Want to play Call of Duty 4 on your Mac without paying the $49.99 App Store price?
The price of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Mac on Amazon fluctuates, but it’s always cheaper than the $49.99 price from the Mac App Store. Today for example, it’s $24.95, that’s a 55% discount if you order the physical box and can wait a few days to play the game.
Using the command line in OS X, you can enable a hidden feature in Time Machine that allows you to backup your Mac to a non-native volume, including Networked Attached Storage devices, network volumes, or even a Windows PC. This is generally best for advanced Mac users, as it must be enabled through a defaults command string, let’s walk through it.
Did you know that you can quickly quit out of an application from the Dock of Mac OS X? And did you know that you can also force quit out of an app in Mac OS X by using the Dock icon too?
Perhaps not well known, but the Dock of Mac OS can function as a task management tool of sorts by using a key modifier and icon trick, letting you quit and forcibly exit out of applications that are actively running.
If you have an extra Bondi Blue, Flower Power, or any of the other candied iMac G3’s laying around, hey, why not turn it into a coffee table? Maybe you could put your iMac typewriter on it? Yup this is real, and yes of course you can buy one for ÂŁ49.00 (not sure if they ship to the USA) from UK-based MacTechnology.
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion includes media and video encoding tools directly in the new Finder.
You can access the video encoder by right-clicking on a movie file and then selecting “Encode Selected Video Files” as seen in the screenshot below: Read more »
If you’re wondering, the original filename is “NSRevisionsBackground.png” and it’s from the Versions package, unlike the Mac OS X 10.7 default Fuji Mountain wallpaper that we posted yesterday which is found in /Library/Desktop Pictures/ in the Developer Preview.
The galaxy wallpaper is the background image in Versions, the new document versioning utility included in Lion that behaves much like a Time Machine for individual documents. You can see it in this screenshot from Apple’s Lion preview: Read more »
It’s hard to imagine a nicer looking screen than the Apple Cinema Display, and it fits with this MacBook Pro 15″ and iPad perfectly. Makes you want one doesn’t it?
If you use your Mac at night or in the dark, you need to do your eyes and brain a favor by downloading Flux. The idea behind Flux is simple; when the sun is down you shouldn’t be staring at the immensely bright computer screen, whose intensity is made to emit as much light as possible and practically mimic sunlight. Instead, your displays lighting should become warmer and softer, mimicking the lighting in your room. Read more »
Benchmarks of the MacBook Pro 2011 refresh are coming in, and they are incredibly fast. Maybe incredibly fast is an understatement:
The new top of the line MacBook Pro 2011 is faster than the existing Mac Pro desktop
The new ‘low-end’ base MacBook Pro 2011 13″ model is just as fast as last years top-end MacBook Pro models
Below are some GeekBench scores for the MBP 2011 refresh… to put these numbers in perspective, my MacBook Pro 13″ 2010 with 8GB RAM and a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo scores a 3128 in GeekBench: Read more »
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion will support the TRIM function for SSD’s, this should significantly boost the lifespan and performance of SSD drives. Hints for support were first discovered last year by Anandtech, but now HardMac has confirmed that support is included in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview.
TRIM is important because it allows the operating system to notify an SSD which blocks of data are no longer in use on the drive, allowing them to be wiped and written over more efficiently. Without TRIM, an SSD drive can become gradually slower over time as blocks that were once in use become slower to write new data over.
Somewhat lost in the hubbub of the MacBook Pro 2011 refresh and Mac OS X Lion 10.7 Developer Preview was the launch of FaceTime HD, which is now finalized and available for all Mac users to download from the Mac App Store. The new version supports 720p video calls, but in order to make 720p calls you’d need a Mac with an HD camera (like the new MacBook Pro’s), otherwise you’ll maintain the current VGA quality video.
FaceTime costs $1 now? I thought it was free? What gives?
While the beta release of FaceTime was free, the final release of FaceTime costs $0.99. Apparently charging for FaceTime is due to an accounting requirement (MacGasm explains this if you’re interested), but I think it also serves the purpose of getting Mac users familiar with downloading apps from the Mac App Store. I say this because I think the upgrade to Mac OS X 10.7 Lion will be available as a paid download through the Mac App Store, but this could just be wishful thinking on my part too.
Mac OS X Lion debuted to developers with a gorgeous wallpaper of Mt Fuji in Japan as the default desktop background picture.
Well, who wouldn’t want that gorgeous picture on their Mac?
We know a few of our readers wanted the Fuji wallpaper out of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview, so here it is in high resolution glory (2560×1600).
Apple released a Developer Preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, included are many features that were seen in the October “Back to the Mac” event, in addition to several new ideas.
Highlighted features of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Preview
Many Lion features are borrowed from iOS:
Launchpad – iOS style app launching and folder management
Full-screen apps
Mission Control – Encompasses Dashboard & Expose as a super window manager
Gestures & animations – extensive multi-touch support
Auto-Save
Versions – built-in version control of all documents, in an interface similar to Time Machine
Resume – saves your Macs last state after reboot, all apps, sites, and documents included
Mail 5 – very similar to Mail on iPad
AirDrop – instant wireless document transfers
Lion Server – now built into Mac OS X Lion, no longer a separate OS
The Developer Preview requires a 64-bit Core 2 Duo processor or newer, and you must currently be running 10.6.6 in order to download the preview release.
Downloading & Installing Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview
If you’re a registered Apple Developer, go to Mac Dev Center to download your copy of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview, it weighs in at a hefty 3.6GB.
Each installation of Mac OS X Lion seed requires a redemption code from the Mac Dev Center, preventing unauthorized users from running the developer release software.
Want to hide the Mac menu bar? You can do that and set a few more options to automatically hide and show the menu bar with a free utility called MenuEclipse, the end result is pretty similar to the way you can automatically hide and show the Dock. In the screenshot above, I have the menubar completely hidden, but it will activate if I move the cursor over the menu bar.
If you rely on the menu bar often, hiding it from view isn’t the most practical thing in the world, so instead you can give it a subtle shade that automatically dims when it’s not in use. Below is the Mac OS X menu in the dimly “hidden” mode, but it’s still visible:
The effect is actually closer to auto-dimming and auto-highlighting of the menubar, since the menu bar shades and then brightens again when you hover over it with your cursor. Below is the screenshot of when the cursor is over the menubar, which brightens it up to be usable again: Read more »
Ever wondered when Steve Jobs birthday was? It turns out Steve was born February 24 in San Francisco in the year 1955.
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs turned 56 on the day this was originally published, 2/24/2011, and every one of his birthdays from here on out he will be missed. February 24 is a special day for Apple fans indeed. Read more »
Believe it or not, that’s not an iPhone 3GS you’re looking at, that’s the Meizu M8, a popular Chinese iPhone knock-off that looks practically identical to iPhone 3GS. The only problem of course is that unlike the iPhone, the Meizu doesn’t run iOS at all, it runs Microsoft Windows CE 6.
That whole OS problem is being resolved though, according to a thread on Meizu forums the iPhone lookalike has been hacked to run the now outdated iOS 3.0.1. Not everything works yet, even call features aren’t reliable due to issues with microphone drivers. But phone calls or not, you can go so far as to access and download things from the iTunes App Store, and the hackers are actively working to get voice and everything else functioning as you would expect. Read more »
Yesterday several rumors floated about that iPad 2 will be released on March 2 and today invites went out to select members of the press to cover an Apple event scheduled for March 2 at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at 10:00 am. The invite, sent to Jim “The Beard” Darymple, shows the page of a calendar being torn away from an iPad, leaving little to guess as to what the events intention is.
Now we’re just left to wonder what the iPad 2 specs will be. Most recent reports suggest the iPad 2 will be thinner and lighter with a more powerful CPU and GPU, but maintain the existing iPad screen resolution.
