Yesterday, Steve Jobs unveiled the new MacBook Air, as I'm sure you all know, following a week of rumors that this time were true, even having a photoshopped picture of the Air surprisingly similar to the end product. Apart from that, a new Apple TV with updated HDTV support has been launched, and an Airport Extreme with a 500GB or 1TB "server grade hard disk drive" on it (think of wireless Time Machine), called Time Capsule (I love the name!).

So, the MacBook Air. The machine is less than 2cm thick (0.4 cm in its thinnest side, and 1.94cm in the thickest), and weights about 1.3kg.


Among the things I also like is the CPU (a standard Core 2 Duo 1.6 or 1.8GHz), which apparently had to be reduced 60% in size compared to the Core 2 Duo that other MacBooks have, and that Apple reportedly persuaded Intel to build it for them.

The standard (non expandable) RAM memory is also enough (2GB), and the battery life (apparently having wireless on) is a whopping 5 hours.

As for the rest of the features, it is pretty much a small MacBook Pro (iSight, Bluetooth, Backlit keyboard, Micro-DVI output).

Another great feature is the inclusion of an iPhone-like, bigger than usual trackpad. It allows you to scroll, zoom, pinch, rotate... the whole deal.

It only has one USB and no Optical Drive, though, which I find completely understandable just by looking at its size. And I don't miss the Optical Drive, specially in such a small form factor laptop.

No Ethernet adaptor either, but again, I understand as this is a travel laptop, the Air is supposed to work with AirPort, and leave the cables behind.

Apple has come up with an already well known but improved feature to resolve the lack of a SuperDrive. All you have to do is enable CD/DVD sharing on a computer with one (apparently you have to install additional software if it's a PC) and it will automagically appear on Finder, so you can install all the software you need (it even works if you want to reinstall Leopard, for instance).

As for the things I like less are, for instance, the size of the hard drive (80GB), and the price of the super-fast 64GB SSD optional disk (about EUR 900). The battery is sealed, as in the iPhone, so you can't get a replacement and change it yourself if you want.

In a few words, this is a travel laptop, it's great to carry it around, has good battery life and you can work exactly the same as in a MacBook Pro. I'm already picturing myself working on it in an Airport Lounge.

Just so you know, I'm getting one already, so I'll let you know how it performs.

I have been using Leopard, Apple's last überfeline, for more than a week now. It is without any doubt, the best operating system I have ever used.


Leopard is the natural successor to Tiger, which basically improves its older brother and adds some other very interesting features.

I recently bought an iMac, so I got it almost free (~EUR 9). The only bad thing is that it is only an update DVD (i.e. you need Tiger to install it), and that it comes without the fancy retail box. Apart from that, it's the real thing. If you have bought an Apple computer after October 1st, you are entitled to your almost free copy of Leopard. Check the Up-to-Date site.

Most of the Apple-made applications seem to run faster (particularly Safari, iTunes and iPhoto).

Time Machine is astonishing. As easy as 1-2-3.

Once you connect a Firewire or USB disk to the Mac, a menu automatically pops up asking you whether you want to use the disk as the Time Machine Backup Disk. If you answer affirmatively, an initial copy starts, which in my case, took less than an hour.


The great thing is that Time Machine doesn't require the disk to be dedicated to it. You still can use it to store other files. Time Machine just creates a folder called Backups.backupdb, where you can browse through the snapshots, stored in folders identified by date and time of backup.

By default, Time Machine backups the incremental changes on your disk in one hour intervals.


When you click the Time Machine icon on the Dock, whether you have a Finder window open, iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, or any other supported application, the already well known space animation starts and lets you restore previously deleted files.



Spaces is VirtueDesktop replacement, only it works better and is perfectly integrated.

Terminal has tabs now, and several other aesthetic changes. I was using iTerm on Tiger, and trashed it almost instantly after seeing Terminal.

QuickLook allows you to preview almost any type of file without opening the actual application.

Mail lets you write Notes and To-Do's. Unfortunately, it doesn't currently sync with the iPhone.

iChat allows desktop sharing, document sharing, video sharing. And you can be in the Tour Eiffel for free. Really cool.

Finder has now CoverFlow. I personally don't use it, as I think it's easier to browse through files shown as icons, but may be useful for somebody who wants to see previews of the files of a folder at a glance.


Some other extra details:
- iCal's icon on the Dock now displays the current date, and not a static icon as it did on Tiger. Nice detail.
- Dictionary now also searches on the Wikipedia.
- Spotlight returns dictionary entries as well.
- Preview now allows you to resize images.

The only issue I've had so far is that MySQL ceases working, a recognised MySQL bug. Apparently, the update to Leopard messes up the mysql directory permissions. It can be fixed by manually chown(ing) the mysql directory:
chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql-5.0.45-osx10.4-i686/

But the PreferencePane is definitely broken. You will have to start MySQL running /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe & from the Terminal.

Granted, this is a school of Journalism, the Missouri School of Journalism (mirror), to be exact. But it could also be a Design school, a Computer Science class, or a RailsConf ;)

Simply amazing, try to find the PC (if you can).

I am a long time Mac user, and general Apple fan. I am even a shareholder which had his AAPL stock value more than tripled in the past two years.

So you can safely assume I like Apple. But lately, Apple has done several things I completely disapprove.

First of all, the US-only iPhone launch. I still can't possibly think of a reason why Steve Jobs (or the rest of the company) decided to sell the iPhone in just one country, and not everywhere (or at least Europe).

We thought the decision for that was the subsequent launch of a 3G version of the iPhone for Europe, but now they will start selling the exact same phone, 4 months later, in November, in Germany and the UK.

Needless to say, most of the people who really wanted an iPhone in Europe (including me) already have it.

And guess what, Apple? I would have paid €800, for instance (yes, that's $1100) for an unlocked phone if you had sold it. Instead, we were forced to buy it via an US friend, a trip to NYC, or even eBay. And your revenue for that process was nil.

Luckily, in September, after a struggle between iPhoneSimFree and the iPhone Dev Team, a software unlock was developed, and we finally updated our nice widescreen iPod to an iPhone.

And this week, after a previous warning, a new firmware update was released that not only removed the possibility of unlocking the device, but also impeded the installation of third party applications.

If that wasn't enough, the iPhones that were once unlocked or somehow modified to allow the installation of applications have been bricked, and Apple is refusing to give support to these "modified" iPhones.

It seems we will be staying with the 1.0.2 firmware for a very long time, even if we don't get the iTunes WiFi Store.

Maybe it's time to stop buying music in the iTunes Store and spend our money in the new Amazonmp3 Store, where music is DRM-free, some songs even cheaper, and still compatible with iTunes.

So you have decided to buy an iPhone, even when Steve said that may brick unlocked iPhones on the next software update. Let's unlock it then, shall we?

Update: Do NOT update to the 1.1.1 firmware in iTunes if you have previously unlocked your phone or want to unlock your phone. It will brick your iPhone. Stay with 1.0.2. Do NOT try to unlock if you already have 1.1.1. It won't work.

Once you connect your iPhone for the first time to your Mac, iTunes will open, asking you to activate it using AT&T. Close iTunes.

You should probably now activate it to play a bit with it before proceeding to unlock it. You can use GUI software such as iActivator, iNdependence, or use the easy to use command line activator:

./tool --activate a.plist

If any of these programs asks you for the iPhone's firmware, you can download it from Apple: Firmware 1.0.2.

Once you have your iPhone activated and you've played with it for a while, you can use a needle to open the SIM tray and change the AT&T SIM for your shiny european one.

Before you start with the unlock process, it's convenient to have the 1.0.2 firmware installed. You can check it on your iPhone in Settings -> General -> About. If you have recently bought it, you probably have it already. If not, plug it into iTunes, and let it update (you may have to reactivate again after the update).

Basically, you just have to upload an application to your iPhone to unlock it. But you need to enable read/write access to your iPhone's filesystem and install SSH. That's what they call "jailbreak"(ing) it.

You can use several applications to do this procedure, but the one I like most is AppTappInstaller.

Download it, execute it, wait for a few minutes, and your iPhone is jailbreaked. You will notice that a new icon named Installer has appeared in your iPhone.


Now it is a good moment to temporarily disable the Auto Lock feature, as it will prevent the applications from installing properly. You can enable it again afterwards (Settings -> General -> Auto-Lock, set to Never).

Open Installer, and first of all, install the package named Community Sources. This will allow to install, among other things, SSH.

Once you have enabled the Community Sources, scroll down the list, and install BSD Subsystem and OpenSSH. There are some other interesting applications, such as MobileTerminal, and SummerBoard, an application that allows you to reorganise the icons of the main screen, use themes, et cetera.



You need to know your iPhone's IP address now. If you don't know it, you can see it going to Settings -> Wi-Fi, and then clicking on the arrow symbol near to your wireless network.


Once you know your IP address, proceed to download the anySIM application. You can download it from any of the links that appear on the hackintosh forum.

Uncompress the zip file, and open a terminal. Navigate to the anySIM folder and issue the following command (substitute iphone_ip_address for your iPhone's IP address). You will be prompted for a password (it's dottie).

You should either uninstall SSH after this process or change both root and mobile passwords.

scp -r anysim.app root@iphone_ip_address:/Applications/

You should have now an additional icon on your iPhone named anySIM. If it doesn't appear, restart the iPhone holding both the lock and home buttons.

The application couldn't be simpler. Click on it, and slide to unlock. It will take about 5-10 minutes so leave the iPhone on the desk and stay calm. It won't break.

Once it is unlocked, you just have to activate it. You can do so using iNdependence.


Please note that when you activate it, you will jail it again, so if you want to jailbreak it again, you will have to use the Jailbreak tab on iNdependence.

Only two days remain for the official launch of the iPhone. Lucky Americans will be able to buy it on Friday, and we Europeans will have to wait a couple of months, or get a flight to NYC.

Everyone is talking about the iPhone. On the Internet and in the streets. People either hate it or love it, but they talk about it anyway. And there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even when John "Insane" Dvorak talks about the iPhone, comparing it to Hitler's invasion of Poland, the iPhone expectation seems to increase.

Since its introduction in January, there hasn't been a month where we haven't talked about the iPhone. Whether were new features, praises or criticisms, every iPhone movement was always commented on blogs, traditional newspapers and TV.

The iPhone is probably the most awaited and sought-after product in history. I can't recall any other product that has had such a superb marketing campaign.

For instance, I own a Nokia 8800, probably one of the nicest but least featured phones out there, and I've never owned a multimedia or internet-enabled phone, except for a couple of Blackberries, which I eventually stopped using because receiving mails instantly finally bothered me.

Additionally, I find phones like the Nokia NSeries completely useless. I mean, I don't need a 5-megapixel camera in a phone, the internet capabilities of those phones are pointless, and the software is rubbish.

But the iPhone is different. A full featured internet device, with an amazing software and interface I want to get my hands on as soon as possible. And it has an Apple logo!

So two days before the introduction of the iPhone, reviews are starting to come in. One of the best ones so far has been the one by David Pogue, from the New York Times.


America's favourite scotsman (excepting Sean Connery, I guess), Craig Ferguson, interviewed Henry Winkler about the iPhone. The following excerpt of the conversation summarizes the publicity the iPhone has had over the months.

Craig: Is the iPhone as great as they say?
Henry Winkler: I have a beautiful wife, I have amazing children, I have health. I would sell everything for that iPhone.
Craig: That's quite an endorsement. Have you tested an iPhone.
Henry: No, I have seen a picture of it, though. It looks amazing!

Lately, particularly since the introduction of the Intel-based iMacs and MacBooks, lots of friends and colleagues have bought their first Mac, most of them coming from Windows, and some of them, from Linux.

Being the long-time Mac user (since the days of Puma) I am, teasing them with Exposé and Keynote transitions when Redmond hadn't still turned on the Photocopiers, I usually get questions about the applications I use for Mac, and whether there exists a Mac app equivalent to a certain Win app.

So, here is my must-have applications list for Mac:

1. TextMate: The best editor EVER. Really. Whether it's Rails, LaTeX or a shell script, TextMate is for you. It's €39, but well worth it.

2. VLC: A multi-format video player. For Mac, Linux, and Windows. But in the Mac is even nicer, and you can even use your Apple Remote to control it.

3. CocoaMySQL: A graphical MySQL client, with Mac looks. Perfect for development.

4. Camino: Although I prefer Safari, Camino is useful if you need a Firefox-based browser for web development testing. It's much lighter and faster than its bulky cousin. It doesn't support Extensions, though.

5. iTerm: While we wait for Leopard, iTerm is a Terminal replacement, with tabs.

6. The Unarchiver: An all-format decompressor (including Zip, RAR, StuffIt, gzip and bzip, among others). It automatically decompresses a file with a double click, integrating seamlessly with the Finder, without annoying windows popping out, and it's faster than pricey StuffIt. You install it, and forget about it.

7. Transmit: A FTP/SFTP/WebDAV client, with a nice interface, developed by the Panic blokes. Worth the $29.95 if you use FTP a lot.

8. Visor: A scrolling Terminal (Quake-alike, they say) a key combination away. I find it useful, for instance, to leave a mongrel running there, without closing it accidentally.

9. Transmission: A GUI BitTorrent client. It's up to you if you download the last 24 episode or a Linux ISO ;)

And, of course, the rest of the applications that already come bundled with MacOS: Mail, iChat (using Google Talk), iTunes, Keynote (not bundled, but quite cheap, and comes with Pages, too).                        

I have been following this afternoon Steve Jobs' Keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on MacRumors and Engadget. They did a pretty good job reporting almost immediately with both text and images of the keynote.

Steve informed us about several new Leopard features, none of which is the inclusion of ZFS as the default filesystem. Yes, i know... damn!

One of the first features is an enhanced Dock, with something called Stacks, which will hold whatever files you want, enabling easy access to them. Nice. There's a screencast at the Leopard site.


The Finder has been upgraded too, and it sports an iTunes-like interface, even with CoverFlow. Even more, you can press space on almost any file and it will automatically preview, without opening any application.


Using iChat, we will be able to bring up a Keynote presentation, as well as those PhotoBooth-esque effects we had already seen. Phil Schiller said "I love my Mac!" with Steve Ballmer's head. He, he.

Steve also announced the official price of Leopard: "We've got a basic version that will cost $129, we've got a Premium Version which will cost $129. We've got a business version! $129. Ultimate version! We're throwing everything into it, it's $129. We think everyone's going to buy the ultimate version."

One of the big announcements of the Keynote, Safari 3 for Mac AND Windows. And it's already available. Grab your copy now for free in the Safari site.

I have already tested it, and has a couple of nice features I have discovered so far. For starters, if you have several opened tabs, and you accidentally close Safari, it will ask you whether you really want to close it.

Search no longer opens a new window where you type the text. Instead, a nice search bar scrolls down the tab bar, and the search text is highlighted on the page.


You can now also organise tabs, just clicking and dropping the tab where you want it. You can also open a new window dragging a tab outside Safari.

iPhone news: applications for iPhone will be web-based Ajax apps, so anyone able to develop web applications will be able to develop for the iPhone. They showed a LDAP-based directory application as an example.

First of all, the iPhone Ads. Nicely done, to the point. Probably better than a Hello, I am an iPhone. And I am a Motorola or something. The blokes at TUAW think the Mac ads should be that way, too, and I agree.

While the Mac vs PC ads are nice for people who already are Mac users, I am not sure how many people would feel the urge to change from a PC to a Mac after seeing one of these ads. Just show them  Exposé and some of the iLife/iWork tools maybe, like they do on the iPhone ads.

I am sure all of you Mac users have been in the situation when a PC user tells you: Hey! can you do that cube rotation thing?

Anyway, we now have an official launch date (at least for the US): June 29th.

There was a rumor about a new brushed metal iMac being launched. It was a fake, but a really nice one. Build it, Apple.

We have, however, an updated MacBook Pro, with a much awaited Santa Rosa processor, mercury-free LED displays, better graphics card, and comes standard with 2GB of RAM with support for up to 4GB of RAM.


They claim 6 hours of battery life for the 15" model, which is probably about an hour more than the last models.

That is quite a lot more than roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes I get with my 1-year-old MacBook Pro, with 271 load cycles and 79% remaining capacity, and not so bad as Lucian, whose 1 year and a couple of months MacBook Pro had its battery already replaced ( almost exploded at CERN ;) ), and the new one lasting less than an hour (with only 92 cycles).

And finally, a Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interview at D5 Conference. Together! Zusammen! I still haven't seen it, but I've been told it's interesting.


Here's the link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256972720

You can download it either in an audio-only or a video format.

Everybody is talking about the new editor-ftp-sftp-client for Mac, named Coda, and developed by Panic, the guys behind Transmit.

I have downloaded a trial version and I've been testing it for a while.

As they say in their web page: [before Coda] "We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web."

Coda combines a text editor (TextMate style), with a visual CSS editor, a preview function, a FTP/SFTP client that automatically uploads files when saved, and a terminal tab (local or remote), with a beautiful UI.

In my opinion the idea is really good, but there are some things that as a Rails developer, do not work as good as expected, and I am comparing it to TextMate, which is the editor I use right now.

For instance, the preview function won't work, because, obviously .rhtml files are not recognized, and so, the source code appears when using the preview function.

When developing in Rails, Coda should detect it, and automatically point the WebKit based navigator to http://localhost:3000/controllerN/actionM when editing actionM.rhtml. That would be perfect.


The automatic FTP/SFTP client is quite useless for Rails (provided you don't need to test your application in a remote server), as usually, you will do the previews in a local mongrel server.

The CSS Editor is actually quite cool, and it seems to work well, as is the Terminal tab, which is useful as well.


The Books tab is a good idea too, particularly if they add more "books" in the future (currently HTML, CSS and PHP), but I'm not sure I would use it a lot. Still seems faster to google the function you're searching for.

There is an auto completion feature in the editor (for Rails too), and completes for example, remote_form_tag as you type, but that's it. It doesn't show you the attributes, like :update, :url, etc. It  doesn't complete models, classes, or any other functions such as find or new either.



Reading back the post, it seems too critical, but it's not what I meant it to be. It's just some suggestions to make a really good editor a perfect editor.

At a $79 price tag, I'd say buy it if you don't develop in Rails. Stick with TextMate (€39) instead, but check out the evolution of Coda.