Apple turns 35 years old today! The company was created on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, it was based out of Steve Jobs parents garage, and their first product was the Apple I encased in wood that you can see above. Yea, that’s not an April fools joke, the first Apple computer was made out of wood.

Fun facts about the Apple I:

• Apple I was first demoed in April of 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California
• It went on sale in July of 1976 for $666.66, the unusual price was chosen by Steve Wozniak because he liked repeating numbers
• CPU clocked in at 1 Mhz
• RAM was 4 KB, but was upgradeable to 8 KB or even 16 KB via expansion cards
• Apple I is now considered a collectors item, one of the computers recently sold for a whopping $213,600 at a London auction

Here’s one of the original advertisements for the Apple I:
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It’s April Fools today, which means the world is full of pranksters and the internet is largely useless and filled with outrageous stuff. We’ll do our part but try to still be useful (sort of), so with this in mind here are some Mac pranks that are fun to pull on April Fools, or any day:

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You’ve seen the iPad 2 show off a childs fridge art, now the iPad is acting as a $500 grocery list, stuck magnetically on a refrigerator. Amazing use of this piece of technology. What’s next in the realm of innovation? Is there any other amazingly great things you can do with an iPad and it’s magnetic smart cover?

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No this is not an April Fools joke. Select Apple customers are being sent email invitations to sign up to be testers for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. No developer account is required, but you’ll have full access to the current developer releases of Lion.

Free access to Mac OS X Lion sounds almost to good to be true, so what does Apple want in return? Other than your confidentiality, they want users to actively participate in the program by using Lion on a regular basis, providing feedback, and filing bug and crash reports when they occur. Obviously the goal is to expand the end-user testing beyond just Mac developers.

Fittingly, the program is called AppleSeed, and if you were lucky enough to get an invite, you just login, sign your confidentiality agreement, and then you can go about downloading Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2. If you’re going to sign up, you might want to consider installing Mac OS X Lion on a separate partition so you can maintain your existing Snow Leopard installation.

If you didn’t get an invite from Apple, there’s currently no way to opt into the program, but you can always sign up to be a Mac developer and download Lion through there.

The future of iOS is quietly shaping up behind the scenes at Apple, and we’ll probably get a good look at iOS 5 during WWDC 2011, but until then it’s mostly a guessing game. That is, until someone digs up some patents that show potential features in a currently unreleased product. Case in point, PatentlyApple has discovered a patent that describes Spaces (virtual desktops) in use on a “Multifunction Device” that looks a lot like an iPad.

iPad… or Touchscreen Mac?
While the patent drawing does look like an iPad, I think it’s just as possible that the multifunction device could be any touchscreen display, even for a currently unreleased touchscreen Mac. I say this because the behavior described in the patent is similar to how Spaces works in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, where you sweep between Spaces by using the trackpad. It’s also reminiscent to the multitouch gestures you can enable for iPad by using developer tools with iOS 4.3. Those gesture similarities could even hint at further merging and sharing of features between future versions of iOS and Mac OS X.

Last year, multiple patents showed up for things like a MacBook tablet, MacBook Touch, and even an iMac Touch that runs both iOS and Mac OS X.

You can see more details of the patent at PatentlyApple. Remember, not all Apple patents see the light of day as a feature or a product, but they can give us great insight into what Apple is working on.

Booting a Mac with Verbose Mode can be a helpful troubleshooting trick for some obscure situations where users are trying to determine what is going wrong with a Mac during the system boot process. Just as it sounds, verbose mode is verbose, meaning it lists everything going on behind the scenes, and you’ll watch as items and extensions are loaded into the kernel and Mac OS X proceeds with the boot process.

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Apple has released Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview 2. The new build comes as 11A419 and presumably contains mostly bug fixes and feature refinements to an otherwise stable developer preview.

Download Mac OS X Lion Preview 2
Registered developers can access the download either through Software Update in Mac OS X Lion, through the Mac App Store, or as a standalone download through the Mac developer center.

If you skipped the first Developer Preview release and you want to try Developer Preview 2, you can dual boot and install Lion alongside 10.6 without formatting your drive. Note that you’ll want the standalone download if you choose this option.

Public Release Coming Soon
Apple announced last fall that Mac OS X Lion is scheduled for a summer release date, with WWDC 2011 looking as the most likely time for a launch. Recent rumors suggest it could even be sooner.

The New York Times recently put up their paywall, blocking users from reading over a certain number of articles a month. Their pricing scheme is sort of a mess but I can understand charging for quality content. That’s not really the point though, their paywall implementation makes it difficult for paying users to share content with nonpaying users. For instance, if you’re a paying iPad customer and you send an instant message to your friend with an article, and they already hit their monthly allowance, well, tough, they can’t read the article… or can they?

Beyond the Paywall: Reading New York Times Articles for Free

Using the magic of Google we can read New York Times articles for free. It takes about two seconds, here are the steps:

• Find the title of the article you want to read (Google is smart, you don’t need the exact title)
• Open google.com and type in the general title followed by ‘nytimes.com’ and search

The top result is pretty much guaranteed to be the article you’re looking for. Let’s use an example; someone wants to read the full NYT book review of “Physics of the Future” and we know the book is written by Michale Kaku, so my Google query to skirt the NYT paywall is this: “physics of future kaku nytimes.com” the key is here to include ‘nytimes.com’ at the end of the search time. Let Google do their magic and low and behold:

The first result is the Times book review we wanted to read. Great huh?

Even Faster: Paste the NYTimes.com URL into Google
If you’re sharing an exact URL with someone who hit their article limit, have them paste that directly into Google too. Then they just need to click on “I’m Feeling Lucky” and they’ll get pushed right beyond the paywall.
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Believe it or not, lines are still forming for iPad 2. Nearly anytime a store gets a shipment, they sell out within an hour or two (if you’re still looking, check iPad 2 stock at stores in your area) . Amazingly enough, this is going on around the world, as demand is far exceeding supply. What does this mean for sales numbers? Is Apple selling more or less than expected?

How many iPad 2’s has Apple sold?
At this point, it’s a guessing game. So far we’re left to analyst opinions, with some upwardly revising their sales forecasts. Charlie Wolf of Needham and Co (via AppleInsider) says that “the launch of the iPad 2 so far exceeded our expectations that it was evident our 2011 and 2012 shipment forecasts were dramatically low.” In Wolf’s case, he predicts that Apple will sell 30 million iPad 2’s this year, which is 10 million higher than they originally expected. With availability as constrained as it is, 30 million iPads a year doesn’t sound that outrageous to me, it might even be higher.

Apple Q2 FY11 Conference Call may have the answer
Apple has remained silent, but with constant sell outs and lines forming around the world, it isn’t much of a stretch to assume sales have been through the roof. The soonest we may hear some numbers from Apple could come on their Q2 FY11 conference call this April 20. The call starts at 2:00pm PST and you can listen live on Apple.com’s investors page.

Want to use a rotated display on a MacBook? You can do exactly that, and the same way that you rotate screen orientation on a display connected to a Mac can be done with the built-in display of a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air (pictured).

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Are you bored with the Mt Fuji and Space wallpapers from Lion?

Try out this 8-bit rendition of the default Mac OS X Snow Leopard Aurora wallpaper.

OK so it’s probably not quite 8-bit in terms of colors, but the pixelation brings back that retro feeling.

Combine it with PixelSafari and you’ll be wishing you had antialiasing again in no time.

You can grab the full sized 2560×1600 version from SimpleDesktops, believe it or not, it actually looks pretty nice as a desktop background. Try it yourself, it has a beautiful retro feel to it.

This was found on Twitter via @MacGasm.

Gotta love a good wallpaper! Pixels and all!

Just a few hours ago we found out the dates of WWDC 2011, and now the event is already sold out. Wow, think there’s much interest in this or what?

Despite being a developers conference, it’s safe to assume that a fair amount of tickets went to journalists, bloggers, and Apple fans as well. There’s no word yet on how many tickets the event included, or if the WWDC Student Scholarships are going to be affected by the sell out. We’ll keep you posted.

Update: Naturally, WWDC 2011 ticket scalpers are already trying to profit off of the sold out conference:

I wonder how many total tickets went to speculators and scalpers? If the iPad 2 is any indicator, there’s going to be a fair share of them out there.

We’ve become spoiled expecting a new iPhone every summer, but it looks like iPhone 5 will not be released at WWDC 2011 after all. Apple’s own WWDC press release states that the event will be a “preview of the future of iOS and Mac OS X” with no mention of hardware, but it’s the well-connected Jim Darymple who squishes the hardware talk:

Apple’s apparent focus on software in its WWDC announcement backs up what my own sources are saying about the annual conference. That is, expect a software show in 2011, not a hardware event.

Darymple then reminds us that WWDC is not intended to be a public event anyway, “It’s important to remember that this is a developer conference, not a consumer show.” This is true, but Apple has also used WWDC events in the past to unveil new iPhones, and there has been much speculation that the same would occur this year.

Further evidence that iPhone 5 may not be coming this summer comes from the Japanese Mac blog Macotakara, who cites sources in China who say that iPhone 5 has not begun manufacturing yet, and instead it may be released sometime in the fiscal 2012 quarter, which would be somewhere between October 2011 to March 2012.

While we might not see the iPhone 5 anytime soon, consumers actually will get a new iPhone this year… Apple has said the white iPhone 4 will be released in Spring of 2011.

Apple has announced the dates of WWDC 2011 as June 6 to June 10, which is just a day later than the rumored iPhone 5 release date.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, says “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” with a note that “If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”

It’s likely the “future of iOS” refers to iOS 5, which was recently rumored to have been delayed until fall. Whether the public release has been delayed or not, it sounds like we’ll at least get a good look at iOS 5 at the start of summer.

The future of Mac OS X is likely in reference to the expected Mac OS X Lion release which is slated for summer. Since we’ve already seen Lion however, Schiller seems to suggest that there is more news coming about Mac OS X than people may have expected. Cloud support? New features? Better integration with iOS 5? We’ll have to wait until June to find out.

Apple’s WWDC 2011 will have over 100 technical sessions taught by Apple engineers, and have over 1000 Apple engineers on site to provide developers with code-level assistance and insight into using the newest technologies. This years WWDC will also feature Apple Design Awards for iPad, iPhone, and Mac apps.

The cost to attend the 5 day conference is $1599, tickets typically sell out fast so you’ll want to reserve yours quickly at Apple.com.

If you’re a fan of minimalist workstations and desktops and you have an iPad, you’ll like this trick.

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iOS 5 may be scheduled for a fall release, and not alongside the predicted iPhone 5 release day at WWDC 2011, according to TechCrunch.

Citing sources, the report says that iOS 5 will be a “major revamp of the OS” and heavily based around cloud services that Apple has yet to launch. Potential cloud services from Apple could be iTunes or MobileMe related, cloud storage, or even wireless syncing as the New York Times mentioned earlier in the year.

The most unusual claim in the report is that iOS 5 might be announced alongside an iPad 3, which seems odd considering that Steve Jobs proclaimed 2011 the “Year of iPad 2” during the newest iPad unveiling last month.

Earlier, TechCrunch suggested that Mac OS X Lion GM is on the way, months ahead of schedule.

You probably know that Mac OS X Lion will add TRIM support for SSD’s, but what can you do right now if you’re on 10.6? If you’re brave, you can use this unsupported hack that enables TRIM for most SSD devices under Mac OS X 10.6.7.

The app is called TRIM Enabler and it works by loading a kernel extension from MacBook Pro 2011 models (with TRIM support) into your Mac OS X kernel, this forces TRIM to be enabled. All you have to do is click on “Patch” to enable TRIM, but the current version does not support one-click disabling, so if something goes wrong, you’ll have to boot into Safe Mode to disable the extension manually.

WARNING: This is completely unsupported software. We are not responsible for any damage or data loss that may result from enabling this feature. Always have a backup of your data, and proceed with caution and at your own risk!

You can download it directly here or visit the developers site.

I have an SSD in a new MacBook Air and I have not tested this, nor do I have plans to test it. Personally, I’m going to wait for official support from Apple, there’s likely a good reason they left it out of 10.6.7.

Update: TRIM Enabler v1.1 has been released that includes backup and restore functionality, the download link has been updated to this version.

Want to play some old school DOS games on your Mac? Grab Boxer, it’s a great MSDOS emulator that runs perfectly in OS X complete with a beautiful interface.

And not to worry, it even comes with a few games bundled right with it, including Commander Keen, Epic Pinball, Ultima Underworld, and X-COM. And, if you’re a retro gamer, you can get more DOS games and just drop them in the fancily styled games folder to play those too.
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