CodeWeavers Giving Away CrossOver on Tuesday

If you have an Intel-based Mac and an occasional need to run Windows apps (or you're thinking about switching to the Mac) and you don't want to pony up for Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion (plus a license for Windows), then tomorrow is the day for you.

On Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008, anyone visiting the CodeWeavers' Web site will be given a deal code that will entitle them to one free copy of CodeWeavers' award-winning CrossOver software. Each copy comes complete with support.

CrossOver is based on the Wine open-source project and allows you to run many Windows applications without having to install or license Windows. That's right -- Windows apps without Windows. And without sending your hard-earned money to Redmond. There is even a version for Linux.

There are, of course, a few caveats. Like compatibility is only guaranteed for a list of certain mainstream apps (including MS Office and many games) and apps that rely on newer Windows components are out of the picture. But if you just need to see your website in Internet Explorer or you occasionally need to access an IE-only website, this is a great solution. And tomorrow, it's free!

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Protect yourself from phishing scams

Recently, Consumer Reports demonstrated again how they're completely in the deep weeds whenever they review computers and, more specifically, operating systems and applications. But, unlike the computer writers at CR, you can protect yourself from phishing scams and still use Safari (or any other browser).

Consumer Reports touted Firefox or Opera over Safari because of the built-in anti-phishing tools in those first two browser; Safari has no such built-in capability. There is, however, a free service you can use that will give every browser on your Mac a full set of anti-phishing tools (and additional tools, if you choose to use them). This service is called OpenDNS, and it’s a free replacement for your Internet service provider’s (ISP) domain name servers.

As a bonus, your connections will likely resolve faster than they do using your default DNS servers. And, of course, this is not a Mac-specific solution. It should work on any device that lets you set the DNS servers to be used.

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View "iCal Events" on Dashboard

Gruber likes it, so it must be good, right?

Free Dashboard widget by Ben Kazez, shows you a list of events from iCal for the next few days (as opposed to Leopard’s default iCal widget, which only shows events from today).

I'm trying it out now and so far I'm favorably impressed. The widget is resizable, let's you see up to two weeks of upcoming events without having to open iCal, and pops up event details when you mouseover them. Also, it appears to load quickly on Leopard which is a big concern for me as I truly dislike having to wait for fresh content to load when I drop into Dashboard.

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SuperDuper Now Leopard-Ready

"Now fully compatible with Leopard; makes a great companion to Time Machine. One of the best Mac utilities ever made." -Gruber

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Why Leopard’s Time Machine Doesn’t Support AirPort Disks

Recently, I discussed how Time Machine as released in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard does not support backing up to a hard drive connected to an Airport Extreme despite that having been a feature listed prior to release. Well, now we've got the "why."

Turns out that, as currently configured, Airport Extreme doesn't provide a safe acknowledgment of received packets and therefore data could potentially be lost during a backup without any notice given or corrective action taken. Clearly, not a situation on which you'd want to rely.

According to Alex Curylo (via RoughlyDrafted):

This was explained on one of the developer lists a couple weeks back. The problem is that integrity cannot be guaranteed — the AirPort acknowledges receipt of the data before it’s actually written, and if power is interrupted, the disk disconnected, yadayadayada in the window between the Airport acknowledging receipt and the data actually getting written out to disk, it’s gone forever with no way to recover it or even realize it’s gone missing.

The good news is that this seems fixable in a future update to Airport and so it would seem reasonable to believe that Apple will eventually release updates to both Airport and Time Machine to allow over-the-air file backups. Jump for the deets. Let's hope that comes sooner rather than later, as there are lots of other people out there besides me who think automated wireless file backup to an external hard drive is a great enhancement for laptop users.

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Sync up with the all-new Plaxo

Version 3 of Plaxo can sync your contacts and calendars across multiple platforms -- Mac and Windows apps (Outlook, iCal, Thunderbird, etc.) and web (Google, Yahoo!, AOL, etc.), oh, plus your mobile phone. Dang.

On top of that, it will sync changes when you or one of your contacts updates contact info. And notify you of upcoming events, like birthdays. Plus, it has a nice web interface so you can access it from other computers.

And if that's not enough, the Pulse add-on consolidates your feeds from various social networks (MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, etc.). Watch this short video for a quick demo.

Yeah, it's sick. I think I'll have to try it out.

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FileMaker announces date for Mac OS X Leopard compatibility update

FileMaker Pro 9 and FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced generally run on Leopard although there are two known issues. We are targeting a downloadable update to be available on November 19, 2007.... We have not tested earlier (pre-FileMaker 9) versions of FileMaker software on Mac OS X Leopard and do not intend to release updates for earlier versions.

So FMP 9 doesn't run well yet on Leopard and prior versions don't run at all. If you want to run FileMaker on OS X 10.5, you have to be running the latest version and you have to wait until mid-November. Not very friendly.

(Well, only if the two issues affect you. They list Instant Web Publishing and non-US English versions. However, there was a prior issue with the new version of WebKit that caused FMP to crash when accessing some web viewer content that's not mentioned at all in this notice. Has it been fixed in the GM version of Leopard or is it still an issue?)

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Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Disks [Updated]

You've got to be kidding me. This feature would be awesome. Good thing I haven't ordered the external HD yet. Time to re-think the strategy. Surely they'll get this worked out with a future update. Per Gruber, this was a previously touted feature, so it's not like the idea hasn't occurred to them.

Would be a great feature if it did, especially for notebook users. And it’s disappointing, because backing up to an AirPort disk was promoted as a feature of Time Machine in the WWDC 2007 keynote.

UPDATE: More details (and some hope that this feature will return in a future update): Apple yanks wireless backup from Leopard last minute
A work-around hack that restores the feature (if you trust it): TM working with airport disk in GM

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How Leopard Will Improve Your Security

With the release last week of the feature list for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the security world is buzzing about some extremely important updates that should, if they work as expected, significantly improve Mac security and will make me less nervous about connecting to wireless networks in Internet cafes.

Tell me more... (via Daring Fireball)

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Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Time Machine

Time Machine is one of the most visually prominent new features demonstrated in Mac OS X Leopard, even if the core idea of backups is as old -- or perhaps older -- than the concept of having any data worthy of being restored. Here's a look at what's new and different about Apple's approach with Time Machine, why backups are a problem to be solved, and how well Leopard's new Time Machine actually works in practice.

I didn't have a lot if respect for Time Machine as a useful or innovative feature until I read this explanation. Now I'm pretty psyched about it. Time to find a new large capacity external hard drive to plug into my Airport Extreme.

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WWDC Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Videos

Someone posted video clips to Brightcove demonstrating Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (WWDC Build).

Get your own sneak peek at the forthcoming release. No telling how long these will be available (I give 'em until midday Monday), so don't delay.

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ALERT: OS 10.4.10 Snap, Crackle, Pop

Fun name for a not-so-fun problem. I upgraded the Intel iMac at the office without any issues, but your mileage may vary. If you haven't upgraded yet, I'd recommend holding off for awhile to see how it plays out. Read on for deets and user reports.

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Leo-like Desktop in Tiger

Can't wait to have Leopard on your Mac? Neither can these folks who have thoughtfully collaborated to share instructions and links, including the grassy desktop pic, to give your Tiger install a close approximation. Poseur.

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Gates vs. Jobs

I'm just reminding everyone that PC's are for fart-offers and Macs get you laid.

This is not how I recall their joint appearance at D. But it could have been just like this....

And Finder is BOSS!

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Automatically rate your iTunes tracks with AutoRate

Have you ever wanted to rate songs in your iTunes library, but that overwhelming fear of commitment was just too much. Is this song a 5 or is that one a 4? This track was a 3 last week, but now it might be a 4 1/2 this week. How many more songs do I have to rate? Wait a minute, this is my iTunes library! Shouldn't every song be a 5?... If you're having a similar internal battle and want to stop the voices, look no further than the freeware application AutoRate.

This little app helps you rate your entire iTunes library based on "listens". That way, you get out of having to make the big decision and AutoRate uses your iTunes metadata to give you a non-bias, data driven rating system. Ah, peace at last. Here's how it works:
rating = (100 * ( (play frequency - lower) / (upper - lower) ) - skips per month * 5
Where upper is the main play frequency + 2 standard deviations, and lower is the mean play frequency - 2 standard deviations.

What does all of this high school algebra mean? Tracks that are skipped or not played often are given lower ratings, while tracks played with greater frequency are given a higher rating. Here's an example. In my library I had a song that I had played 10 times... 3 months ago. I also had a song with 3 plays, 2 days ago. Which one had the higher rating? The latter, which I think is great. That means the songs your jamming to at the moment will always get higher ratings in your library, as they should. The nice part is that the download comes with a bit of AppleScript you can utilize to keep updating your ratings as you listen.

Finally, the author mentions a tip that you can use to skip a song without penalizing it. I think it's a clever addition, but I believe it's self-defeating. If you really want to skip a song, then it deserves to be penalized. Otherwise, your skewing your own data.

AutoRate

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