News for Friday, 18 January 2008

F Secure reports to have found the first Mac rogue application, entitled MacSweeper. In the PC world, MacSweeper would be named a scareware or a cleanator, in other words, it is a fake application offering you to check your computer and clean it from compromising files. As one could expect it, it will always find something wrong requiring your Mac to be fixed, but thankfully, they can do it online if you purchase their application...as the free version of MacSweeper can not fix those issues...
It is of course a scam, and nothing is wrong with your Mac, some bad guys are simply importing the dark side from the PC world to make money out of new Mac switchers or candid Mac users... as nicely demonstrated by F Secure nicely demonstrated how fake MacSweeper is: when you visit the MacSweeper website with a PC and click on "Scan", it will tell you that you have security vulnerabilities in folders that only exist on Mac like system_root/home….

If the MacBook Air does not feature an integrated optical drive, it can access those plugged to another Mac or PC via the Airport. One can then load an installation CD/DVD in a wireless-enable Mac, and get the MacBook Air connect to it via Airport as confirmed by MacFixit.
This computer is not alone in the dark as some people heavily claim it, one could even think of having a compact flash-based USB disk as an emergency disc.
For sure, one will not be able on the MacBook A to play games requiring the CD to be installed in the optical drive, or at least not when being on the move. For sure, third-parties will offer some expansion bay to be added to the single USB port to quickly add some function to the MacBook Air.

As we could expect it, Greenpeace officially reacted to Steve Jobs's announcement about Cupertino commitment for a Greener Apple. In an official press release Greenpeace acknowledges:

As a mercury and arsenic free laptop [MacBook Air] exceeds European Standards...and raises the bar for the rest of the industry. The BFR and PVC free printed wiring on the motherboard is a big step forward, but not a first. Sony achieved that last November with the Vaio notebook.

Unlike the previous press release targeting Apple, this time Greenpeace is strongly pushing Apple to become an example and the leader for the computer industry:

The MacBook Air has less PVC and BFRs than other Mac computers, but it is not entirely free from those hazardous chemicals. Had it been it would have made Apple an ecological leader.
With their product design on the right track Apple needs to make environmental leadership the theme of all its products - old and new. That means green design as standard right through the product line and a real global commitment to take back and recycling.

The last sentence illustrates it: We can almost taste that Green Apple, unfortunately it’s not ripe yet.

We were pleased by the announcement of the Apple TV2, being finally able to offer full HD, as well as direct access to iTS, and being cheaper (from 299 to 229 USD and 399 to 329 USD for the 160GB model). However, and without any logical explanation, the price of both Apple TV models in Europe remain unchanged. Not only Apple does not really care about the USD/Euro exchange rate, but in addition it does not apply price cuts publicly announced...
For sure, such policy is not going to help sales of Apple TV in Europe as in addition the movie offer from the iTS is not going to be available before months on that side of the Atlantic...

Barefeats published test carry out with new and previous Mac Pro models and aiming to evaluate the Radeon X2600 XT. The ATI graphic card has been installed in both new Mac Pro 8 cores 3.2GHz as well as the old Mac Pro 4 cores 3.0GHz.
In summary, the Radeon delivers slightly higher performance level in the new Mac Pro, but this is not really significant. However, it is much faster (about two fold) than the GF 7300 GT shipping by default with the previous Mac Pro, but also about three times slower than the more expensive Radeon X1900 XT (about three times more expensive).
As the GF8800 GT will not be compatible for the time being with the previous Mac Pro, owners of such model might be interested in giving their hardware a faster graphic card at a reasonable price, 130€ from the Apple Store.