Time your next App purchase well and you could be the winner of a $10,000 iTunes voucher (not sure how much this is in stirling), a iPod touch, a Time Capsule and a MacBook Pro. Or if you're a bit strapped for cash (aren't we all?) fill in this form and you can enter without having to buy anything.
I just received an email from MobileMe telling me that the .Mac Homepage web application (it wasn't one of them when it started) will be switched off on 7th July of this year. Whatever you have on your .Mac Homepage will remain there, you just won't be able to edit it or upload new stuff.
Here's the message in full:
Dear MobileMe member:
On July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you've already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.
Instead of HomePage, we recommend the other sharing features of your MobileMe membership. With MobileMe Gallery, you can share photos online directly from iPhoto or the web application at www.me.com. And using iWeb on your Mac, you can create custom websites and blogs and publish them to MobileMe.
We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause. For more information, please read this FAQ. And thank you for being a MobileMe member.
Sincerely,
The MobileMe Team
Basically you're buggered if you don't have iLife '08 or '09. If you don't fancy upgrading, you can use Flickr or Picasa instead of the .Mac Gallery; and Google Sites instead of HomePage.
At long last us Mac users can catch up on missed C4 programmes now their online player runs on Flash. The 4|OD service has been available for the last few years for Windows users. They can still download the programmes to watch later, we have to watch streams online, so it's not all perfect yet. As way of an apology, Channel 4 have put together a special ad for us. Isn't that nice?
I know absolutely FA about servers, so I'll keep this short. This Xserve has an brand new quad-core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” inside. It also delivers 89 percent better performance per watt and eliminates many toxins such as PVC and BFRs; and has an ultra-efficient 128GB solid-state boot drive option, up to 3TB of internal storage, and RAID 5 support. This gives the new Xserve industry-leading storage capability. Prices start at £2399.
No more copy-protected tracks on iTunes; they're all 256kbps with AAC encoding. And there's a new tiered pricing system that Apple said would never happen (but most of us wanted) - 59p, 79p and 99p. You can also pay 20p to upgrade your old iTunes purchases to the higher quality, DRM-free files. There's even a button to do it automatically. How much a track costs doesn't make sense. Looking at this week's top ten of the hit parade, Lady Gaga's Poker Face and Taylor Swift's Love Story cost 99p, Metro Station's Shake It costs 59p (the only cheap song in the top 100) and the rest of them are 79p. 7Digital is cheaper than that (they're even selling the Doves' Kingdom of Rust for only 50p) and looking at Amazon, they're virtually giving them away - most are 29p for a 256kbps mp3! You might be able to tell the difference... if you're a dog. I import my CD tracks as 192kbps mp3s. I can't tell the difference in quality, but I am going deaf in my left ear (I'm a child of the Walkman generation).
This year MacHeist have an excellent bundle of apps for just $39 (bought separately they'd cost $981). That's around 26 English pounds. The inclusion of PhoneView and WireTap Studio convinced me to hand over my cash this year. Picturesque looks like a quick alternative to Photoshop for editing web pics; iSale is an excellent app for all you eBay sellers as it gives your item page a professional store feel; SousChef is a portal to thousands of recipes and advice for cooks everywhere; World of Goo and Cro Mag Rally will keep the kids happy; PhoneView gives you access to all the stuff on your iPod touch or iPhone; Littlesnapper is a neat way to collect pictures and articles from websites; Acorn is a very simple and quick photo editor; Kinemac is a 3D animator; WireTap Studio is a professional audio recorder and editor; BoinxTV is a TV Studio that can control three cameras; The Hit List is an excellent To Do List app; Expresso is a great HTML editor; and Times is a newsreader that presents your feeds in an easy-to-read newspaper format. How can you not want to buy it? MacHeist gives 25% of the price to charity. There's less than 12 hours left to get this bundle of joy, so what are you waiting for? Buy it now here and if only two of you make a purchase, I get a some extra apps for free. Go on, I know you want to.
Steve Ballmer must really hate Apple. Just like the last ad this PC hunter, Giampaolo, wants a laptop with "portability, battery life and power" for under $1500. Once again they show him looking at the MacBooks, "this is sooo sexy...but Macs to me are about aesthetics more than they are about computing power...I don't wanna pay for the brand, I wanna pay for the computer" he says. But then he chooses a bog-standard, 15-inch HP! Do you think this campaign may be part-funded by Hewlett Packard, by any chance? If he didn't want to pay for the brand, he should've remembered that Microsoft were paying. He could have had an Aluminium MacBook instead of that plasticky Hewlett Packard... and it would be able to run Windows. The fool.
Reffering back to the post These days, who can afford a Mac?, the one where I said that I couldn't afford to replace my wife's old 12" PowerBook with another Mac. Well I've come to realise that I also need a notebook. Of course, I'll be plumping for a MacBook Air (as you may have read, I now know why underpowered notebook exists) and not the Dell Inspiron Mini that I've chosen for my wife. But only because I don't want to have to buy a Windows version of Adobe Creative Studio. This is not double standards. I'll need to design on my laptop, whereas she only use hers for eBay and email. That's my excuse anyway.
MacUser have just announced that Skype for iPhone is confirmed for a release tomorrow. Skype gives members free calls through VoIP (voice over internet protocol - computer to computer calls) So as long as your friends also have Skype installed on their computer or iPhone, you can call them for free. This is bad news for O2. Especially now as sales of mobiles are plummeting.
