Awhile back, I read a heated discussion about Apple's supposed moral obligation to the enterprise. The context was that Apple should endeavor to make products that are both fun to use, compelling and check all the enterprise boxes. The failure to fully penetrate the enterprise was presented as a deficiency of Apple's.

I am going to tell you that the problem is not with Apple, but rather it is a cultural problem that needs to be solved by the Apple community and Apple enthusiasts in the work force. I have the weight of industry experience, ten years of this kind of writing and the experience of others behind me. That includes life both as an Apple customer at Lockheed Martin and as an Apple employee over a period of 20 years. That said, get set for a rocky ride....

When IT managers call Macs and maybe even iPhones "toys," they don't literally mean a child's toy. They mean that those Apple products are the calling cards of the alienated, arrogant, combative, and selfish employees who don't consider the big picture. (Toys are played with by children.) Apple products will lose this cultural stigma and start to flourish in the enterprise when young, aspiring technical leaders start to put their company first and leave their personal preferences at home.

And that, gentle readers, is the cultural change that's required before Apple can truly penetrate the Enterprise.

If you're using Apple's Safari browser, PayPal has some advice for you: Drop it, at least if you want to avoid online fraud.

Safari doesn't make PayPal's list of recommended browsers because it doesn't have two important anti-phishing security features, according to Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief information security officer.

We looked at the MacBook Pro value equation yesterday, and we were surprised to discover that in terms of performance vs. price, the close-out prices on the 2007 models offered better value than the new ones. That's unusual, as we usually find the new models offer slightly better value.

Today we're looking at the new MacBook models, which are based on the new Penryn CPU, which has a smaller level 2 cache (3 MB vs. 4 MB) but an improved SSE4 velocity engine. The new consumer notebooks have bigger hard drives, higher clock speeds (but not by much), and the faster models have twice as much RAM.

A common question I've been asked is, "What version of OS X should I run on my (insert model) Mac?"

In the past, I always advised users to go with the latest and greatest. With the diverse mix of machines out there - G3s, G4s, G5s, and the various Intel-based Macs - it isn't as cut and dry as it once was. For me, the ideal version of the OS for a certain machine is not just about performance, but compatibility and use with newer software. Another variable is what you're planning to do with the computer: If you're running applications in Classic Mode, Mac OS X 10.5 is not for you, and 10.4 is as good as it's going to get. (Yeah, there's SheepShaver, but that's only worth the trouble if you're using an Intel-based Mac.)

I'm going to break this down into the classes of machines as I consider them and the OS that works best on them. We're going to start from the beginning of OS X capable machines - the beige G3s, WallStreet PowerBook G3s, and the tray-loading iMacs working up to the latest and greatest Intel-based Macs.

FireWire connections are still the fastest way to migrate applications and data from an older computer to your new computer, however, these new models now offer the ability to perform a system migration over network connections. This gives you more choices and flexibility in migrating your applications and data.

Network migration

For network migration, a wired Ethernet connection is the fastest option. For the best experience, be sure to attach your source and target computers to the wired network before you start the migration.

Wireless migration

If you don't have an Ethernet cable or a wired network, wireless migration can be used. For wireless migration, be sure to use the best wireless connection available. Before you begin, use the Signal Strength meter in the upper right corner of your screen to find the location with the strongest signal to your source computer. You may also want to eliminate potential sources of interference. The best wireless migration experience will be on an 802.11n network.

Not only are Apple's three primary businesses each doing extremely well, but each retains significant potential for growth, Tim Cook, the Cupertino company's chief operating officer said yesterday.

In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session at the Goldman Sachs Investment Symposium in Las Vegas, Cook fielded queries about "missing" iPhones, the possibility that the iPod market has become "saturated," why the Mac's market share has seen explosive growth and what Apple hopes to achieve with the Apple TV.

It's perhaps a measure of how badly Apple investors needed to hear from someone - anyone - high up at the company, that all it took to move the stock nearly 4% in after-hours trading on Wednesday was for COO Tim Cook to answer a few questions.

The stock had fallen more than 80 points since December and has been getting pummeled in recent weeks by rumors of falling component orders and reports from bearish analysts — chief among them Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi, who estimated last week that Apple would miss its 2008 target of 10 million iPhones by more than 2 million units. With nobody from Apple stepping up to speak to these issues, the stock had nowhere to go but down.

Eighteen-and-a-half billion dollars is a lot of money.

It's more than the estimated 2007 gross domestic product of Nicaragua. It's bigger than the estimated 2005 expenditures of no fewer than 20 U.S. states. It's enough to give $60.78 to every person in the United States, and $2.77 to every person in the world.

And most importantly for Apple investors, it amounts to $21 for every share of company stock - and as of the end of most recent quarter, it's the cash pile sitting in Apple's coffers.

Shareholders certainly have shared in Apple's success over the years. The stock topped out at $199.83 on Dec. 28, an almost 19-fold increase over five years. Yet the growth in the company's cash hoard is starting to make people wonder, What exactly will Apple do with all that money?

As I was taking my early morning stroll around the narrow lanes of the Internet, I couldn't help but notice a lot of misinformation floating around about the MacBook and MacBook Pro updates that we saw this last Tuesday. It seems that people are unclear about what the specifications are now and which notebooks have been graced with the vaunted Multi-Touch trackpad and what's the deal with the Apple Remote. I'm hoping this little article clears out any of the lingering confusion you might have.

Established bling merchant Crystal Icing has already added glass-made sparklies to many gadgets, so it was probably just a matter of time before it turned its glue-gun onto Apple's MacBook Air.

Today in the CrunchGear test labs we're benchmarking the Penryn-based MacBook Pro. And just for fun we're also benchmarking the Merom-based MacBook and a Mac Pro. For this test we're using Primate Labs Geekbench 2. The baseline for this test is 1000, which represents a 1.6GHz Power Mac G5. For all intents and purposes we're only focused on the overall score and the MBP did quite well compared to the Mac Pro. Without a previous gen MBP in the mix the numbers don't mean as much, but we will be adding a 2.16GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro into the fold later on today so that should give some of you a better indication of what's going on with the Penryn-based MacBook Pro. For your geeky pleasure we've added all numbers for each machine in a ginormous gallery for you to peruse.

I mentioned a few weeks ago , after the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, that I was planning to buy a MacBook Air. Well, my Air finally arrived yesterday, and, after unboxing, getting the "oohs" and "aahs" from my son, the fanboy (well, he actually said, "Dude!" several times), I took some time to sit down with the computer and try it out. I'm pretty amazed by this computer, and I can safely say that it's the most impressive Mac I've ever owned (my May experience dates back to the PowerBook 100, in 1991). Frankly, the MacBook Air is what a portable computer should be.

We all know that with a Windows machine it is easy to overclock a video card, and there even exists software solutions to help one do so. OS X, however, prevents access to such settings, making our only option a firmware flash.

If you make heavy use of keyboard shortcuts, one of the biggest challenges is learning them on the Mac. What was once ingrained in your memory now can leave you feeling frustrated and bitter that you ever switched. Don't throw your Mac out the window yet! Thankfully, in many cases it's simply shifting your pinky a couple of keys to the right.

If you feel new to the keyboard shortcut thing, we are talking about how you can involke commands usually found in the your computer's menus by pressing a combination of keys on the keyboard instead. Many people find this way of working much faster and efficient both on Macs and PCs. The trouble is, the key combinations are slightly different from Mac to PC. Find out more about Mac shortcuts in our MFM article, Mastering Keyboard Shortcuts on the Mac.

Here in corporate America, this growing question is getting louder and harder to avoid. Is it time we switch to Mac? Our IT folks swear by Microsoft almost as much as they swear at Microsoft. How about yours?

It used to be if you did business you had a PC and if you were artsy or in academia you were Mac'd out. Thanks to delays from Microsoft, folks scared to upgrade and whatever you want to call Vista's release and subsequent lackluster conversion of Windows users; everyone seems to be doing some head scratching before their next move....

...Is the Windows wall around business beginning to crack or is it about to crumble?

I can tell you from this side of the fence, it looks like the Macs are having more fun.

You saw the 5 takes on the Lenovo X300, the X300 benchmarked vs. the MacBook Air, and even Mossberg's review, but what does Lenovo think about the comparisons between the two laptops? Well, obviously, they think their machine is better, but the reasons given for why it's better appeals to Lenovo's core audience—the traveling corporate worker—and not the MacBook Air's core audience, weaklings who like shiny laptops. Hit the jump for a big version of the image and realize that these two aren't really competing for the same credit cards.....

The new Macbook Pro is not much of a bump up from its predecessors, but it is a step in the right direction.... the now-pervasive LED backlighting and 45nm Penryn chips bring to the MacBook Pro, which together give an hour extra battery life over older models with CCFL screens and 65nm CPU technology. That makes this the most efficient Macbook Pro yet.

You know, photographers spend an enormous amount of time tweaking and adjusting their photos so they look all sparkly and new. So this week I thought we'd chat about making a new photo look really old. Using a few well- placed filters in Elements, you can take a new photo and make it look vintage and antique. Below lie three tips to take your photos from new to old in minutes.

Google ... plans to introduce Google Sites, a new addition to its Google Apps suite that provides simple, intuitive tools for collaborative Web site creation.

Google Sites is based on the wiki technology developed by JotSpot, which Google acquired in October, 2006. The word "wiki," however, appears to have been lost during the move.

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