Mac Games and More The Blog

I just posted this week’s picks on mac games and more so do check them out if you have a moment. I missed some things so here are a few other new items worth mentioning:

CamMail 1.0 – The fastest way to create and send VideoMail.

CocoPad 1.0 – is a simple pad in which you can draw whatever you like with a mouse or tablet pen: sketches, notes, messages, computations, drawings.

New Laptop from Apple – The Boy Genius Report swears that a new laptop will be revealed at MacWorld! (January 14 – 18, 2008) They say they are 100% sure. Cool. Spec details are sketchy, however.

See and read more about it at gizmodo

Do these pins remind you of anything from your Mac desktop?

Get these now 3 euros

iPod Nano – iPod nano is the small iPod with one very big idea: Video. Now the world’s most popular music player lets you enjoy TV shows, movies, video podcasts, and more. The larger, brighter display means amazing picture quality. It features an anodized aluminum top and polished stainless steel back. Play up to 5 hours of video or up to 24 hours of audio on a single charge. iTunes provides music, movies, TV shows, games and more.

iPod Touch – The iPod touch features Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch user interface that enables you to find and enjoy all of your music, videos, and more on its gorgeous widescreen display with just the touch of a finger.

MacBook – Stylishly and intelligently designed for your on-the-go digital lifestyle, Apple’s MacBook is the perfect confluence of affordability, innovation, and powerful computing. This latest iteration of the MacBook line is pre-loaded with Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, which adds over 300 new features including easy backup of your most important data via Time Machine, a redesigned desktop that helps eliminate clutter, and the newest version of the fast-loading Safari web browser. It also comes with the iLife ‘08 suite of applications, including iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes.

Leopard – From the menu bar to the stunning new Dock, the Leopard desktop isn’t just about design. It’s about enjoying the time you spend on your Mac and getting more out of it.

Apple iLife – Never has it been so simple to get so much out of your photos, video, and music–and to share your memories with friends and family. The powerful new Events feature works the same way your memory does, automatically organizing your photos and video by the events where they were taken. The completely reinvented iMovie collects all your video clips in one library where you can make movies in seconds with drag-and-drop ease. GarageBand makes it simple to produce great music, whether you’re an accomplished musician or you’ve never played a note. You can showcase photos and movies online with a few clicks in a .Mac Web Gallery, create stunning websites, photo books, calendars, DVDs, and much more. All with the new iLife ‘08.

Link: Amazon

From Mashable:

Shares of Apple hit an all-time high today, briefly trading over $200 per share on NASDAQ. At such levels, Apple sports a market value of nearly $170 billion, making the company nearly 3x the size of Dell, and closing in on one-half the size of Microsoft.

Perhaps more significant than the staggering value is the rate at which Apple has reversed its fortunes. Shares are up more than 10x from where they were trading in mid-2003, when the iPod was just starting to get hot and the PC market was still dominated by the likes of Dell and HP. Since then, Apple has been able to leverage its hot brand to improve sales across the board, with sales of Macs rising 34 percent in the most recent quarter.

For the year, Apple shares are amongst the top performing, up a whopping 143%. This compares to a 53% gain for Google, whose triple-digit share price is often a headline-grabbing subject.

I know a lot of you got new Macs for Christmas (congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of Apple products!)

Anyway, perhaps now you’re looking for some games. The just released for Mac game, The Sims: Bon Voyage, will be a fun one to fire up on your new toy! Enjoy.

The Sims: Bon Voyage

Did you get a new iPod and are new to the world of iTunes? Check out the iTunes Tutorial pages and learn everything you ever wanted to know about iTunes and more.

The full tutorial

Apple sometimes just doesn’t get it. So Apple wants to shut down the very excellent blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, which is a fan site, and a funny one at that. Here’s the latest in the saga.

CandyAddict attended the All Candy Expo and saw these cool Wii candy dispensers. Neat!

Wah!!!

A very Zen, very unfurnished room chez Steve in 1982. Look at it here.

“This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.” —Steve Jobs

Wonder what his house looks like today?

From iLounge:

It was one of Apple’s worst decisions of 2007: even if you owned a song and wanted to use it as an iPhone ringtone, you couldn’t. Instead, the only custom ringtones you could play were ones sold at a ridiculous price through iTunes, or ones that required hacks and third-party applications to create. Today, Apple has fixed its prior bad call, releasing version 4.1.1 of the iLife ‘08 application GarageBand, an update that now lets you create your own custom iPhone ringtones. Now that Apple has released both GarageBand ‘08 and iTunes 7.5, which stopped trying to block ringtones created by third-party applications, iPhone ringtone creation has never been so easy. Our ten step guide walks you through the process.

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VLC has been updated and I think I forgot to mention it! How dare me. Anyway, this is my favorite Mac media player and it’s free. Sometimes the Mac’s Quicktime is just a bit too quirky for me and VLC always comes through to play movies and music.

Download VLC

Set of 10 Mac icons dedicated to French Sculptor Marcel GILI (1914-1993). I didn’t know who he was until I researched a bit. Marcel GILI was a Catalan and French sculptor and painter. (More about him here in French. Just Babelfish it to translate it if necessary.) by graphic vertigo

Download now

From Fortune:

Wondering why your corporate Information Technology department won’t buy you an Apple (AAPL) iPhone or support the one you bought yourself? Here’s your answer.

Or, rather, 10 answers. Channeling the thought processes of IT managers who don’t need many excuses not to support yet another platform, Forrester Research(FORR) has put together the definitive top 10 reasons not to support this one — fully documented, complete with footnotes. Why now, just when the device seems to be making back-door inroads into the workplace? That’s why.

Forrester predicts that the iPhone will find its way into many enterprise environments — if it hasn’t already — because C-level executives are buying them and expecting support from IT. It’s only a matter of time before the iPhone filters down the corporate pyramid, and IT should have a strategy to handle these requests. … You’ll get complaints from your most enthusiastic Apple fans — and let’s be honest, what Apple fans aren’t enthusiastic? Be ready with a business case as to why your mobile operations team made this strategic business decision.

What follows is a window into the world of the IT manager. Alternatively, you can think of it as a checklist of the issues Apple must address if it wants the iPhone to be accepted as an enterprise-worthy device.

Without further ado, excerpts from the top 10 reasons Forrester recommends that IT not support the iPhone:

1. Doesn’t natively support push business email or over-the-air calendar sync. … The iPhone can sync with Microsoft’s Exchange and IBM’s Lotus Notes over IMAP and SMTP ports, but your server and security admins have to configure their infrastructure to do so or purchase a mobile gateway from Synchronica or Azaleos….

2. Doesn’t accommodate third-party applications, including those internally developed. … This is a showstopper for companies with enterprise mobility initiatives that require line-of-business applications like mobile sales force automation or an industry-specific application like mobile claims…

3. Doesn’t support securing data on the device through encryption. There is no way for a company to natively secure the data on an iPhone with file or disk encryption…

4. Can’t be remotely locked or wiped in the event of a lost or stolen device. …there is no way for IT to lock a device if — scratch that, when — users call the help desk and explain that they left their non-password-protected iPhone behind in a taxi…

5. Lacks a hard keypad that provides feedback, which isn’t ideal for rapid and accurate input. … Many respected journalists have come to the conclusion that ultimately the keyboard “is a nonissue,”
but only after five days of use. In speaking with enterprise-class mobile device users on a daily basis, the vast majority have found that they need some form of tactile feedback from their QWERTY or numeric keyboards. …

6. Has limited service provider support and its carrier lock-in inhibits flexibility. …To date, Apple has officially announced four exclusive carriers for France (Orange), Germany (T- Mobile), the UK (O2), and the United States (AT&T). Outside of these countries, the iPhone isn’t available yet…

7. Comes with a premium…

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Directed by Drew Lightfoot. Characters designed by Shane Prigmore.

[via the ward-o-matic]

No, I’m not saying “happy holidays” to you (yet). This is about the shareware app that makes it easy to create personalized photo cards. Use your digital photos, add a personal message and you have the perfect photo card! Use HappyHolidays! to create your annual holiday card for family and friends. Create unique photo cards for any occasion: birth announcements, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduation, birthdays, party invites, Valentines Day and they can be great thank you cards as well as get well cards.

Not only is this method of card giving good to the environment, it’s fun and personal.

Download the demo now

Pretty neat, huh? Just don’t use it WHILE driving. I HATE people who talk on the phone while driving. They suck.

Read about the Land Rover

From net security:

Security predictions released by Arbor Networks reveal that the iPhone will be a major target for cybercriminals in 2008. The forecast also highlights Chinese specific crime as a major issue for the New Year. Arbor’s Security and Engineering Response Team (ASERT), who have put together the forecasts, believe that the iPhone will become the victim of a serious attack in 2008.

These assaults are likely to be in the form of drive by attacks – malware embedded into seemingly harmless information, images or other media that actually perform dangerous actions when rendered on the iPhone’s Web browser.

With the scrutiny the iPhone has received since its launch earlier this year over network lock-in, ASERT believes that hackers will be enticed by the possibility of attacking Apple users and the opportunity to “be the first” to hack a new platform.

ASERT has also predicted…..

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