my pre
sentations, and sorely miss the functionality in the iPhone.
Enter Touchpad, which turns jailbroken iPhones and iPo
d Touches into a wireless touchpad control for Macs, Windows and Linux computers. All the usual trackpad functions
are there, plus right-edge page scrolling. Cool!
Someone named Jahanzeb Sherwani created Touchpad from
VNSea. All you need do is add the http://cnp.qlnk.net/ repository to Installer.app, download and install it, and fo
llow Sherwani's instructions on how to install and enable VNC
on the computer you choose to use Touchpad on.
Visit Jahanzeb's developer page h
ere for more details and instructions, even a video.
Go get the iTunes
7.6.1 update via Software Update. It's basically mean
t for rental movies and Apple TV - things I don't avail of or
have - but if you do, grab the update. If you don't have an Apple TV or rent mo
vies, at least you can be happy with satisfying your obsessive need to have the
most current version available. (At least you have Apple's al
ways-vague and -cryptic "includes several bug fixes".)
Rent and download your favorite movies with iTunes on your computer or directly to your living room on Apple TV. Enjoy rented movies in sizes up t o 720p HD with surround sound on your Apple TV and sizes up to DVD-quality on y our computer. Transfer your rented movies from iTunes to your iPod or iPhone an d enjoy them on the go. Also, purchase and download your favorite TV shows, music, and more directly on your Apple TV. Effortlessly transfer purchases made on Apple TV back to your c omputer with iTunes. iTunes 7.6.1 includes several bug fixes and improves compatibility with Apple T V software version 2.0."
I was expecting this, but not in this way. Not on the iTunes Store, for goodness' sake.
American Idol aspirant Renaldo Lapuz, a Filip
ino who caused a riot of sorts with the hosts of American Idol Season 7 by
WilliamHung-ing his way into the spotlight with his white feathered costum
e and self-composed ode to Simon Cowell, is now a free music v
ideo on the iTunes Store.
Oh dear God.
It was amusing at first to the MacADoodlers in the Philippines
, where MAD is made, and where Lapuz was originally from, but it was particular
ly amusing for the Doodler himself, as Lapuz' previous job for
13 years prior to moving to the States, he discovered, was as a public tricycl
e driver in Sikatuna Village, where the Doodler lives. No wond
er he looked familiar.
AI gave him lots of airtime, and Simon himself predicted sarcastically that Lap
uz' song, We're Brothers Forever, would be the next hit. Well,
it's here. A free 7-min video, all of an 83mb download, from the iTunes Store.
Get it while it lasts.
Another sign that the end times are nigh.
Jesse Derris, an Account Manager at Sunshine Sachs & A
ssociates, the PR group for Product(Red), got in touc
h with the Doodler to give the real story behind the previous
post we wrote about the campaign. So as not to make any mistakes, we reproduce
Mr. Derris' reply here verbatim:
Hi Adelâ Realizing it might be difficult for us to speak on the phone, I wanted to write to you to correct some of the facts in your story regarding (RED). Weâre so gl ad that you like the products! First, (RED) products generate funds for the Global Fund to fight AIDS across A frica, not just in Rwanda. (RED) money is currently at work in Rwanda, Swazilan d, and Ghana. While youâre right that a portion of sales of (RED) items goes th e Global Fund, that portion is at least 40 percent of gross profits â a very la rge amount. Up until this point, (RED) has generated more than $60 million for the Global F und, $22 million of which is being used in Rwanda. The Advertising Age story you quote in your post is from March 2007, almost a y ear ago. That story accused (RED) partners of spending upwards of $100 million on advertising and generating only $18 million for the Global Fund. However, bo th numbers are false. Advertising Age has never revealed the source of the numb ers they used, nor how they were calculated. In short, we have no idea where th ey came from. Now, back in March 2007, the actual figures were an estimated $50 million spent on advertising, generating $25 million for the Global Fund. This is a very suc cessful figure. Why? The amount of money that went to the Global Fund at that point â $25 million â represents 40 percent of the profits. Remember, the companies get to keep the o ther 60 percent of their profits. The reason we do this is because (RED) is a b usiness model that is meant to help companies give to the Global Fund and make a profit at the same time. By ensuring that companies profit on their (RED) par tnership, we can make it sustainable in the long run. Unfortunately, when Adver tising Age calculated their figures, they left out the other 60 percent of prof its. It is important to point out that (RED) itself doesnât spend anything on advert ising. Our partners each divert a portion of their existing advertising budget towards ads for their (RED) products. It is money that will be spent on adverti sing whether or not (RED) exists. Itâs not money that would be earmarked for ch arity. Weâre so grateful to our partners for advertising on our behalf. I hope this is helpful in explaining what (RED) is and how we are doing." That's that. Straight out of the horse's mouth. Now to get that red nano.
I love Product(
RED) items. Particularly the ones from Apple - the re
d iPod nano has always been something I've wanted. I even got
the matching V-Moda Vibe earphones ready and waiting. As Wayne
Campbell said, she will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.
The specially-made items are, if you don't know, editions meant to generate cha
rity funds to fight AIDS and HIV in Rwanda. A
portion of the sales from the (RED) items like watches, cellphones, laptops, t
-shirts, colognes, credit cards - and iPods - go to this fund. For example, 
Looks like I can finally retire resource-hungry Firefox soon,
if developer news about the new version of Safari is accurate.
People currently testing Webkit, or the new iteration of Apple
's own browser, are finding that the developer build currently being seeded and
tested is already 2.5 times faster than the current Safari re
lease - and that is still in it's unoptimized state!
If this is any indication, the speed boost of the forthcoming Safari will be co
nsiderable. Computerworld has more details on the speed boost and the new featu
res here.
Don't take my word for it, but it also seems that Webkit is safe enough to test
on your own system. If you want to, download the 15.8mb dmg file (it bloats to
62mb when expanded) of the unoptimized WebKit Build r30090 here; later you can get whatever nightly build is available through the Webkit ope
ning page.
Been trying it out myself, and dang, it's fast.
Seriously now, OS
X is starting to act a bit too much like Windows. But
hey, if it makes things better, why the heck not?
If it isn't on your desktop yet, run Software Update to get Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later, Mac OS X v10.5 or later, Windows Vista, XP SP2 Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to an unexpected application term ination or arbitrary code execution Description: A heap buffer overflow exists in QuickTime's handling of HTTP resp onses when RTSP tunneling is enabled. By enticing a user to visit a maliciously crafted webpage, an attacker may cause an unexpected application termination o r arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved bo unds checking."Not that I understand any of it, but it sounds good. No word yet if it tanks anything, but go get, if you're the Early Updater type like me.
Much as The Doodler would love to actually put the Mac
Book Air through its paces himself, availability and resources have co
nspired to deny him the pleasure.
Not so our friends at Ars Technica, where Jacqui Cheng
recently did a detailed, comprehensive review of the base model. More i
nterestingly, she just got a unit of the higher-end, slightly faster and US$130
0-more expensive Air with the 64GB Solid State Drive, did the
same benchmarks as with the base model, and then put the results head-to-head.
So, is the MacBook Air with the SSD worth the extra $1300?
No.
Read Jacqui's comparative review here.
If Software Update<
/strong> hasn't brought them to your attention yet, a couple of updates surface
d a couple of days ago.
ProKit Update 4.5 (24.2mb) is for all the expensive stand-alon
e Apple apps you might own (lucky you):
This update improves reliability for Apple's professional applicati ons and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Express, Ap erture, Logic Studio and Logic Express."iPhoto Update 7.1.2 (15.9mb) closes a security hole, and some other stuff that Apple, as usual, declines to elaborate upon:
This update addresses issues when publishing photos to a .Mac Web G allery, improves overall stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues."< /blockquote> Go get 'em.
In a no-brainer upgrade,
Apple has just (belatedly) upped the iPhone's
storage capacity to 16gb, and the iPod Touch to 32gb.
At first, I got giddy with excitement, as a fanboy is wont to do with something
new from Apple. But almost immediately that euphoria deflated as I realized ho
w ho-hum the upgrade is. We've been waiting for this for at least six months no
w. No new and impressive features. No 3G, no better battery, no Air-type slimdo
wn. Outside of the 1.1.3 Firmware, it's exactly the same banan
a as the current models, only with more space. And they both cost US$499.
I'm stumped why they don't go whole hog on the phone and bump it all the way up
to 32gb. There's no reason other than they don't want to kill the iPod Touch,
but I think a high-capacity iPhone without the phone will always have a market.
I'd buy a 32gb iPhone if they had one.
I've learned to live with
8gb on an iPhone. I've been idly ruing my decision to move up (down?) from a 1
6gb iPod Touch to an iPhone with half the storage; as a phone, the iPhone is ac
tually mediocre and subpar in some areas (like I've said in a recent podcast I
recorded; you won't believe the ribbing I got). Now that they've doubled capaci
ties, I'm just ...underwhelmed. I'd rather get the 32gb iPod Touch than a 16gb
iPhone, to be honest about it.
I'm sure fanboys who've got not much to live for after realizing the new ultrat
hin Mac is a lot of hot Air for the most part, will fixate on upgrading their p
hones to the double-capacity ones. Have fun, guys. I think I'll wait for someth
ing a bit more substantial.
As we've been expecting, our beloved friends at iFixit have do
ne their magic and sliced up a fresh new MacBook Air to see what's in the air t
onight. Amazing feat of engineering, guys.
Take a look at the autopsy here.
Hi, gang. You migh
t have noticed we've been having off-again, on-again problems server side at ou
r blog network of late.
Things have been fixed, but we've lost a considerable number of days because of
the downtime, and for that, the Doodler apologizes.
Because of the changes at the back-end, some of your bookmarks might not work a
nymore. I've had friends like Ryan who thinks the blog is still offline because
his old bookmark takes him to the Twilight Zone, even if we've been up for som
e time now.
If you can, spread the word around that the working link is "http://blogs.inqui
rer.net/macadoodle". That should bring everyone up to speed.
Thanks!
Yun lang po.
