somefoolwitha.com ...since 2002

My MacBook Pro's power adaptor is melting! Found this, I have been playing Half-Life lately. Ive since phoned Apple and a new one is winging it's way to my door. New brick arrived, done and dusted :-D

Ive just read about a video and article about hijacking a Macbook in 60 seconds or less and also a follow up article supposedly countering the negative comments received in the first article.

Apparently:

they ultimately decided to run the demo against a Mac due to what Maynor called the "Mac user base aura of smugness on security."

I just dont understand this mentality, would I be considered smug because; I didnt run with knifes or scissors? Wore a seatbelt in a car? Looked each way before I crossed the road? Or engaged any other manner of accident prevention? What is going on with the world? Sheesh!

Besides, it seems theres some confusion over why exactly they used a 3rd party wireless card and whether you could hack a Mac with the built in Apple card and what precisely the hacker can do.

Either way, Ill sit here smug in my ivory tower that there are currently 0 viruses available for the Mac and that if it is truly due to "security through obscurity" (which I dont think it is) the Vista beta got plenty of viruses with a fraction of the users Mac OS X has, comfortable in the knowledge that if any do surface for the Mac Im gonna know about it.

Newsvine article.

The new MacBook. Wow! That is a beautiful machine. I love the catchless catch and the new shape keys. Mmmmm! Where's my new MacBook Pro with the catchless catch hey?

I cant decide on black or white. Black is kind the MacBook (pro) so it shows a sort of power-user lite addiction to the big A. Where as the white one shows a knowing savy for Apple value.

Which are you?

Sorry, yet another apple main post. Ooops.

Apple's new Get A Mac ad campaign, the TV Ads are quite funny in a slightly cringe-inducing way, I can see many PC users being irked and just a tad offended by some of the simplifications in the ads. The PC guy is a very stereotyped PC office person and the Mac guy is a painfully trendy designer-stubbled type. Viruses is maybe a bit cheeky considering the recent proof of concept viruses and supposed holes in OSX, but hopefully this is a sign of Apple paying more attention to viruses. Restarting is funny, but I for one have had to restart my Mac a few times. Better is well, not the best. iLife is a pretty good ad. Network is my favourite. WSJ is for an American audience really. Be sure to have a delve around the site.

So, all the rumours of a ViPod (or Video iPod) were sort of right, MacRumors even managed to snag a pic ahead of time. There was also some other neat stuff like Front Row, an updated iMac and iTunes 6.

The new iPod seems cools, with video playback and a larger screen, but I wont be dumping my PSP in favour of the new iPod just because of the video capabilities any time soon. I still need to get a 1gig memory card for my PSP if I really want to watch movies on the move, the free Spiderman 2 UMD gives a nice taster and Ive got plenty of Family Guy, Mighty Boosh or Nighty Night episodes Id like to have on-the-move. Buy a new iPod for it though? I dont think so. The new iPod feels like Apple have effectively upgraded the iPod screen and thought, "Hmm, we can play video on this too", so they added that. Not a bad idea in my opinion.

The new iMac follows the exemplary design traditions of the iMac family and adds Front Row and a built-in iSight camera and no doubt some under-the-hood updates, processor and such. Front Row looks like its basically a media centre interface for the Mac with easy access to iTunes, iPhoto and Movies and funky remote. I would really like to be able to download the Front Row software and maybe even buy the remote, though Im not too sure how it works, maybe irda, no idea. the addition of iSight as standard should hopefully spur some more 3rd party video conferencing apps and what not, though I confess I dont have an iSight, Id like one, but I suspect like many others I dont know anyone with one.

I am currently downloading and installing iTunes 6 so Ive yet to see if there's any interface tweaks (I doubt it) but the video purchasing of music videos and TV shows seems like a VERY good progression. Hopefully there will be some UK TV shows up pretty smartish to have a play with, but I suspect I wont be dumping UKNova for a while yet.

All in all, not a bad set of announcements, Im looking forward to playing with some of these at the UK Mac Expo at the end of this month. I expect a stream of the show on the Quicktime site at some point soon. Here it is.

Its the MacExpo in London next month. Just a shame the registration site's down atm. I should be going to this if I can get a ticket. Ticket ordered.