I've seen fast, but this takes the cake.
The guy behind ZiPhone, the turnkey app that simplied
iPhone unlocking and put it within the reach of everyone for free (and
putting lots of would-be hack-trepreneurs out of business in one fell swoop),
claims that his software can already do the same for the new iPhone 3G<
/strong> on his blog ZiPhone Status. W
e don't know how he can do that, given that the new iPhone won't be out until J
uly 11, but we've seen stranger things before.
Zibri himself said on the blog on a post dated June 10 that he
was still waiting to get his hands on the 2.0 software and a unit, but two day
s later posts that he's already patched and unlocked the firmware baseband. He
also says all the carriers are supported already (and even adds our own Globe Telecom to his long list).
We'll see. In the meantime we'll order a large grain of salt to go, please.
June 2008 Archives
I've seen fast, but this takes the cake.
The guy behind ZiPhone, the turnkey app that simplied
iPhone unlocking and put it within the reach of everyone for free (and
putting lots of would-be hack-trepreneurs out of business in one fell swoop),
claims that his software can already do the same for the new iPhone 3G<
/strong> on his blog ZiPhone Status. W
e don't know how he can do that, given that the new iPhone won't be out until J
uly 11, but we've seen stranger things before.
Zibri himself said on the blog on a post dated June 10 that he
was still waiting to get his hands on the 2.0 software and a unit, but two day
s later posts that he's already patched and unlocked the firmware baseband. He
also says all the carriers are supported already (and even adds our own Globe Telecom to his long list).
We'll see. In the meantime we'll order a large grain of salt to go, please.
It's way possible now.
The technology that will eventually allow you to play Warcraft
on your new iPhone is called Interactive 3D Streaming
, being developed by Comverse and Intel, which takes out the CPU burden from the mobile device and just streams the
good stuff to it.
The hurdle is that MMORPGs like WoW and 
Goes to show we don't know everyt
hing.
Dunno if you knew this already, but the Doodler didn't until h
e stumbled on it on Mactips.org.
You can do basic arithmetic by just entering the equation into the little
Next up is Airport Base Station Update 2008-002, which
Knowledge Base article on the Apple website. (We'll
look it up for you.)
The update will fix what's pertinent to your system. In the Doodler's case it just updated Airport Utility to Versio
n 5.3.2, a 10.5mb download.
includes general fixes and compatibility updates for the following applications: - AirPort Utility - AirPort Base Station Agent"As to what these fixes and compatibility updates actually are, we certainly won 't know from Software Update. It doesn't even link to a
Two more fresh updates availa
ble on Software Update, which show up after you update Quicktime to yesterday's 7.5 release.
One is iDVD 7.0.2, a 21.9mb download on This update supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."The other one is iMovie 7.1.2, a 19.3mb downl oad. Apple also talks about this one:
This update supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."Gee, thanks for the info.
Let's stop talking about the iPhone3G for a minute. Did you ge
t a good look at Steve Jobs at the WWDC Keynote yesterday?
See the pic above: on the left, Steve at the keynote for iPhone 1.0 over a year
ago, and on the right, at yesterday's presentation. They say black mock turtl
enecks really are slimming, but this is a bit much.
Ever since he came onstage yesterday at Moscone West, the web
has been as much abuzz about Mr. Jobs and how frighteningly thin he's become si
nce we last saw him as much as the new iPhone itself. Google h
is name today and you'll likely get news items
like this at the top of the search list.
Jobs came out in 2003 to disclose his ongoing battle with a rare form of 
As is expe
cted after a keynote address, we have the first of likely several updates to co
me, probably until the release of the new iPhone on July 11. (
I was expecting iTunes to come first, but I was wrong.)
It's Quicktime 7.5.
As usual, here's Apple's detailed and thorough explanation of
what's new: "QuickTime 7.5 improves application compatibility and addresses sec
urity issues."
Hmph.
It's a 60mb download via Software Update, or
through iTunes for Windows users. Restart required.
Video-on-Demand from the Apple site here. Quicktime<
/strong> required.
UPDATE: Now available as a free 1.18gb video podcast download from the
iTunes Store.
"Globe Telecom and Apple Bring iPhone 3G to Philippines
MANILA and SAN FRANCISCOâJune 9, 2008âGlobe Telecom and Apple® today annou
nced that they will be bringing the highly anticipated iPhone⢠3G to the Phili
ppines later this year. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iP
hone with 3G networking that is twice as fast* as the first generation iPhone,
built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 softwa
re which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundre
ds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone
SDK.
'We are very excited to be working with Apple to bring Filipino consumers i
Phone 3G later this year,' said Gerardo C. Ablaza, Jr. president and CEO of Glo
be Telecom. 'Our customers are our greatest passion and weâre constantly strivi
ng to offer them the most innovative products such as the revolutionary iPhone
3G.'
'We are thrilled to bring iPhone 3G to millions of mobile customers in the
Philippines,' said Tim Cook, Appleâs COO. 'We canât wait to get this revolution
ary mobile device in the hands of even more people around the world.'
iPhone 3G will be available to Globeâs postpaid and prepaid subscribers in
the Philippines later this year.
*Based on 3G and EDGE testing. Actual speeds vary by site conditions.
Globe Telecom is a leading telecommunications company in the Philippines wi
th more than 21 million mobile subscribers. As a pioneer, Globe Telecom continu
es to be a part of the revolution thatâs connecting millions of people across t
he Philippines and around the world. Beyond technology, Globe Telecomâs busines
s is truly shaped by the bonds that tie Filipinos together. Communications is u
ltimately about relationships, and this drives the company to innovate and cons
tantly find easy and relevant ways to enrich peopleâs lives.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple
II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today,
Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning comp
uters, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is
also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and
video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market
with its revolutionary iPhone."
Sourced from
Apple. Note the "postpaid and prepaid" part.
"iPhone3G. Twice as fast. Half the price."
Was there any doubt?
3G, GPS, sleeker, better battery life, US$199/8gb, 16gb white version(!), Mobil
eMe, enterprise support, 3rd party app support, 70 countries ...more details here.
It's 3AM. Gotta sleep. Commentary later.
Remember the pic of the box from the previous post? Appa
rently they succumbed and opened it. Less than 24 hours to go before the deadli
ne and the keynote announcement, and they go and open itâand a website has the
pics.
Sheesh. Some heads are gonna roll.
We can't vouch for the pictures' veracity; for all we know it may be another
Scenes from the past two episodes of the BBC's Doctor Who seem
to confirm what we've all suspected all along - that the Doctor uses a Mac, as seen in the screengrab above from yesterday's show, Fores
t of The Dead, the second and concluding part of the Library storyline. Th
at's obviously the thin aluminum Mac keyboard, which was even more clearly show
n in the previous episode, Silence in The Library. Logical for the fla
mboyant, eccentric Time Lord to be using a Mac, right?
Actually, this Mac connect is just an excuse for me to rave about the new Docto
r Who episodes, which have been even more brilliant in an already bright starfi
eld of great TV. Steven Moffat, who wrote the two-parter, will
be the head writer and producer of the next season, and there isn't any better
âjudging from his previous work, like last season's episode Blink, whi
ch is about the creepiest and scariest hour of scifi TV ever made. (And I love
how Brit TV bylines the episode titles in the credits, as if writers were the m
ost important things; we never get enough credit these days.)
There's something to be said for a sci-fi show episode that actually brought a
tear to my eyeâtwice! The episode also features some of the funniest lines of
dialogue in recent shows. After being told the grave news that her entire exis
tence is an imaginary Matrix-like construct, character Donna Noble goes off, incensed: "You mean this isn't the real me? Thi
s isn't my real body? But I've been dieting!"
Sorry for the tenuous Mac digression, but I couldn't resist. Hey, who knows? Ma
ybe we'll find out in a future episode that the TARDIS runs on
Mac OS XCVIII.
Don't we all love it when a shipper delivers a box to our doorstep?
Well, some folk down under are beside themselves this weekend.
Australian Mac Community forum site MacTalk reports
that they received a sealed box from Apple yesterday that
is marked "Subject to terms of NDA. Do not open until Tuesday June 10t
h 2008."
They suspect it's a promotional iPhone 2.0 unit for display un
til supply actually becomes available. Other resellers across Australia
(and presumably around the world) have received similar boxes under t
he same Non-Disclosure Agreement. This means the phone might not actua
lly be available for purchase immediately after the WWDC annou
ncement as initially hoped, at least outside the United States. Sigh.
(If it were me with the box, I don't know if I'd have the restraint. Especially
because I didn't sign no stinkin' NDA.)
Patience, patience. As they say in my country: dalawang tulog na lang.
Moscone West, San Francisco, a few days before the WWD
C on Monday (Tuesday morning here in Manila.)
Expect every detail to be scrutinized, analyzed and speculated about to death u
ntil then. (Already, I'm wondering why they've dropped the "Mac" from "Mac OS X Leopard". And "OS X iPhone"
? I've never heard it called like that. Hmmmm...)
Apple released this week a long and exhaustive Leopard
Security Configuration Guide consisting of recommended practices and
tips on keeping your Macs, well, secure.
Strictly hardcore, it's meant for the upper echelon of Mac geeks who are comfor
table with Terminal and can understand the arcana of things li
ke sandboxing, library randomization and modules with two-factor authentication
systems.
I don't think I'd try to try anything in it by myself, but it's nice to know I
have a copy. It's like a rare library book from Hogwarts, and
would be perfect if Harry was a Mac fanboy as well. Needless t
o say, tinkering with these spells is not recommended for ordinary wizards, not
unless you know what you're doing.
It's a 3.4mb PDF download and you can get it here if you want to take a peek.
A quick look at the Table Of Contents after the jump:
Chapter 1, âIntroduction to Mac OS X Security Arch itecture,â explains the infrastructure of Mac OS X. It also discusses the layer s of security in Mac OS X. Chapter 2, âInstalling Mac OS X,â describes how to securely in stall Mac OS X. The chapter also discusses how to securely install software upd ates and explains permissions and how to repair them. Chapter 3, âProtecting System Hardware,â explains how to physi cally protect your hardware from attacks. This chapter also tells you how to se cure settings that affect users of the computer. Chapter 4, âSecuring Global System Settings,â describes how to secure global system settings such as firmware and Mac OS X startup. There is also information on setting up system logs to monitor system activity. Chapter 5, âSecuring Accounts,â describes the types of user ac counts and how to securely configure an account. This includes securing the sys tem administrator account, using Open Directory, and using strong authenticatio n. Chapter 6, âSecuring System Preferences,â describes recommende d settings to secure Mac OS X system preferences. Chapter 7, âSecuring Data and Using Encryption,â describes how to encrypt data and how to use Secure Erase to verify that old data is complet ely removed. Chapter 8, âSecuring System Swap and Hibernation Storage,â des cribes how to secure your system swap and hibernation space of sensitive inform ation. Chapter 9, âAvoiding Multiple Simultaneous Account Access,â de scribes how to avoid fast user switching and local account access to the comput er. Chapter 10, âEnsuring Data Integrity with Backups,â describes the Time Machine architecture and how to securely backup and restore your compu ter and data. Chapter 11, âInformation Assurance with Applications,â describ es how to protect your data while using Apple applications. Chapter 12, âInformation Assurance with Services,â describes h ow to secure your computer services. It also describes how to protect the compu ter by securely configuring services. "Gulp. [via The Apple Core/ZD Net]
The new version of Mac OS X, 10.6, will be kn
own as Snow Leopard. Snow. Leopard.
Or at least that's what 
The Webkit team, those intrepid guys who have this forever on-
going work-in-progress to improve and speed up Safari, Apple's web browser, has unveiled a version of Webkit that incorporat
es a new Javascript rendering engine called Squirrelfi
sh, which purports to jack up Safari performance to 1.6x better. Not q
uite ready yet for prime time, it's still being tweaked and fixed before they r
oll it out.
Squirrelfish, if you really must know, is a register-based, direct threaded, hi
gh-level bytecode engine with a sliding register window calling convention made
for open-source browsers. Huh?
Bring it on. All we need to know is, will it blend?
Don't look now, but some units of the Macbook Air being sold o
n the gray market come with non-American keyboards, specifical
ly Western Spanish ones which confound users because of its st
range and unfamiliar physical layout and even more confusing keyboard assignmen
tsâpressing a key is always an adventure. I know this first hand because I proc
ured one such Macbook Air for one of my bosses.
The sealed box looked typical for all intents and purposes, until we opened it
up. The sparse documentation was all in Spanish, and the keyboard looked very o
dd and things quickly went downhill when we started typing on it. To our conste
rnation a lot of the non-alphabetical characters that came out on the bright sc
reen were totally different from the ones we pressed, going by what was printed
on the keytop. Us Filipinos used to a US layout were in immediate trouble. Tal
k about lost in translation.
Strangely, info on alternative keyboard layouts were sparse. It took a while bu
t we eventually found a solution for the key mismatching. From the outset it wa
s obviously a matter of changing keyboard profilesâbut which one?
For Macbooks, Macbook Pros and Airs with a Western Spanish keyboard, just go to System Preferences/Inte
rnational/Input Menu and select Spanish - ISO. If you don
't have it in your list of choices, you'll have to dig out your install discs a
nd load up the Spanish language choices so Spanish - ISO pops up as an option.
After this, your keys won't lie to you anymore; what you press is what you'll g
et.
Now you'll just have to live with the odd placement of keys, but that's a whole
lot better than the guessing game you had before. If you find other odd keyboa
rd layouts, not just on Macs but on external keyboards from Apple, you can just use this method to pin down the right input menu profile.
iLounge.com released this weekend the new
edition of the much-praised, much-downloaded online-only The Free iPod
+ iPhone Book.
Now on its fourth edition, it features everything you need to know about 
To get it, click here so that The Free iPod + iPhone Book 4 gets loaded onto iTunes for subscription, and you won'
t have to worry about missing it and other iLounge Library onl
ine publications.
HP Gaming CTO and VoodooPC Founder Ra
hul Sood uses a Macbook Air to cut his birthday cake,
puts up the pic on his blog.
Microsoft, creator of the very secure and robust Windo
ws OS and the rock-solid Internet Explorer web browse
r, is warning Windows users not to use Apple's browser Safari because it is unsafe and vulnerable to certain malicious sites
that can take advantage of an exploit and "carpet-bomb" your Windows machine w
ith EXE files.
According to Microsoft Security Advisory #953818 on the Microsoft website, there
is a "Blended Threat from Combined Attack Using Apple's Safari on the Windows P
latform":
Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a blended threat t hat allows remote code execution on all supported versions of Windows XP and Wi ndows Vista when Appleâs Safari for Windows has been installed. Safari is not i nstalled with Windows XP or Windows Vista by default; it must be installed inde pendently or through the Apple Software Update application. Customers running S afari on Windows should review this advisory. At the present time, Microsoft is unaware of any attacks attempting to exploit this blended threat. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate measures to protect our customers. This may include providing a solution through a service pack, the monthly update process, or an out-of-cyc le security update, depending on customers needs."In simple terms, Safari doesn't seek user permission when malicious sites try t o make the browser download an executable file to the desktop, even if it does this hundreds of times over and over (hence the term "carpet-bomb"). It's a "bl ended threat" because this vulnerability stems from the combination of the defa ult download location of Safari and the way Windows handles executables. Microsoft's Suggested Action is:
Restrict use of Safari as a web browser until an appropriate update is available from Microsoft and/or Apple."True, it's a serious breach that should be fixed ay-ess-ay-pee, and we hope App le fixes this soon. But it must be refreshing for Microsoft to be the one to ca ll out Apple on something like this for once (I can almost here them go 'Hah! H ow'd you like dem apples, Apple? Nyarharhar!') Researcher Nitesh Dhanjani, who first exposed this vulnerabili ty more than a week ago, says that the flaw isn't limited to Windows; O S X can be carpet-bombed as well, although I'm not quite sure Macs would know the first thing about running an .exe file.
Non-Filipin
o readers might find this post's title odd, but it's just Taglish<
/em> for "I'm mobile", which for this blogger is a clumsy play on the rumored n
ew name for Apple's .Mac service (and for the purposes of this
blog will be referred to as DotMac, to retain the sanity of m
y word processor's autocorrect feature.) It's also a play on the current and mo
re-than-annoying marketing campaign of local telecom provider Smart Com
munications called "Me na Me" presently irritating us
silly here in Manila for their Smart Buddy service.
Ok. So there I go ruining the whole structure of the post just so I could have
my silly title. Let's just have it out then: According to rumors, Apple seems t
o be set on renaming their DotMac service, that US$99 one-year thing where you
get a paltry amount of online storage and a snotty email address that ends in "
mac.com" (and some other stuff), to Mobile Me. Ugh.
Dunno about you, but the fact that you can get everything DotMac is offering fo
r free elsewhere online seems to me a testament to the lengths fanboys will go
to for their mothership. (Full disclosure: I used to be suckered into this thin
g too, and had a DotMac account for three years or so until I wised up and save
d my money instead to buy more useful things like food. And beer.) But apparent
ly it may be time to come back to the fold.
According to many archived reports, Apple trademarked the name Mobile Mac on Ja
n. 5, 2006, and while much was made of it at the time as Apple folk are wont to
do, nothing happened and people forgot about it. Now though, people poking thr
ough the code of the recently released 10.5.3 update of Leopard have come across considerable evidence that Apple is finally going to use the
two-year-old name, presumably after the relaunching announcement to be made at
Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote on June 9.
A rose by any other name, blah blah. What's more important is what new
stuff it will offer for the hundred bucks (or however much they'll be charging
for it), and right now all we can do is make educated guesses. Obviously it wi
ll tie in with the new 3G iPhone and include stuff like push email, wireless sy
ncing and things Blackberry fans have been enjoying for years.
We'll just have to add Mobile Me to our list of things to wait for during the
keynote. If it had really useful features, I wouldn't be averse to signing back
up again and resurrecting my old DotMac address.
Which also means most of us renegade iPhone users will have to formally sign up
with Globe Telecom when it finally releases the phone for my
country (sometime in September, if rumors are to be believed). Obviously my non
-3G first-gen kracked-and-jailbroken iPhone won't do, so I'll have to pony up f
or the new one. Life is hard. Ah, well.
(By the way, is it just me, or does Mobile Me really sound like an embarrasingl
y jejune name for an Apple service? It even sounds ...Microsoftian, like someth
ing Gates and Ballmer might've thought up. Sheesh.)
[Box art mock-up via TUAW]
