Friday February 15, 2008
- 16GB iPhone on Monday from Orange? - Lionel - 18:09:28
A reader contacted Orange's customer service department to ask the release date of the 16GB iPhone in France. They replied that it would be available from Monday.
Of course, this information is to be taken with a grain of salt, as it was not confirmed.
[translation by CliveAtFive]
- Using the MacBook Air's USB Ethernet adapter on another Mac - Lionel - 18:05:35
Like the Superdrive, MacBook Air's USB-Ethernet adapter was announced as being compatible only with this machine. Simply, if it is connected to another Mac, it will be seen, but not work.
Christophe, however, has found a way to make it work in an optimal way on any machine that runs OS X 10.5.2. For this, simply go to the Sustainable Softworks website, which sells IPNetRouterX software, download and install the USBAx8817x 1.0.3b10 driver, which can be found on their download page.
It is an open source driver for other adapters, but works very well with Apple's.
http://www.sustworks.com/site/downloads.html
[translation by CliveAtFive]
- New laser diodes to burn BD-R at 6x - Lionel - 17:58:26
Sharp has announced that by April they will begin production of new laser diodes powerful media that can burn Blu-ray in 6x. They will be available in a 5.6mm diameter for 5.25" engravers but also a 3.3mm for the manufacture of burners for laptops. Their price is still very high, over 300 Euros (~$450 USD), however, to be a significant obstacle to the democratization of engravers.
Note that Sharp already had in the pipeline diodes whose power could, in the future, allow burning dual-layer BD-R up to 12x, the theoretical maximum limit for this format. They will not be available until 2009.
[translation by CliveAtFive]
- Who has forgotten a track on the pcb? - part 2 - Lionel - 13:51:49
Earlier this week, we showed you this picture of a Mac Pro RAID card:
A very thin wire is soldered onto this card, by hand.
Yoc, a teammember, has also received his RAID card, and it has the same wire, which confirms that someone forgot to add this track during the production of these PCB's.
This must be the cause of why we had to wait almost a month for the delivery of this card, and Yoc has ordered and received his card in only 24h: these cards probably had to return to the factory, and had to be repaired by hand.
[translation by xavier]
- MacBook Pro is out of stock at Best Buy - Lionel - 10:29:08
Source : http://www.insanely-great.com
For the first time since its release, the MacBook Pro is out of stock at Best Buy - a large US electronic reseller. It is always possible that this has been caused by the Chinese New Year, however it is more probable that Apple has started to produce its successor that we have been waiting for so long.[translation by crispin]
- Inside a MacBook Air Superdrive - Lionel - 10:21:46
In order to know what inside the belly of the MacBook Air Superdrive, we decided to open it up. Nothing is easier, all one has to do is to insert a thin blade into the left or right side of the unit and lever it open.
Three screws later one can lift our the CD/DVD drive. Removing the two remaining screws releases the electronic card.
It is an Optiarc AD-5630A identical to that found on many iMacs. It has a thickness of 12.7 mm and there is no obvious difference from a standard unit.
The convertor ATA/USB is very thin and contains only a few components. However it is this that limits the use of this CD/DVD unit to match only the MacBook Air. But be reassured - we are not the only ones looking for a way around this.
[translation by crispin]
