Macintosh Users Group

I've been without a phone for a week debating if I should buy an el cheapo if the iPhone is announced. I use Cingular and never have had a problem with the provider. It's just the crap Sony phones I keep getting for some reason. I really want one that can make phone calls. None I've ever used can do that well even, much less save numbers and contacts. I've been wanting Apple to save me from mobile hell. Looks like they answered my prayers.

The iPhone uses an embedded version of OS X that runs mobile versions of your favorite Apple Mac apps and syncs with it just like your iPod does with your music library. It uses iCal, Address Book, and yes... Safari. I hope Opera can be developed for the Phone. Oh did I mention that it can do anything the iPod nano can, too (and better)? Anyway, this looks like it'll be my next phone. It costs $499 and $599 for the 4GB and 8GB models respectively. It costs a lot for a phone, but it can do a lot of other stuff and the stuff will most likely work just like everything else Apple makes.

But for the keynote as a whole I'm extremely disappointed. This was Macworld, not Phoneworld. I wanted to see some new Leopard and Mac stuff. I'm definitely getting that phone, but Leopard is due out before that phone is. I want to see what my new OS upgrade is like. I know the iPhone is OS X on a phone, but still. As I said Leopard is due out before that phone is. Lots of other cool stuff came out this go around like the Apple TV, a new Airport Extreme basestation, and Widescreen iPod that didn't get really any attention. This is one of the longest keynotes in Macworld history, but it's probably one of the worst. It focused too much on an unreleased product while products that haven't been elaborated on have been released, including the Widescreen iPod.

Where's the Leopard? (like the old Wendy's commercials)

I'm not sure if describing my emotion as dissappointment is entirely accurate. I'm excited to no end about the iPhone, but ready to bash something in because I want to know more about Leopard, something that's out in a couple of months, not six.

I've created a forum for all of us to use and discuss Mac stuff on as typically the Mac forum is reserved for support for new users or to scream and gripe about bugs .

We can discuss other things involving Apple or the Macintosh there or to just goof off. Just thought I'd announce it.

Congrats to lachralle for being Member of the Week! More of us Mac users need to be recognized. We're crazy, insane, and like to be part of the minority (both Mac AND Opera users ). Let's give the ol' German a round of applause!

Anyone who has been looking for a way to use an Apple Remote (like me) on their Macs without iR sensors just got their wish granted. Mira 1.2 allows an Apple Remote to support an external iR and also control many programs while it's at it. The iR receivers they're suggesting to use are on backorder, but I might get my greedy hands on one. I like being lazy. I can control the DVD player and iTunes from my bed. XD

I received my new Mac Pro in yesterday. It's a Quad 3Ghz with 4GB of memory. I had to take off half-a-day from work to play with the computer (more like set it up). Man that thing is fast and silent. The only noise I ever hear is the DVD drives and the hard drives starting when I boot the computer. Other than that it's really all the noise I ever hear. I installed all my software (Opera was first, obviously... can't surf the web without it ).

I bought a 10,000 RPM HD to use as my main hard drive and then took the DVD Burner out of my PC (what it is replacing) and put in this. Low and behold the DVD Burner that was in my PC is the EXACT SAME MODEL as the one in my new Mac. Bizarre. Photoshop and Illustrator run faster than they do on my Dual 2.5 G5 Power Mac at work, around 3-4 times faster. Let's just say Rosetta is doing a good job, but then again I do have 4GB of memory in the thing.

I paid a good bit for it (I got a loan), but it's an investment to do freelance design, but I can have fun on it, too, hmm? A word to the wise about the new Mac Pros... don't run Parallels on it even with the new patch that claims it works for Mac Pros unless you want a nice series of kernel panics. I thought limiting the amount of RAM Parallels could access would bypass the 3.5GB barrier would work, but much to my chagrin I was dealt a nice kernel panic.