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Software: Apple iMac Original Install Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.6 (2011)

Author: IhsanBaelah | Posted at: 4:58 AM | Filed Under: Apple, Computer software, Download, downloads, free download, Full download, Leopard, MAC, Mac OS, Master Collection, Operating Systems, Software |

Apple iMac iginal Install Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.6 (2011)

Size : 6.24 GB

Since 2001 Mac OS X has delivered more than a thousand innovative new features. With Snow Leopard the next major version of the world's most advanced operating system Mac OS X changes more than its spots it changes focus. Taking a break from adding new features Snow Leopard - scheduled to ship in about a year - builds on Leopard's enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X enhance its performance and set new standards for quality. Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X making it even more efficient for users and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos.

French Retailers Push E-Book Platform

Author: IhsanBaelah | Posted at: 3:44 PM | Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, E-Book, google, News |

Five of France's biggest book sellers called on publishing houses and the government for support in creating a new retail structure for electronic books to fend off Amazon, Google and Apple.

Executives from the five retailers including PPR subsidiary Fnac and Virgin Megastore said France should have a national e-book platform run by publishers and retailers with a single point of purchase.

But the idea, launched at a joint news conference on Wednesday, drew a skeptical reaction from France's largest publisher, Hachette Livre, a subsidiary of Lagardere.

They also urged the French government to extend protective measures already in place for physical books to e-books, including a single-price mechanism to muzzle competition.

"If we don't manage to do this, what's going to happen? We will find ourselves in front of a platform, or hub, already made by a private company ... whether Amazon, Google or Apple," said Guillaume Decitre, head of bookseller Decitre.

Decitre said the filtering of Internet portals in China and Amazon's removal of George Orwell's "1984" from its e-book platform were examples of why this was undesirable.

The proposal comes a day after the publication of a government report supporting a digital book exchange with Google to resolve a spat over online publication of the world's literary heritage.

A spokesperson for the French Ministry of Culture was unavailable for comment.

PUBLISHER PLEA

Although Decitre and his fellow CEOs said they and their supporters represented 70 percent of the French book market, they said they needed the backing of publishers to get content.

French publishers including Hachette have already set up their own individual platforms for distributing e-books, but Decitre said a single collective platform would be "three to five times" cheaper.

Hachette Livre sales director Francis Lang said he was not opposed to a hub, but said the interests of publishers were currently not the same as those of physical booksellers.

"Creating a governance structure where everyone is around the table but their interests are opposed is the best way for this not to go anywhere," he said.

The chief executive of Hachette's Numilog e-book platform, Daniel Zwirn, also criticized a similar collective e-book hub in Germany, known as Libreka, which the five retailers said had partly served as inspiration for their idea.

"It seems like a good idea, but actually it isn't," he told the retail executives during the conference. "The bulk of the offering goes elsewhere."

Spokespeople from Amazon and Google declined to comment.

"This will probably be uniquely French if it succeeds," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. "Obviously it would be the combination of cultural preservation interests that tend to be unique to France."

"(If publishers and retailers) do cooperate, it's not because it's in their interests," he added. "(It's more about) preserving the culture."

(Reporting by Lionel Laurent, editing by Will Waterman)

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source by Reuters in PC Magazine

MacBook Pro with Intel Core i5 to Launch on January 27 ?

Author: IhsanBaelah | Posted at: 2:54 AM | Filed Under: Apple, Intel, Intel Core i5, MacBook, News |

A new promotional ad by Intel, which was sent out to US, UK and Spanish members of Intel Retail Edge Program has highlighted the upcoming Intel Core i5 powered MacBook Pro by Apple. The adverts which reads "Pass this month’s trainings for 2 chances to win one of 2 MacBook Pro laptops with the accelerated response of an Intel Core i5 processor" clearly indicates towards a possible new, refreshed lineup of MacBook Pros.

Core i5 MacBook Pro

The current generation of MacBook Pro’s are all powered by Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Intel officially unveiled Core i5 and Core i7 processors for the first time at CES last week. MacBook Pro’s are due for an upgrade this year and it would only make sense for Apple to ship them with Core i5/i7 processors since they are now the flagship chipsets of Intel.

Core i5 MacBook Pro

If you are in to get a MacBook Pro this month, hold off from buying one as there is now a high possibility of Apple unveiling new MacBook Pros with these latest chips at the upcoming mega media event on January 27th. [via Apple Insider]

Source By Taimur Asad in Redmond Pie

Firefox: Heat and the CPU usage problem

Author: IhsanBaelah | Posted at: 6:36 AM | Filed Under: Apple, Explorer, FireFox, HP 2510p, MacBook Air, Mozilla, Safari |

by Brooke Crothers in CNet News

Firefox has a CPU usage issue and, consequently, can cause overheating problems in some laptops, particularly ultraportables. That's what I've found over the last couple of years.

But don't take my word for it. This is documented on a Mozilla support page entitled "Firefox consumes a lot of CPU resources." The page states: "At times, Firefox may require significant CPU [central processing unit] resources in order to download, process, and display Web content." And forum postings like this one about a Dell Netbook are not uncommon: "Mini9 would get way too hot."

The Mozilla support page goes on to say that "you can review and monitor CPU usage through specific tools" and describes ways to limit CPU usage, such as: "A Firefox add-on, called Flashblock, allows you to selectively enable and disable Flash content on Web sites."

Let me describe my experience. I find that tab for tab, Firefox uses decidedly more resources than other browsers--Safari, for example. And in the past (when I was actively using a Windows Vista-based machine) Firefox also compared unfavorably with Microsoft's Internet Explorer for CPU usage.

More specifically, here's the behavior as I see it. When I'm accessing sites with multimedia content such as the CNET front door, Firefox CPU usage will bounce around between 30 and 60 percent, and sometimes spike higher (80 percent and above), as indicated by the Mac OS 10.6.2 Activity Monitor.

On the other hand, the Safari CPU usage with the same pages open is much lower--typically between 2 percent and 10 percent.

My theory is that most users don't notice this because in mainstream laptops, this isn't an issue. But it can become an issue in ultraportables--typically under an inch thick--which are more sensitive to heat because of the design constraints. The ultrathin Apple MacBook Air, which I use as my main machine, is a good example.

The fan is usually an audible indicator of CPU usage issues. When I'm using Firefox and I have tabs open on multimedia-rich sites (which is par for the course these days), the Air's fan will almost invariably kick on and stay on until I close the tabs. As I write this, the fan has finally shut down after I closed the Firefox tabs (e.g, CNET front door). Those same tabs in Safari are still open and not causing any significant spike in CPU usage or fan activity.

When I contacted Mozilla, a technical support person guessed that Safari is possibly better at optimizing Flash-based sites compared to Firefox. And that may be true. However, I had similar issues before when I was using a Hewlett-Packard business ultraportable (also very thin like the Air) that were not necessarily tied to Flash usage. In short, Firefox was less efficient with CPU usage compared to Microsoft's IE 8. And the behavior was similar. The HP laptop would quickly heat up and the fan would kick on.

Finally, let me reemphasize that I'm guessing that most users don't notice this because heat dissipation is not a big issue for mainstream laptops that are not necessarily thermally-challenged when accessing multimedia-rich Web pages. That said, this has been a steady problem for me because I use ultraportables almost exclusively and has forced me to limit my use of Firefox

A Week of Memory, Malware, MacBooks and Marble

Author: IhsanBaelah | Posted at: 4:13 AM | Filed Under: Apple, blog, Mac OS, MacBook, malware |

It's rumored that carrier Orange is gearing up to sell MacBooks at a discount in return for data service plans. What sort of MacBooks might they be talking about -- big, shiny MacBook Pros, or smaller, as-yet-nonexistent Mac netbooks? Also making news this week was a bit of malware disguising itself as a Mac application. As always, be careful what you download and install.

It's been a relatively quiet week for the Apple-focused blogosphere. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) More about Apple did announce the dates for its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which is set for June 8-12 in San Francisco. WWDC just so happens to the be the venue in which Apple is widely expected to release its next version of Mac OS X -- "Snow Leopard" -- which may be prettier than expected.

Meanwhile, Apple quietly added an option to double the memory in its 15-inch MacBook Pros, a security company caught some nasty OS X malware on video, and an international cellular service provider is rumored to be planning to sell a highly subsidized MacBook tied to a data service plan. Interesting stuff indeed.

Don't Touch My Scroll Bar!

As for Snow Leopard, AppleInsider.com reported that Apple may be working on a new user interface to Mac OS X, which may forgo the platinum (silvery white) color scheme in favor a darker, more charcoal-like scheme going by the name "marble."

"Details were sparse, but speculation pointed to the adoption of the smoother iTunes-style scrollbars and a move towards a darker chrome motif for application windows alongside an inverted menubar with light text on a dark background," AppleInsider.com reported.

Comments are all over the map, but at least a few expressed concern over Apple's bright blue scroll bars.

"I would just HATE for them to remove the blue glass scroll bars and replace them with some ugly Linux style like they have in iTunes. I'm glad it's just speculation. For the UI changes, I'm expecting it to be like iWork.com and Safari 4," commented macosxp on the AppleInsider.com post.
8 GB in a 15-inch MacBook Pro?

Moving on to the here and now, Apple started offering an 8 GB memory upgrade kit for its latest 15-inch MacBook Pros (MBPs). The 17-inch MBP already has a build-to-order option to jump up to 8 GB of memory. The upgrade kit is available on the Apple Store's set of memory pages. The kit is 2 1066 MHz DDR3 4GB SO-DIMMs and costs US$1,200.

9to5mac.com reported, however, that OWC has the same kit for $719, while Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) More about Amazon.com has it for just over $1,000.

"That's cool, but it's not like my 4 gig MBP is slow or anything," Wei-o commented on 9to5mac.com. Good point: Who really needs 8 GB of memory in a 15-inch MacBook form factor, anyway?

"Pro apps like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro suck lots of memory -- the more you have, the better you are," Sven Rafferty, founder of hyperSven and SvenOnTech.com blogger, told MacNewsWorld.

"Since many pros are now doing video on the road and graphic work on 'desktop replacements,' this option makes sense. Not everyone wants to carry a huge 17-inch around -- I didn't -- and opt for the smaller-but-just-right 15-inch MacBook Pro. I think Apple is wise to offer this feature to its Pro community," Rafferty explained.

"It'll further prove to videographers and photographers that the only computer they need is a Mac," he added.
Malware Caught on Tape

Ars Technica noticed a blog post by security firm Sophos that provided a video of a new version of the RSPlug OS X trojan, OSX.RSPlug.F, masquerading as a media player application with a convincing yet fake Web site.

Basically, to get the malware, you have to download a fake HDTV/DTV program called "MacCinema" and/or an HDTV app called "HDTV Player."

"The website in the video looks legitimate; it appears to be a pretty close copy (right down to the box art) of the product page for a legitimate application with the same name," Ars Technica reported, noting that the real product is actually for Windows-based machines.

So what does the trojan do?

The RSPlug-F Trojan horse changes DNS Settings on Mac computers, meaning users may find they are taken to bogus Web sites which may attempt to steal personal information, display revenue-generating adverts, or install further malware. (By the way, if you visit the Web site from a Windows computer, it will serve up a malicious Windows executable from the Zlob family of malware rather than the RSPlug-F Mac OS X Trojan horse.)

"You should not be allowed to use a computer until you demonstrate that you can refrain from installing random sh*t from random websites because they told you to," commented mrsteveman1.

This trick, however, has very likely convinced at least a few users.

"Web-based attacks like this are the most common type of malware-delivery mechanism we see these days," Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for Sophos More about Sophos, told MacNewsWorld.

"A lot are in the form of SQL injection attacks, but we do also see social engineering attacks like this used to install financially-motivated malicious code," he explained. Cluley posted the original video on his Sophos blog.

How, then, is a Mac user able to determine the fake from the legit?

"It's really not possible for the average guy in the street to spot a fake site from a legit site. Furthermore, most of the infected sites we encounter are actually legitimate sites that have been hacked and had malicious code planted on them," Cluley said.

"We see around about 20,000 new legitimate Web sites every day that are hosting malicious code -- presumably without the knowledge of the Web site owner. The best thing to do is make sure you have proper security in place, which means patches for your OS, plugins and applications, firewalls, and anti-virus software," he noted.

"It's worth stressing that Mac malware is much less frequently encountered than Windows -- but it's clear that some gangs are very happy to take advantage of what they see as a smaller but less well defended group of potential victims," he added.
Cheap MacBooks on the Way?

While some Apple lovers are pining away for a Mac netbook, looks like one international mobile phone carrier isn't bothering to wait around. According to Macnn.com -- itself sourcing a report in Mobile, a UK-based magazine -- carrier Orange may be planning to sell MacBooks at a significant discount in return for a two-year mobile data contract.

If completed, the deal would represent the first time a MacBook has been offered alongside cellular service, Macnn.com reported, noting that while other computer manufacturers have provided PCs to phone carriers, Apple has limited its cellular deals to the iPhone.

"If they subsidize a MacBook PRO you can count me IN!!!" commented Rolando_jose on the Macnn.com post.

Of course, the whole deal, assuming it's legit, might simply be a way to pave the way for Orange selling a Mac netbook or tablet some time in the future. So, can we look forward to a new future where laptops are subsidized by mobile phone carriers, similar to our cell phones?

"Aside from netbooks and laptops, carriers want more revenue from the investments that they made in their new data infrastructure. This is true of 3G More about 3G and will no doubt be a fixture when 4G networks are more prevalent," William Ho, research director of Wireless Services for Current Analysis More about Current Analysis, told MacNewsWorld.

"The data use will not be in the laptop and netbook domain alone as new consumer electronics devices will have embedded cellular modules with wholesale data agreements that do not look like any data plan to the end user -- a great example of this is the Kindle," he added.

Source : http://www.technewsworld.com

Could Obama’s Mac Force Different Thinking..?

Author: IhsanBaelah | Posted at: 3:23 AM | Filed Under: Apple, Government, Laptop, Laptops, Security |

It has been awhile since the U.S. has had a celebrity president. As the president-elect prepares to take the job, many of us are starting to wrap our minds around what that means. Generally, it means influence and a popular interest in the products and tools he uses that goes beyond any other U.S. chief executive we have had for some time. Our first inkling of this was with his BlackBerry and whether he would be allowed to keep it. Then it was his Zune, which seemed to light up the Internet with discussion of whether his loyalty to Apple was wavering. This got me thinking about his Mac. Obama could become one of the most powerful Mac advocates in the history of Apple, driving Macs into government and business. But that is definitely a dual-edged sword; Apple’s margins are probably not consistent with what the U.S. government and its partners are willing to pay for PCs. Let’s talk about how Obama’s Mac could change desktop PCs and Apple forever.

Employee Choice

Every few months, the analysts that cover desktop PCs get together and discuss the trends they have been seeing. Largely due to Apple’s success, these analysts have increasingly been pointing to that company as a bellwether that is driving the other firms to focus more on design for both their consumer and corporate lines. Another trend we have been talking about is employees and departments making their own PC choices, either using personal funds or the increasingly dispersed departmental P&L responsibility to allow personal PC choices into the company.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I started tracking Macs moving into large enterprises in this manner. During a time of massive economic shortfalls, IT’s ability to resist the associated cost savings or push back against the organizations that actually have budget authority is increasingly more limited.

Now, we have a U.S. president who likely will be bringing his own Mac into the job. It is hard to believe that he will restrict others from this privilege, given his strong position against favoring the rich and powerful. He could be a harbinger of things to come as his own choice is first allowed and then emulated by others who want to be more like their charismatic leader.

The trend could move rather quickly once the approvals are in place and Apple could see a ramp-up in PC sales that the company has never before enjoyed. It could also create some interesting side effects.

Apple Margins

If you have ever done business with the government, as I have, you learned quickly that the process truly sucks. The government, to avoid any implication of windfall profits, cuts a very aggressive deal. And just to ensure no one gets a better one, it puts in most favored nations clauses, ensuring that it always gets the best discount out there. This pretty much means that vendors sell to the government at near cost and, because it is the government, in high numbers, which can do some rather interesting and painful things to average margins.

Then, as if that weren’t painful enough, it requires rooms, and I’m not exaggerating here, of documentation and certifications. The vendor must assure its ethnic mix, assure its vendors, and even make sure it isn’t doing business with the wrong companies or countries. And that is only the tip of iceberg when it comes to the massive amount of expensive hoops a government vendor has to jump through.

Even if just government employees are allowed to purchase their own products, it’s hard to believe that the new CTO won’t negotiate volume deals so that these underpaid government workers can better afford what they purchase.

Security

Another common theme in these analyst meetings is how Apple doesn’t take the security of its platform seriously. Much like Microsoft until this decade, Apple appears to be in a state of denial when it comes to security. It recently flip-flopped on whether Apple users needed antivirus or antimalware in general. With the U.S. president using a Mac, this cavalier attitude to security now has a high-profile risk. The resources focused on compromising Obama’s laptop will truly be national in scope as other governments try to use his relatively unsecure laptop, compared to NSA-certified laptops, as a way into otherwise secure government systems. Attacks are clearly shifting to more generic browser-based methods and Trojans, according to a recent Finjan report. Some work on the Mac and others may make the Mac a carrier.

In addition, as the use of Apple notebooks spreads in government, the likelihood of a major breach goes up astronomically and unacceptably. This could have two effects: Macs could be banned, or a requirement could be put in place that Apple comply with government policy and build TPMs, fingerprint readers and card readers, and put tracking software like Absolute’s on the machines that are sold to government. In any case, it will put a massive security focus on the platform. In short, all of this could force Apple to step up to its full responsibility of protecting users against an increasingly hostile Internet world.

Wrapping Up

The President-elect will bring a lot of changes. One of the most interesting may be the freedom in both government and large businesses to allow employees to choose their hardware. These choices could benefit Apple greatly but also force it to conform to a number of practices that have both plagued and benefited PCs over the years. In the end, the Mac, for the first time since the early days of Apple, could once again be mainstream, with all that that represents. I wonder if, in the end, Apple and Mac users will see this as a good thing.

Source : http://www.itbusinessedge.com/

Information Technology

Software: Apple iMac Original Install Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.6 (2011)

French Retailers Push E-Book Platform

MacBook Pro with Intel Core i5 to Launch on January 27 ?

Firefox: Heat and the CPU usage problem

A Week of Memory, Malware, MacBooks and Marble

Could Obama’s Mac Force Different Thinking..?

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