News for Thursday, 7 December 2006

Enough is enough. For more than three months, iMac Core 2 Duo are available, as well as Airport-equipped Mac Pro, and Airport based issues with those computers are still there. No news bad news.
If our passion for the Mac push us sometimes to be smooth in our reports, news or statements, it does not imply that we have to swallow all problems without mentioning them, or making sure, Cupertino hears them right.
For more than 3 months, there is no solution available, despite the fact we have looked around for tricks to bypass the problem. Apple Support ensures that engineers are trying to find a fix and are currently working on it; but after 3 months it looks like a pretty long time. Indeed, some, if not most, users ready need robust and reliable wireless connection for their everyday work or use, and third parties solutions are not that easy to setup, nor free.
For sure, if such problem was affecting series of iPods, Apple might be reacting much faster; indeed it might not be good for business, but Apple sells more and more hardware units, and number of people having wireless issues with iMac C2D and Mac Pro grows everyday.
No Apple, it is not only about the money, it is about consumer satisfaction and support. Sometimes I wonder if we should not all buy shares from Apple when purchasing a Mac, then when a problem arises we claim that we will massively sell them, pushing Apple share price down the hill, to be sure that Cupertino hears us properly.
Last but not least, it is not only about the Airport feature of iMac C2D and Mac Pro, it is also the same lame behavior from Apple concerning Airport Express short lifetime, iMac 24" BootCamp issues, lower quality control for recent Mac models, displays issues with MB and PB, PB memory slots, etc.

Apple has reduced the iPod Shuffle 2G connector to a simple jack-type plug. Of course there is a dock for syncing the pocket music player with a computer, but this dock looks then rather ...big when compared to the Scuffle itself.
The problem might be solved simply via an USB adaptor from Incipio. It is then possible to get the iPod Shuffle 2G on the move without its dock, while keeping syncing abilities.

The price of this adaptor remains reasonable when compared to other iPod accessories: 5.99$.

Disk Warrior is for sure a software that one would like not to use, but one should always have in stock. Indeed, its main feature is to recover directories and structure from a HD with a logical failure; something for which Apple Disk Utility can not help.
Disk Warrior v4 is released and brings support for MacIntel, while enhancing data recovery features.
Please remember that it is a rescue solution, and should not in any case be considered as a backup solution Making a copy of your data is something you should always do regularly.
It costs 99.95$ or 49.95$ for the update; it might be considered expensive by some users, but it might also allow you to recover invaluable data from a dying HD.
Direct link to the official website: http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/details.html

Apple has introduced on with the MacBook Pro the ExpressCard slot, replacing the previous PCMCIA slot. If the new slot format is the future, some users would still like to use some of their PCMCIA cards with their MB PRO as the current ExpressCard offer is limited..
A company, Duel systems will release by the end of the year a solution for Bridging PCMCIA to ExpressCard. We will keep you inform as soon as we can test it.

France 24, aiming to become the French CNN, or at least bringing the French-touch on news from all over the world, is using MB Pro for part of the work.



Not sure if Apple new about it, but new network will probably follow the kick-off closely.