Cult of Mac

We’ve seen the iPad used in a range of workplaces. Although some are surprising, like industrial farming and the Vatican, most are a bit more pedestrian. The U.S. Navy is planning to use iPads in a way that is both pedestrian and very high-end.

According to a recent government contract that is up for bid, the Navy plans to include iPads in a revamp of its Executive Dining Facility in the Pentagon. The dining room is often used by the Secretary of the Navy and regularly plays host to high-level Pentagon guests.

The Audio Xciter music player’s press release is full of the usual superlatives, and I quickly glossed over them in my usual cynical manner looking for something to make fun of (which I found – more on that in a bit). But one listen of the audio-processing iOS app is enough to make you sit up and, uh, listen.

It really is amazing.

One of the joys of being a power user is when you use keyboard shortcuts to shave precious seconds off of your workflow routines. While you may know all the system shortcuts there are (⌘ + C for Copy, ⌘ + V for Paste, etc.), you may not be as familiar with those in the Open or Save dialog windows that you encounter every day.

Obviously, we’re here to help

Apple has announced that the new iPad will finally make its debut in China on Friday, July 20, more than two months after the device made its debut in the United States. The third-generation tablet, which is the first iPad to feature a high-resolution Retina display, will be available through the Apple Online Store, Apple retail stores, and from select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Is your Retina MacBook Pro seeing less than half the seven hours of battery life that Apple promised you? Well, this may not be because you keep watching high-resolution videos over and over again on its Retina display (though that is certainly not helping). Instead, it could be thanks to a corrupt file created by Migration Assistant that needs removing with a simple terminal command.

Here’s how to do it and boost your Retina MacBook Pro’s battery life.

Struggling to find beautiful wallpapers for your new MacBook Pro’s high-resolution Retina display? With Wallpaper Wizard for Mac OS X, you can browse over 100,000 high-definition wallpapers with resolutions up to 2880 x 1800 all in one place, saving only the images ones you want to keep. And best of all, Wallpaper Wizard is today’s Two Dollar Tuesday pick, meaning it has 80% off its normal $9.99 price tag.

The official Readability app for iOS has received a major update today that not only promises to deliver “huge performance improvements,” but also adds a number of new features, including new “Top Reads” and “Longform Picks” reading lists, YouTube and Vimeo integration, and more.

Next Issue Media just became available for the iPad, making the jump from its Android roots. The app is a subscription-based magazine app that may redefine what you think of when you hear the words ‘magazine suscription.’

With Next Issue, you purchase a subscription to ALL the magazines in their service, for one fee. Techcrunch makes the obvious comparison to Netflix, for good reason, but we’ll try to avoid that here. Oops.

Sometimes a jailbreak tweak comes along that is so subtle and yet so brilliant. Banner notifications in iOS are great, but Apple made a poor design choice: incoming banners push in on the top of whatever app you’re using at the moment. If you’re using Safari, the address/search bar is momentarily obscured by a banner notification. That’s no good.

A new Cydia tweak called CoverMeNot keeps banner notifications out of the way by automatically doubling the height of your iOS status bar. No more obtrusive banners covering the top of your favorite apps.

Over at the Macintosh 512K section of the 68K Macintosh Liberation Army forums, user macman142 posted a great find – the body of a Mac 512K ED that had been gutted to create a Macquarium. The reason he paid $65 for this remnant was, he wrote, because it came with the original mouse, the 128k/512k style keyboard, and an original keyboard cable – a pretty rare find, as he mentions in his post.

Unfortunately, along with being gutted, the case of the very retro Macintosh had the handle cut out of it, assumedly so the previous owner could manage the fish tank they had installed within. Now macman142 is looking for ideas about what to do with this treasure.

According to Barron’s today, Apple tops the list of tech companies keeping large amounts of cash reserves overseas. Barron’s quotes Moody’s Investor Services as estimating Apple’s overseas cash supply at $74 billion, which is higher than the $64 billion of last year.

Apple isn’t the only technology company sending cash and other liquid investments out of the country, of course. Microsoft comes in second place with an estimated $50 billion in cash, while Cisco and Oracle are estimated to have $42.3 and $25.1 billion socked away in cash, respectively.

In an email sent out today, Apple has begun to push OS X developers to submit their Mountain Lion ready applications to the Mac App Store. This email follows the release today of the OS X Mountain Lion GM build to developers.

Apple has just released the OS X Mountain Lion GM seed. It’s unclear as to what’s new at this point, but we’ll keep you updated as more information arrives. The update comes after Developer Preview 4, issued a few weeks back.

Well, this is an easy one.

I love writing about giveaways and freebies because there’s no risk, you have nothing to lose, and you just might as well grab it if you’re even remotely interested in thing.

Like today.

It’s a free 130 page ebook on turning Photoshop files into websites/pages. Maybe it’s not up your alley, but I think it’s one of those things that could just be handy to have around. You might learn a tip or trick or be able to work with a designer/developer a little better on your next website project. Regardless it’s just this simple…

Dice’s monthly report of the IT job market continues to show that developers remain the most in-demand jobs. Fully half of the top ten jobs listed are for various kinds of developers with mobile app development ranking as the second most in-demand skill.

That’s not too surprising all things considered. As we noted this morning, a recent Symantec study notes that 59% of companies are actively working to create mobile versions of their internal line of business. That doesn’t even take into account customer-facing apps, which are more and more seen as a requirement.

Other in-demand development skills include Java, Microsoft .NET, web, and the rather generic software developer. Java stole the number one slot. With one exception, development skills make up the top five skill sets. The one non-developer position was related to data and network security.

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Word is one of the most ubiquitous apps around. If you write anything on a computer—Mac or PC—you’re going to have to have some interaction with MS Word.

Over the years, MS Word has become a lot more than “just a word processor” today it’s more like an electronic publishing tool. The thing is though, most people don’t know how to tap into all the power and tools in MS Word 2011.

You can change that with the Microsoft Word 2011 video course.

Steve Wozniak recently spoke at the Entel Summit in Chile, and as usual, expressed his thoughts on emerging technology. Wozniak offered his opinion on Google Glass, Microsoft’s Surface tablet, and even the Kim Dotcom case surrounding Megaupload.

Until Instagram made the jump to Android, the photography social network was an iPhone-only affair. With plenty of web apps and even native apps like Carousel on the Mac, you can also use Instagram from your desktop computer. Thanks to a beautiful app called Instagrille, even Windows users can check their Instagram feed in style.

The free Instagrille program allows you to check your feed, make comments, like photos, see your notifications, and even download photos to your hard drive. Not bad.

If you’re an IT professional charged with rolling out Macs and iOS devices to employees in your company or students in your school, the Penn State MacAdmins Group has a wealth of new resources for you.

The group puts on an excellent annual conference for Mac and  iOS administrators and IT professionals each year. The sessions cover just about everything you might need to know when it comes to developing a solid strategy for deploying and managing Macs and iOS devices in schools or business. Sessions are led by IT professionals with a solid background in Mac and iOS technologies. Real world experiences with the tools and processes involved are discussed along with tips, tricks, and advice.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference, however, you can view the sessions online.

Notification Center on the iPad isn’t that great. It functions just like the iPhone, meaning you pull down a window from the status bar to see your notifications. While that interface works nicely on the iPhone, the window isn’t scaled appropriately to the iPad’s larger display.

In OS X Mountain Lion, Notification Center makes more sense on a larger screen. Instead of coming down from the top of your Mac’s display, your notifications are displayed on the side of the screen. Want that type of Notification Center interface on your iPad? A jailbreak tweak called MountainCenter will make it happen.

 Tired of typing in your email address to login to websites on your iPhone? I know I am. Heck, even typing on the iPad can get to be a pain, with every site LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the like asking for log in credentials – most of them wanting my email address or login name. Or, heck, password. You can use the iPhone autofill email address feature to make this process seamless.

Just like changing the default “OMW” text message auto-correct, here’s another idea on making the most of your iPhone time, rather than spending it typing in your email address, password, or street address.

Last March, Twitter told the developer community to stop making third-party apps and clients that “mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” Twitter said, “We need to move to a less fragmented world, where every user can experience Twitter in a consistent way.”

Fast forward more than a year later, and Twitter is slowly moving away from an open platform for developers to build upon. Twitter plans to implement stricter API guidelines for developers, and while there’s no concrete evidence that Twitter will shut down third-party apps altogether, the current landscape of great apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific could look very different in coming months.

Oh man, I can totally see myself taking this mechanical Bluetooth keyboard to the local bar and clackety clacking out a few posts every morning. It’s called the KBtalKing Pro and it is a rather clever little beast, a pro keyboard which is designed to work with – and switch seamlessly between – up to ten of your devices.

It’s getting almost painful to read reports about RIM. The ongoing hype about how great BlackBerry 10 will be mixed with the reports of layoffs, inventory sitting around warehouses, the company’s share price plummeting – it all reminds me of the time one of my high school friends broke her ankle in gym class and hobbled around for nearly half a day trying to convince herself that she’d only sprained it.

Among all that news, however, is a question – can organizations that need incredible security manage in a world without RIM and the manageability made possible by its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES)? Is iOS up to that challenge? Is Apple up to or interested in making a major play for the enterprise market?

Is this graphic from the 80’s not the most amazing Apple II display ad you’ve ever seen? It’s got freaking rainbows and unicorns and even dolphins jumping out of the sea to play hopscotch with you. Shoot, it’s even got a cute little dancing penguin too! The only thing that would make it better is if Steve Jobs was riding a great white shark in the background with a laser attached to its head.

What do you think could be added to the graphic to make it even better? Let us hear your ideas in the comments.