MacOS

I upgraded my machine to Mac OS X, version 10.6. Still poking around, but I'll be making a list of cool things to check out. Since my primary duties are in messaging, I'll start with some observations about the new Mail, Calendar and Address Book updates.

CNET reported this application on thier site that allows you to sync the contacts in your Mac's address book with your contacts on FaceBook. Ultimately this will make it to your phone too. The application is called AddressBookSync and it runs on your Mac (sorry PC guys).

From their site, http://danauclair.com/addressbooksync/

If you have installed the Safari 4 beta on your Mac,  you may notice that typing messages in Microsoft Messenger requires that you click on the text input area before you start typing, for every message sent. This is very annoying. I too experienced this and the solution was to run the uninstaller that comes with the Safari 4 Beta download . It will reinstall the last version of Safari that you had prior to installing the beta.

Restart required.

Jason

Couple cool things about the 2.02 update.

First, you can run OS X Server as a guest operating system. This was available prior to this release but I thought I would mention it again. We do it over here for testing and it works great.

Second, the 2.02 update allows you to mount DMG (unencrypted) disk images.

Third, the updater comes in two flavors - with a 12 month subscriptiong to McAffee Virus Scan or without. This is essential if you are running a Windows guest operting system.

Previously on this site I wrote a tutorial on how to connect your iPhone to your laptop and share the laptops internet connection (http://messaging.unt.edu/node/410).

Here is an article straight from the Apple support site on how to connect your Bluetooth ready phone (any phone I believe, not just the iPhone) to your Mac. It requires that you have at least Mac OS X version 10.2.1 or later.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2451

Happy New Year!

Jason

Iphone 2.2 out and 10.6 coming soon.

Today (11-21-08) Apple released the new iPhone 2.2 update. The update is mostly fixes to current functionality, with a few additions like street view for Google Maps, the ability to turn on/off auto correcting, and fewer dropped calls. 

For more information: http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/

Also around the corner, Apple will be releasing OS 10.6!! Snow Leopard. I'll have more information later.

Jason 

A while ago I posted this entry (http://messaging.unt.edu/node/410) on leeching off your laptops internet connection for you iPhone. 

There is one little side effect that I just found out. When you turn on internet sharing (in the System Preferences), you ability to conduct a screen share or A/V chat using iChat fails. 

The simple fix, disable internet sharing.

Jason 

Yesterday (October 14th 2008), microsoft released their latest updater for Office 2008 for the Macintosh. As of this writing, the Office updater wasn't recognizing it (more specifically, my updater wasn't recognizing it) so I downloaded it directly from their site .

There is this site that I like called "Secrets." If you like to walk the wild side and make custom configurations to your OS, then you might  find this site interesting. It is an open database for OS X hidden settings. Be warned though, it's not for the faint of heart.

Jason 

http://secrets.blacktree.com/

Two big stories out from VMWare. If you are not familiar with VMWare Fusion, it allows you run multiple operating systems within the host operating system, in this case OS X. In short, you use it to run Windows inside the Mac OS.