Yesterday, Apple released MobileMe Control Panel for Windows 1.4, recommended for users on corporate networks that use proxy servers.

Some users were reporting errors when trying to sync contacts and calendars, or were unable to log into the MobileMe control panel at all. This update sorts that out.

According to Apple technical note on the subject, supported proxy server types include:

• Web proxy servers (HTTP)
• Secure Web proxy (HTTPS)
• SOCKS proxy servers (see note below)
• HTTP/HTTPS proxy servers that require authentication
• Proxy bypass lists
• Proxy auto-configuration (PAC) files

The update is available on the MobileMe website, and is also included with iTunes 8.2 for Windows.

One of the most common ways to customize your tried-and-true desktop is by changing the wallpaper. While easy and effective, the wallpaper switcheroo is not the only trick up the sleeves of the customizers among us. For some, the most rewarding customization results from replacing icons.

There are many reasons to do this, including replacing system and application icons to create an overall aesthetic, easing the identification of a particular external hard drive by using its product image as an icon, or even replacing poorly-designed icons entirely (we're looking at you, Adobe).

We Love Icons aims to make it easy for icon lovers to discover new icons from around the web that are free for personal use. In their own words, designers Dan Wiersema and Nando Albuquerque started We Love Icons because, well... they love icons! The site itself is very well designed and easy to navigate; there is even an easy-to-spot option for filtering icons based on type: Mac-compatible, PNG file format, or Windows-compatible.

Further adding to the greatness of this site, the How-To page is a great resource for those new to the icon-customization game. There are links to external content on the history of icons, tutorials on changing icons, and even design-related icon articles. The How-To area also features an Apps section which lists several useful programs for replacing and creating icons. Each application list item includes a one-sentence summary, the application's platform (web, Mac, or Windows), and also the application's price.

Overall, I am impressed with the content of the site and the quality of its presentation. We Love Icons has secured a bookmark in my "Icons" folder right next to the link to InterfaceLIFT's icon section. Dear readers, I present this question to you: in my never-ending search for the best icons, do you have any favorites that you have either designed or found? Hit up the comments and share the love.

I want to make a quick mention regarding one of the most useful utilities I've found in recent days: SizeUp. It allows you to resize and reposition windows using keyboard shortcuts. It's no secret that I like my screen real estate, and making the most of it is a big deal to me. You can sit and resize windows all day, but I'd rather hit a couple of keys and have everything in place.

SizeUp offers half-screen (vertical or horizontal) and quarter-screen sizing (easily positionable in any corner), as well as a true Windows-style maximize function. You can also set a custom size for the "Center Window" option, which resizes the window to the specified dimensions and positions it in the center of its current screen. Not the screen you want? The last set of shortcuts lets you jump the window between existing monitors in your setup.

The hotkeys are configurable, but the defaults (surprisingly) didn't conflict with any of my extensive collection of shortcut combinations. SizeUp is shareware, but you can pay what you think it's worth (Fair licensing). A suggested price of $9.99US doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me. If it's useful to you, but not that useful, a minimum donation of $2.99US is requested. The maximize function alone is worth that. Developers Irradiated Software also offer a "lite" version called TwoUp which can do the split screen trick on its own, free. Grab a fully-functioning demo of SizeUp at the Irradiated Software website.

This review has an interesting history. Back at the end of January, Polaroid sent a note to TUAW requesting that we ask our readers to join in asking Apple to support Bluetooth printing from the iPhone. Polaroid had a very good reason for doing this, since the iPhone is a phenomenally successful smartphone. Those millions of iPhone users would make a very good market for Polaroid's new PoGo Instant Mobile Printer, a tiny pocket-sized photo printer that prints out 2" x 3" borderless prints.

I asked Polaroid if we could test a PoGo for our readers who don't own iPhones, and also to see how it works with the Mac. The results of our tests follow, along with details of a giveaway where two lucky TUAW readers can win a PoGo and a 30-pack of the special paper that it uses.

Yesterday, Robert talked about setting up a new Mac Pro for his switcher Dad. Today, setting up Windows proves to be a bit of a headache.

When I mentioned to my best buddy Cameron that Dad was getting a Mac Pro to replace his just-months-old Mac mini, he said "Wow. He sure moves quickly when it comes to toys!"

That he does. Just three or four months ago, he had bought his Mac mini. Now here we were, installing Windows on his tricked-out refurb Mac Pro.

This was proving to be a problem. For me, mostly.

He wanted to install Windows XP Service Pack 2, which, as far as we knew, would work fine. We started Boot Camp Assistant, and printed out the instructions. We had a whole 750GB hard disk to give to Windows, so we chose it and were restarting into that purgatory of Windows Setup in DOSville.

After loading its various components ("Human Interface Parser" was our favorite), Windows Setup displayed the volumes available to install Windows, but our newly-created Boot Camp partition wasn't listed. Uh oh.

We assume that there are a few of you who have got Windows machines with MobileMe access in place. If so, you'll be pleased to know that version 1.3 of the Control Panel is now ready. As you know, this control panel allows Windows users to synchronize MobileMe services and iDisk.

According to Apple, version 1.3 "...delivers faster syncing of contacts and calendars between MobileMe and Microsoft Outlook ... [and] a new tray icon also indicates whenever an automatic sync is in progress." Additionally, any change in Outlook will automatically trigger synchronization.

This is a 2.27 MB download and requires Windows Vista SP1 or later ( or Windows XP Home or Professional SP2) and Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007 for calendar sync.

[Via MacNN]

According to the Washington Post, the incoming U.S. presidential administration has inherited quite the challenging IT environment: The White House.

President Obama's staff -- accustomed to Macs, social media, and having the latest equipment -- found Windows PCs with Microsoft Office 2003 in their new offices. Laptops were "scarce," apparently, and the team had trouble finding ways to update the redesigned White House website and add subtitles to web videos. Perhaps they were misled by the prominence of Mac hardware in the fictional-but-familiar West Wing version of the executive mansion.

Valleywag's Owen Thomas suggests that Obama's staff are "whiners." "Outside the Manhattan media bubble and Silicon Valley's startup cube farms, this is how most Americans work. Want a Macintosh? Sorry, IT hasn't approved it. Oh, you need to use Facebook to interact with customers? Sorry, that site's blocked -- and management suspects that 'social media' is a buzzword which means 'getting paid to waste time chatting with friends.'"

Part of the reason for the White House's legacy systems is related to the need to retain all computer records for the National Archives, and protect all kinds of communication (from emails to IMs to tweets) on the network for national security reasons. This task isn't impossible with a Mac -- some might say it's easier to accomplish with a Mac than with a PC -- but there will be a lot of sleepless nights for the White House's new IT staff while the new system is set up. Meanwhile, the tech-friendly new Commander in Chief appears to have won his first geek battle; he is going to get to keep his Blackberry [or something like it; Engadget clarifies that we don't know the details yet, but press secretary Robert Gibbs said it was indeed a BlackBerry during today's press briefing (his first) -Ed.] subject to a security overhaul by an unnamed federal agency (assumed to be the NSA).

With the new administration's focus on change, it seems as though a new tech infrastructure and business rules for the executive office of the President are in the cards. It remains to be seen if our favorite platform, though, makes the cut.

Thanks to Michael and Joe for sending this in.

All day on December 25, TUAW presents "Now What?" We've got first steps and recommendations for all the Apple gifts you (hopefully!) found under the tree today. Happy holidays! If you're a Mac veteran, send a link to this post to the switcher on your holiday list.

Merry Christmas, new Mac owner. First of all, congratulations! Welcome to the family. There's some eggnog on the table, and feel free to put your coat on the bed. Setting up your new Mac is a famously easy experience. It should take about 10 minutes, depending on the kind of Mac you bought, and where you want to put it.

Once you have your new Mac on your desk, it will take you through a short setup process to personalize your new machine. You'll choose a username, a password, and will be given the option to register your Mac and sign up for MobileMe, if you want. (You can register and sign up for MobileMe later, if you don't do it now.)

If you bought any applications along with your Mac (like Microsoft Office, for example), you can install them very easily. Just insert the disc, and either drag the application to your Applications folder (on your hard disk) or double-click the installer application. You can eject the disc when you're done by dragging it to the Trash, or pressing the eject key on your keyboard.

For Windows compatibility, get your Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) or Windows Vista disc ready, and double click the Boot Camp Assistant in the Utilities folder (it's inside your Applications folder). Boot Camp Assistant will walk you through the process of installing Windows on your Mac. It's not difficult, but it will take a little time. Once Windows is installed, you can hold down the Option key before your computer boots to choose which operating system to run, or select a permanent preference via the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences. You can read more switcher-specific tips in our Switchers category.

If you're switching to the Mac platform from the PC, I might humbly suggest you read Part 1 and Part 2 of my experience introducing my dad to the Mac. He was a hard-core PC user until he fell in love with his Mac mini.

Continue reading for a few best bets about how to extend and protect your new Mac.

We're late to the party on this one, but it absolutely still deserves attention. Created by Nick Greenlee as a short visual effects piece, this video depicts what would happen if Apple and Windows laptops were sentient Transformer robots who wanted to destroy each other.

This could be a whole new spin on the "I'm A Mac" tv ads. What would John Hodgman transform into? I imagine a slide rule functioning as his prime weapon. As for Justin Long ... he'd overwhelm enemies with The Smugness.

Nice work, Nick. It's a great video.

[Via TechEBlog]

As if all the deals from "Black Friday" weren't enough, the good folks at VMWare are keeping the love going through today with this stellar deal offered exclusively for "Cyber Monday." Here's all the details, directly from the virtual horse's mouth:

Get 50% off automatically when you purchase VMware Fusion online, using the coupon code "CyberMondayDeal" for one day only.

*Regular Price: $79.99 Your Price: $39.99

*Offer Expires at 11:59PM PT on Monday, December 1, 2008.

So, even if you love the Mac but still, on occasion, wish you could run that particular Windows app just like your Windows-loving friends, today is the day to get your hands on a tool that will enable you to do just that. Note that if you already own a license for Parallels or Virtual PC that you bought from a small selection of online retailers, you can get an additional $30 rebate when purchasing Fusion -- check it out.

Virtualization vendor Parallels has just released Parallels Desktop 4.0 for the Mac. Parallels Desktop is designed to let users run Windows (or Linux) on your Intel Mac within OS X.

The newest version of Parallels Desktop boasts better performance (Parallels is claiming a 50% increase over Parallels Desktop 3.0), better graphics, support for more OSs and support for up to 8 GB of RAM and 8 CPUs. Like VMWare Fusion 2.0, Parallels Desktop 4.0 also supports OS X 10.5 Leopard Server as a guest OS, and features experimental support for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Some of the other stand-out features:

• Ability to save screenshots across operating systems
• Remotely manage Windows VMs via the iPhone
• Direct X 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0 support and support for up to 256 MB of video RAM (you can see a list of supported games here)
• Parallels Virtual Appliance support

You can check out the full list of new features here. I'm converting my Parallels virtual machine to 4.0 right now and will post more thoughts on Parallels 4.0 and how it stacks up to other virtualization options from VMWare and VirtualBox in the next few days.

Parallels Desktop 4.0 is $79.99 and available now. Existing Parallels customers can upgrade for $39.99 through the end of November. If you purchased Parallels Desktop AFTER September 1, 2008, your upgrade is free.

It kind of sounds like a developer's dream: create an app in Cocoa that automatically works on Windows, too. But that's what Cocotron promises, and the folks at Ecamm say the dream is there, even if it requires a lot of elbow grease. They tried using Cocotron to port an app called FileMagnet, and two months after they started, they say they did it. You can see the results above, and as they say, "Visual Studio was never opened."

But of course it wasn't exactly one-click. They had to implement a number of Apple-specific methods, and there were UI bugs, strings support, and dreaded Vista compatibility to work out. But the good news is that Cocotron is all open source, and from what the Mac Daddies say, the devs working on the project are super helpful and supportive. So, not only is it getting better every day, but every bit of implementation that gets done is something that won't have to be repeated. Sounds like a lot of "fun" (for varying values of "fun" of course) for developers to be had here.

The lines between Mac and PC, no matter what the commercials say, are blurring more and more every day, and this could turn out to be a way to develop in an environment as welcoming as Cocoa, and then bring programs back into an environment as widespread as Windows.

Last week, my previously-very-anti-Mac dad started using a Mac mini, and I wrote about his experience -- positive, to say the least. If you haven't read the story of his first day with the Mac, you might want to read that first. Yesterday, one week in, I checked in to see how he's doing.

So far, Dad has nothing but positive things to say about the Mac. Even when I asked him specifically for things he dislikes, he had to think for a second. "It's such a breath of fresh air from what I'm used to, I can't come up with anything specific that I dislike." High praise indeed from the man who doesn't like The Daily Show because of its intro music.

He also just discovered that, in Leopard, there's a little light underneath each application that tells you it's running. That was his huge discovery yesterday, and something he was proud of finding on his own.

Asked about what he does like, he mentioned the ease of application installations. He loves Dashboard widgets, and installed the MySQL Health widget that comes with the MySQL GUI tools. He did this without my help, too, which is great progress.

Update 10/28: Welcome, Digg fans. CodeWeavers' site is getting crunched under the massive demand for the free versions of CrossOver, so there is now a minimal site at down.codeweavers.com that will accept your email address; you will be mailed your registration code in the next couple of days.

--- original post below ---

Three months ago, CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White offered a challenge to another CEO -- the nation's chief executive, George W. Bush. If the president achieved one of White's six "Lame Duck" goals during the twilight of his 2nd term, White would make Windows-API enabler & WINE GUI CrossOver free to customers for one day. Some considered White's proposal a great motivational tool for GWB; others found it smug, partisan and kind of a goofy way to promote the company's products, but in any event none of his six challenges seemed to be on the path to achievement, so that's where the story should have ended. CrossOver is a fine way to run Windows apps on your Mac, but as a force for political change, not so much.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to January 20th: due to global economic conditions and through no fault of the president, the price of crude oil dropped precipitously and the cost of gasoline moved in parallel... bringing the average price per gallon in Minneapolis down to the target $2.79 level called for in White's goal #1. Can anyone say "Taco?"

The Star-Tribune is reporting that White is planning to follow through on his pledge: on Tuesday 10/28, all CodeWeavers products (CrossOver Mac, Linux & Games) will be freely downloadable. One license per customer, and we assume that the free licenses will be for the standard versions of the apps. Update: Word from CodeWeavers execs is that the free license will be for a download-only flavor of the Pro version (!), including the Games optimized build and the option to share a Windows 'bottle' among multiple users on the same machine. You will have to choose either the Mac or Linux product for your free copy (and I'm looking forward to the stats on that split once the dust settles). Pro licenses are eligible for support/update renewals after one year for $35.

You might argue with White's politics or his promotional instincts, but you can't argue with free software. CrossOver Mac normally retails for $40 and requires an Intel machine running either Tiger or Leopard.

Update 2: A number of commenters have pointed out that the original challenge rules said the giveaway day would be on the first of the month following the goal, meaning Nov. 1 instead of Oct. 28. CodeWeavers' press release confirms that the giveaway day will be 10/28 and not 11/1. The giveaway runs from midnight to midnight CST.

Thanks Austin!