Macgasm

Adium 1.4 Beta 1 has been released, and in addition to the tons of networks that Adium currently supports, it now supports Twitter. While this can be useful, as I’ll explain, there are a few drawbacks. But before we delve into that topic, let’s look at what it takes to hook up your Adium beta to Twitter.

You will need the following things:

• Adium 1.4 B1 or higher. Obtained from beta.adium.im or via the Adium Menu -> Check for Updates (as long as you have betas selected).
• A Twitter account. Obtainable from Twitter.com

That’s all you’ll need. Now for the steps.

1. Install or Update to Adium 1.4 Beta 1 (or higher).
2. Click on Adium (Menu) -> Preferences
3. Click on ‘Accounts’
4. Click on the ‘+’ Drop-down.
5. Select Twitter. A Dialog similar to the one below will appear.



6. Click on ‘Allow Adium Access’. This will bring up a browser to have you login and authorize Adium to access your Twitter account.
7. Once logged into to Twitter, click on ‘Authorize’.
8. Close the ‘Browser’ window. And return to Adium.
9. A Screen like the one below should now be shown. Click on “I’ve allowed Adium Access’.



10. Click on ‘OK’, and you should be good to go.

It’s a quick few seconds to actually allow Adium access to Twitter.

At first I had some issues with finding where to actually see my timeline, but I was able to find it by doing the following:

1. Click on one of those your following.
2. Hit command-I to pull up their information.
3. Once the information page loads, which stopped working for me after a while, click on the “@” symbol to send a reply to that person.
4. The timeline should appear, it might be a bit slow to load.

I know there is an easier way, but this is one of the ways that I found to actually pull up the Timeline, which is actually a group chat.

There is one thing to note, as soon as you authorize your Adium installation with Twitter, you might want to change the frequency at which Adium updates your timeline. The default is 10 minutes, while the lowest you can go is 2 minutes. The setting of two minutes is well beneath the Twitter API limit of 80 requests per hour. I wonder if due to signing on, how many requests that takes up. I’d be curious to see.

Now for the drawbacks. There is no semblance of order for your followers. It seems to be haphazard. It’s not in order via signup date, . Secondly, When you connect to Twitter, a new group is created, which includes ALL of those you’re following. So in my case that’s around 500 people. So if you’re following 20,000 this can be rather daunting. Third item that adds to the potential need to wait, is that the Twitter updates do not always update without disconnecting and reconnecting.

There is one feature I would like to see. I’d like to have the ability to have my iTunes song status update Twitter. It could even be an option (ie button) that you have to hit to post your iTunes song to Twitter. The second thing I’d like to see is highlighting of replies, even those that begin with @username.

Now, I’m not saying don’t download the beta, but it might be prudent to wait until beta 2, if not beta 3 before giving the Twitter options a trial. Not that it doesn’t work with everything else besides Twitter, because it does work beautifully. But if you’re wanting to use With Adium now supporting Twitter this makes Adium even more useful. Too bad they don’t have an iPhone OS Application, then this would instantly become the ultimate chat client.

Definitely something that would have been filed under the too-good-to-be-true category which turns out to actually be in reality is a USB dongle from EFiX, that promises to let a user take their PC hardware and install Leopard on it with little more than an EFi-X USB dongle a USB header on your motherboard (not a USB port) and some strong voodoo.

Copious amounts of skepticism aside it looks like Gizmodo has been able to confirm this claim without the universe tearing itself apart. The one major caveat is that there is a list of supported hardware that you need to have to get this to work correctly. And the list is short.

This sounds like an easy and painless way for PC users out there to rub a little OS X goodness on their PCs while saving themselves the trouble of going the Hackintosh route. I don’t currently have a PC lying around on which to try this so I’ll have to wait to experience this myself but for those of you out there who do it looks like US$155 will get you from PC to Mac in the time it takes to install OS X.

If any of you have tried this I would love to hear about your experience in the comments!

[Photo via Hack-A-Day]

It’s pretty obvious that one of the major approaches to Mobile Me is syncing technology, it’s supposed to make it easy, but what they fail to tell you is just how easy it is to do all this stuff without paying the cost. Syncing calendars falls under this category. You can do it with mobile me, or you can do it for free with some Google services. Google calendar is an excellent way to sync your calendars. You can get them online from anywhere, or you can sync them with iCal. It gives you a whole slew of possibilities.

Phase One – Set up your Google Calendar

The first step is to log into Google calendar and set up as many different calendars as you need.

1. Login in to Google calendar
2. On the left side of the screen there’s a bunch of boxes with rounded corners. The one in the middle has a link that says create. Click it
3. Fill out the info it asks then click “create calendar” at the bottom of the form

Phase one is complete.

Phase Two – Sync with Calaboration (Yeah, that’s how it’s spelled!)

The second part to this is the point where we actually get our calendars into iCal. Google has given us Calaboration. It’s in beta like everything else Google does but it works really well. You put in your credentials, and it’s going to ask you what calendars you want to import. Do this on multiple machines, and set up your iPhone to sync to those calendars in iTunes and you now have a fully syncing Calendar.

Phase Three – Save your cash

Did I mention Mobile Me is a waste of cash?

Greetings, my rosey-cheeked electronic fruit whores! I’m back.

So where has this Fake Rockstar been? I can’t say specifically, but I can divulge that it involved a tavern of locals, two pigs, a Ford F-250 with deluxe towing package and smelling salts. Let your imagination run wild, you ruby red legions of ‘different’.

ANYWAY, why am I back? For the money, mostly… And the fame, although my Macgasm blogging fanbase has been strangely quiet as of late. Can’t a brother get an unsolicited goose from an adoring public once in a while? I’m also back because I have Mac-related conversation to throw around this party… Namely, I bought an iMac.

As a nostalgic throwback to my first days as a Mac owner, I picked up the latest version of my very first Apple product. I’m nearly 40, so everything I do is based on broken dreams and memories of “simpler times”… I listen to a lot of Duran Duran and Journey, okay? The early iMacs were pretty, campy and full of yuppie nerdiness, complete with the insanely awesome Jeff Goldblum voicing the colorfully choreographed early “Gap-ish” commercials. My first was a lease (back when they offered such a thing) of the “strawberry” unit. Twas a thing of beauty with its OS9, dial-up, Internet and jazzy topside handle for portability. Weighing just under a metric ton, these babies could be set up on any coffee shop table, school desk and piano top around the world.

I truly miss it.

But times change and with Apple, if you blink, you missed it. Apple cube, anyone? So, yeah… I needed a desktop for all the very important, high-paid cartooning and comedy writing, so I carted myself (and my wife’s wallet) to the mall (ugh) and into the Apple store.

We arrived, fell in love with the 20 inch model and after a brief scuffle with an idiot-box hand held check out machine, we were out the door. This iMac was liftable – Mostly because the box had a handle – but also because it’s ligh- weight. So the getting, carting and setup was a snap, per usual with an Apple product. Within minutes I was transferring files, color comics and surfing for porn… BLAH BLAH BLAH.

The real greatness of this machine? The beauty in this orgasmic macgasm of titanium and black? Baseball. That’s right, baseball. My wife and I are rabid fans. She’s an A’s fan and I’m a… Fuck it. Look, I’m a Yankees fan, okay? And I live in New England. Do any of you Steve Jobs bootlickers know what that’s like? The torment of the NESN network? 2004 ring and effin’ BELLS?!

Easy, Fake Rockstar. Count to ten…

ANYWAY, I can’t get Yankees games on the TV and my laptop just isn’t the greatest viewing vessel. But the iMac -  with its flat screen looks and its loads of memory – is perfect for watching Jeter turn a double. Plus, it’s nearly portable, so the wife and I can simply unplug and plop onto the BOBopedic and watch all the out of market baseball that we can stomach… And we can stomach a lot.

I love my Yankees and I love my iMac. From the strawberry candyland dial-up of 8 years ago to the big boy sleek Star Trek bedroom entertainment of today.

Can I say Star Trek and bedroom entertainment together, without breaking some nerd commandment?

Oh well, I did. Shoot me with phaser on stun, punks.

To the Whiskydeck! And the the Hot-chicksdeck! Followed by the Sleep-til-noondeck!

-FRS

[photo by: soyburger]

After almost five months of pretty heavy usage, my iPhone decided to give up. Although the phone still worked properly, the screen was barely visible and contained all kinds of streaking vertical lines. Since I was outside of the country when this happened, I called my cellular company (Rogers) and setu p an appointment to bring it in and get a floater. Fortunately, a friend on Twitter advised me that it would be better to make an appointment at the genius bar since I was still within the warranty period.

Making an appointment with the genius bar (http://www.apple.ca/retail/geniusbar/) was quite painless. You simply pick the store you would like the appointment at and then input your personal information. The web site will then come back with a list of open times you can select from.

When I got the store I had to register so they would know I was there. The appointment was set for 7:00PM and I did not get to see my genius until 7:20PM. He actually apologized for running late and noted they were short staffed that night. In the next few minutes I was reminded of how Apple shines and thrilled with the level of service provided. The genius informed me had never seen this happen before and actually apologized again for the inconvenience. He then went to the back of the store and got me a replacement. There were no further questions, no hassles just one signature and a new iPhone.

When I got home I plugged the new phone into the computer and was able to restore the phone just as it was automatically. This made me realize again how much I love Apple and that if there is such a thing as an Apple tax it is worth every penny. Had this been a Blackberry/other smartphone I believe it would have been days before I was up and running again. Even then I likely be installing software and tweaking settings for several more days.

Have you been to the genius bar? If so what was your experience?

[photo by: Christopher Chan]

Little Snapper is a screen grabbing tool for your Mac. It makes grabbing any kind of screenshot easy. The interface is much like iPhoto and keeps all your snaps organized. Little Snapper also allows you to edit, name, add tags and upload your clips. With QuickSnapper you can upload your snaps to Realmac or you can choose your Flickr account or FTP and SFTP. It is a little pricey at $39, but is well worth it if you take a lot of screen shots. Plus it works great with Evernote.

http://realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/

[download in HD]

This week, Apple released security updates for both Safari 3 and for the upcoming Safari 4 browser. The updates for both versions of the Safari Browser include:

• LibXML: used for RSS Feeds and the like.
• Safari engine: multiple flaws with ‘input validation’ with the ‘feed’ protocol.
• Webkit: a flaw within the ‘SVG’ object could lead to unwanted code execution.

These flaws affect both Mac OS X and Windows.

Safari Beta 4 requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later, or Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later. The Windows Version requires Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Mac OS X Downloads

OS X 10.4 Tiger

To download Safari 3.2.3 for Mac OS X Tiger point your browser to here or use Software Update Utilty.
To download Safari 4.0 beta for Mac OS X Tiger head on over to Safari Download to obtain your copy.

OS X 10.5 Leopard

To download Safari 3.2.3 for Mac OS X Leopard point your browser to here or use Software Update Utilty.
To download Safari 4.0 beta for Mac OS X Leopard head on over to Safari Download to obtain your copy.

Windows Downloads

To download Safari 3.2.3 for Windows go here.
to download Safari 4.0 beta for windows head over to here to download the latest.

These updates are recommended for all Safari web-browser users.

This week Apple released the 7th update for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for both OS X Client, and OS X Server. 10.5.7 fixes a slew of security holes as well as additional RAW Photo support options within Aperature and iPhoto.

Some of the security updates include fixes for:

• Core Graphics: which incorrectly handles PDF files, which could lead to code being run on your system, if you download a malicious PDF file.
• Disk Images: (.dmg) files, which could lead to malicious code execution if you download a malicious .dmg file
• Adobe Flash: multiple flaws that could lead to malicious code execution if you download a malicious flash applet
• iChat: Secure iChat sessions with AOL and Jabber servers were automatically disabling SSL if it failed, instead of warning the user. Everything was being sent in clear text
• Apache webserver:

The new cameras supported are

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II
• Canon EOS 50D
• Canon PowerShot G10
• Epson R-D1x
• Pentax K2000/K-m
• Leaf AFi-II 6
• Leaf AFi-II 7
• Leaf Aptus-II 6
• Leaf Aptus-II 7
• Leica M8.2
• Nikon D3X
• Nikon Coolpix P6000
• Nikon D90
• Sony DSLR-A900

These are just a few of the many items that were fixed. The rest are for network-based services, like Apache, Core Framework Network, Bind (DNS)

If you’re a VMWare Fusion user VMWare is warning OS X users to NOT upgrade, since 3D graphics with ATI Radeon video cards are not being rendered correctly.

The update is recommended for all users of OS X 10.5 users by Apple.

If you are the super-technical type you can read about all of the technical details at Apple’s Support Site.

Client Update

You can download the incremental update from Apple’s website, or by using the Software Update Utility on your Mac. This download comes in at 442 Megabytes.

Or, you can download the full combo updater from Apple’s website. The massive size of the combo updater is 729 Megabytes.

Server Updates

The Incremental update can be found here. It comes in at 452 Megabytes.

The combo update can be found here. It’s a whopping 951 Megabytes.