If you’ve forgotten why it’s great to be a gamer, you just have to take one look at Firewatch.
The first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness is a visual masterpiece that’s being praised by just about everyone — and you can get it today on Mac, PC, Linux, and PlayStation 4.
As more people learn the importance of open software and operating systems, Linux is more relevant than ever. Learning Linux can seem imposing, but even if you have no idea what a command line is, this bundle of lessons will make you a maestro of one of the most relevant software platforms in the world. The entire set of five courses, clocking in at over 22 of hours, is just $19.
Here’s some of what’s included:
Have you ever wanted to try out a different operating system on your Mac? Ever since Apple started using Intel chips in their computers, it’s been super simple to run Windows and even popular Linux distributions via Boot Camp, virtual environments like Parallels and VMWare Fusion, and the like.
The problem is that you need to use up precious system resources to run these things on your Mac. Even virtual machines take up disk space, as does running Boot Camp and partitioning your main Hard drive. What if you just want to test something out on your Mac before fully committing?
Turns out it’s fairly easy to run Linux on your Mac without using up any bit of your hard drive. Using a flash drive and some Terminal commands, you can check out a distribution like Ubuntu running right on your Mac without having to sacrifice a thing. Here’s how.
The Pulsar might have been the reality of digital watches around the time that Apple started, but what was predicted by the age’s futurists? The 1979 Usborne book Future Cities: Homes & Living Into the 21st Century describes the arrival of "wrist-phones" or “ristos.” These devices, the authors predicted, would work with cellphones and GPS equipment.
"City dwellers of tomorrow could have a small gadget of enormous benefit — a wristwatch radio-telephone,” the book notes. "With a wristwatch radio, you could talk to anyone, wherever you happened to be.... If you were late for an appointment, it would be easy to let the other people know.... It ought to be impossible to get lost in tomorrow's world, in a city or out of it.... The wrist-phone can provide guidance back to the nearest town.” Pretty accurate, no?
Picture: EDC Publishing
BlackBerry and Windows Phone might be having a hard time trying to break up the monopoly on mobile software held by Android and iOS, but that hasn’t stopped the Chinese government from having a go with a platform of its own.
Built by a company called Shanghai Liantong in conjunction with ISCAS (Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences), COS — which stands for China Operating System — aims to take on Android and iOS by providing better localization for things like language input and cloud services.
If you’ve already got Parallels Desktop for Mac – version 6 or 7 – then The Parallels Upgrade Mini Bundle from Cult of Mac Deals is going to get you that much-needed upgrade – along with an app that will clean up your Mac in the process.
Miguel de Icaza isn’t a casual PC user. He’s a life-long Linux user whose main claim to fame is the creation of GNOME, a completely free desktop environment for Linux and other Unix operating systems.
But de Icaza no longer bothers with Linux. He’s abandoned the platform for a Mac.
Firefox 19 is now available to download to your Mac, introducing the long-awaited PDF viewer that will allow you to open PDF files within the browser — rather than downloading them to open them in Preview. The release hasn’t yet hit Mozilla’s website, but you can get your hands on it by visiting the company’s servers.
Evasi0n has been updated to support the iOS 6.1.1 firmware that was released for the iPhone 4S on Monday. This allows users who are suffering the 3G connection issues to update their iPhone’s software and then instantly restore their jailbreak.
Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has revealed that he sees Apple TV as more of a threat to the Steam Box than consoles like the Xbox or PlayStation. The Cupertino company has an “obvious pathway” into the living room with its platform, Newell told students at the University of Texas — and competitors must try to establish themselves before Apple does something about it.
The upcoming evasi0n jailbreak that will will allow users to hack iOS devices running Apple’s latest iOS 6.1 firmware has been completed for Mac and Windows ahead of its public release. The team behind it the exploit confirmed the update on Twitter this morning. All that remains is the Linux client and “some testing.”
Tonido, a new service from CodeLathe, is a great way to access the music, movies, photos, and documents you have stored on your Mac or PC using another computer, or an Android or iOS device. Unlike cloud-based storage services, which require you to upload your content just to download it again, Tonido turns your computer into your storage locker and then provides other devices with direct access to it.
It’s easy to set up, and you sync up to 2GB of data without paying a penny.
We’re entering the time of year of giving, and a great way to give is to offer protection to your devices so that you can have peace of mind in the case that one of them goes missing. Well, there’s technology out there that won’t only help you track down your lost or stolen devices – but will give you the ability to provide the police with the exact location of your device (along with pictures of the thief in the case of theft). And we’re giving you a great deal on this technology here at Cult of Mac Deals!
Prey is open source software that gives you a 24/7 tracking and recovering capabilities so you can recover your lost or stolen devices. It keeps track of your laptop, phone, and tablet whenever stolen or missing — easily and all in one place. The best news about Prey? Cult of Mac Deals is offering it for just $49 for a very limited time!
Dr Web, a Russian antivirus software specialist, has discovered a new piece of malware that targets computers running Mac OS X and Linux. Named “Wirenet.1,” once installed the software steals all of the passwords you enter into your web browser, mail client, and other apps, and has the ability to log your keystrokes.
VMWare announced the newest version of VMWare Fusion, its Mac virtualization product, this week. In doing so it also launched its first business or enterprise version of the popular tool for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac workstations. Dubbed Fusion Professional, the new solution has a range of features that are likely to appeal to IT professionals in both business and education.
Remember that great Humble Bundle For Android 3 we told you about last week? Well, it just got better! Four new games have been added to the list of bonus games customers will get for paying over the average (which is currently $6.33). That’s a total of 9 games for just over $6! Plus you get to feel good about helping out the Child’s Play Charity (no affiliation with Chucky) along with great developers who make these games. A win-win situation for everyone!
May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.
FileWave is a new entrant into the mobile management space but a longtime player in many business and enterprise environments. FileWave offer multi-platform file and application deployment and licensing management for all desktop systems across an organization. The company has a very impressive track record for both IT-managed and self-service provisioning and deployment that has made it a solid enterprise solution for companies with Macs, Windows PCs, and Linux desktops. More recently, the company has begun offering iOS device management functionality. For Apple-oriented businesses, the combination of desktop and mobile device application management makes FileWave a choice well worth considering.
Linus Torvalds is not a huge fan of Apple products. He is, as he describes himself, a socks and sandal kind of guy, a tinkerer. Even so, the Linux creator is absolutely in love with the MacBook Air… and wonders why the hell other laptop makers can’t come out and release an ultrabook that’s worth a damn.
Ticket to Ride has become one of the most popular board games adapted for iOS devices, selling 800,000 copies and picking up a whole host of accolades since its debut back in November 2011. It has now made the leap from iOS to the Mac and is available to purchase from the Mac App Store from today.
Built upon the DNA of NeXT OS, OS X is already one of the most well known Unix-based operating systems, but it could have been supercharged if the father of Linux, Linus Torvalds, had accepted a job offer from Steve Jobs back in 2000.
The Chronic Dev Yeam’s Absinthe jailbreak tool for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S owners has been updated to version 0.3. This latest update brings Linux support and minor cosmetic changes. A small bug fix for Windows users has also been included.
Meanwhile, over in the Linuxverse, the next release of Ubuntu looks set to try something pretty radical – ditching the top-of-screen Menu bar in favour of a type-what-you-need HUD panel. Rather like Spotlight for menu items, mixed with some Alfred and some Siri.
Nuance, a speech recognition company that powers Apple’s Siri service, has launched a new voice-controlled platform for television sets called Dragon TV. The service allows you to navigate your way around different content by “speaking channel numbers, station names, show and movie names” using natural language.
It’s everything you’d expect a Siri-powered Apple TV to be.
Sao Paulo, Brazil – Apple’s restrictive control measures and policies will ultimately fail, according to Linus Torvalds.
“Technologies that lock things down tend to lose in the end,” said Torvalds at the keynote of LinuxCon Brazil. (Cult of Mac is reporting from Sao Paulo; come to our Nov. 20 meetup for a chance to win a signed copy of the Brazilian edition of Leander Kahney’s “Inside Steve’s Brain.”)
Yesterday, I wrote a tip about using FileVault 2 encryption in Mac OS X Lion to encrypt a variety of external devices and SD cards. Although I like FileVault 2, I mentioned that it had some caveats.
The most glaring caveat is that media encrypted using FileVault 2 won’t work on other platforms. That might be fine in a home or business that uses only Macs, but it isn’t fine if you are also using computers running Windows or Linux.
Today I’ll show you how to encrypt drives that will work on computers running Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
