November 1st, 2009

Making Apple's Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard work in Windows

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 9:39 pm

Categories: Bluetooth, Boot Camp, Windows

Tags: Mouse, Wireless Keyboard, Apple Inc., Wireless, Keyboards, Microsoft Windows, Mice, Hardware, Peripherals, Operating Systems

A recent Apple Support Note says that “certain features” on the new Magic Mouse and the Apple Wireless keyboard are having trouble in Windows on Boot Camp.  A fix was posted for downloading late last week.

Certain features such as up-down scrolling on the Apple Magic Mouse and brightness controls, volume controls, the Eject key, and the key combination Control-Alt-Delete on the Apple Wireless Keyboard (2009) may not work with Boot Camp.

The fix is the Bluetooth Update 1.0 for Windows and must be downloaded to your copy of Windows XP or Vista running in Boot Camp. Hey, not a word about System 7.

August 25th, 2009

New Apple ads target Windows viruses and headaches

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 10:10 am

Categories: Advertising, Snow Leopard, Television, Windows

Tags: Profusion, Advertisement, Apple Inc., Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS, Cyberthreats, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Operating Systems, Viruses And Worms

Apple has released two new television commercials that take coordinated swipes at Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 without ever actually mentioning Windows by name.

“Top of the Line” features comic actor Patrick Warburton, best known for his portrayal of David Puddy, Elaine Benes’ boyfriend in 10 episodes of Seinfeld. The red-headed woman in the ad is “looking to buy a great computer,” when PC introduces her to the Top of the Line PC (Warburton). When the consumer mentions that she wants a computer that “just works, without thousands of viruses and tons of headaches” Top of the Line responds, “look, lady, any PC you get is going to have those problems.”

In “Surprise” we get more of the same, a wary female consumer looking for a computer that “just works, without thousands of viruses and tons of headaches.” This time PC is dressed up like Mac and tells the unsuspecting customer to “just get a PC.” The second ad isn’t nearly as effective as the first, but serves its purpose.

Both commercials are available on Apple’s Web site and oddly aren’t embeddable (You’d think that Apple would want people watching and sharing their ads, no?)

What is your review of the new ads?

August 7th, 2009

Microsoft releases XML fix for Mac Office, Open XML converter tool

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 11:00 am

Categories: Microsoft, Software, Software Update, Windows

Tags: Apple Macintosh, XML, Microsoft Corp., Office Open XML, Tool, Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, David Morgenstern

Microsoft on Thursday released a pair of updates to fix a problem with Open XL documents: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.1 Update and Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter 1.1.1.

According to Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article of the issue,  users of MS Office 2008 for Mac couldn’t open Open XLM documents or templates. They found an error message like this:

Microsoft Excel cannot open the file. You may have to download the latest updates for Office for Mac. Do you want to visit the Microsoft Web site for more information?

Of course, visiting the Microsoft Web site really wasn’t what they wanted.

The Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter is a stand-along tool that lets users of older versions of MS Office open and edit documents created in Office 2008 for Mac or Windows 2007 Office.

August 6th, 2009

Microsoft pitches Windows Mobile to iPhone developers

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 2:57 pm

Categories: Chrome, Windows, Windows Mobile, iPhone Diary, iPhone OS 3.0, iPhone SDK

Tags: Apple iPhone, Developer, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Mobile Operating Systems, Operating Systems, Mobile Applications

A recent case study posted in Microsoft’s developer site tells how one programmer ported his iPhone app over to Windows Mobile. It’s the logical next step in the campaign to woo the hearts and minds of mobile developers away from Apple’s iPhone platform. Or more likely, it’s hoped to be the way of getting Windows developers now writing for iPhone to give Windows Mobile another try. “Dude, we’re over here! Remember us?”

Perhaps Redmond can hire sign wavers to stand on the corner with signs shaped like giant hands, the ones that you see pointing to condo developments that aren’t sellin. Microsoft could set up offices in vacant strip malls, so the sign wavers could direct developers to attend seminars on the benefits of Windows Mobile 6.5 and the forthcoming Windows Marketplace, which no doubt will be everything that Apple’s App Store ain’t.

Go for it!

The case study at Windows Mobile Developer Center tells how engineer Luke Thompson at Gripwire.com ported Amplitude to Windows Mobile. According to the report, he was able to get his app to run on a HTC Touch Pro phone with a build of Windows Mobile 6.5.

For the Macphiles and their Windows counterparts [do the latter love Windows or just hate the Mac, I wonder?], the discussion is all about “only” apps, or programs that only run on either iPhone OS or Windows Mobile. This is a very unrealistic and unbusinesslike attitude.

Of course, developers will seek new customers for their products on different platforms. While they will look at the market picture for earch OS and its hardware platforms as well as the business case for the respective stores, developers will have another important question to answer: How many IDEs will they and can they take on to produce small, low cost applications?

Read the rest of this entry »

August 3rd, 2009

Apple Board vacancy: Good riddance to Eric Schmidt

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 10:48 am

Categories: AAPL, Corporate, Google, Windows

Tags: Eric Schmidt, Apple Macintosh, Quicken, Board, Apple Inc., Board Member, Corporate Governance, Desktops, Business Operations, Corporate Law

Apple on Monday said that Google CEO Eric Schmidt won’t have a seat at the next meeting of its board of directors. The only question was why did it take so long for push to come to shove for this joker.

Apple said Schmidt’s effectiveness had been diminished.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

Come on! Maybe he’s going to spend some more time with his family too. How many announcements of competing products does it take for the Apple board to figure out that a board member isn’t pulling his or her weight? The writing for this ejection has been on the wall for years.

Was it the Chrome OS? Was it a competing browser? Was it Google’s cloud applications that compete against Apple’s host-based and online sync services? Where is the “passion” to make Apple successful here?

(Note that I’m not talking here about the responsibilities of the board for governance here and their possible dropping the dime on Steve Jobs’ absence and the lack of transparent planning for succession. Board members are also supposed to bring something of an industry perspective.)

What about the other members of the board?

Read the rest of this entry »

June 23rd, 2009

Mac HFS+ read-write support for Windows

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 11:12 am

Categories: Hard drive, Software, Storage, Windows, Windows PC

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Desktops, Apple Mac OS, Operating Systems, Software, Hardware, David Morgenstern

Storage utility software vendor Paragon Software Group on Tuesday said it had tweaked its Universal File System Driver technology to support Mac volumes on Windows systems. The driver is in beta release.

The company said its Paragon HFS for Windows beta driver will support read-write functions for Mac OS X volumes; it will not support older Mac Classic volumes. In addition, there is no limits to maximum file/partition sizes (other than the usual Mac and Windows limits).

It is well known that Windows cannot read from and write to HFS+ partitions. This limits the ability to exchange or share files between Windows and Mac OS X file systems? Occasionally, users will rely on the services of FAT partitions which can be read and written to by both Windows and Mac OS X. FAT partitions have disadvantages and limitations as well (i.e. you can not store/create files greater than 4GB in size). Moreover, what if your data is already stored on Mac-formatted partitions but you don’t have time or tools to migrate to Windows-formatted partition (NTFS) to preserve the integrity of the data?

Paragon HFS for Windows is designed to provide full (read and write) access to HFS+ partitions. It can be installed on all versions of Windows, and eliminates the need to use complex processes on different platforms, thus reducing  your incurred costs.

June 9th, 2009

Apple vs. Microsoft: Yet another upgrade pricing fiasco

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 10:15 am

Categories: 10.6, Mac OS, Microsoft, WWDC, Windows

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows 7, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Pricing Strategy, Microsoft Windows, Pricing, Marketing Research, Operating Systems, Software

Once again, Apple shows Redmond how it should be done on pricing upgrades, especially ones with plenty of internal fixes. Will Windows users feel grateful when Mac users get their upgrades for half to a quarter of the price? Or is it another sucker moment?

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, Phil Schiller, senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, laid out the complex upgrade pricing for the next version of Mac OS X, called Snow Leopard: $29. And $49 for a 4-seat “family” license, which brings the cost per seat down to $12 and change.

A longtime developer sitting next to me said before the keynote that the pricing might be essentially free, which in the world of OS upgrades was $19. I thought it actually could be freely free, meaning zero.

Still, $29 will get most Mac OS X Leopard users to upgrade right away, which is what Apple wants (the more-reliable version will reduce support costs) and what developers will also want since they will likely offer versions that take advantage of the rewritten OS.

But what of Microsoft? Here’s what Mary Jo Foley at All About Microsoft has uncovered on upgrade pricing:

Read the rest of this entry »

June 7th, 2009

Apple's WWDC announcements vs. the online rumor machine

Posted by David Morgenstern @ 8:51 pm

Categories: 10.6, 3G, Leopard, Server, Tablet, WWDC, Windows

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple Macintosh, WWDC, Apple Inc., Desktops, Apple Mac OS X, Hardware, Operating Systems, Software, Apple Mac OS

The pitch of iPhone rumors keeps climbing towards a teeth-grinding, mind-numbing howl in advance of Monday’s announcements at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Will the likely actual announcements and demonstrations — of an iPhone software platform that really can be used for the enterprise, of an improved Mac OS X OS for client and server machines, of better tools for developers, and of improved support for the Mac in the SMB space, and dare we say it, the enterprise — be a total letdown for the rumor machine?

The community and Wall Street appear to be single-mindedly focused on hardware announcements, either a low-end $99 iPhone or an Apple netbook. Or a refresh of the iPhone 3G, with more memory or more everything.  Or news of a tablet-style Mac from Apple.  For example, a CNET story runs down the “things that appear likely.”

Of course, there could be some hardware announcement. Or not, which will likely rile the rumor machine and “The Market,” with their common wisdom about what should have been introduced.

Several years ago in a post, I recalled an Apple introduction in 1997. We would do well to remember this event at this moment.

I was then the executive editor for news at MacWEEK. One of the nerve-wracking parts of my job was to bet on exactly what products Apple executives would announce on a given launch event and then dig out the details of the products, such as the processor speeds and cost for the models. Despite our many sources, there was always a worry since stories on the front page of the newsweekly were written days in advance of the Monday publishing date. Things can change,

Just as tough as the reporting from inside the curtain in Cupertino was going up against the tide of rumors floating about outside Apple (and sometimes inside). Then, just as now, there were all kinds of rumors of what Apple would announce and what the company should announce.

Back in 1997, the strongest rumor was about some kind of mobile computing device or a tablet. Sound familiar?

Read the rest of this entry »

April 10th, 2009

Microsoft's third Laptop Hunters commercial - Lisa and Jackson

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 8:57 am

Categories: Microsoft, Windows, Windows PC, Windows notebook

Tags: Best Buy Co. Inc., Sony Vaio, PC, Microsoft Corp., Laptop Computer, Desktops, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Jason D. O'Grady

The third television commercial in Microsoft’s Laptop Hunters series is out and this time it’s Lisa and Jackson. The tagline:

With just $1500 in hand, Lisa and Jackson look for a laptop that can handle gaming and much more.

This time more regular people off the street paid SAG actors shill for Windows-powered PCs based mostly on price. In the third TV spot Jackson, an 11 year old, and his Mom shop for a laptop that’s got “speed, a big hard drive, that’s a good gaming computer.”

Like in previous installments, the subjects stop into Best Buy to browse the offerings. This time instead of going to the “Mac store” the hapless duo only has to walk a few feet across an aisle to the Apple store-within-a-store within Best Buy. This is where the fun begins.

After looking at a few PCs the Mom wants to go see the Macs “which are kinda popular at this age” and says “Whoa! these are way more money dude.” The equally insufferable kid calls the first MacBook on display “kinda small” to which the Mom says “they’re kinda of pretty” and then makes a face as if she smelled something really bad. The kid then says, “maybe we’d rather go with PC” and, surprise! They buy a $900 16-inch Sony Vaio (model VGN-FW351J/H according to PC World.)

It should be noted that the “kinda small” white MacBook is a discontinued model and that they didn’t even look at the other Mac offerings (at least on screen anyway). And what about that Sony Vaio notebook? Is it a decent model? Customer Reviews on the Best Buy Web Site rate it three stars out of five with one comment stating that “it’s pretty” (oh, the irony) but that it has “bad hard drives, bad USB placement.”

It’s also funny to note that under the Editorial Reviews tab on the Best Buy Web site our own CNet Reviews gives the craptastic Vaio 3.5 stars noting its “attractive design.” The bad features, according to the review include “slow performance for a system in this price range; resolution isn’t suited for 1080p Blu-ray content.” I’ll let you guys discuss the merit of the Vaio in the TalkBack.

The problem with the Microsoft ads is that they’re pushing PCs mostly on price and there are risks associated with setting yourself up as a “cheap” solution or the “low cost” alternative. Wouldn’t the most price-conscious shopper opt for a free OS like Linux as opposed to Windows which adds anywhere from $25 to $75 to the cost of a PC?

What happens when the market eventually rebounds? Positioning yourself as the cheapest may work during a recession but it’s a risky move on Microsoft’s part over the long term.

My posts on the the previous MS Laptop Hunter ads:

1. Lauren — On a strict $1000 budget, Lauren hunts around town for a big screen laptop.
2. Giampaolo — On a budget of just $1500, Giampaolo looks for a high-spec laptop that’s up to his standards.

I haven’t posted a poll in a long time, so here’s a fun one:

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April 4th, 2009

New Microsoft TV commercial claims Macs are more about aesthetics

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 8:21 pm

Categories: Windows, Windows PC, Windows notebook

Tags: Apple Macintosh, PC, Laptop Computer, Notebooks, Desktops, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Jason D. O'Grady

Remember Lauren who famously said “I’m not cool enough to be a Mac person” in the $1000/17-inch laptop commercial from Microsoft?

The next Microsoft TV commercial in its “Laptop Hunter” series is out and this one features Giampaolo who’s looking for a “laptop” with portability, battery life and power.

When considering a Mac, Giampaolo says they’re “soo sexy” but then goes on to slam Macs as “more about aesthetics over the computing power.” He then says “I don’t want to pay for the brand I want to pay for the computer.”

It’s embedded above and available on Microsoft’s site and on YouTube.

Is he right?