macOS Forum

Across Europe people have been voting in the European Parliamentary elections, and it looks likely that a pirate or two will have got elected in Sweden. I voted nice and early this morning, with candidates representing the three main political parties here in the UK as well as a rather …

Strange but true. The 02 [URL="http://dnc.o2.co.uk/home/2009/05/o2-digital-families.html"]Digital Families report[/URL] was commissioned in order to get a grasp on the impact that technology has on family life in the UK. Perhaps unsurprisingly it revealed a nation obsessed by gadgets, with 40 percent of UK families spending 10 percent of their household budgets …

Word emerged this week that Apple was in talks with Verizon and everyone assumed it was it about the iPhone, but buried at the end of a BusinessWeek article, [URL="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2009/tc20090429_594307.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech"]AT&T's iPhone Dilemma[/URL], is an interesting nugget: [QUOTE]Apple has also shown Verizon a larger, more computer-like device dubbed by one person …

It might seem like something of an odd question, unless your idea of a good night in is a box of popcorn and a copy of some dodgy DVD featuring a Captain Jack lookalike doing unmentionable things to his crew. Yet the answer is that these two things, the illegal …

It is usually the Apple adverts which get the positive column inches both online and off, even when they go [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21257/53/"]straight for the Vista jugular[/URL] perhaps because they do so with no small dose of humour. Microsoft has done less well in garnering media support for its campaigns. Who can …

Apple has started the countdown to the billionth app to be downloaded from the App Store. The company has put up a live [URL="http://www.apple.com/itunes/billion-app-countdown/"]countdown counter on the web[/URL] which is spinning so fast I am surprised it has not flown off the page. Mind you, when you consider that in …

That's what Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart is claiming as part of a federal lawsuit by the Illinois lawman. The lawsuit is seeking a ban on one part of Craigslist, namely the Erotic Services section, which is accused of acting as a clearing house for prostitution. According to [URL="http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5856408.ece"]The Times[/URL] …

Having already been accused of [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23321/1231/"]killing common sense[/URL] with some bizarre App Store [URL="http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2009/02/10/apple-bans-bouncing-barack-and-trouserless-bill/"]listing decisions[/URL], now it seems that an Apple sans Steve Jobs could be treading the path towards total market madness. Apple is displaying all the signs of losing the plot: announcing a raft of new desktops just …

The Pirate Bay is, without doubt, a huge thorn in the side of the music and movies business. As the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3479.html"]worlds largest bittorrent tracker[/URL] with more than 3 million users and well over 20 million peers it constantly flips the bird at The Powers That Be. Even the threat of …

The Chinese Government obsession with eradicating all 'lewd' and pornographic content from the Internet marches on. It all started back in 2007 when the authorities [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1407.html"]declared war on porn[/URL] and setting a seemingly impossible target of purging the web of sexually-explicit images, stories and AV clips within a six month …

Surprisingly, the answer could well be yes. At least if a bunch of computer science researchers at [URL="http://www.dur.ac.uk/computer.science/"]Durham University[/URL] have anything to do with it. The group have taken the 3D game engine that powers the immersive Half Life 2 game and used it to develop a realistic virtual simulation …

Who would you back in a fight? Barack Obama or Stephen Fry? When it comes to being popular on [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22533/53/"]Twitter[/URL] these two are the only real contenders for the title if you discount news organisations and the like. Currently, of course, US President Obama has the size advantage with an …

Apple users opting not to grab a free 30 day demo version iWork 09, or even cough up the bucks for a full retail version, have found themselves getting more than they bargained for. It appears that something in the region of 20,000 people have downloaded a pirated version of …

Apple has had marked success with the '[URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20808/53/"]I'm a Mac[/URL]' advertising campaigns, and Microsoft is back banging it's head against a seeming brick wall of indifference with the ongoing 'I'm a PC' marketing drive that has featured both Bill Gates and [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20745/53/"]Steve 'Monkey Dancer' Ballmer[/URL]. Now, it would appear, that …

He has gone from dead to having cancer to suffering from hormone problems in the space of a few short weeks, now the Apple CEO is taking six months off work to recover. So just how sick is Steve Jobs? Last year the mention of the word cancer in the …

Cast your minds back a couple of years to 2007 and as far as hacking was concerned there was only really one big story, and I do mean big. The biggest reported case of cyber-criminals using hacking skill to steal something in the region of 40 million credit card details. …

Facebook can claim many things, from [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3523.html"]defeating the Nazis[/URL] to [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20914/53/"]recruiting spies[/URL] and even helping to [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20618/53/"]elect Barack Obama[/URL]. Now it can add serving legal papers to the list. These days, it would appear, the legal process is catching up with the technological reality of the world we live in. …

Generally speaking, it takes quite a few years of studying and hard graft before someone gets to wear the wig and robes of a barrister in the British legal system. Unless, that is, you buy them on eBay. Surprisingly, that's precisely what one man did and ended up defending a …

Now that could be cool, or maybe not: a whole new look to the MacOS desktop could be on the cards after Apple puts in a patent application for a 'Multi-Dimensional Desktop.' The patent application, [URL="http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080307360&OS=20080307360&RS=20080307360"]20080307360[/URL], describes how the planned graphical user interface will have "a back surface disposed from …

It had to happen, and it has. Ever since the Internet Watch Foundation, a British charitable organisation that acts as the official watchdog to track and report illegal content online, in particular child pornography, introduced a blacklist we all knew it would get controversial one day. That day has come. …

I like to follow news about Apple and its products as much as anyone. It's interesting and fun and watching the speculation is a kind of voyeurism, a way to get inside a company that keeps a tight lid on information, but much like baseball trade rumors, which I also …

Barack Obama is the very definition of an Internet politico-geek, not least as I just invented the term. However, there is no denying that the President-Elect of the US has understood the power of the Internet, the power of social networking, better than any other political candidate for high office. …

Following the [URL="http://www.btplc.com/News/Articles/Showarticle.cfm?ArticleID=27494718-77f6-4cd9-976f-ecc9c13f7559"]publication[/URL] of the second quarter and half year results to September 30, 2008 it seems that BT is to slash some 10,000 jobs before March next year. That is equivalent to some 6 percent of it's global workforce, and I understand that most are likely to be found …

The Pirate Bay is a website which claims to be the biggest BitTorrent tracker on the planet. So big, it seems, that it is even considering pitching for an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. Certainly, putting politics and legal arguments aside for a moment, there is no …

According to the results of the first annual Green IT survey, IT departments in the UK are guilty of greenwashing with only 20 percent of businesses actually measuring the IT-related energy spend. Extreme Networks and Data Integration, behind the survey, revealed that analysis of the needs of UK public and …

With the gadgets sadly lacking from the latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, I am glad to report that a British company that specializes in bringing unlikely innovation to market has stood up and been counted to fill the gap. Virtuity has today announced it has developed self-destruct technology …

The actual Patent title reads "Personal area network systems and devices and methods for use thereof" but PANTS is much snappier don't you think? That's Personal Area Network Technology Systems in full. Apple is looking to patent always-on from anywhere access to the Internet. I thought that was already tied …

Sarah Palin is always keen to talk about open and transparent government, indeed it was one of the main focal points of her campaign when she ran for the office of Governor in Alaska. Of course, she continues to talk the transparency talk now that the campaign has ramped up …

After posting [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3340.html"]5 Things I Wish Linux Had[/URL], I did some mulling and gathered comments from readers and compiled this additional list of items that I wish Linux had. I've also included one thing that I wish Linux didn't have. These are part of my 2009 Wishlist and are more …

A recent 'heart attack' [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21008/1151/"]story[/URL] which was false, and quickly denied by Apple but not quickly enough to prevent the stock price falling, proves that anything related to Steve Jobs leaving the helm of Apple is a hot potato right now. And while the [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19404/53/"]Fake Steve Jobs[/URL] is dead, the …

The latest Apple Event has been and gone, and we are left with some exciting new Apple products as a result. First and foremost the shiny new MacBook with the all-metal enclosure crafted from a single block of aluminum. Apple says that this means not only a thinner MacBook but, …

Some are feeling the pinch of the credit crunch and cutting their spending accordingly, others continue to spend, spend, spend. Symantec would appear to fall into the latter category as it has announced a definitive agreement to acquire online messaging and Web security specialist MessageLabs for a purchase price of …

Where would we be without satnav? Good question, as most of us seem to have lost the ability to drive anywhere without some annoying slightly posh woman barking instructions at us every few minutes. Of course, satnav is not all gravy: who could forget the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1242.html"]crazy satnav directions[/URL] that led …

[I]A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. ~Mark Twain. [/I] This week we learned what can happen when Citizen Journalism runs amok when an untrue rumor began circulating that Apple CEO had suffered a severe heart attack. As soon as …

Earlier this week Apple was adamant that it would close the iTunes Store if the Copyright Royalty Board raised the royalties paid to music publishers, rather than be forced into either accepting smaller margins on the music downloads it sells or be forced into hiking prices. The way these things …

Researchers tell us that, in the UK market, there were some 1.5 billion 'legal' music downloads last year. That's covering all bases, different devices and download services, but discounting the illegal file sharing trade. The Goddess alone knows how big the figure would be if you factored in dodgy P2P …

After being told for years that using mobile phones on airplanes will cause them to crash and burn, it seems that one airline is experiencing a change of heart. The Irish budget airline, Ryanair, is expected to introduce the first cell phone friendly flights within a matter of months. Of …

It was always going to generate plenty of publicity simply because it was the new Michael Moore documentary movie. It was always going to generate even more publicity because Moore decided to release it for free, on the Internet. The first time, as far as I am aware, that a …

A few months ago News Corporation announced that it was taking on Apple in the music downloads marketplace. Chris DeWolfe, the CEO of MySpace, said it would be starting up a [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/technology/03cnd-myspace.html?_r=1&oref=slogin"]one-stop music shop[/URL] by spinning out the existing MySpace Music service to become an independent joint venture. The interesting …

According to [URL="http://www.itpro.co.uk/606135/bt-victim-of-2-million-network-exchange-theft"]IT Pro[/URL] the BT exchange in Mayfair, London has been the victim of a well executed heist. The London exchange suffered a break-in with at least £2 million worth of telecoms equipment being stolen. As a result of the theft, it is reported, thousands of homes and businesses …

The UK Government's broadband advisory group has published a report which suggests the cost of deploying fibre based broadband in the UK will be as high as £28.8 billion... The [URL="http://www.broadbanduk.org/"]Broadband Stakeholder Group[/URL] report, produced by Analysis Mason, looks at the various costs of various technological options for providing next-generation …

The vibrating rabbit is back, and this time it means business. The [URL="http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2008/09/nabaztag_the_ra.html"]buzz[/URL] is that the plain vanilla rabbit is being given a makeover, with the help of some 60 different fashion designers, artists and style gurus. Personally, I have never seen the appeal of [URL="http://www.nabaztag.com/en/index.html"]Nabaztag[/URL] the vibrating WiFi rabbit …

Just getting back from Virginia and an investment conference on Monday and Tuesday. A good friend of mine who runs a five-star Morningstar market neutral fund says that, for the first time in a year, he can see the clouds breaking for the financial markets. He said that large cap …

Word has reached us in the UK that there is some sort of election happening in the US. In fact it has been happening for an incredibly long time, with one of the candidates in particular making more premature victory speeches (although not to Americans, I mean, they're only the …

New laws have just come into force in the UK which apply to motorists who cause death as a result of careless driving. The Road Safety Act 2006 has been changed to incorporate distractions such as changing the radio station, applying make-up or eating a sandwich while behind the wheel. …

Italian Internet Service Providers have been ordered to block access to the Pirate Bay file-sharing Bit Torrent tracker site in Sweden by a judge in the Northern Italian town of Bergamo. This is the same judge, who has not been named, which only last month closed a leading Bit Torrent …

According to [URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/07/31/dlyoutube131.xml"]The Telegraph[/URL] newspaper here in the UK, British Members of Parliament are kicking up a right old stink about YouTube. Specifically regarding what it does, or more to the point what it does not do, to prevent sexually explicit and violent video clips from being posted. The House …

Well, OK, they have agreed to throttle the bandwidth of those accounts found to be indulging in the illegal downloading of music via file-sharing networks if their customers do not take heed of a warning letter or two. The [URL="http://www.bpi.co.uk/"]BPI[/URL] (formerly known as British Phonographic Industry) which represents the British …

A built-in profiler, a new attributes language and enhanced project analyzer are among the features in RealBasic 3, the cross-platform integrated development environment from Real Software. The IDE for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows began shipping today. RealBasic 3 now supports attributes—which the company characterizes as compile-time properties—for project …

Sometimes I am left almost loss for words, and today is one of them. Judge Louis Stanton gave a ruling in the federal court for the Southern District of New York which has, quite frankly, dismissed the right to privacy of anyone who has ever watched a video clip on …