Recently, Apple posted a new online seminar (linked from enterprise Apple Store pages) entitled "Best Practices for Integrating Mac OS X into Active Directory." This seminar will show registered participants how to deploy machines running OS X into existing Active Directory setups.
Apple lists several things that are shown in the online seminar, some of which include:
Integrating an Active Directory environment into Mac OS X
Using the Active Directory plug-in in Mac OS X
Configuring home directories (includes how to do this with mobile users)
You can watch this free online seminar by going to Apple's seminar website and registering. You will then be able to stream the video using QuickTime Player, or download an iPod-compatible file.
The Growl website has been offline since last week due to the developers retiring their server for a new one. I am pleased to say that Growl.info is back online as of today. Growl is the indispensable Mac notification system which allows you to customize the way you see notifications, system-wide.
Tonight, I spoke with Chris Forsythe, one of the developers of Growl. He said that while the site is back up, the SVN and Trac are still down. However, you are now able to download the latest release of Growl on their site. Forsythe also mentioned that the new Growl website design will go live "soon-ish." On his blog, he has a picture of what the new design will look like.
QuickShareIt, which we covered a while back, has received an upgrade to 2.0, adding many of the originally promised features as well as a host of new ones.
QuickShareIt is a Mac app that provides online storage and file sharing with both Mac and PC users. It's growing up amongst a host of similar products, but differentiates itself by offering some unique features centered around the teaming of its dock icon drop-box, "recent uploads" floating panel and web-based file access. For example, if you drag multiple images onto the dock icon, it will ask you if you want to create a gallery. When the upload finishes (with Growl notifications), it will give you a url that you can share and provide options for handling that gallery in the floating panel. It also accepts text clippings and creates a line-numbered, online document for quick sharing of code samples or text snippets. Previews for other filetypes are available.
Right now uploading to QuickShareIt is anonymous and public access. The developers are rolling out registration options in the near future, as well as paid options with extra features. If you want to try QuickShareIt out, just download the application and run it. There's no configuration or sign-up necessary (despite the option being present), just drag files or text clippings onto the dock icon and watch it go.
As the good Doc Mac points out very adeptly with the picture above, the reason for the Apple Store's outage Wednesday morning must have been a redesign-- it's come back with a splash of blue.
I like the new look. I think the slight gradient in the background makes it, but the rounded corners, blue bars, and especially the arrows give the whole store a definite iTunes feel. There's been a reorganization as well-- Mac, iPod, and iPhone are all top level product lines now (the Apple TV is filed under the iPod, which is close enough, I guess), and those three fit the buttons on the top of Apple's site as well. Apple's gone Amazon as well-- there are "New to the Store" and "Top Sellers" boxes that will, we'd assume, change as the facts do. No idea, however, why the Mac Top Sellers goes to 8, the iPod to 9, and the iPhone only to 5.
Looks good, though. A welcome refresh to a store that was starting to look a little last-gen.
It sure has been getting easier lately to use an account with web hosting behemoth DreamHost to back up your Mac. We found some good ideas for this back in April, but now DreamHost has gone one step further and partnered up with Bandwagon, a web-based iTunes backup service we found in March. In one of their annoyingly lengthy blog posts (scroll to the end of it), DreamHost unveiled that they are now offering a free one-year membership to Bandwagon's DIY services to all DreamHost customers, available through the end of July. This is a great deal, especially if you have both an expanding iTunes library and a massive chunk of storage at DreamHost just waiting for something to do.
To access the offer, current DreamHost customers need only to go to the new Partners Page in the DreamHost control panel, then click on the Bandwagon logo to be taken to the Bandwagon signup page with the coupon code already inserted. The rest of the setup is pretty straight-forward, though I think I should share the solution I developed for a slight snag I ran into: For whatever reason, Bandwagon's FTP client couldn't log into my DreamHost account to begin uploading my iTunes library until I created a brand new FTP user. I don't know if this will hold true for everyone, but it's probably a good idea from a security standpoint anyway, take that advise how you will.
So far, after finally signing up for Bandwagon and getting everything going, I'm pretty happy with the service. Bandwagon's account manager can display statistics of what kinds of data and how many you have stored online. I'll have to see how the rest of the upload process on my 6396 item iTunes library fares before I say much more, but until then this sounds like a great deal that DreamHost customers shouldn't pass up.
So, now we know. Online sales of the iPhone at the Apple Store Online to begin at 6PM Pacific time. Sorry people from other time zones, you're just gonna have to wait. Or, you could always head down to a retail store and get in line like the rest of us.
The bottom right of the Apple guided tour page confirms that Apple will be selling the iPhone online. Since the option is still grayed out, it's unclear whether the link will take you to the online Apple Store, to an AT&T site, or to some combination of the two. It's also unclear how much stock will be assigned to that store, and what delays it will have compared to camping out in front of an AT&T or Apple store next week. TUAW readers, does this change your plans?
About a month ago I swallowed the poison and picked up a Cingular BlackJack, a new Windows Mobile Smartphone (I know, I know). I had been looking to step up to some sort of a PDA phone so I can surf and keep on top of WIN/TUAW business without having a MacBook sewn to my head, and so far it's been working out well. The one thing I haven't been able to figure out yet is how to use this cutting-edge HSPDA phone (a new high-speed wireless data network) as a modem - until now.
While cruising Smartphone Thoughts (a good resource for other WinMo5 users in the audience) and their forums, I found this post at Mobility Today by David Ciccione that describes how to use a BlackBerry 3G Driver (of all things) to tether a BlackJack to a Mac for getting online. It isn't a simple process, but I just went through the paces and can confirm - it works.
Now before you run off and start tethering your BlackJack to your Mac all over the place, I want to add a few things to Mr. Ciccione's awesome work so everyone in our diverse audience knows what they're getting into. First off: if you don't have the proper data plan with Cingular, I have no idea if or how much they'll charge you per KB or MB for connecting, even if you're just testing this out. Try this at your own risk - we can't be responsible if you connect and start downloading movies from the iTunes Store, only to get a $300 bill for data next month. Call Cingular, like I did, before you goof around with this to make sure you have the right data plan. For what it's worth, I have the $20/month Smartphone unlimited data plan, which gets to fly under the radar of their ~$50 PDA data plan since it's a 'Smartphone' instead of a full-blown Pocket PC phone or data card for a notebook.
Continue reading after the jump for some add-on tips and gotchas to make this a smooth and worthwhile process.
Joystiq is reporting that Disney has released a Mac version of Toontown, an MMO cartoon game where users can create cartoon characters, join quests to save Toontown, race carts and even hurl wedding cakes at each other. The game seems to be fairly successful so far, as over 15 million Windows users have already been busy doing the online cartoon character thing. The Mac version is a Universal Binary so everyone on our side of the fence can play along, and the monthly subscription fee is $9.95. Of course a free, though short, three-day trial is available as well.
That experiment with chat and the education store must have gone well, as the public Apple Store has recently become a little chattier with the seemingly quiet introduction of a new "chat now" feature to its product pages. Interestingly, it appears (at least for me) only on Mac product pages, and only a second or two after the rest of the page loads (as if there's an intentional delay), though I don't see it on any software pages or even in the iPod sections. I had a quick chat with the 'Apple Expert' Rache, but I was quickly dumped once I was found out to be a mere blogger (helping to spread the word...) instead of a cash-in-hand shopper. Oh well, this still seems like a great idea. I hope it sticks around.
[Update: it seems only some users can see this feature. It might simply be a page caching problem (as in: try emptying your browser cache), but for now it might be the case that only certain users, regions or countries can see the chat feature.]
We found UK-based online backup solution OnLine Pro back in August, and now FileBanc supports Mac OS X as well. The concept is the same: install a software client (localized in a plethora of languages and written for Linux, NetWare and Solaris), chose a monthly storage plan ranging from 500MB/$4.95 to 10GB/$39.95 (larger plans are available for business users) and set up a backup schedule. After the initial operation, FileBanc claims their backup software works with lightning-fast ninja precision, with 'in-file bit level delta backups,' meaning: "if you only change a single word in a file, only that word is backed up." I sure hope I don't have to sift through all those words some day to restore my thesis paper, but hopefully I wouldn't have to: FileBanc offers email and/or phone support with their plans.
FileBanc sounds interesting, but I haven't tried it out myself. I'm pretty happy with ChronoSync, my external hard drives and my 'plan B' .Mac backups for the little essentials. Feel free to enlighten the class if you've had any experiences with this online backup solution.
Continuing their new Live platform push, Microsoft has announced an iDisk-like service dubbed Live Drive. This bagillionth addition to the Live product family will boast 2GB of online storage, accessibly via any computer with a web browser (read: IE or possibly Firefox - if enough people bug them for it), which can also live on a Windows Vista computer as a virtual drive.
MacNN, where we found this, didn't have many more details as to whether Live Drive will mimic any other .Mac functionality, such as application and data syncing, and we can't seem to get in with Firefox or Safari so that's all you get for now. Ultimately, with services like Live Drive and AOL's upcoming 5GB of free online storage via Xdrive, the virtual storage market is definitely heating up. Let's just hope it hasn't gotten too hot in the kitchen for .Mac.
Clunk Click, an online data backup service provider in the UK (with a somewhat awkward name), has opened up their OnLine Pro automatic backup service for Mac OS X users. Installing a small piece of software from the company allows users to specify which files are backed up to their secure data storage center, which is also backed up to a second storage center for the ultimate in backup redundancy.
10-day free trials are available upon request, while prices start at $5/month. Check out their press release for more information.
Apple has announced two free online QuickTime seminars covering Aperture, their app for professional photographers. "Aperture: Streamline Your Workflow After the Shoot" is an introduction to the app from Product Marketing Manager Joe Schorr and Technical Marketing Manager Joseph Linaschke of Apple, while "Aperture Advanced" offers "an in-depth look at the first all-in-one post-production tool for photographers".
Apple's registration page for these seminars states that they're only available for a limited time, but doesn't mention how limited that time may be. You might have to act now if you don't want to regret later.
A little more than a week since Apple began offering a rock-bottom priced iMac configuration targeted at educational customers, the company has stopped offering the machine to anyone other than institutional buyers. The $900 replacement for the eMac differed from the baseline consumer model only in its loss of superdrive, dedicated graphics, bluetooth, and Front Row caused a big stir with students heading back to school this fall.
Rumor in the ether is that this is par-for-the-course for an education product release. The cycle goes like this: Product is announced >> lots of people get excited and order it >> Apple realizes that if they keep getting orders at the current pace, they won't be able to supply the institutional buyers who they originally targeted >> Apple pulls product from mainstream consumer stores >> ...time passes... >> the educational buying season ends >> Apple allows us regular people to place orders again.
Recently, Apple posted a new online seminar (linked from enterprise Apple Store pages) entitled "Best Practices for Integrating Mac OS X into Active Directory." This seminar will show registered participants how to deploy machines running OS X into existing Active Directory setups.
The Growl website has been 
It sure has been getting easier lately to use an account with web hosting behemoth DreamHost to back up your Mac. We found some 
About a month ago I swallowed the poison and picked up a 
We 
Continuing their new 
Clunk Click, an online data backup service provider in the UK (with a somewhat awkward name), has opened up their 
A little more than a week since Apple 
