It was only a couple weeks ago that Growl version 1.1.3 was released, but as some commenters noted on the 1.1.3 post, there was a bug that caused some the inability to install Growl under Leopard. Well, the Growl team has heard your cries and issued an update to Growl that hopes to solve the problem. Some of the bug fixes include:
"Install Failed" message on Leopard is now fixed
Fixed the problem of Growl thinking it was 1.1.2 even after installing 1.1.3
Fixed Growl updater to stop showing updates after you've already installed them
Apple Insider is reporting that the New York City Department of Education has put all shipments of Macs to schools on complete hold while they're apparently waiting for Apple to fix a Wifi connectivity issue with OS X (which should be fixed with the 10.5.3 update). And Apple is apparently scrambling to get it worked out -- they've sent an apologetic email to faculty and have asked schools to try and separate any orders of computers that won't need wireless (that will use a regular ethernet hookup) to ship now.
Unfortunately, there's no hint of exactly how many Macs we're talking about here, but if this is a substantial number of computers, and word gets out causing other organizations to delay shipments as well, Apple will feel more and more pressure to get the problem fixed ASAP. Bad news for the kids who want Macs in New York City (that's the DoE's seal on the right, in case you didn't recognize it), but good news for anyone else having this problem -- Apple's working hard on a fix.
Remote Buddy, the do-it-all remote program for OS X, has reached version 1.7.1. I haven't taken a look at this app in a long time, but they've come a long way, baby-- a few months ago they added support (via AJAX) for the iPhone, and that has added a whole new universe of functionality to controlling your computer via a remote unit. If you haven't seen it lately, check it out.
The 1.7.1 update fixes a few bugs in the AJAX module, adds a warning if you don't have an Airport Express setting correct, and adds a newly rewritten driver for Front Row control. And this is all in addition to last week's big release (1.7), which added a ton of new stuff-- almost a complete rewrite of the AJAX remote, and compatibility with a ton of new programs, everything from ComicBookLover to VoodooPad.
Very impressive. Applications like this are what make it so great to be a Mac user. Remote Buddy is available for 19.99 € or as a free 30 day trial version over on their website. Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Scott Morrison sends word that MailTags, the Mail plugin that lets you both tag your emails and connect them directly up to iCal, has hit 2.1.1. The 2.1 release came a few days ago, and introduced incoming reply tagging-- whenever you sent out a message with tags on it, the reply that came back automatically received the same tags-- and the 2.1.1 update improves that feature. You can now tag an outgoing message as "expect reply," and MailTags can notify you through Growl and with highlighting that the reply has arrived.
The release also includes an example AppleScript that lets you use a "killed" tag to mark a message and any incoming replies to it as read-- if a thread has ceased to be important to you, you can ignore it completely. Bugfixes involving iCal interaction have also been implemented, and a column sizing interface improvement has been added.
The 2.1.1 update is a maintenance update and available for free to MailTags users over at the website. If you haven't bought the plugin yet, you can get it here for $29.95.
It seems like this news has been around for a while, but we'd never heard it, and it's definitely worth taking a look at. Alcor, developer of Quicksilver, the little launcher that does everything, quietly mentions on the Blacktree forums that Quicksilver will go open source and Leopard only with the next release.
What does that mean for Quicksilver's users? Probably not a lot, although with a few interested developers on board, it'll probably mean quicker updates and more responsive bugfixes. Even Alcor says in the thread that while bugfixes and updates are planned for Leopard, he has no idea when they'll actually be released, and an open source app would probably make specific fixes faster.
As for a timeline on making it open source, Alcor doesn't promise anything too exciting on that end, either. He does say that the OS version of Quicksilver will be for Leopard, so we're looking at least at October, if not later. But if Quicksilver is going open source, it likely means that one of the Mac's best applications will only get better.
We don't have a whole lot to go on for this one, but Apple has released MacBook pro Software Update 1.0. What's in it, you ask? Well, it "provides important bug fixes and is recommended for all 2.2/2.4GHz MacBook Pro models" (the most current ones available as of this writing). Sorry folks, but that's all the update page says. If you don't see this in Software Update, head on over to said update page and get to updatin'.
While it isn't a major release that adds big features like tagging or AppleScript support, Yojimbo 1.4.1 does fix a lot of miscellaneous bugs that users have been battling. A full changelog is here, listing fixes for things like crashes when viewing web archives and some scripting operations, as well as an auto-save fix to make sure your most recent un-saved changes don't get tossed out with the bath water when you quit.
Yojimbo 1.4.1 can be had from from Bare Bones's Updates page.
Last night, we received a tip from an intrepid TUAW reader who pointed us to this page. He thought the page suggested that 1.2.1 update might be more involved than Apple originally stated.
According to Apple, the 1.2.1 video iPod update offered "bug fixes". So the TUAW geeks got to work. We copied the download.ipsw from the firmware into our top secret lab folder. We unzipped it. And then we compared the strings in the Firmware to the strings in the last Firmware release. And found...
Well, we found pretty much nothing. No smoking guns. No new hidden strings. The only changes between the two Firmware files seem to be...um...bug fixes.
If you're an
iWork '06 user, Software Update has a couple of presents for you: Pages 2.0.1 and Keynote 3.0.1.
About the
Pages update (direct link): "addresses
issues with charts and image adjust. It also addresses a number of other minor issues."
About
Keynote's update (link): "addresses
issues with three-dimensional charts and textures. It also addresses a number of other minor issues. This update should
be installed on all computers that share your Keynote 3.0 files, so that textures display properly." Enjoy.