Miscellaneous Ramblings.... - Mac

iTunes 8.0.2 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:47:02 -0600

iTunes 8.0.2 has been released as a 60MB update. According to the official Apple Release:

iTunes 8.0.2 improves stability and performance and provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

Addresses a quality issue creating MP3s on some computers.
Fixes a connectivity issue with the iTunes Store when using some Internet proxies with Mac OS X.
Improves accessibility with VoiceOver (the same thing that was supposed to be fixed in the 8.0.1 version ).

Google Voice Search: Finally Available!

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:08:43 -0600

After a fair amount of anticipation (and snafus), it appears that the Google Voice search update is finally available in the iTunes App store. Thanks to TechCrunch who had the link available, I was able to download it. Been playing with it for a little bit and pretty impressed so far. I tried searching for Ferraris, MythTV, "Downloading Knoppix" and it was able to recognize all of the search terms just fine, including "MacBookPro and not store" (it sounds like CNet concurs ). Of course, I am running my tests in a fairly quiet house; it will be interesting to see how well it works with some background noise (i.e. traffic, wind, etc).

Safari 3.2 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:39:18 -0600

Apple has released Safari 3.2 with one of the improvements being better anti-phishing protection. A number of security updates are also included.

Firefox 3.0.14 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:17:43 -0600

Firefox has released version 3.04, which is supposed to include some stability fixes as well as some security fixes.

QuickSilver B54 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:44:46 -0600

Quicksilver, the ultimate keyboard shortcut app for Mac OSX has released B54 (of course, this has been out for awhile, so for once, I am slow on the updates ). Have been happily running the updated version though with no issues.

Firefox 3.1b2pre Beta (Minefield) Being Worked on

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:23:16 -0600

Firefox 3.1b2pre beta, codenamed Minefield is releasing nightly builds of the new beta browser. I have been running it continuously on my Mac Book Pro for the past week and for the most part it seems pretty stable (only two crashes) and much faster (coming from one who usually has a minimum of 10 tabs open at any one time). Not sure how much I like the new Tab Preview feature (which replaces the Tab List at the far right), but I'll give it some more time.

SimplifyMedia and Remote up and running ;-)

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 15:12:35 -0600

Since I was working a ton of hours anyway this week, I decided to get both SimplifyMedia and (iPhone) Remote apps up and running.
My Mac (of course ) was very easy to get up and running for both applications, but my WindowsXP machine was slightly more of a challenge (mainly due to cascading problems stemming from updating ServicePacks and having obscure issues due to the motherboard BIOS being very old). After flashing the BIOS and upgrading the chipset drivers, I was able to get the needed ServicePack installed successfully this time and get both of the applications running properly.

SimplifyMedia allows one to stream their iTunes library over the internet from their iPhone. You can also use this app to share with your iTunes library with up to 30 friends.

Remote allows one's iPhone to control (via wireless connection) iTunes library on any computer on the same network (Note: You must have at least iTunes 7.7 or greater installed).
(Note: At LifeHacker, there is a good article on several options for controlling your computer over the Internet via your iPhone).
I &hearts my iPhone!

XtremeMac XtremeHD Happiness

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 07:00:28 -0600

After being somewhat frustrated by my Belkin PureAV HDMI switcher, I decided on the stellar advice of my coworker to plop down for the XtremeMac XtremeHD HDMI switcher. 20 minutes later (including re-programming my HarmonyOne remote), all was happiness again in HDTV land.

MacBookPro: SuperDrive Issues

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 07:09:00 -0600

Recently I tried to burn a DVD in my MacBookPro Matshita DVD drive and would have the drive continually eject blank CDs and DVDs. After trying four different brands of CDs/DVDs, I was able to finally get an error from the Sony brand: Sense Code = 0x73, 0x03.
Google and Apple Forums to the rescue. After looking at these forums threads: here and here, I decided to try the "compressed air" solution and presto! - DVD burning happiness once again.

MacBook Pro Emergency Keyboard Surgery

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:52:54 -0500

It's official I guess - I do type too hard. This morning I succeeded in inadvertently breaking in half my Enter key (the large one) and of course needed to do some work on my MBP this evening. Enter FirstTech, a local Apple dealer and service center. After a couple of calls (and much weaving and cursing through several traffic detours - {in who's mind is it a good idea to simultaneously close most of main freeways at the same time?!?!?}), I finally made it to the FirstTech service center, where I was able to pick up a new Enter key. Of course, going forward, I promised myself that I would now take it easier on my keyboard(s).
Many Thanks FirstTech!

Adium 1.3.2 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:11:00 -0500

Adium has released version 1.3.2. One nice thing that this version fixes is the annoying frequent disconnections on the Yahoo! service. Some of the fixes are:

MSN fixes ( display pictures, full offline messaging support, iTunes support )

Custom Status window now shows your current status message when opened

Fixed a crash when parsing DNS-lookup responses from certain routers

Fixed contacts showing in incorrect group after combining them

Added new Add Group Chat Bookmark and File Transfer icons

Fixed drop shadow in Stockholm and Gone Dark message styles

I have been using the new version for a day and the Yahoo! disconnect issue does indeed seem to be fixed (previously it would disconnect for me several times a day).

Mac OSX Security Update

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 22:06:42 -0500

Apple has released another security update 2008-007. It is available for both Tiger and Leopard. Unfortunately, the last update didn't seem to fix the intermittent DNS hang-up that I have been experiencing - maybe this one will inadvertently.

iTunes 8.0.1 Released

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 2 Oct 2008 20:35:28 -0500

iTunes 8.0.1 has been released. According to the official Apple Release:

iTunes 8.0.1 improves stability and performance and provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

Seamlessly plays the current song when creating a new Genius playlist.
Improves syncing spoken menus to iPod nano.
Addresses an issue of deleting HD TV episodes when downloading.
Improves checking for updates from the App Store
Improves accessibility with VoiceOver.
Addresses problems syncing Genius results to iPod.

Evidently there were some video problems with iTunes 8.0 (which I haven't experienced) which were also fixed with this release. However, it seems that some people are now having problems with streaming media with this latest update.

Perian Updated to 1.1.1

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:59:57 -0500

Perian, the utility plugin for Quicktime has just released version 1.1.1 Here are some of the things fixed:
H.264 in AVI fixed
Some anamorphic AVI files are now supported
Performance problems due to PIC fixed with Xcode 3.1
Incorrect frame skipping on H.264 intra frames fixed
Better character set detection
The update checker is now much more polite
Several parsing and rendering bugs with subtitles fixed
Player freezing while loading subtitles with embedded fonts fixed
Audio fixed for some older MKV files with AAC/FLAC
Strange values in MKV chapters or video sizes are handled better
Initial support for SAMI subtitles added
Worked around a QuickTime bug (#5770288) causing frames to be lost during export
New codecs: DosBox ZMBV, VP6+Alpha, Nellymoser ASAO
FFmpeg: Crashing on PPC G3 fixed
Fraps decoding artifacts fixed

The biggest thing that I noticed is vastly improved support for the mkv (Matroska) format - yes!

Java Update for Mac

nospam@example.com (Colleen Velo) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:26:14 -0500

Apple has released a Java update for the Mac, for both Leopard and Tiger.
According to the official Apple write up: Java for Mac OS X 10.4, Release 7 delivers improved reliability and compatibility for Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 and Java 1.4 on Mac OS X 10.4.11 and later. This release updates J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_16 and Java 1.4 to version 1.4.2_18.