Today Apple released an AirPort Extreme Update for those Mac users running Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4). Here's the information that Software Update gives us:
This update is recommended for all Intel-based Macintosh computers running Tiger OS and improves the reliability of AirPort connections.
You can get this update by either opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or by downloading the installer package from the Apple Support downloads site.
Just in case you haven't yet upgraded to Leopard, but still love using Cocktail (that crazy mix of Unix functions for OS X), Maintain has released version 4.0.1 of their Tiger edition. They've fixed some compatibility problems with QuickTime, and added support for clearing font caches in Microsoft Office 2008. The update is now available from their website, and is, they say, "strongly recommended" for all Cocktail (Tiger edition) users.
Cocktail's Leopard edition is at version 4.0.2-- that update fixed these same problems last week, as well as fixing a network optimization bug for DSL (PPPoE) users.
I used the original Boot Camp beta last year just to see it work. I applied the subsequent updates, but haven't tinkered with it since.
Today, I received an email from Apple that reads, in part:
"...With the introduction of Leopard, the Boot Camp Beta program has ended. The Boot Camp Beta software will expire on December 31, and Apple won't offer further updates of Boot Camp Beta for Mac OS X Tiger."
There's your warning, Tiger users. The Boot Camp beta expires December 31st. Upgrade to Leopard or run unsupported. You don't want that, of course. Windows needs all the support it can get. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Fire up Software Update, Tiger users, Apple has just released 10.4.11 onto an eager world. This point update has a host of feature updates including:
Safari 3 for Tiger (no longer in Beta)
Additional RAW support for some camera models
Support for Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000 (I am sure this makes someone out there very happy)
Improved iPhone syncing with Yahoo!
And a host of other things that Apple has outlined in a handy table. I wish all Apple updates had such clear release notes. A blogger can dream, can't he?
Here's a rather specific update for iMac users running Tiger (specifically, 20-inch and 24-inch aluminum iMacs with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8 GHz processors). According to Apple, Update 1.2.1 "...improves the performance and reliability of graphics-intensive games and applications and fixes an issue that some customers encountered when installing Mac OS X Leopard after applying iMac Software Update 1.2."
Check software update if you meet the criteria. Let us know if you have any problems.
First we tweaked the app indicators, and then we tweaked the color, and now we've finally come all the way back in our Time Machine (oh yes, pun very intended) to two weeks ago. Innermind Media, the folks behind WidgetWizard, are probably a little angry at Leopard, considering all that Web Clip functionality, and so they've released a free widget called DockDoctor that will subtract a dimension from your Dock with the click of a button (and bring it back with another click, which is probably just as valuable).
I know it's not for everybody. I know some of you love the new Dock, or at least have gotten so used to it that it doesn't bother you. But this is OS X we're talking about, and so you should have the right to make your Dock look the way you want it to.
I heard a few times that Disney's new casual MMO Pirates of the Caribbean Online went live yesterday, but MacWorld reminds us that it's out for both Windows and Mac. Metacritic doesn't have too many reviews up as of this writing, but our friends at Joystiq found it to be a fun, easy to get into MMO when they played an earlier build of it, so if you're craving some pick-up-and-play pirate MMO gaming, it might be just what yer lookin' for, matey.
Unless you're running Leopard, that is. Currently, the game's system requirements only list Tiger, and while MacWorld doesn't know whether Leopard is supported or not, they're not alone-- I called Laurie at "Pirates Online Customer Support" (boy, Disney sure poured a lot of money into this one), and while she was very helpful, she didn't know whether Leopard was supported or not. I threw a note into their system to try and check, and if I hear back, I'll update the post.
Of course, you could just try downloading and running it yourself in Leopard, but then again this is only one day after Halloween, and running unsupported Disney software on your Mac is pretty scary -- might be a little much along with everything else.
Update: Never mind-- our illustrious commenters say it runs just fine in Leopard. Keelhaul away!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that people seem to like Leopard. Apple today announced that they have sold two million copies of Leopard since it went on sale on this past Friday. That's an insane amount of sales (the number includes copies sold at retail outlets, online, with new Macs, and via customers using the Up-to-Date program).
For comparison let's look at how Tiger did. Tiger went on sale on April 30th, 2005 at 6pm. Apple then announced 6 weeks later that the 2 millionth copy had just been sold. 5 weeks to sell 2 million copies isn't bad, but taking 5 days to do the same is incredible.
Oh my. There's nothing we blog monkeys like more than casting our minds forward to the next greatest thing. Now that Leopard is about here and soon to be common place, what's next? What's Apple's codename for Mac OS X 10.6? You know it's already in development. So what do you TUAW readers think the next great codename will be? Let us know in this unspun poll.
Leopard may be just around the corner but we're not ignoring you readers who aren't ready to upgrade. Here's a quick tip for those of you who plan on staying in Tiger land. Sometimes you want to view pictures by previewing them directly in Finder. To automatically view the largest possible preview, just double-tap the column resizing handle at the bottom right of the preview image. This automatically maximizes the picture without affecting your other columns.
More security notes from the underground TUAW vault. Up until Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you could see your tax dollars at work very readily, as the National Security Agency published OS-specific guidelines for hardening your OS X installation -- mostly commonsense items like "use strong passwords" and "turn off unneeded services," but it was nice to have a document with the imprimatur of the US Government's most professional paranoids that you could show to your spouse/boss/Russian friends and say "See, it's secured!"
As of Tiger, however, the NSA has handed over the security stick to Apple and endorsed the vendor guides to securing both OS X and OS X Server as "[tracking] closely with the security level historically represented in the NSA guidelines." You can download the Server version of the PDF from the NSA's website, but oddly the client version seems to hang on download (spies! saboteurs!), so you can grab that one directly from the mothership. Between the two guides you have over 500 pages of security reading, so save the whole weekend.
Fire up your Software Updaters, campers! Apple has just unleashed Mac OS X 10.4.10 for PPC/Intel Macs. Find out more about this update here (and the security implications here). Improved in 10.4.10 is:
More RAW support for various cameras
Improved decimal number rounding in certain applications
Improves compatibility of Mathematica 6 with 64-bit Macs
And a few other things. Sound off in the comments if you encounter any issues with this update. Oh, and if you are updating from something lower than OS X 10.4.9 download the Combo updater. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Cocktail 3.8, the Tiger Edition of the indispensable Mac utility, brings with it a host of new features. Not least amongst these new features is a gorgeous UI overhaul, which makes Cocktail not only useful but a pleasure to use. For the uninitiated Cocktail is a small app that lets you control a number of things about your Mac, which normally are beyond the powers of the everyday Mac user.
Beyond the new look, Cocktail 3.8 boasts over 100 new features, including:
Fine grained control of Spotlight (you can enable/disable Spotlight for disks)
Lots of new logging
New ways to tweak the UI of a variety of Apple apps (including Safari, Mail, and Finder)
A single user license costs $14.95, though there is a free trial available.
When a leading computer publication has a revolving-door editor-in-chief hiring policy, it can make other weird editorial decisions look sane and prudent by comparison. Exhibit A: the annual PC World "100 Best" feature, which presents the 100 best products of 2007... online in May, and in print for July. Not even half the year has gone by, but the farsighted crew at PCW has already figured out the best of the bunch! Might as well take the rest of the year off, then...
The real reasons that the 100 Best comes out mid-year (covering the end of 2006 and the start of 2007) are detailed in a post from once-and-current big kahuna Harry McCracken. It comes down to legacy scheduling of the product awards around the June date of the no-longer-extant PC Expo trade show. That's a relief; I was worried that we were changing the calendar again.
Anyway, more to the point: the list is top-heavy with some big Mac products, including TUAW darling Parallels Desktop at #6 (the top-ranked application on any desktop platform, not counting #1 Google Apps Premier Edition), Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger at #9 and AppleTV at #11. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor that powers new Macs is a top pick at #2. Noticeably absent from the top 100 was the latest hotness from Redmond, which may correlate with PC World's comment on the Tiger ranking: "Name a good Vista feature that goes beyond what's in Tiger. Yeah, we can't either." Brrrrr.
Reports from AppleInsider and other sources indicate that the next Tiger update, ten-four-ten (sounds like a CB radio code) will be seeding to developers as early as next week. As Erica noted back in March, there's been some question of the exact naming for this update (10.4.9a? 10.4.9 SP1?) and it seems like 10.4.10 is the plan.
With Leopard's ship date in the autumn, some final patches to the current big cat are certainly in order. At my office we're still waiting for a fix on longstanding issues with WPA2 authentication/Proxim wireless access points on the MacBooks/MBPs... perhaps this update will be the one that clears those nagging problems.
Today Apple released an AirPort Extreme Update for those Mac users running Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4). Here's the information that Software Update gives us: 
Just in case you haven't yet upgraded to Leopard, but still love using Cocktail (that crazy mix of Unix functions for OS X), Maintain has released version 4.0.1 of their Tiger edition. They've fixed some compatibility problems with QuickTime, and added support for clearing font caches in Microsoft Office 2008. The update is now available from their website, and is, they say, "strongly recommended" for all Cocktail (Tiger edition) users.
I used the original Boot Camp beta last year just to see it work. I applied the subsequent updates, but haven't tinkered with it since.
Fire up Software Update, Tiger users, Apple has just released 10.4.11 onto an eager world. This point update has a host of feature updates including:
Here's a rather specific update for iMac users running Tiger (specifically, 20-inch and 24-inch aluminum iMacs with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8 GHz processors). According to Apple, Update 1.2.1 "...improves the performance and reliability of graphics-intensive games and applications and fixes an issue that some customers encountered when installing Mac OS X Leopard after applying iMac Software Update 1.2." 
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that people seem to like Leopard. Apple today announced that they have sold two million copies of Leopard since it went on sale on this past Friday. That's an insane amount of sales (the number includes copies sold at retail outlets, online, with new Macs, and via customers using the Up-to-Date program).
Oh my. There's nothing we blog monkeys like more than casting our minds forward to the next greatest thing. Now that Leopard is about here and soon to be common place, what's next? What's Apple's codename for Mac OS X 10.6? You know it's already in development. So what do you TUAW readers think the next great codename will be? Let us know in this unspun poll. 
When a leading computer publication has a revolving-door editor-in-chief hiring policy, it can make other weird editorial decisions look sane and prudent by comparison. Exhibit A: the annual PC World "100 Best" feature, which presents the 100 best products of 2007... online in May, and in print for July. Not even half the year has gone by, but the farsighted crew at PCW has already figured out the best of the bunch! Might as well take the rest of the year off, then...
Reports from AppleInsider and other sources indicate that the next Tiger update, ten-four-ten (sounds like a CB radio code) will be seeding to developers as early as next week. As Erica noted back in March, there's been some question of the exact naming for this update (10.4.9a? 10.4.9 SP1?) and it seems like 10.4.10 is the plan.
