Appletell

With another new chapter in the Psystar saga, things aren’t all dandy over in Cupertino. The nasty stuff’s about to hit the proverbial fan, so Apple may want to consider their options. But, it looks like Cult of Mac writer Leigh McMullen took care of the thinking, and came up with a seemingly perfect solution.

Read on to hear all about how Apple can stop Psystar with ease.

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The International Space Station has been infiltrated. That’s right, a virus has made it’s way onto the computers of the International Space Station. The computers, running Windows XP, were non-mission-critical, containing things like e-mail and “nutritional experiments.”

The computers were infected by the W32.Gammima.AG worm, which harvests credentials for online games. Somewhat disconcertingly, the virus has spread since its entry into space, meaning that it is on some sort of onboard drive or intranet.

More after the break.

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Psystar, the company that wouldn’t die, hasn’t just responded to Apple’s cease and desist with a defense. Oh, no it hasn’t. Psystar announced today that it will be suing Apple, citing that old, battered, anti-trust card. Bets on who will win?

The opponents weigh in after the break.

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While we were all busy updating our iPhones and iPod Touches to the iPhone firmware 2.0.2 on Monday, Apple seeded OS X 10.5.5 build 9F17 to developers.

According to AppleInsider, this build brings five new updates, pushing the grand total of code fixes to 120.

Problems addressed include issues with iCal, Back to My Mac, Mail Syncing, and CoreAnimation.

This update is reported to have no known issues. This was also the case with the last update, build 9F15. So, it seems that Apple is tying up loose ends and preparing to release the update to us all. You can expect the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 to happen in the next few weeks.

Via [AppleInsider]

Microsoft’s new ads dubbed ”The Mojave Experiment” are a breed of their own. They reek of damage control, selective editing, and good old manipulation. Advertising annoys me in general, but these type of ads are especially maddening. Why? Because it is 100% certain that there will be tons of computer-illiterate folks who see these ads and don’t consider all the reasons why they show absolutely nothing at all.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Many troubles with Vista revolve around incompatibility. With computers, printers, scanners...everything under the sun. In the “Mojave Experiment,” Microsoft has pre-selected software, computers and peripherals that have all been tested and work fine with Vista. There was no opportunity for the surveyed users to take “Mojave” home and try to set it up with all their existing gadgets. Most “real users” liked Vista fine, at first, too, but then ended up scrapping it due to problems starting with troublesome installations. When those surveyed were testing “Mojave,” it had already been installed, as had all the programs. No hassle. This is enough of a problem already, as many stopped using Vista altogether based simply upon these two factors, neither of which were even addressed here.

The problems I pointed out above are further compounded by the fact that the people surveyed never even got to use “Mojave.” I repeat: Never. Used It. Find out how the “Mojave Experiment” was conducted, and learn more reasons why it illustrates nothing, after the break.

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Have you heard nothing but bad things about Windows Vista? You aren’t the only one. 

Microsoft has recently launched a new website and ad campaign called “The Mojave Experiment” in response to all of the bad publicity that Vista has gotten since its release over a year and a half ago. Basically, Microsoft reps using hidden cameras ask unsuspecting people if they would like to try out Microsoft’s “Next Gen” operating system (not Vista, Windows 7), calling it “Windows Mojave.”

Learn about their reactions, and our unanswered questions, after the break.

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With Bill Gates’ departure from his everyday role at Microsoft having happened over a month ago now, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on what this means for Apple’s relationship with Microsoft, and vice versa.

I think that despite Bill’s obvious place in the Windows-based world, he still has and has always had a certain affinity for the Mac platform and many of Apple’s products. Let’s not forget that Bill was so very involved in software for the original Macintosh, and agreed to form probably Apple’s single most important partnership that, in my opinion, likely saved Apple from going under in the late 90s.

Video and more thoughts after the break.

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With Mac OS X 10.5.5 (9F9) seeded to developers, it’s only natural you’re wondering what fixes it puts in place. There are many, many fixes so far, but none appear to be that big, as there aren’t any huge issues with 10.5.4 as it stands.

Currently the only known issue is Aperture related: Aperture is known to crash on some larger images under this build of 10.5.5.

The focus of fixes in 10.5.5 is very broad, covering many major areas of OS X: AirPort, Address Book, AppKit, Directory Services, FileSync and Portable Home Directories, Finder, Fonts, Graphics Drivers, Help Viewer, iCal, iChat, ImageIO, Kerberos, mDNSResponder, Networking, Printing, Screen Sharing, SMB, Spotlight, Text Services, Time Machine, Traditional Chinese Input Method, USB & Express Card Modems, and X11.

Fixes the general public might be interested in include the syncing issue with newly created contacts and Address Book being resolved, dropping a file on the Mail.app Dock icon now working correctly, fixing the issue with Mail and displaying IMAP messages, and fixing the issue with Mail IMAP and out-of-order replies.

Full List [World of Apple]

It is being reported that developers may receive their first seeds of pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.5.5 as soon as this weekend; Apple’s calling it a “maintenance and security update.” The OS X 10.5.5 Leopard update could provide support for new Apple notebooks that have been speculated about for a while now.

Learn more after the break.

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A couple weeks ago I reported that Apple was finally suing Psystar, the small Florida-based computer company that had been selling Mac-clone “Open Computers,” a practice Apple says is in direct violation of the Mac OS X software license agreement.

Psystar responded by saying that Apple was actually making money out of the deal because they purchase every copy of Leopard from the Apple Store at the full retail price.

Now, Psystar has hired a law firm that has beaten Apple before, Carr & Ferrell LLP. The Palo Alto, CA based law firm represented Burst.com in a patent infringement case that it filed against Apple in 2006. Apple ended up having to pay Burst $10 million in order to license its audio and video streaming patents.

Via [ComputerWorld]