Jarrett House NorthNow with 80% less politics!

My first generation MacBook Pro, purchased back in 2006, is starting to look a little long in the teeth. The basic machine has been just fine, but I knew when I bought it that 80 GB wouldn’t be enough disk space, and the battery is coming perilously close to the end of its lifecycle; I [...]

After last night’s disaster, I decided to give iTunes 8 another try. This time I made sure my library settings were correct in advance, and let it collect and submit the information while I ate dinner. No spinning beachball, no issues, this time around. 
So, Genius. I’m not evaluating the sidebar right now (though I will [...]

I installed iTunes 8 last night on my home machine, a MacBook Pro with 2 GB of RAM. The update wasn’t in Software Update, so I pulled it off Apple’s website. Then I had to update to get the latest QuickTime, begging the question of why they aren’t packaged together. But that was straightforward enough. [...]

Apple’s really changed as a company; I remember when September was Back to School month and you’d find out about new iMacs, a new version of iLife, whatever. Now it’s all iTunes and iPod.
I like the look of the new iPod nano, and the price point ($150 for 8 GB) and form factor are sweet. [...]

MobileMe (aka former .Mac) subscribers received an overdue email from the MobileMe team today, apologizing for the rocky roll-out of the new service and extending a free month of service to all subscribers.
The email contained the following interesting paragraph:
Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under [...]

A quickie I left out of my original iPhone app roundup: I wasn’t able to get the mobile SalesForce client working. The reason is, in retrospect, unsurprising: our company doesn’t have an “unlimited” SalesForce license, and customers on cheaper plans will be nickeled and dimed to use the app.
It’s good to see that some nasty [...]

After I played around a bit with the new firmware, I got on the App Store and started downloading. I got my hands on Exposure, MLB.com At Bat, Band, the Google app, Bloomberg, the BofA app, CheckPlease, Evernote, Facebook, AIM, Jott, midomi, the AP’s Mobile News, NetNewsWire, Remote, Salesforce, iPint, and PhoneSaber. I won’t be [...]

When I got home last night, I tried Software Update and found iTunes 7.7, but it didn’t find the new iPhone firmware. So I tried the path laid out in the TechCrunch post of direct downloading the firmware package. Tip: use Firefox. Safari automatically expands the package, and while there’s probably a way to re-zip [...]

TechCrunch reports, and I can confirm, that the App Store is live. It’s not linked from the store navigation, but if you install iTunes 7.7, you can click through to the list of iPhone apps. The categories are pretty unsurprising: Business, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Games, Healthcare & Fitness, Lifestyle, Music, Navigation, News, Photography, Productivity, [...]

Various sources report that the iPhone App Store will launch today. It’s clear that iTunes 7.7 is out, featuring the ability to control iTunes from a new free iPhone/iPod Touch app, and the New York Times says that Apple will be launching the app store.
What I haven’t seen reported anywhere is anything about a MobileMe [...]

Various parties in the Mac community have weighed in and suggested the best way to address the issue highlighted in last week’s advisory regarding an escalation of privilege vulnerability in ARDAgent. While some have suggested that enabling the remote access service may actually correct the privilege escalation, there’s been enough evidence that it doesn’t really [...]

Slashdot is reporting a new escalation of privilege vulnerability in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5. The details are a little sparse, but it appears that calling the Apple Remote Desktop Agent (ARDAgent) from AppleScript allows execution of arbitrary code with root privilege. Bad, for sure.
The mitigation is that it requires execution as the currently [...]

Addressing the main challenges: 3G, more countries, more affordable. Camera still on the back (no live videoconferencing on the iPhone), but the headphone port is not recessed so that’s a plus.
I knew it: the speed test is back. Now we’re not benchmarking Mac Pro towers against Dells on Photoshop, we’re playing mobile web browsers against [...]

Phil Schiller announces MobileMe: “Exchange for the rest of us.” This ties up a long standing question about the MobileMe trademark that’s been around since 2006. Cloud-based synching for email, calendar, addresses. With rich Ajaxy goodness on the browser experience. Looks great. It’s supposed to be on me.com according to Phil, but that page shows [...]

It’s hot here in Burlington, MA, pushing 98, but it must be even hotter in the Moscone Center with the liveblogging that’s going on right now. I’ve been looking at Engadget, CNet, Gizmodo, and TechCrunch for the updates. So far TechCrunch is up and down like a drunken sailor and Gizmodo is the fastest and [...]