Posts by Scott Mcnulty at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Scott McNulty
- http://blog.blankbaby.com/

Scott McNulty is a techie with an English degree. His first Mac was an iMac in the summer of 1999 and he hasn�t looked back since. Considered an expert by few, and an annoyance by many Scott takes it all in stride. When not writing in the third person about himself, he can be found taking care of several Windows servers and more Windows desktops than you can shake a stick at (hey, a guy's gotta make a living). He also maintains a personal website; Blankbaby, and is "Philadelphia's Most Influential Blogger", a title which is self-proclaimed and entirely unfounded.

Cyberduck 3.0

Posted May 15th 2008 10:00AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Software

There are lots of great FTP clients out there for Mac OS X, but my favorite is Cyberduck (if only because the icon is so darned cute). Recently Cyberduck 3.0 was released, and it brings with it a bunch of neat new features, including:

Support for WebDAV
Support for Amazon S3 (that's Amazon storage cloud service)
Bookmark searching
Quick Look for files in the Cyberduck browser (this is pretty cool)

The UI has also gotten a lift, and I must say it is pretty snazzy. Overall, this is a great update to a very good app.

Cyberduck is free, but donations are encouraged.

Macworld offers up new rules for Mac buying

Posted May 14th 2008 9:00AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware

Buying a new Mac is often a complicated business. Sure, there are only a few models to choose from, but do you need a laptop or a desktop? Can you get away with a consumer machine, or do you need to spend the money and get one of Apple's pro offerings? These are not easy questions to answer, but there have long been some simple 'rules' of Mac buying. Macworld takes a look at the current Mac landscape and offers up some updates for those rules of yore.

Take a look at the article, and you might find that the Mac you think you need isn't the Mac that you really need.

Flickr Export for Acorn

Posted May 13th 2008 11:30AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Software

I mentioned an update to Acorn yesterday, which got me to poking around with the app. I noticed the release notes had something about Flickr Export moving from one menu to another, but I couldn't find it. I turned to Google and quickly found the Flickr Export Plugin for Acorn by Coding Robots. This free plugin, pictured above, lets you export a picture from Acorn directly to Flickr, Yahoo!'s photo sharing site. It also lets you tag your picture, set a title and description, and tell Flickr who can view your photo.

Not too shabby for a free plugin.

HBO just added to iTunes, some episodes cost $2.99

Posted May 13th 2008 8:30AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: iTS, iTunes

That was quick. Just yesterday I wrote about the rumored addition of HBO shows to the iTunes Store and today they show up on iTunes. The following HBO shows are now available on iTunes, though some of the episodes cost more than $1.99:

Episodes of the Sopranos, Rome, and Deadwood all cost $2.99 while the rest of the series are priced at the typical $1.99. Looks like Apple is a little more open to flexible pricing on television shows than they used to be.

Thanks, howie.

Times Reader coming to the Mac

Posted May 13th 2008 7:00AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Software, Internet Tools

I live in Philadelphia, but I'm a native New Yorker, and for my money there is no better newspaper on the planet than the New York Times. The Times has really embraced the new realities that the digital age has foisted upon the newspaper business by trying a number of new things (running a great website included).

Sadly, it seemed that the Gray Lady was ignoring Mac users when it first released the Times Reader. The Times Reader, for those who don't know, is a dedicated application which displays the last seven days of the New York Times. It has many of the benefits that one gets from reading nytimes.com (changeable fonts, searchable content, ease of printing) with the added benefit of not requiring an internet connection. The Times Reader syncs content on your computer, and lets you take it anywhere.

Luckily for me (and I am betting there are some other New York Times fans out there) the Times will be launching the Times Reader Beta for Mac at some point this month. The Times Reader for the Mac is a native Cocoa application powered by Webkit and Silverlight (yes, you'll have to install Microsoft's Silverlight to use this app). This is not the same as the RSS reader called Times which Mat posted about last week.

This is a beta, and so there are some features that the PC version has that aren't in the Mac version:

Resizeable windows: yep, the Times Reader on the Mac only has 4 preset window sizes at the moment.
Copy and paste of text: this is a pretty big feature that I hope they sort out sooner rather than later.

It isn't all bad though, the Mac version supports search across all seven days of content while the PC version only searches the current day's edition.

During the beta the Times Reader for Mac will be free to use, but once the beta is over it'll revert back to being free only for New York Times subscribers (though you can subscribe just to the Reader service for $14.95 a month). Check out the blog post for more images of the app.

As soon as I get a chance to look at the Times Reader for Mac beta I'll post an in depth review.

Acorn 1.2

Posted May 12th 2008 8:00PM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Software

Acorn, Flying Meat's easy to use image editor, was updated to version 1.2 over the weekend. Acorn is the perfect image editor for me: it is easy to use, quick to launch, and it tries to guess what I want to do with an image and does it for me (that's what I call service!).

New in version 1.2 are:

"Last filter" command for applying the same filter over and over again
support for JPEG 2000 images (they are like JPEGs only 2000 times better)
smarter Trim command makes trimming even easier
a host of bug fixes, UI refinements, and small features all listed here

Acorn requires OS X 10.4.9 or higher, and costs $49.95. 1.2 is a free upgrade for registered users.

Apple helps Pixar out with WALL•E

Posted May 12th 2008 6:30PM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Odds and ends, Apple

I'm a big fan of almost everything Pixar does (Cars wasn't their best effort, though it was enjoyable), so it is a happy day when a story that links Pixar to my favorite computer company comes along.

It would seem that the good folks at Pixar really wanted to play up the differences between the titular hero of Wall*E and a new robot that appears (Eve, pictured to the right). They wanted it to look very cool, and very high tech. Luckily for Pixar, they know a guy pretty high up in Apple who was able to get Jonathan Ive, Apple's famed product designer, to help out with Eve's look.

I wonder if Eve's battery is user replaceable.

HBO might be coming to iTunes, with flexible pricing

Posted May 12th 2008 11:00AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: iTS, iTunes

Portfolio.com is reporting that you might soon be able to find Tony Soprano in the iTunes Store. HBO, the premium cable channel known for its original programming, is in talks with Apple to add HBO programming to the iTunes Store.

This is good news for fans of HBO shows, but the real story here is the deal that HBO has reportedly managed to wrangle out of Apple. Portfolio's sources say that Apple has agreed to flexible pricing for HBO, which might mean we'll have to pay more than $1.99 per episode for that content. This is the structure that NBC, and many other studios, would love but Apple has been resistant to it in the past.

Before you go crazy, please note that flexible pricing might mean something other than paying more for the shows: Apple might give HBO a bigger cut of the profits from the flat $1.99. Only time will tell, since HBO insiders say that HBO's inclusion in the iTunes Store will be announced and launched at the same time.

Note: HBO and TUAW both have the same corporate overlords, but that doesn't mean we have any inside information.

TapeDeck 1.0

Posted May 9th 2008 3:30PM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Audio, Software

Call me a curmudgeon if you must, but I am wary of any app that replicates a physical object with its UI. Isn't a large part of the power of computing come from the fact that programmers can transcend the limitations of the real world and offer up better ways of doing things?

In this frame of mind I started looking at TapeDeck, a new $25 Leopard only recording app from SuperMegaUltraGroovy and Toastycode. As the name suggests it looks like a cassette recorder of old, but it does offer up some improvements. Each recording is saved on a new 'tape' automatically, so you never have to record over a previous file (TapeDeck records audio in the AAC format, so the files are small, but you can make them even smaller by lowering the recording quality). It also allows you to annotate your tapes and then search your recording library using that information, and you can send your audio to iTunes if you prefer to organize your files that way.

The real question is: does the UI help or hinder TapeDeck? I'll have to spend more time using TapeDeck to fairly answer that, but at first blush this app is great fun to use (especially if you remember using tape recorders like these).

AT&T lists WiFi hotspot access as part of iPhone plans

Posted May 8th 2008 11:29AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Internet, iPhone

It looks like the reports of AT&T offering free Wi-Fi at their hotspots were not unfounded. Above you can see a new 'Included Feature' that AT&T is bundling with all their iPhone plans. Along with long distance calling, visual voicemail, call forwarding, 3-way calling and Caller ID you now get 'Access to AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots.' Not too shabby at all.

[via iLounge]

Update: And like that it is gone! AT&T really needs to get their story straight on this one.

Found Footage: Mac for Attorney General

Posted May 8th 2008 9:00AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Odds and ends, Found Footage

Greg Macpherson is running for Attorney General in Oregon. Normally this isn't the stuff of TUAW posts, but normally political campaigns don't run an ad that is very reminiscent of a certain computer company's advertising.

It would seem that Mr. Macpherson's nickname is 'Mac,' and I think you can see where I'm going with this. Check out the ad here. Sure, it isn't a laugh a minute, but it is fairly clever.

Oh, and this post should in no way be considered an endorsement for any political candidate of any sort.

Thanks, Brant.

PC Magazine likes the new iMac

Posted May 6th 2008 9:00PM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: iMac

PC Magazine has been reviewing Mac for awhile now, but it still strikes me as rather novel when they recommend a Mac. That's just what they did for Apple's latest iMac. PC Mag doesn't find anything too groundbreaking on this new model, but the speed improvements are welcome.

But why mess with success? The current design of the iMac is serving it well, and similar computers from other companies still haven't caught up with the iMac in terms of looks.

However, not everything is rosy in iMac land. PC Mag disses the Mighty Mouse (I usually toss the included Mighty Mouse aside myself), and would like to see an integrated media card reader.

iMac turns 10

Posted May 6th 2008 1:00PM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iMac, Apple

It was ten years ago today that Steve Jobs mounted the Flint Center auditorium near Apple's campus and revealed the product that would save Apple, and become the best selling computer of all time: the iMac. It is hard to believe that this cute little guy is ten years old, but it is true.

The original iMac came stocked with a 233MHz G3, 32MB of SDRAM (though you could bump it up to a whopping 128MB), a 4 gig harddrive, 2 USB ports, a CD-ROM drive (not a CD burner, Apple was late to that party), and an IrDA port. These specs might not make your heart skip a beat nowadays, but the iMac is the product that started Apple's amazing turn around. It was the first mainstream computer to break with the past and offer only USB ports, no legacy connectors here. And it is worth noting that the iMac can also be attributed as the killer of the floppy disk.

I recall the howls from the tech community about the iMac's lack of a floppy drive. 'People love their floppies!' 'This is nothing more than an expensive toy!' All charges leveled against the iMac, but the decision actually helped create a market for USB accessories as most people bought their iMac and a USB floppy drive (I know I did. I used that floppy drive twice: once to make sure it worked, and another time to copy a file).

The iMac wasn't available for purchase until August of 1998 (for the base price of $1299), but today is a date that should be circled in Bondi Blue for any true Mac fan.

Check out our gallery of screenshots that show Apple's website the day after the iMac announcement. All screenshots was taken using the Wayback Machine.

Gallery: iMac 1998

Thanks, Shane, for reminding us of the date!

Vodafone to sell iPhone in 10 countries

Posted May 6th 2008 9:10AM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: iPhone

Today Vodafone announced that it is partnering with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten countries:

Australia
the Czech Republic
Egypt
Greece
Italy
India
Portugal
New Zealand
South Africa
Turkey

The official announcement doesn't offer much in the way of details. We have no idea when the iPhone will be available in these countries, or if Vodafone will have a special iPhone plan. Also worth noting is the lack of any mention of exclusivity in these countries.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1

Posted May 5th 2008 11:16PM by Scott McNulty
Filed under: Software

VMware has just announced VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1, the first beta of the second iteration of their very successful virtualization product for the Mac. As you'll recall Fusion allows you to run a host of OSes on your Intel Mac including, but not limited to, many flavors of Windows.

The above video gives you a tour of Fusion 2.0 Beta 1's top new features, including:

Multiple monitor support (up to 10 displays!)
Improved networking and printing
Support for DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 2 (this is experimental, and it might not work on your Mac)
A refined UI for settings and VM management

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The beta is available now, and best of all the upgrade to version 2.0, when it comes out of beta, will be free to all Fusion users. You can register for the beta program and download the hefty 300 MB installer here.

Next Page >

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Dave Caolo	51	0
2	Cory Bohon	43	4
3	Mat Lu	37	4
4	Scott McNulty	36	2
5	Erica Sadun	35	1
6	Michael Rose	27	18
7	Brett Terpstra	22	0
8	Mike Schramm	20	4
9	Steven Sande	16	9
10	Robert Palmer	15	24
11	Joshua Ellis	7	4
12	Christina Warren	6	19
13	Nik Fletcher	4	1
14	Chris Ullrich	3	1
15	Jason Clarke	1	1
16	Lisa Hoover	1	1
17	Victor Agreda, Jr.	1	5

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Cyberduck 3.0 Flickr Find: 11,600 horizontal pixels of heaven Atom-powered Mini-tablet Confirmed By Intel Germany CEO?	Analyst initiations: MNOV, RIG and LII Analyst downgrades: JSAIY, OFIX and SLRY Analyst upgrades: ELOS, CEL, GMT and TNS
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Cyberduck 3.0

Macworld offers up new rules for Mac buying

Flickr Export for Acorn

HBO just added to iTunes, some episodes cost $2.99

Times Reader coming to the Mac

Acorn 1.2

Apple helps Pixar out with WALL•E

HBO might be coming to iTunes, with flexible pricing

TapeDeck 1.0

AT&T lists WiFi hotspot access as part of iPhone plans

Found Footage: Mac for Attorney General

PC Magazine likes the new iMac

iMac turns 10

Vodafone to sell iPhone in 10 countries

VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 1

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