Appletell

Boxee is a new application for the Mac that is much like Front Row, only better—in theory. It is an open source effort, meaning that plug-ins can be added and it can be modified by others besides the developers. It is currently in a private alpha stage, and I just so happen to be a private alpha member, and I figured I should bring a preview to you.

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9to5Mac has been teasing for about a year in internet time about the rumored “Brick” codename, and today they came out and told us what it is...a manufacturing process. Now, if you are like me, you’re pretty crazy disappointed, but read on. This manufacturing process is pretty darn cool.

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Late last week, a false report that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital following a heart attack sent lemming investors to sell AAPL, driving the stock price down to $97.07, its lowest since before the original iPhone release.

Now the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) is looking into the report as intentional stock manipulation.CNN will likely not be a target of the investigation, as the iReport site that the story was posted on is labeled as unfiltered and potentially inaccurate. CNN did remove both the story and the poster’s account shortly after it was brought to their attention, but not before it was posted to Digg and gained large traction on the internet, causing the panic.

Stocks rose back to above $100 after Apple denied the claim, but fell again, ending the day at a new 52-week low.

All I can say is buy, buy, buy.

Read [MacNN]

I have lost all faith in the media and in the sanity of stockholders today, after a citizen report on CNN’s iReport website claimed an anonymous source said that Steve Jobs had been hospitalized following a heart attack. And then, based upon that, AAPL fell as much as 5.4% to $94.65, its lowest in quite a long while, before recovering.

That’s right. Because of a citizen’s report, which anyone can make, on CNN’s iReport site, which said that an anonymous source knew about this, people panicked and sold their stock in what is possibly one of the most stable companies out there right now. For Pete’s sake, iReport’s slogan is “Unedited. Unfiltered. News.” complete with inexplicable periods between words.

Apple denied the report in an interview, but not before seeing AAPL stock drop to $94.65. After the announcement, stock rebounded to a still low $103.92.

Read [Bloomberg]

Happy October, everyone! Wait, why aren’t you smiling? Lack of push notifications got you down? Me too.

When Scott Forstall first announced these push notifications in June, I was all giddy inside. It was an inventive way to allow applications to continue their purpose while not running, without consuming those ever important system resources. To be able to quit my AIM application and yet still see when I have a new IM would be more than fantastic. The feature was slated for September, and yet, despite pushing iPhone 2.1 out the door, it is now October, and the push notifications aren’t anywhere I can see.

In a way, this isn’t a bad thing, because it shows Apple has learned from its mistakes with the MobileMe / iPhone 3G launch of July. iPhone 2.1 was the best release for iPhone yet, significantly speeding things up without causing any major new bugs. Had the push notifications remained in the 2.1 release, as they were in initial betas, the software might not have been the success that it was.

I recently made a plan for a home entertainment setup I’d like to get working in the near future. It was a definite that it would include an Apple product, either a Mac Mini or an Apple TV. I ended up going with the Mac Mini, and in this article I’ll outline why and what the Apple TV could add to prevent more people from making decisions like mine. 

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After leaving it out of Office 2008 along with Visual Basic for Applications, Microsoft has returned Solver to Excel 2008.

Prior to this addition, Office users would have to use Office 2004 for Excel if they needed solver, defeating the purpose of having Office 2008 on the system. It is a standalone application, and you have to run it alongside Excel. There is not a way to run it from within Excel.

More after the break.

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With the given that there will be a September Apple event, we can now turn to what that event might bring. Of course, everyone’s gone over the new stuff: new iPods, MacBook updates, and all that good stuff. However, we also should turn an eye to fixing what’s already out there. A whole lot is broken.

Check the list after the break.

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The Last.fm development team has provided a new sneak peek at the Last.fm iPhone app 2.0. It offers the ability to listen to music based on tags you enter, check out artist bios and concerts in your areas, and even add concert dates to your calendar.

All in all, it offers great new features and integrates with the other Apple apps on the iPhone, and a whole lot more. Looks like a worthwhile update.

Video sneak peek after the break.

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Though it’s less applicable now that Apple is offering free MagSafe replacements, Southern Mac Refurbishing has put together a product that might prevent you from ever having to get a replacement.

See how it works (and what’s wrong with it) after the break.

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