Apple announced the next version of Mac OS X, code named "Snow Leopard", about six months ago. Information regarding it has been vague - even the official 10.6 Snow Leopard site doesn't really tell you much. At the LISA '08 convention, it was announced that Snow Leopard would be available in the first quarter of 2009, which was a bit of a shock.

One of the biggest questions is whether or not Mac OS X 10.6 will only be available for Intel Macs and cut out PowerPC Macs. The early developer version only works on Intel machines, and I think this is where the question stemmed from.

When Apple brought out OS X 10.5 "Leopard", it annoyed a lot of Mac users with its high hardware requirements, cutting out a lot of Mac users with older machines. I recently picked up a 15" Titanium PowerBook G4/867 MHz; it meets the minimum specification for running 10.5.

This got me wondering about Snow Leopard once again.....

If Apple does release Snow Leopard as an Intel-only operating system, all those high-end G4 and G5 users will be very annoyed. After all, the last Power Mac G5 models (the 2.0 GHz and 2.3 GHz dual-core and 2.5 GHz quad-core) were only discontinued in August 2006, so some of these high-end Macs have been in use for less than two-and-a-half years......

See, this is what I mean with product beta culture: Apple has acknowledged two video problems in both the new MacBook and MacBook Pros, following past video problems with other MacBook lines. One of them seems pretty obvious. Called "the black screen of death", it happens when the graphic card goes into overload playing games, turning off video and locking up the system while the audio enters into a loop. Apparently it's a thermal issue, but Apple doesn't know if this is a hardware or software problem yet, according to an Apple Support forums member.....

The catch here is that it may be hardware-based and not software, because the problem happens under both Windows and Mac OS X.....

Apple released a QuickTime update that allows standard-definition iTunes movies to play over new MacBooks' DisplayPort to older displays, according to reports on Apple blogs. However, high-def movies are still blocked, which is unfair to owners of MacBooks and other systems by other vendors that use the same technology.

The update is available on Software Update for unibody MacBook and MacBook Pros as well as the second-generation MacBook Air....

Apple apparently responded to widespread criticism about the notebooks' new DisplayPort, which had only supported output to displays supporting High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). The rights-protection mechanism supposedly prevents copying high-definition content. The update allows standard video output over non-HDCP monitors, but rights restrictions remain for HD content. Apple's update is to QuickTime, not to device firmware, bringing it to version to 7.57.

Apple stepped into a pile of poop, and I was surprised. Microsoft had been there before with Windows Vista, starting in late 2005, or more than a year before the software's release.....

Steve Jobs and Co. should have learned something from Microsoft's HDCP fiasco, and it's not over. Most monitors in use today and few new ones support HDCP. So most buyers of newer MacBook models are sure to splat against the HDCP brick wall.....

If you know the right tricks, you can maximise the lifespan and battery life of you MacBook or MacBook Pro. The way you charge the battery, the conditions is which you use and store your laptop and the way you have your energy saver preferences set all have an effect on how long your battery will last and how well if performs.

Over time, your battery holds less and less charge, meaning your laptop doesn't last as long between charges. Apple claims that their batteries are designed to retain 80% of their original capacity after 300 cycles.

You can check how many cycles your battery has done by looking in System Profiler. You can find this by clicking on the Apple menu in the top left and choosing About This Mac. In the window that appears, click the "More Info..." button. In the sidebar of System Profiler, click on Power to bring up all the details about your battery. The interesting part is the Health Information......

There are two issues involved: power consumption and component wear. On both counts, I think it's better to leave your computer on.

Computers don't require much energy, particularly when they're inactive. On a PC, you can set your screen to darken and your disk drive to stop spinning when the computer has been idle a certain number of minutes....

Computers also tend to suffer less wear and tear if you leave them on. Turning a computer on and off creates tiny power surges which eventually can damage electronic components.....

Another benefit to leaving your PC on is that programs that run automatically, such as antivirus scanning software, aren't interrupted. For more about whether to leave the PC on, see http://www.5starsupport.com/tutorial/on-off.htm

Analysts just won't leave Apple alone. One of them, Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research, this week insisted that the iEmpire would have a netbook sometime in 2009.

"Apple is facing the possibility that as the economic news gets worse … they're increasingly pricing themselves out of an important market," Gottheil wrote in a research report. "Economic conditions are accelerating this."

True. Apple is facing an economic crisis, as is every other PC and device maker. But that doesn't mean the iEmpire needs netbooks to thrive.

Why Steve should say "nyet" to netbooks.....

I'm not arguing that Apple should forever forsake the netbook. Rather, I'm saying that Jobs should forgo launching a low-cost product until the design is such that it will seriously disrupt the market, create a competitive sales advantage, and confer above-average margins.....

Safari 3.2, released a few weeks ago, has been prone to crashes when users attempt links in tabs. The release of Safari version 3.2.1 specifically addresses the issue of crashes pertaining to opening links in new tabs. While this has solved crashing problems for some users, it has not for all users. Some users have found that certain pop-up window behavior still causes the program to crash, regardless of whether or not popup blocking is turned on....

Long the domain of Linux and Windows users, Google's Picasa photo management tool is currently being tested for Macs, AppleInsider has learned.

People familiar with the matter say the search engine giant has just begun internal beta testing for the Mac-native version of the software.....

People will always write articles about which operating system is better. While making comparisons, let's say, between Windows and OS X, will surely make you a target of fans of either the former or the latter (depending on your approach), I think that stating the obvious pros in regard to OS X will only make its fans give a "yes, he's right" kind of nod and the Windows fans just stop for a moment and think it over.

Would OS X actually be a viable alternative to Windows? Well let's just see what its pros are and if they overcome those that Windows users will put on the table.

Rick Mooney arrived home one day to discover the fried remains of his MacBook Pro, two routers and Roku SoundBridge music system.

Lightning had struck a phone line two doors down, and within nanoseconds the current had ripped around the neighbourhood in the remote Australian township of Nhulumbuy, destroying every device connected to the network.

"I got a big surge down my phone system, which caused a lot of damage because my wireless network was down and everything was connected to my Mac."

While a lightning strike to a power or phone line can do extensive damage in a single hit, even on a normal sunny day surges and sags might be bombarding your power supply, eating away at the health of your hardware.

But many people are content to try their luck when it comes to protecting their home entertainment equipment, ignorant of the fact that the biggest threat to their equipment does not always come out of the sky.

Sarath Perera, associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of Wollongong says that continuous disturbances in the power supply tend to happen without our knowledge, but can substantially compromise sensitive equipment over time.....

Following the top-to-bottom refresh of Apple's laptop line announced in October, people paid plenty of attention to the new unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro models. Little to no attention was given to either the top or the bottom of the line.

Now that we've reviewed the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models, we can turn our attention to those two extremes. We rated the low-end of Apple's laptop offerings - the 2.1GHz MacBook in the white plastic enclosure - when that system first debuted in March. As for the top of the line, we've now gotten our hands on Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro - the largest laptop in the company's product line.....

Macworld Lab's tests indicate that despite the lack of any great leap forward in the 17-inch model's under-the-hood specs, this laptop is still a very good performer.

Apple has launched a new campaign touting the environmental virtues of its latest line of notebook computers. Meanwhile, a new Greenpeace report ranks the company's overall environmental policies behind those of rivals like HP and Dell.....

"The new Macbooks. The world's greenest family of notebooks," says the voiceover in the commercial, which began running in network prime-time slots this week.

Also released this week: the 10th version of Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics. While Apple's new notebooks may indeed be free of toxic brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and PVC vinyl plastics and may use a quarter of the power it takes to illuminate a light bulb, Greenpeace puts Apple behind competitors Dell, HP and Acer when it comes to overall environmental policies.....

....Apple and Greenpeace are going at in style: hot on the heels of Apple's passive aggressive green MacBook ads, the environmental organization has released the latest version of its Guide to Greener Electronics which—and come on, are you really surprised? - shows Apple falling in the ranks despite its recent improvements.

Greenpeace gives Apple a 4.3 rating, slightly up from their 4.1 back in June, but putting them in 14th place among the 18 major companies that Greenpeace surveys......

With the 2008 holiday shopping season here, consumers looking for that special gift are likely checking out the new Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro that hit the market earlier this year. The two new Apple MacBooks remain high on the list of must-haves this holiday season. For those interested in PCs, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Gateway and Toshiba all have new notebooks ready for the 2008 holiday season as well. While laptops remain popular, there are still bargains out there for a solid home desktop PC.....

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