The written musings of a long-time Apple //e and Macintosh tech nerd. Opinions are my own.
Today, Microsoft took the wraps off of the next version of their personal and professional productivity suite, Office 2013.
If you are the adventurous type, and just happen to be running Windows 7 or a review release of Windows 8, you can sign up to try out Office 365, a new cloud-based version of Office starting today.
To learn more about Office 2013, hit up the Microsoft Office 2013 website.
Apple has released a maintenance update to iPhoto ’11 for Mac OS X.
Alexey V. Borodin, a computer hacker from Russia, has figured out a way to implement a “man-in-the-middle” exploit in the Apple App Store that allows anyone who uses his technique a way to get free in app purchases.
The exploit, which works mostly on games where you buy a new level, power ups, and the like, allows you to send traffic to Borodin’s web server that is setup to look like an Apple App Store server and then sends your iOS device a bogus acknowledgment that you’ve paid for the said app upgrade.
At the time I’m posting this, the bogus server that Borodin setup is offline. I’m not sure if that is because he was ordered to take it offline or that it is so busy from people trying to exploit the hack, that the server is just too busy to respond.
The rumor mill is showing equal amounts of love for the iPhone, iPad, and now the iPod.
“Silly Season” is in full swing as we get closer to the rumored fall launch of the newest iPhone iteration and possible “iPad Mini” unveiling.
Today’s rumor de jure is that engineering sample “bricks” have surfaced to allegedly validate recent rumors about the footprint change to the next iPhone and the moving toward mass production iPad Mini device that has been rumored ever since Steve Jobs walked off stage from the iPad launch event in 2010.
Take these photos with a grain of salt. A Morton’s salt canister is now taking up residence at the corner of my desk.
Photos courtesy of GottaBeMobile.com.
[Via AppleInsider.com…]
Earlier today, Apple released what is intended to be the final version of the next major OS X upgrade to developers.
The “golden master” release of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, now more hiply referred to simply as “OS X Mountain Lion”, was released to developers for their final review. The release has no know issues and is largely expected to be the version that will ship to customers later this month when he software goes on sale in the Mac App Store for $19.99.
A list of major features can be found on the Apple website. As with Lion before it, the “iOS-ification” of Mac OS X continues as Apple further blends the familiar interfaced used on the iPhone and iPad into their desktop and notebook Macintosh system software.
When Mountain Lion goes on sale, it will support the following Macintosh models.
Be advised that not all models of hardware will be able to take advantage of all of the new features such as AirPlay. AirPlay will only work on mid-2011 models of Macs and the second and third generation Apple TV boxes. Bummer.
For the full list of hardware and feature specific feature requirements, visit the Mountain Lion technical specifications page for more details.
HP/Palm’s TouchPad ships with webOS 3.0. You can find the update log for webOS 3.0 on the Palm website. The latest (and possibly the last?) update for webOS is 3.0.5 build 86.
My refurbished HP Palm TouchPad 32GB unit arrived yesterday afternoon. About all I was able to do with it was unbox it and charge it up. I’ve started playing with it today and I’ll be blogging more about it over the next few days, but for now, here are my unboxing photos. They may not be sexy, but at least I have a TouchPad now.
If you had forgotten that you purchased a refurbished unit, HP will remind you.
Refurbished packing material is so unsexy. The TouchPad is held in place by two foam blocks and the accessories are stuffed in to the slot on the left.
At least the TouchPad is shipped in the same protective film that new units are shipped in. If you’ve unpacked an iPad, it’s the same kind of plastic film.
Here we have the TouchPad, the power adapter and sync cable (similar to the ones shipped with the Pre series smartphones) and a cardboard box that contains the getting started guides, and obligatory legalese documents. The box reads, “Now comes the fun part.”
I liked my original Sprint Pre, but I would have much preferred a device like the unreleased WindsorNot. This is just another shadow of a device that we’ll never get to play with. Sad, so sad.
I was never a huge fan of Palm’s sliders, despite having purchased the Palm Pre, Tungsten T3 and Tungsten T on launch day for all three devices. (I also built my own Tungsten T2 from OEM spare parts!!)
On second though, the WindsorNot looks a lot like a Pre3 without the slider.
[Via WebOSNation.com…]
Ugh!! I’m still waiting for my HP/Palm TouchPad to arrive. Maybe for the weekend.