Appletell

It seems every other pundit has lamented the lack of copy and paste functionality on the iPhone, but a month after its release, the iPhone, sans copy/paste, is selling by the millions. Given that the iPhone is designed for less strenuous tasks than the average desktop computer, it begs the question: does the iPhone even need to copy and paste?

The answer to that question may be no. Find out why after the break.

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Sleek. Slim. Svelte. Apple’s wireless aluminum keyboard is razor thin, edgy, and perfectly balanced. Any addition to such a perfect package runs a serious risk of ruining this perfect image. It was with a degree of skepticism that I approached the iSkin ProTouch keyboard protectors, with visions of old public-library keyboards covered in a thick plastic shield harboring years of residue. To my pleasant surprise, iSkin has achieved wonders; the ProTouch keyboard perfectly compliments the Apple Wireless keyboard, adding both comfort and protection, while masking none of the traits that make this keyboard shine.

Jump past the break for the full review.

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Have you ever found yourself away from your computer, and wished you could access that document, or your music library, or fire up your e-mail application because you can’t remember your Gmail password? Apple provides this ability in Leopard (OS X 10.5), but it requires two Leopard-running computers and a $99 yearly subscription to MobileMe. And even then, there are a few limitations.

So, what can you do if you don’t meet the requirements for Back to My Mac? That’s where LogMeIn helps (pronounced “log-me-in”, not “log-mein” like the chinese food)! It overcomes the major hurdles presented by Back to My Mac, and does it with style.

Details after the break.

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Six and one-half hours in line at the Apple Store, added to the three hours spent waiting in line at at AT&T store, only to be told that they had run out. Is the white, 16 gig iPhone 3G worth it? Totally. The excitement felt by Ralphie upon receipt of his Red Ryder BB gun is comparable.

Although demand will begin to fall off as time goes on, there are a few tips for eager iPhone fans who have yet to get their hands on one of these amazing devices. Check them out after the break.

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Darwine, the OS X port of the popular wine compatibility layer, has reached a stable version 1.0. Thanks to Mike over at kronenberg.org, it is available pre-compiled and ready to run. Until now, the alternative has been to download the source from SourceForge, which requires compiling the code. Version 1 updates include localization fixes for Danish, Spanish, and German, as well as performance and stability improvements for graphics-intensive applications. Darwine requires Tiger or Leopard, running on any Intel-based Mac.

The wine project seeks to deliver an open source implementation of the Microsoft Win32 API, to allow for source-code level compatibility between Microsoft Windows applications and other OS platforms, including Unix, various flavors of Linux, and Mac OS X. This is the key difference between wine and emulators such as Parallels and VMWare, which deliver a virtual machine in which Windows can run. Wine does not require a valid Windows license, as do emulators; rather it provides an open source version of the Windows API. Darwine is the Mac OS X-specific compile of the wine source code. 

As an open source application, Darwine offers several benefits that emulators do not. First, the price tag: it’s free. Parallels or VMWare both require a license, plus the cost of a Windows license. Another benefit is the extensibility of Darwine—since the source code is open and available, it is possible to customize the functionality to meet specific user requirements. And finally, Darwine offers the access to the power and functionality of OS X, while retaining native compatibility with any mission-critical Windows applications.

Via [Low End Mac]

Swedish software maker Maintain today announced the latest version of their popular Macintosh maintenance utility, Cocktail. Version 4.1.3 adds support for OS X10.5.4, the most recent Leopard update, and includes multiple bug fixes:

• prevents reversion of Firefox 3 bookmarks to an outdated version when clearing Internet caches
• fixes an issue whereby Cocktail may stop responding when clearing user caches
• corrects behavior in which the utility would fail to properly reset UDP default settings when running the Cocktail uninstaller

As a utility, Cocktail offers a GUI to many of OS X’s hidden features, including Unix maintenance scripts, Force Empty Trash, advanced network card settings, and extensive Dock/Finder/Menu Bar customization. Most of the settings available in Cocktail are accessibile from the OS X Terminal, but many users are either uncomfortable or completely unaware of the powerful command line interface available to them. In addition, Cocktail can perform several general maintenance tasks, such as clearing log files, deletion of .ds_store files created by OS X, and deletion of caches such as internet histories/cookies, QuickTime caches, and font caches.

Cocktail 4.1.3 is compatible with both OS X 10.5 and OS X 10.5 Server versions, and has been tested on both systems. For users of older OS X versions, Cocktail is available in version 4.0.2 (for OS X 10.4.x) and version 3.7 (for OS X 10.3.x). As a shareware application, Cocktail is available free as a limited demo; a single user license is available for $14.95 (all versions).

Product [Cocktail]