Open and Save dialogs are as unsexy as things come on the Mac, but every Mac user has to deal with them daily. Despite Mac OS X being in its fifth major incarnation, these dialogs are still limited, but with Default Folder X, everything changes, and even a little sleekness is thrown into the mix.Once Default Folder X is installed, a black HUD-style overlay surrounds Open and Save dialog boxes, its toolbar providing access to user-definable favorites, recent folders, and a slew of handy options (such as rename, reveal and move) that puts Apple’s own dialogs to shame. Usefully, favorites can have hot-keys assigned via Default Folder’s preferences pane, which also provides the means to create a default Open/Save folder for each installed application.

Other included niceties are the menu/Dock item, providing a system-wide means of rapidly navigating mounted volumes and defined favorites, and a superior preview within Open dialogs, which automatically stretches to fill available vertical space. Spotlight comments and file properties are also possible to manipulate from Open and Save dialogs when Default Folder X is installed.

Although at the pricier end of the shareware spectrum—especially for a one-shot utility—Default Folder X is nonetheless an essential purchase. The seconds it saves every time you open or save a file soon add up, and after a few months’ use, you’ll find Macs lacking the application feel naked by comparison.

Default Folder X continues to excel in its fourth major revision, making it much easier for Mac users to open and save files.

Further information

Manufacturer: St. Clair Software
Price: $34.95 (upgrades from $14.95)
URL: www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/

Isamu Sanada, the Japanese photographer who makes Mac mockups, has created a new design for a tablet Mac that blends the iPhone with the MacBook Air subnotebook. He calls it the Mac Air.

According to a rough translation of his site, the Mac Air also doubles as a desktop.

It hooks to a wireless keyboard and uses a wireless Time Capsule-like docking station as a hard drive. The dock includes a SuperDrive for playing and burning Cds/DVDs.

It boots into the iPhone operating system when a tablet, and OS X when used as a desktop.

It’s a great idea, but will Apple  ever make such a device? Maybe. Sanada has once or twice correctly predicted Apple’s products in the past. As previously reported:

Isamu Sanada is a photographer by trade, but an Apple designer by calling.

Sanada is an amateur designer of fantasy Macintoshes. His Applele website is a popular showcase for dozens of speculative designs for future Apple machines.

In fact, Sanada is so adept at mimicking Apple’s look, he created a design for a new laptop that predicted Apple’s distinctive Titanium PowerBook G4 months before it came out.

Link to Sanada’s Mac Air mockup.

Sanada hasn’t made a new design for many months. No word why he’s returned to making fantasy Macs. His email simply said:

“I made a new image. Please enjoy it.”

VMWare, the virtualization powerhouse that brought its Fusion software to Mac in late 2006, is now just about ready to roll its second major version of the program for OS X. Late this afternoon, VMWare sent over info and download links for a public beta of Fusion 2.0, and, I have to say, it’s looking hawt. More comprehensive DirectX 9 support for seamless PC gaming, insane levels of multimonitor support (ten screens!) and easy importing of Parallels, Virtual PC and even Boot Camp partitions.

Better yet, VMWare has announced that Fusion 2.0 will be free to all existing Mac customers once the final version ships. Of the three big updates, the monitor support is the big one. Parallels doesn’t support multiple displays for Windows, and the Fusion implementation looks nicer than multiple displays for most native PCs. Parallels can do Mac in one screen, Windows in another, but not Windows on two displays for the same virtual machine. Granted, this is a fairly niche feature, but its really well put together, as you can see in the video I’ve thrown up at the top.

The beta is wide open, so if you want in on the action and can live with a few beta quirks, hit the link.

Pete’s post below got me thinking. Apple’s star is rising, and they absolutely are eroding the market-share of Windows. Every quarter this thing of ours becomes more and more mainstream, and it’s not impossible to imagine a time when the Mac will at least have a significant degree of parity with Windows. This raises a bigger question: would we ever want Apple to eclipse Microsoft?

The first thing they teach you in strategic planning is to perform the following assessment:

“What are the benefits of a course of action, versus, what are the negatives of following the same. What are the possible unintended consequences”.

Now certainly we are all excited about Apple’s continued rise, but there may also be come cause for concern. In the rest of this article we’re going to play the “Unintended Consequences Game”.

While it’s taken as writ that we cultists tend to be creative types, a recent study from the Fuqua school of business at Duke University seems to indicate that simply seeing an Apple logo makes you more creative.

The researchers conducted a number of experiments, one of which was showing the logos for fractions of a second to create a subliminal impression, and in all cases those who’d seen the Apple logo scored higher on standardized creativity tests than those who’d seen the IBM logo or no logos at all.

Keith Sawyer in his Creativity and Innovation blog has got a great write up on the paper if you don’t feel like sorting through all the academic stuff in the published paper (I managed to get through 5 whole pages before turning to Keith’s excellent article).

Very interesting cover story in BusinessWeek about soaring demand for Macs inside of companies. In some ways, this is an inevitable outgrowth of the success of the iPod. Sales of the iPod goose home sales of Macs, and once you’ve got a Mac, you never want to work in Windows again. Writer Peter Burrows says it well:

But now the call is coming from mainstream users, people who may have started off with an iPod, then bought a Mac at home and no longer want a “Windows-by-day, Mac-by-night” existence.

This may be a sign of hope for all of us Mac users-in-exile. I work in an all-ThinkPad office, and dream of getting to live an all-Mac life. But since we’re consultants, we use the same machines that our clients do. What does that mean? Buy more Macs, corporate world! Then we can ditch Windows for good!

Okay I know it’s an oxymoron, but work with me here.

link to the full video

Mac|Life reports that a OQO user has managed to get Leopard up and running on his hand-held, complete with a pretty impressive video on YouTube. Ordinarily, I could give to shakes for some beige box running OS X, but the OQO device is actually cool enough that I’d actually buy one if we can get OS X on it stable.

Whats notable from the video is that OS X Boots Sloooooooow, and runs Slooooooow on the device. But I’m pretty sure there are some clever folks out there who work out a way to speed it up. And besides, OQO was founded by ex-Apple folks, so the design is pretty slick, too.

So the utter blasphemy of a Hackintosh aside, this really reinfoces the fact that consumers want something more than an iPhone, but less than a full-on Mac.

What do you think? If someone offered this thing commercially (Hopefully Apple) would you buy one?

Take this with a grain of salt, but Fortune’s Scott Moritz has filed a report claiming that AT&T will subsidize the price of the hotly awaited 3G iPhone down to start at $199 with a two-year agreement, which would be a clear sign that the company is serious about starting to move some massive numbers of the device when it drops in June.

There are definitely parts of the story that I don’t buy — I don’t think Apple is going to go 8 and 16 gig on the new iPhone, let alone “8-gigabit-memory and 16-gigabit-memory,” and the pricing strategy only makes sense if the iPhone is non-exclusive to AT&T. If Apple’s selling the 3G iPhone unlocked at Apple Stores for $200 more, this makes sense. If not, this is just bizarre.

Thoughts? I really hope we see a 32-gigabyte model of the 3G iPhone – that makes it not just a nano replacement for me, but an actual iPod replacement.

FORTUNE: Techland AT&T to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone

Thanks, Matt!

Tags: iphone, rumor, at&t, speculation

Apple’s alliance with American Idol has caused me some discomfort this year, so I always do my best to mock the entire enterprise. As eagle-eyed reader Scott noticed, the recent iTunes and Idol charity event Idol Gives Back tends to, ahem, “borrow” the design language of a York Peppermint Patty. I’m sure this was Fox’s designers rather than Apple, but still…

My ambivalence toward the MacBook Air is pretty well-known. While I think its basic idea is compelling, Apple’s execution just leaves too much to be desired with just one USB port, terrible iPod hard drive, and no mobile broadband radio. This parody from Lenovo that’s been circulating to its suppliers in China sort of sums up the flaw in Steve’s vision for a truly wireless laptop. I mean, how can you release a machine with one USB port when the iPod and iPhone both need to be synced over USB and not WiFi?

Bonus points for the warbly parody of the MacBook Air song.

YouTube – test Via Fake Steve

Tags: macbookair, lenovo, thinkpad, humor, parody

That’s a MacBook Pro, apparently running Steve Ballmer’s keynote presentation at a media conference in Louvain, Belgium last week. Flickr user Paint.It.Black got the shot, and Choubistar got a picture with both Ballmer and the MacBook Pro together. Allegedly, MacBook Pros were used to drive all presentations for the conference, and there are multiple shots of it. No Photoshop. Glorious.

What laptop does Steve Ballmer use for his presentations? Right… on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Via Gizmodo

The MacUpdate promo has unlocked both Parallels and BannerZest (as well as Sound Studio), reversing my prior concerns, and making the bundle one heck of a good deal. Parallels alone (which I have used the heck out of), is worth the $64.99 price of entry, getting BannerZest tossed in is just icing. As per my previous review, Art-Text and DVDRemaster pro also seem to be pretty handy utilities, adding value to the bundle. But the unlocking of parallels is what really tips it over the edge for me.

Only three days left, folks.

My old colleague Rob Beschizza, who recently abandoned Wired.com for BoingBoing Gadgets, has a brilliant parody of my new book, Inside Steve’s Brain. The treacherous bastard writes:

“It’s hard to believe that one man revolutionized the operating system business in the 2000s, converting Windows’ extraordinary market dominance into the reviled seven-year ditch that is Vista, and squandering billions on confused advances into ill-understood peripheral markets like video gaming and music hardware

…. Wired.com’s Leander Kahney cuts through the salt-ringed tide marks that surround him to unearth secrets to his unbelievable results. It reveals the real Steve.”

LINK.

Pitting two great software bundles head-to-head in CultofMac cage match? What the heck, we have to do something to amuse ourselves until WWDC

Mac users this week are presented with two choices for bundles of shareware. The MacHiest bundle that includes 12 titles, bundled together for $49, and the MacUpdate promo that includes 10 titles for $64.99 (albeit 3 of them are locked until they reach specific sales numbers).

We get under the covers of these bundles to see which are worth your hard-earned duckets.

UPDATE: Microsoft says this was their attempt to make the worst internal video ever. MMM…yeah. Interesting spin…

I’ve been wrapping up an all-intensive project at work lately, but I have to break my silence for this: “Rocking Our Sales” by Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band. I don’t really know where to begin. I guess I will just say this. I have no idea if Apple makes lame Bruce Springsteen parody music videos to inspire its channel sales teams, but if it does, I have to assume that it uses better lyrics than “Talk up our Microsoft Application Virtualization…See what’s on employee’s laptops with AIS and MDOP!”

EPIC FAIL, MS! And if anyone is actually inspired to sell more Vista based on this, really think about switching your job. I mean, damn.

Via Daring Fireball

Filed under: Still Speculating, just not wildly.

My inept Photoshop skills aside, Leander’s post below and the prevalence of the OSX86 project and similar efforts really speak to a single problem within the Macintosh lineup: The Tweener. That is, the Mac that is in between the Mac Mini and the MacPro. Apparently there are a WHOLE lot of folks who are desperate for this machine. Why it doesn’t exist is a mystery. Not only is there apparently a huge market for this kind of machine, there is an even larger market for “Certified Mac” after-market parts.

It’s a wonder that being the “Salesy” part of a duo that built their first computer in a garage, Steve doesn’t seem to get that enthusiasts want a computer they can “tinker” with.

As always I am gratuitously soliciting your comments as to what you’d like to see in this machine. My specs follow after the break

Apple has pushed past Toshiba to become the fourth largest PC maker in the U.S., according to new numbers from research firm Gartner.

Apple earned 6.6 percent of the PC market in Q1 2008, and saw 32.5 percent year-on-year growth in unit shipments, Gartner said. Overall, the PC market grew 3 percent year-on-year, Gartner said.

Apple trails Dell (31.4 percent market share), Hewlett-Packard (25 percent) and Acer (9.1 percent). While Dell grew 15 percent year-on-year during the quarter, Acer slipped 18.3 percent, Gartner said.

Acer is only 2.5 percentage points ahead of Apple, and Apple is positioned to regain the number-three slot, which it hasn’t held since the mid-nineties.

Worldwide, Apple failed to make the top 5 (HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba).

A Santa Cruz woman is using Leopard’s Back to My Mac remote control software to track a thief who stole her laptop.

The woman, named Joey, had her MacBook and iPhone stolen from her truck. The thief didn’t wipe the MacBook, and Joey was able to log on remotely every time the crook connected to the internet using Back To My Mac. Built-into OS X, Back To My Mac allows administrators to take full control of machines over the Net.

Joey was able to remove sensitive data; copy and delete files; and then spy on the thief using the MacBook’s built-in iSight camera.

The crook spends a lot of time in cafes using free WiFi to search file sharing networks for software, music and movies.

As the crook surfed the Net, Joey was able to compile a full profile for police, including his Gmail account, home IP address, mother’s maiden name, and even snap clear pictures showing the detail of his tattoos.

Santa Cruz police are reportedly issuing a warrant to arrest the thief.

Joey was documenting the entire process on a LiveJournal account, which has been taken offline, likely to prevent the crook from getting wind of his impending arrest.

Via Roughly Drafted.

The first movie starring stoner legend Ellen Feiss, the break-out star of Apple’s “Switch ads,” will air online on Monday, April 21. But don’t get too excited: it looks like a turkey.

Bed & Breakfast, an indie movie shot in France, will air at 9:30PM ET / 6:30 PM PT on TheDigitalLifestyle.tv, a 24-hour Apple-related Web TV channel.

Feiss stars as the girlfriend of an American guy lured to a castle owned by a former college roommate, or something. The movie was shot in 2006 and seems to have promptly disappeared. There’s no indication whether it’s a comedy, a drama or a slasher flick.

It looks like a film school project; it “twists the apparent perception of things to reveal the reality that lurks behind,” according to this archived web site for the film.

Feiss shot to fame in 2002 after slurring her words in an Apple Switch ad detailing how her dad’s PC ate her homework. The ad became an online sensation, and was parodied widely. Feiss was invited on late night TV and was offered roles in moveis and TV shows, but shunned Hollywood — until now.

Here’s a still of Feiss from the movie:

Trying to find out if would-be Mac clone maker Psystart in legit or not, Gizmodo readers went to the two addresses identified by the Guardian’s Charles Arthur (see below). As Arthur predicted, one address is a single-story home, and the other address is a warehouse, but it’s home to a completely different company.

The Gizmodo reader, Michael, snapped some pictures and talked to the warehouse manager, who has never heard of Psystar.

In addition, another Giz reader, Robert, pulled records from Florida’s corporate filing office and found that Psystar’s two principles, Rodolfo and Roberto Pedraza, are officers or agents of “a whole crapload of companies,” according to Giz. Only one of these companies is active: Floridatek.

“These guys are obviously clowns,” says Robert.

A PC-versus-Mac shootout by Popular Mechanics scores the Mac way ahead in both price and performance. PopMech compared desktops and laptops, and not only did the Macs run rings around their Windows counterparts, they were cheaper to boot. The conclusion:

Our biggest surprise, however, was that PCs were not the relative bargains we expected them to be. The Asus M51sr costs the same as a MacBook, while the Gateway One actually costs $300 more than an iMac. That means for the price of the Gateway you could buy an iMac, boost its hard drive to match the Gateway’s, purchase a copy of Vista to boot–and still save $100.

My, how times have changed. A few years ago, the conventional wisdom was the opposite: PCs were cheaper and faster.

Somehow though, I don’t think conventional wisdom will change. Macs will always be regarded as premium computers — thanks to their fab design and quality fit and finish — even if that’s not actually true.

Charles Arthur at The Guardian has been poking around into the history of Psystar, the Miami company selling the Open Computer, a cheapo Mac clone.

What Arthur found – or rather didn’t find — is extremely suspicious. No one answers the phone, and before this week, the company has left zero record of itself on the Web — Zero. No customer testimonials, no press releases, news stories or posts and comments on forums.

Also, the company changed it’s address on Tuesday while Arthur was writing his post. It moved from what looks like a suburban location to a more industrial one.

Writes Arthur: “But forgive me for being a bit sceptical, but isn’t it far, far more important whether the company has been around, has a reputation, and is going to deliver a machine? Isn’t it?”

.

The Miami company selling a generic PC that runs Mac OS X says it will fight Apple in the courts — but it’s reasoning seems flawed.

Psystar says it has ported OS X to run on a $400 machine called the OpenMac — in violation of the OS X’s shrinkwrap license, which restricts the software from being installed on any non-Apple branded machine.

But a spokesman for Psystar told InformationWeek that Apple’s shrinkwrap license for OS X violates U.S. antitrust law.

“What if Microsoft said you could only install Windows on Dell computers?” said the spokesman, identified only as Robert.

He continued: “What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?”

But the spokesman seems to be confusing monopoly with abuse of monopoly. Having a monopoly is not illegal — abusing that monopoly is.

And although there’s no definitive court ruling on the enforceability of shrinkwrap EULA licenses (End-User License Agreements), Apple will likely sue under the more sweeping Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which criminalizes the circumvention of copyright controls.

Apple has encrypted core segments of OS X — including portions of the Finder and Dock — in an overt anti-piracy effort, according to eWeek. Security researcher Bruce Schneier, said companies are using the DMCA as an anti-piracy measure, but also to prevent reverse engineering. Any attempt to break the encrypted code is in violation of the DMCA.

Psystar’s OpenMac claims to be a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo machine with 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, integrated Intel graphics, a DVD burner and four USB Ports. Most of the components can be upgraded.

Photo: Kevin Dean

Here’s a great story from the Consumerist about Dell’s hairy customer service. Guy sends his Dell laptop to Texas for replacement, the new machines comes back with pubes in the keyboard!

When I opened up the new laptop, I saw the screen was scratched and dirty, and the keyboard was covered in debris. Wait, not debris….what is that? HAIRS!? Not just any hairs – these could only be described as pubes. I hate to be so crude, but pubes are pubes. Not the incidental curly hair, but rather mini-tufts between the keys. My only guess is that Ron Jeremy was the previous owner.

Now that’s service.

Hacker Benjamin Heckendorn, better known as Ben Heck, has shoehorned the motherboard of an Apple IIGS into his own custom-made laptop case.

The Apple IIGS Original Hardware Laptop has a 15-inch color screen, built-in CompactFlash as a pseudo hard drive and stereo speakers.

The amazing piece of engineer has a glowing blue logo that flashes yellow when the disk is busy. Heck even made his own keys for the board, laser-etching each key.

It seems like it must be in danger of bursting into flames at any moment, but Heck says it puts off no more heat than a pocket calculator.

Released in September 1986, the IIGS was a powerful computer for its time, with advanced color graphics and stereo sound — the GS standing for “Graphics” and Sound.”

Heck says the hack was requested by an unnamed party. My money’s on Woz.

Heck has lot more pictures and video on his site.

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