Posted February 12th, 2009
by admin
One of the great things about having a Mac, is the great software that supports it. Of course, your best quality programs, and apps will cost you money. However, there are some free apps out there that definitely worth your time. Here is a list of them, and why they can be so useful.
StreamBaby
The StreamBaby app is useful if you have quite a bit of video on your Mac, that wish could be viewed in other places. It acts as a portal for streaming onto TiVo, and can doesn’t disappoint.
You can rewind, and fastforward past the buffer point, allowing for a great navigation of your videos. It has great compatibility with TiVo. If what you’re watching passed the streaming limit, it will cut off what you’ve already watched to allow TiVo to keep playing the file.
Download
Bullet
The Bullet app isn’t necessarily a very useful app. What it lacks in functionality, it definitely makes up for in pure simple fun. You can set this app to create a bullet hole on your screen every time you click it, and a gunshot sound will follow.
It can be just to use on your own, but the true joy comes from setting it up on someone and watching them click on their screen for the first time.
Download
Celestia
It’s hard to imagine, but with Celestia you can travel throughout the known universe for free. You can stick to the solar system which houses over 100,000 stars or you can go out beyond that.
Along with the main program, there are some fun and helpful add-ons to go along with it.
Download
WakeUp
WakeUp allows you to remotely wake up a machine asleep. WakeUp lets you store name and Ethernet addresses of your machines, and wake them up when needed, i.e. when you need to access a file on a distant machine whose File Sharing is on, without having to physically access the machine to wake it up.
Download
Tags: apps, Bullet, Celestia, downloads, fun, mac, OS X, portal, sleep, solar system, stars, StreamBaby, Tivo, WakeUp Posted in Software
Posted January 22nd, 2009
by admin
Yesterday, Apple released the financial report from their Q1 2009. It’s quite impressive to say the least. Nearly every line of Apple product saw improvement in their year-over-year numbers. The iPhone saw 88% growth, with the iPod, and Mac products seeing improvement as well.
I’d give Apple a perfect score, there’s a bit of controversy as to whether the report provides accurate results.
Review: 9.5/10
Here’s the press release. How would you grade Apple’s performance?
CUPERTINO, California—January 21, 2009—Apple: today announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 first quarter ended December 27, 2008. The Company posted record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion, or $1.78 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, equal to the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.8 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.3 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”
Apple sold 2,524,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing nine percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold a record 22,727,000 iPods during the quarter, representing three percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 4,363,000, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.
“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
“Our outstanding results generated over $3.6 billion in cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $7.6 billion to $8 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $.90 to $1.00.”
Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2009 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime®, Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PST on January 21, 2009 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq109/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.
Tags: 2009, apple, finance, first, iPhone, iPod, mac, quarter, results Posted in Everything
Posted June 14th, 2008
by admin
Mac Web Browser Showdown
There are a number of free alternatives to Apple’s bundled Safari web browser, and to get a better idea of which of these are worth your time, we have put together a brief comparison.
We took 5 popular browsers and tested them for loading speeds, memory usage and interface. Without further ado, the contenders are:
Mozilla Firefox 3 (RC3)
Camino 1.6
Opera 9.5
Safari 3
Shiira 2
We tested using a clean install of OSX 10.5.3 Leopard with all updates installed on an Intel Macbook Pro 2.4ghz with 4gb RAM and a 200gb 5400rpm hard drive (current base-end model with an additional 2 gigabytes of RAM).
If you would prefer to cut to the chase, we have cliffs notes: Shiira was the fastest browser we tested, but also the quirkiest. It would not be recommended to someone who was only familiar with Internet Explorer or Safari. We also determined that the Apple-supplied Safari browser held its own against the third parties and is not a bad choice if you are already comfortable with it.
We downloaded the latest available version of the browsers from their respective websites and placed each application on the desktop. Each was run to set homepages, disable prompts for “Default Browser” and finished the initial configuration/setup stages for each. Then, the test computer was restarted and had its permissions/pram cleared for the cleanest testing with the least variables.
Our first test was raw speed, from click to page loaded. We set each browser to load Google.com as their homepage (though one was unable to do so), cleared all preferences.
One problem we encountered right off the bat was the Shiira, no mater how hard we tried, would not allow a home page. Even when it was entered in the home page field, when the browser was re-opened, it defaults to a blank page. This may be part of the reason that Shiira’s speed was faster then others, so please take that result with a grain of salt.
Initial Boot Speed
In this test, lower is better. As we mentioned, Shiira (the current fastest) did not account for page load times. Google was cached by each browser so the impact is not tremendous but it is a factor.
The Winner: Shiira (with an asterisk by its record)
Javascript Test Speed
In this test, lower is better. Safari came out the champion of the Javascript test, blowing away the competition. Camino was far behind the rest, with Shiira placing a respectable second.
The Winner: Safari
Idle Memory Usage
In this test, lower is better. We conducted the memory usage test by opening each browser to Google.com and leaving it alone. Safari was by far the worst offender here, with Camino taking the prize for lowest idle memory usage.
The Winner: Camino
Load Memory Usage
In this test, lower is better. We conducted the load memory usage test by opening each browser to a Youtube video and played halfway through before testing. Safari made up for its poor idle memory with a very low load usage and won by a large margin.
The Winner: Safari
Shiira was the fastest browser we tested, but also the quirkiest. It would not be recommended to someone who was only familiar with Internet Explorer or Safari. We also determined that the Apple-supplied Safari browser held its own against the third parties and is not a bad choice if you are already comfortable with it. Often touted alt-browser Opera failed to impress in any categories, and fan-favorite Firefox was not exceptional, but its immense community support and extensive plugin library make it a very viable option.
I personally use Firefox, but after this testing, I’ve begun to use Shiira for daily browsing and found it to be a very comfortable interface. Any of these browsers are an excellent choice, hopefully we’ve helped provide some options!
Tags: best, browser, camino, fastest, firefox, mac, memory, opera, shiira, speed, test Posted in Software, Testing
