Certainly the remote disc option that Apple cooked up for the original MacBook Air should still work just fine for the new Airs, but this solution is kind of clunky and requires a secondary computer with an optical drive as well as a properly configured network.  USB optical drives are similarly regressive.  Instead, think that Apple could (and should) sell a USB restore drive or downloadable upgrade package for Lion.

The first option would would certainly be the preferable way to upgrade a MacBook Air, but it would probably sell well even to users who still had optical drives on their Mac.  A USB thumb drive seems more reliable and rugged than a disc, it should work fine with any Intel based Mac, and would look cool on a key chain.   Apple would still sell Lion DVDs of course, but they could offer the USB drive for a small premium.

The second option for a download would be very convenient, especially to international users where shipping can be slow and expensive. Obviously, this would only work if Apple allowed purchasers to download the software multiple times and run it without requiring burning a bootable DVD, though that should be an option too.

We could see some interesting new Lion upgrade options Apple next summer!

Epson’s site lists the driver as compatible with Leopard but it hasn’t been updated since November 2006, so I wasn’t looking forward to installing old scanner software with some agent that would sit in the background sucking RAM and CPU just to launch the right app when I press the scanner button. Nor did I wish to deal with clunky scanner software with a terrible interface.

Luckily, I don’t have to. The Preview application built into Mac OS can control the scanner (presumably through the standardized TWAIN interface). Here’s a screenshot of the interface which can be accessed through the ‘File’ -> ‘Import Image…’ menu item:

As you can see, it features a nice little suite of controlls and tweaks for scanning and doing basic editing on the image.  Overall I’m quite pleased with the purchase and the built in Mac OS support.  Yay for standards!

• It adds an iPhone export option (as part of the Pro export suite). Actually there are two options, one high quality setting and one for streaming over cellular networks with lower quality and sizes.
• It improves the movie Inspector (Window -> Show Movie Inspector…) so that it ‘sticks’ open so that it shows whenever the QuickTime player is launched. It also has the smaller title bar to differentiate itself. These features, which I recall were both present in versions of Quicktime 6 were somehow missing in version 7 until now.
• Finally, the one you’ll care about, QT 7.2 enables you to view movies in full screen without purchasing the Pro version. The fact that Apple tried to use fullscreen support as a up-sale (while including it in iTunes and leaving the fullscreen command accessible in AppleScript) was a bitch movie that Apple has finally rectified.

You can download Quicktime 7.2 via Software Update or directly over the web. I highly recommend it.

I figured it must be a software issue because it disappeared when I booted the machine off of my new Mac Pro drive in target disk mode. However a clean install of OS X didn’t change anything even after all the updates were applied.

Somewhat stumped, I did some searching and found this account of the exact same problem (with more technical details). It turns out that because I had installed Boot Camp on my Mac Pro and then booted my Mac Book off of this drive, the iSight firmware had been updated. As such, the Mac Book was unable to communicate with it as it lacked corresponding updated drivers (but the Mac Pro could because it had those drivers). The solution is to extract the iSight drivers from the Boot Camp 1.1 installer and add them to the Mac Book (Boot Camp installation is not needed, but would work too). I imagine this will only be an issue until Apple releases 10.4.8 which bundles the updated drivers, but I thought it was an interesting problem worth discussing. However, this could remain an issue in the future for a computer that hasn’t been updated to 10.4.8 or had Boot Camp 1.1 installed.

The moral of the story is: be careful mixing machines with Boot Camp updates and those without.

This was highly unexpected…

For more info see this FAQ on the Apple KnowledgeBase (Via DF).

My need for a new ICBM just jumped up hugely.

What I have ascertained is not that PCs as we know them lack good design, but that PCs as we know them have hardly any design to speak of. I’m not trying to be insulting. Use a Mac for a week, and we’ll talk again.

[...]

[The Mac] is extremely good at what it does, which is to say, exposing functionality.

Be sure to check out the rest of the post and the comic for some more intriguing (and humorous) insights.

I love to hear these kinds of things, especially from technologically savvy users, because it helps me keep that smug look on my face…

Update (3/6/05): New posts and comic with more on the Mac.

Apple’s been going a bit patch-happy lately with 10.4.5 landing yesterday so run Software Update or check the links above to get all the patching goodness.

For the awards, hardware winner was the Mac mini and Tiger won in the software arena, both of which were my picks among the nominated.

The relief came because there were some really poor nominations up for awards. I’m thinking specifically of Backup & Opera in the software category (see Daring Fireball as to why), and, to a lesser extent, the Mighty Mouse in the hardware category (because it’s a ergonomics nightmare).

First off, let me say that though I think Front Row is an awesome product, it’s still very much a 1.0 version: there’s lots of room for both refinement and new features here.

Perhaps it’s easier to define Front Row in terms of what it is not. Front Row is not a program that you’re supposed to use while sitting at your keyboard. Nor is Front Row aimed at offering a “Media Center” like experience (though it might eventually evolve into something like that if some of the commentary & speculation out there proves true).

Let’s get to the “ises” (can I make that a word?). Front Row is an alternative interface for your computer. It has been designed from the ground up to be usable with a remote from across the room. As I stated above it’s not really meant to be used while sitting at the keyboard, in fact, Apple doesn’t provide users with a way to launch it without using the remote (though of course you can get around this limitation). Apple’s played the keep-it-simple attitude here (which should be a surprise to no one) and only put six buttons on the remote. These serve as up/down & forward/back in the Front Row menu system and volume, fast forward/rewind, play/pause, & back while playing songs or videos. For the most part it works very intuitively though I wish the left & right buttons served as forward and back in the menu system instead of being useless when browsing.

Because Front Row is designed to be controlled with a remote, Apple has designed the interface with very large fonts, icons, and interface elements icons throughout the program in order to maximize usability from a distance. This works very well, but again underscores “don’t use it from the keyboard” (unless you have a wireless keyboard across the room I suppose). The other thing worth noting is that not only are the interface elements large, they are all scaleable (and vector based wherever possible) so the user experience is largely resolution independent. This is exciting because it means that Front Row should look and work great when connected to a TV (which usually have significantly lower resolutions than computer screens) while retaining it’s beauty and usability on a 30″ Cinema Display. Resolution independence with vector graphics is destined to be a key feature of next generation user interfaces, so it’s nice to see Apple really embracing it here (though Tiger already supports it to some extent).

I could wax lackadaisically about where I see Front Row evolving (think Apple Media Center) but I’ll save that for another post. For the time being there are a few more concrete improvements that I’d like to see. Mainly they revolve around Front Row is still being kind of slow. My PowerMac is significantly faster than an iMac in every respect but I’ve seen videos of people running it just fine on a Mac mini or worse, so I don’t think this is entirely processor dependent. There is a lot of room for software optimization here to make it seem much snappier. I’m thinking specifically about more OpenGL optimization and tighter integration with QuickTime, iTunes, iPhoto, and DVD Player. Maybe when they release iLife ’06 Apple can finally allow everyone to use Front Row without hacks. In any case, interesting times lie ahead!

Update: There still seems to be some problems with this install in that it makes it impossible to eject DVD’s after playing them in the updated DVD player (you have to restart to get the disc out). As such, consider this a little warning, if you don’t know what you’re doing then don’t do it.

On October 21st in the year of ’05, ten top Mac developers (primarily indies) from around the USA were invited to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, IL for an evening of conversation around a broad range of topics: Making a living writing for the Mac, software patents, competing with Apple, digital rights management (DRM), software activation, bugs, Ajax, unit testing, building communities, the x86 transition, and much much more…

If you’re a Mac nerd you owe it to yourself to watch (or listen to) this thing. Check out all the details on the Evening at Adler page.

This, more than any rumors I’ve read, has convinced me that the first ICBMs are due to launch sooner that the originally expected timeframe of Summer 2006. I’ve finally come to terms with the transition and I’m looking forward to both the chaos and wonder.

Update: it appears the link and download are no longer working, so try this page if you’re interested in trying out Front Row yourself. This also offers a new version of DVD Player that purports to fix the issues with Front Row (though I haven’t tried it yet myself).

First, it finally has an RSS feed listing new trailers (so I don’t have to check it every day). Seriously, this should have been updated with Tiger when QuickTime 7 was initially released in April, but better late than never.

Second, it looks like they listened to what I was saying about the lack of “HD content, because there are now lots of new “HD” trailers available Apple has only updated the HD trailer showcase once after it’s initial release, but by the way they’ve structured the new page now it looks like it will be much more continuous.

Update: It seems the items in the RSS feed link directly to the main trailers page which is quite disappointing. Hopefully Apple will fix this; I guess I’ll be emailing trailers@mac.com to let them know.

Daring Fireball: Brief Observations Regarding the New Stuff Announced at Today’s Special Event

I’m still wondering about the Front Row because I need it for my Mac. Will it be free? Where can I get it? Will it work with third party remotes? You get the idea…

Stay tuned as these details and more get fleshed out in the next few weeks.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, on of the sites reporters, John Siracusa, started a Mac related blog entitled FatBits that is quickly becoming one of my favorite reads. Siracusa has a talent for extracting the fine, important, yet often hidden details from complicated tech news. Recently he wrote an article about how the fullscreen functionality in Mac OS X games can really mess up your windows and icons. Check it out here.

I’d like to add that, until recently at least, another guilty party was the fullscreen QuickTime trailers that they did for big movies (like this one for Cars). Thankfully, this seems to have finally been fixed somewhere between QuickTime 7 and 10.4 (though I would guess the former), and watching these things no longer makes every window on the screen scale to 640×480. Man, that would piss me off so much.

Update: I was wrong. This behavior of messing up your windows still exists in QuickTime 7. Just check out the new fullscreen Jarhead Theatrical Trailer to see what I mean. Just a warning though, it will mess up the windows of any application that is open (though hidden applications seem are immune). Also, for some reason, the fullscreen link only shows up when I view the page with Safari, but not in Firefox. I’m not entirely sure the reason for this but if you have a urge to mess up your window size and placement, make sure to use Safari.

Seriously, if a reporter asked you, “Hey, do you have herpes?” and you replied, “Nope, I’ve been tested, no herpes, never,” and then they wrote an article with the headline, “Bob Smith: Mostly Herpes-Free,” you would, no doubt, flip (assuming your name was Bob Smith). You’d probably sue, even. But [Mac users] put up with this crap every day, mainly because it’s nigh-impossible to prove the negative. We’d need to inspect every hard drive of every Mac owner in the world. So we settle with “mostly virus-free” even though, compared to Windows, we’re Mother Theresa and they’re Pamela Anderson.

So Wil is doing something about it by putting a $500 on any Mac OS X virus (that existed before he posted the bounty). Check out the “contest” details.

1. iPod Shuffle: Who needs a screen? I don’t most of the time. For $99 for 512 MB or $149 for a 1 GB model, who can argue? I heard the battery life is awesome too, Mosberg reported 15+ hours on his. Doesn’t that beat AAA any day? These things are going to sell like mad; we had about forty 512s at the store today and they were gone in about 2 hours. People were seriously like, “Hmm, you have them… Okay give me 2!” According to Steve, I’m getting a Gig one for free, “Hell yeah!”
2. Mac Mini: Again, at that price point (base $499), who can argue? Hell it even includes the new iLife. Were gonna sell a million of these too. They really are that damn small (imagine a stack of about 4 CD jewel cases). What remains to see is how fast it is, I’m looking forward to benchmarks, not that those will matter much to the target audience.
3. iLife ’05: Great upgrades to the four core apps (iTunes doesn’t count since it’s free), still totally worth the extra thirty at $79. My two questions are: First, who the hell is going to use the HD features of iMovie? Second, where is Asteroid so people can easily use the 8 recording tracks of GarageBand.
4. iWork (’05): Though the new Keynote trumps PowerPoint I don’t really see Pages giving Word much competition since it’s not nearly as robust. I’m planning to use Pages to edit and layout the pictures/tables/charts in my papers after I write them in Word (since Word does these things with about the grace of a linebacker). I have to play with them more before I can really judge them though. I will say moving from charging $99 for the original Keynote to $79 for the whole iWork package is a refreshing price drop which should help get out more copies of Keynote (which seemed to be laging in sales recently).
5. Tiger: Not much new info really, mostly rehash from WWDC, and no ship date damn it! Steve did show the refined interface (which looks quite nice in Mail). Of note however, is the updated info, now at the top of the Mac OS X page, which (especially if you didn’t see the keynote and haven’t looked at Tiger before) is quite impressive.
6. Final Cut Express HD: This seems to be basically just as powerful as the Pro version used to be now that it has LiveType & Soundtrack included and support for 99 audio and video tracks. Plus HD editing that might see some good use. The ability to work with iMovie as well as Motion projects should also help those stepping up who don’t need the ridiculous power (and high cost) of the Pro version.

Overall it looks like another breakthrough year for Apple!