Other than some irritation about the death of FireWire and a few missing video output adapters from the Mini DisplayPort, the new Aluminum MacBooks are pretty much perfect. They’re fast, they run cool, and are incredibly light but also incredibly strong.

But not every MacBook out in MacVille is behaving nicely. As a matter of fact, many users on Apple’s support forums claim that their MacBooks became incredibly unstable after upgrading their RAM with third-party hardware. Frequent freezes, program crashes, garbled data on the screen. Though it’s anecdotal, most also claim that their problems went away upon switching back to the factory-installed memory from Apple, or upon taking it in to Apple for a swap. Even the normally impeccable OWC and Crucial are alleged to be having problems here.

This is a big surprise to me, not least because I installed Crucial RAM in my new MacBook more than a month ago and have experienced nothing but performance improvements ever since. It’s always possible that very minute changes in hardware between models could cause trouble. I have a 2.4 Ghz machine, so there could be an issue with the lower-speed machines, or it could just be that I got lucky. Anyone dealing with this?

jkontherun via TUAW

Apple Bomb Pillow from MicroRevolt

Just in time for getting a little bit of the backstory before the 25th Anniversary of Mac kicks into high gear, Computer Shopper has a great look back at the very early years of Apple Computers by Editor in Chief Emeritus Stan Veit. We’re talking early enough that Steve Jobs was willing to give away 10% of the company for $10,000, according to Veit.

The long article is well worth a read for Veit’s inside take on the two young, “long haired hippies and their friends” who eventually revolutionized the world. It’s not an especially flattering portrait of Jobs, though it’s had plenty of company on that score over the years. The article does contain some great early pics of Jobs and Woz and some of the earliest Apple gear.

Via Edible Apple

FATdrop has the skinny on everything you always wanted to know about digital music distribution in a comprehensive comparison of the policies and practices of 14 major on-line stores.

Via Distorted Loop

You may have heard that one of the linchpins of the federal government’s multi-pronged effort to save the crumbling American economy may include Uncle Sam himself underwriting home loans at 4.5%.

What better time then, to spend $4.99 on an iPhone app that may help you navigate the treacherous waters of real estate finance and help you make sound financial decisions for you and your family?

Foggy Noggin Software’s Loan Shark app is a timely, easy to use loan calculator. Enter the information you know, click a button for the field you want calculated, and Loan Shark fills in the amount for you.

With Loan Shark for iPhone and iPod Touch (requires 2.0 update) you can:

* Enter loans from different banks and save for later comparison.
* Calculate how long it will take to pay off credit cards.
* Determine how much in interest loans are costing you.
* See in real time how an extra payment a year affects your loan.
* Easily compare loans to see which is best.

The app lets you calculate any component of the loan, including payment, interest rate and loan amount; see the full Amortization Table for the lifespan of the loan; set your local currency in preferences; find Banks in your area. It also calculates semi-annual interest for Canada and other countries.

Foggy Noggin has some other cool looking software projects, too, including desktop and cookie managers, so be sure to check out their website.

Kena Kai, the lifestyle gear designers, offer this $80 luxurious leather notebook sleeve, cut and embossed to recall the “INTER-DEPARTMENTAL MAIL” envelopes found once upon a time in every office.

The case features durable full-grain white Italian leather in two sizes, the larger of which, with an interior compartment size of 12.8″ x 9″ x 1.2″ is designed for the new MacBook and the MacBook Air. The smaller sleeve, for $10 less, fits smaller machines that Apple doesn’t make…so who cares.

Via MacMerc

Blogger Rick Yeager has launched iPod and AppleTV podcast versions of his whimsical on-line gadget guide.

The fast-paced podcasts feature a no-nonsense style that one reviewer describes as “perfect for people who want to learn something or pick up a new skill quickly without enduring the news digest format used by other podcasters.” Yeager’s takes on gadgetry feature instructional info and tips and tricks for the Mac-curious, geeks and professionals alike.

The MacMerc podcast subscription is free on iTunes.

Via Geek Culture

When I think of high-powered, busy professionals the first word that comes to mind is not “Zen” but that certainly has not stopped Hladecek from marketing its new collection of iPhone ringtones as “Professional ringtones designed with executives and the fashion-forward in mind.”

The iRingPro Zen Collection is 21 tones, among which you’ll find no annoying songs, or silly sound effects. The collection consists of tones – not “tunes” – that are “smart, attractive, livable alerts engineered to ensure universal appeal, and provide a high tolerance for routine use and repetition.”

Each tone features moderately longer pauses between ring repeats than what many are used to. The designers believe this cuts down on the hurried fumbling that can occur when a cell phone rings unexpectedly, giving you time to see who’s calling, often before the second ring.

And of course there is the personal branding that comes from your ringtone. A snippet of “My Humps” or “The Immigrant Song” says something about you. iRing Pro ringtones seek to ensure that what is perceived when your phone rings is technically advanced, considerate, and enviably fashionable.

The Zen collection sells for $9.95 and is available for download directly from the designer. They come in “Meeting Grade” and “Active Grade” styles, with the meeting tones being subtler, lower pitched, and richer, while the active tones are stronger, more resonant, and present. Om, baby.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but Greystripe, a San Francisco-based rich media advertising platform for mobile content claims to have developed ads including Flash IAB medium rectangles and game-in-game (or “tailgate”) ads giving advertisers the ability to target the iPhone audience for the first time with Flash content.

In an effort to make it easier for the online media buyer to purchase mobile, Greystripe claims to have brought creative power to the iPhone with Flash creation tools allowing brands to extend any online advertising campaign directly into mobile content as well as the ability to create miniature advertiser-branded games in Flash and place them before, during or after existing iPhone games.

“Using the iPhone’s revolutionary platform, Greystripe has solved the serving, reporting, third-party tracking and, best of all, ad creation problems that have plagued the mobile advertising industry since inception,” says Michael Cai, Director of Digital Media and Gaming at Parks Associates, according to a BusinessWire release made public on Thursday.

Michael Chang, CEO and Co-founder of Greystripe was quoted as saying, “We have made it easy for advertisers by removing barriers to execution. Brands like Jeep, RadioShack, New Line Cinema, Rock the Vote and Yahoo! have seen strong results.”

If true, this would seem to come as news to Adobe, which claims to have been thus far stymied in the effort to develop a mobile version of Flash that is compatible with Apple’s SDK for iPhone developers.

Have you seen any Flash-based ads on your iPhone?

We reported last week on developer/blogger Erica Sadun’s discovery of an undocumented feature in Apple’s iPhone SDK that allows video out from an iPhone to be displayed on a TV monitor. Friday she revealed what is sure to become a popular exploit of this feature.

Sadun contacted developers at Freeverse, producers of the popular mobile game Moto Chaser and convinced them to create a TV version of their game. In a few hours, Freeverse code monkeys were able to come up with the demo version of Moto Chaser featured in the video above, which seems to herald happy days ahead for fans of iPhone gaming.

The detailed technical ins and outs of how Freeverse managed to pull off its feat are available in Sadun’s post at Ars Technica, but it’s worth noting that the TV version of the game played best on the second-generation iPod touch. The newer touch is built on a 532MHz CPU versus the original iPhone’s 412MHz. This extra speed helps up the frame rate produced by the device, the key component for any first person interactive video game.

Via Ars Technica

It’s probably safe to say only the newest of computing newbies may not understand that when you delete a file or “move it to the trash” it stays on your hard drive, taking up space, until you actually go to the trash and “empty” it.

This is actually a wonderful feature because even the most jaded computer professional is only human, and humans of all levels of intelligence and experience have been known to act, from time to time, in haste, without thinking. Sometimes being able to retrieve something from the trash can be the best thing ever.

But here’s something I bet a lot of savvy Mac users don’t know. I didn’t know about it – but I’m only on the just-sort-of functionally literate end of the Mac savvy scale. When you delete a photograph in iPhoto, it doesn’t go to the Trash trash, it goes to the iPhoto Trash. And it stays there until you empty the iPhoto Trash.

I’ve mentioned before in this space that my main computer is a five year old PowerBook G4. It’s a great computer but its 80GB hard drive is getting pretty full of stuff by now, especially because I am an avid user of Garage Band, iMovie and iPhoto. Recently, when I was looking for ways to free up space on my hard drive, duplicate Garage Band projects and old DVD slideshows I had in iMovie were easy enough to find and delete. But if you’re like me, you’ve got .jpg files in folders all over your computer and finding duplicates or unneeded ones to trash for drive space recovery can be daunting at best.

iPhoto itself doesn’t help a lot either, because its many folders are not readily accessible in Finder and if you don’t think to open the app and search from inside it, you can easily miss an opportunity to recover lots of disk space.

When you’re importing the hundreds and hundreds of pics you’ll be taking this holiday season, remember to think about your iPhoto trash and empty it out once you’re sure you haven’t mistakenly deleted that once-in-a lifetime picture of Mommy kissing Santa Claus.

Thanks to Scott McNulty at MacWorld

Several months ago when I logged into my Netflix account to check my queue and saw the world’s best movie rental service was offering instant streaming, I got all kinds of excited. Despite the joy of impressive two day turn-around service on physical DVDs through the US Mail, I thrilled to the prospect of being able to watch something new right now.

Clicking the “Learn More” button brought me quickly to earth, however, and I must admit I was disappointed, though not surprised to learn the streaming service was, at that point, available to Windows users only.

To their credit, Netflix rolled out a beta version of their “Watch Instantly” service to a limited number of Mac users at the beginning of November, and it’s clear the company values its Mac subscriber base because Thursday it sent out an email saying the streaming service is now available to all Mac users.

Except “all” doesn’t mean “every” in this particular case. The Microsoft Silverlight-based player requires an Intel processor, so the only Mac users who can “Watch Instantly” are those who bought Macs built by Apple in the past three years. As anyone who’s been paying attention knows, that’s an awful lot of potential Netflix customers, but as an Apple fan who appreciates the extended useful life Steve Jobs’ company builds into its products and who happily tends the flame of devotion for my five year-old PowerBook G4, I feel a little left out of the Netflix party.

It’s all good, though, because now I have another reason to sing the praises of the U.S. Mail.

Via MacWorld

I wrote my last “OS9 – Blimey Some People Still Use It” article for Mac DevCenter back in 2004 (see OS9, Mine All Mine); it was fun to write and nostalgic too, but I didn’t imagine I’d be writing a similar piece four years later.

But – blimey – there are STILL some people out there using OS9 and very happy with it too, thank you very much.

One of them is Jerad Walters, who runs publishing house Centipede Press and does so using a mirror-door 1.2 GHz G4, 1.25 GB RAM and 1.7TB of hard disk space spread across four hard drives.

But why, Jerad, why?

“My books are built with InDesign 1.5 and Photoshop 6 running Suitcase 8. The G4 boots up in about 30 seconds and then I have a QuicKey sequence that loads all applications in largest-chunk–of-RAM-required order (Photoshop first, InDesign second, etc). It is all up and running in a couple minutes.

“The speed of the Finder is simply draw-dropping. However, the speed of the Finder is OS X is also pretty quick, but there is just a responsiveness in 9 that cannot be matched by X.

“Menu and window actions all take place so quickly. Plus it is easier to tell windows from background from menus. There is a clarity to the OS 9 display that is lacking in OS X.”

For email, he uses Claris Emailer. For word processing, TexEdit. He makes use of the DragAnyWindow control panel for easier window management, and of HoverBar, a precursor to the OS X Dock.

Jerad does use OS X occasionally – it has a drive all to itself – but when he’s using it he misses things only found in OS9.

“I miss the Put Away command, and the regular trash can more than anything. There’s one thing I wish OS 9 had: an option for a toolbar for Finder windows; that is a really nice feature of OS X.”

So, OS9 users, this is your comments thread. Tell us why we’re all wrong to be using this newfangled OS X stuff.

iCan Drive may help Europeans navigate driving tests.

Back in 2006, the EU approved plans for a single drivers license to replace the over 100 different driver’s license standards on the Old Continent.

Countries have until until 2033 to phase it in, but there’s a good chance if you have to renew, your pan-european driver’s license test is going to have a few new things on it.

This iPhone, iPod touch iCan drive app carries quizzes for all official 664 tests for the EU driver’s license. It covers both A class (small scooter) and B class (standard car) licenses.

Developed by Italian Daniele Perilli, the quiz gives results immediately, totals errors and gives all acceptable answer for every question.

There are some 6,891 road-ready questions available in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

Not bad for .99 eurocents. Available on iTunes.

Via Mac City

Internet giant Google is among several technology companies reducing their presence at the upcoming Macworld Expo, a report said Friday.

According to AppleInsider, event organizer IDG is “frantically negotiating” to keep Google and other unnamed high-profile exhibitors from bypassing the annual gathering of Mac companies.

A 20 percent drop in companies planning to attend has forced IDG to extend a sign-up discount through Dec. 8, according to the Web site.

An Australian video electronics maker will enter the cell phone business January, offering the “Agora,” the second handset to use Google’s Android operating system.

The cell phone by Kogan Technologies, will start at $193 and offers a 2.5-inch touch screen, QWERT keyboard, 256MB of memory (expandable with a microSD card) and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G support. The handset allows 400 minutes of talk time and 300 hours of standby, according to CNET.

The Agora can be only be ordered from Kogan’s Web site begins shipping Jan. 29, 2009.

Apple faces yet another lawsuit over the performance of its iPhone 3G. The latest court challenge charges hardware defects cause calls to be dropped when using 3G.

James Pittman made the claims to a Northern District of California federal court in San Jose on Nov. 26.

In his lawsuit, Pittman alleges Apple of misrepresentation, violating California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, unjust enrichment and unfair competition of business and professions code.

Today is a day for Mac users to be happy. Why?

1. ONE: It turns out that we’re not the meanest bunch of technology users when our beloved kit is harshly criticized in the media. The Cult of Mac is a peaceful one compared to the rapid spine-chilling rage of the Church of Blackberry. It’s true. David Pogue said so.

2. TWO: Chris Pirillo is a kindly soul, and decided that today he would spell out five good reasons for switching to Mac. I’m not sure I agree with all of them (“social benefits?” euw, no thanks), but it’s always good to see former Windows users and prominent bloggers spelling out what a good idea it is to be running OS X.

3. THREE: At long last, we know how to create a text clipping containing the “@” character. Bring on the dancing girls! The band! Anyone got a spare barn we can use to put on a show?

In other news: that new Opera 10 alpha is really quite spiffy isn’t it?

(Photo used under Creative Commons license; thanks chrismear.)

The Sharper Image at one time employed 2500 people and had a thriving catalog business along with what were, at the time, innovative retail stores specializing in high-end electronics and gifts. Early in 2008 the 30 year-old company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, closed all its stores and continued to operate as a remnant of its former self, distributing a limited number of items through retailers such as Macy’s and Dillards, and as a department under the Amazon brand.

The company released a new product on Thursday that may – or may not – signal brighter days ahead for the former cutting edge gear purveyor. Their breakout product, slated to demo at Macworld 2009, is called the “SoundBag,” a top-of-the-line backpack designed to transform the listening experience for commuters, travelers and digital music lovers.

Featuring patented “flatpanel” sound technology designed by The EnE Group, “the SoundBag embodies The Sharper Image’s reputation for innovation, form and function that translates to a terrific user experience,” according to Federico de Bellegarde, vice president of Licensing at The Sharper Image.

With marketing material using terms such as “audiophile” and “surround sound,” the backpack can store and connect any portable digital device — including MP3 players, iPods and iPhone units — to a patented flat panel speaker, which is cleverly both part of the backpack or may be detached and used independently.

A 3.5mm mini-plug in the shoulder strap links the media player to the speaker and a protective clear covering allows access to the player’s controls without having to remove it. The detachable speaker also features a built-in stand and auxiliary input that enables users to play other audio sources, such as a portable DVD players and notebook computers. The speaker offers 8-10 hours of playback powered by three AA batteries.

Suggested retail for the SoundBag is $99. If it produces “audiophile” quality sound at that price, perhaps the Sharper Image will live again.

Via PRNewsWire

Here’s a demo video for Star Walk, the astronomy app for iPhone and iPod I posted on yesterday. The more I look at this app, and the more glowing comments it gets from both reviews on iTunes and CoM readers, the more I wish I’d paid a little better attention in my college astronomy class.

Thanks to reader Cliff for sending it in!

Roaming charges were the two dirtiest words in mobile telephony for the longest time. Without getting into the technical details, they referred to the gargantuan spigot mobile service providers were authorized to open, sluicing cash from your financial reserves whenever you wished to make a call outside your regular plan’s designated service area. A 5 minute call back home to check on the kids during a weekend getaway to the mountains could end up costing as much as a full night in a fancy place where they put mints on the pillows at night.

As calling plans have become more “unlimited” in nature and providers’ service coverage areas have expanded, domestic roaming charges have become all but a thing of the past. But mobile service providers are ever loathe to give up easy money when they can get it, and nowhere is the money easier today than charging unsuspecting mobile data users outrageous fees for attempting to access data, such as email or web browsing on smartphones, especially when domestic users try and use their phones overseas.

Follow after the jump to hear how bad it can get and find out what you can do to avoid getting sore in all the wrong places.

Tap Tap Dance, from the makers of the wildly popular Tap Tap Revenge, is an all new music game for your iPhone or iPod Touch, featuring top hits from some of the biggest electronic artists in the world like Moby, Justice, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, and more. Built on the 2.0 engine of the free app Tap Tap Revenge, Tap Tap Dance features familiar rhythm game mechanics, presented in an all new smoother, richer package for $4.99.

Tap Tap Dance features 10 dance tracks, including:

– Technologic by Daft Punk
– Zdarlight by Digitalism
– Phantom Pt II (Soulwax Remix) by Justice
– Stratosphere by Junkie XL
– Disco Lies (Remix) by Moby
– Midnight Madness by The Chemical Brothers
– Goldrush by Tiesto
– Compressor by Soul Magic Orchestra (Exclusive)
– Where’s Your Head At by Basement Jaxx
– Daylight (Exclusive Morgan Page Remix) by Sunny Levine

The game includes an exclusive track by Soul Magic Orchestra, and an exclusive remix by Morgan Page of Sunny’s Levine’s Daylight. Three of the tracks, “Technologic,” by Daft Punk, “Disco Lies” by Moby and “Phantom Pt II” by Justice come with their own exclusive themes, offering game players a portable interactive music video experience, right on the iPhone or iPod touch.

Tap Tap Dance game is available now in the US from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch and coming to select international App Stores soon.

UPDATE: This article has been corrected to reflect Shazam’s compatibility with iPhone only and not iPod Touch, as originally indicated. We regret any confusion our error may have caused.

I’ve been wanting to write about Shazam, the music discovery software app for iPhone, for a while now, but since it’s been around for a good while and is one of the most popular downloads on the AppStore, it didn’t seem there was any news there.

Shazam’s developers announced they have extended its database to include additional North American, Asian and European content, however, and Shazam now offers the facility to recognize songs in a database that has grown to include 8 million different songs.

“This increase in our database cements Shazam’s position as the leading mobile music discovery service in the world,” says Will Mills, Shazam’s Head of Music, and adds the app’s unique user experience “has made Shazam the perfect partner for mobile phone operators and handset manufacturers across the world.”

In September the company announced that more than 20 million customers had used Shazam to identify over 100 million tracks so far, numbers that are likely to continue growing along with the size of the app’s database.

Via Distorted Loop

The New Mac Mini Concept from Sait Alanyali on Vimeo.

Behold, the work of Sait Alanyali, designer of things. His plan for an L-shaped Mac mini might leave you a little bemused, to put it mildly, but apart from the hemisphere, what other shapes have been cruelly ignored by Jonathan Ive and his Mac design minions in recent years? Why haven’t we seen a tetrahedron iMac? A rhomboidal iPod? What about iWork packaging that takes the form of a Möbius strip?

While you’re pondering that, have a look at Sait’s Ikea-hacked work station. He even painted the plastic surrounds of his cheap monitors white, so that they’d look the part.

Mac fans Tuan Nguyen and Ken Thomas got busy with corrugated cardboard and regular white glue to make this iPhone table. The straightforward design comes with handy removable icons to use as coasters.

It doesn’t quite reach the chic of the iPod table, but it’s cute and hey, if you decide for a radical home makeover, you wouldn’t feel too bad about breaking it up for the recycling bin. Details about price, availability to follow.

Photo Credit: iLounge
Via iLounge

No more back-breaking anatomy textbooks for medical students at Ohio State University: these would-be scrubs will have all the info they need thanks to iPods provided by the school.

The program, said to be the first of its kind in a medical school, will be rolled out over the next two years. It is the brainchild of third-year student Justin Harper who, presumably, was tired of lugging around textbooks and getting paper cuts.

The iPods are loaded with specific medical software programs planned by OSU. The hand-held technology will give students quick access to high-res images of each organ and nerve in the body, plus allow them access to videos of medical treatments or surgical procedures and lists of potential drug interactions.

In more traditional school fare, they’ll also be able to give themselves pop quizzes, review all lectures in podcast form and have the entire curricula at their fingertips.

“The iPod touch has the potential to positively impact both medical education and the care provided to patients at the bedside,” said Dr. Catherine Lucey, vice dean for education on the school website. “The personal digital assistant puts a wealth of information at the fingertips of our students. They can study when they want and where they want. If they are seeing a patient and a question arises, they can find the answer instantly, to share with them.”

Via AP