Appletell

Do you hate having to wait for your PHP scripts and files to upload to your server to make sure they work? If so, you would get along great with the people over at MAMP, or Macintosh, Apache, Mysql and PHP. MAMP simply installs a local server environment in its own folder on your hard drive and doesn’t affect your main operating system at all. You can then run and test PHP scripts and other database tasks without having to upload the files to your server. MAMP is completely free and is licensed under a GNU General Public License.

Currently on release 1.7, this application comes with a simple to use widget to start and stop the localhost servers. It works just as you would expect, and I’ve had no problems with it on my machine. There is a MAMP Pro that costs money, but many of you will find that MAMP does what you need just fine.

If you are a developer who is sick of waiting for files to upload so you can test them, check out MAMP, and be ready to start saving a ton of time.

Product [MAMP]

We’ve all known Jobs has been slipping lately and the time has finally come. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple after being quite abusive to the Lisa team and his own team after focussing his energy towards the Macintosh. Jobs was let go and has no plans to move anywhere else and is currently taking time to evaluate his life.

Jobs is a very public failure. I mean, who wouldn’t be after being fired from a company you started. But in the end, we think it is all for the greater good, even though Jobs was best known for his design elements which may be lacking in the next Apple Computer product release. We’ll have to see how things turn out for Steve, but it is fairly obvious that he won’t be working in the computer industry again, and definitely not for Apple.

Apple has finally decided to release an iPhone software development kit (SDK), allowing companies to create applications for the phone. The beta version of the SDK is already in developer’s hands and the full version is expected to be released June 2008.

After Apple made the SDK’s announcement at a press conference last week (March 6, 2008), Apple’s VP for iPhone Software, Scott Forstall, demonstrated a space game (Touch Fighter) developed in only two weeks ("and only 10,000 lines of code"), promising touch controls and tilt-sensitive steering.

Perhaps an effort to help the expensive hardware more attractive to a larger audience, game companies have already been…

Read [Gamertell]

Not many of us remember the original Macintosh, which was launched way back in 1984 (although you might’ve seen that legendary superbowl commercial). It was one of the first computers which used a graphical user interface and a mouse, compared to the command-line interface that was commonplace back then.

Peter Merholz recently managed to purchase one of these things through eBay, and he’s posted several pictures of the intriguing manual. I must say that for something created during the 1980s, the manual is surprisingly well-designed (by today’s standards) and sharp. Each chapter starts with a full-colored image, complimented with beautiful typography. Check it out.

Pics [PeterMe.com]

At last Monday’s WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs surprisingly released the Safari 3 beta to not only Mac users, but Windows users as well, in an attempt to increase the amount of Safari users in total on both platforms. In the presentation however, John Lily, of Mozilla, noticed that Steve basically indicated that he plans to wipe out all PC competitors to leave only Internet Explorer and Safari standing a chance.

“But make no mistake: this wasn’t a careless presentation, or an accidental omission of all the other browsers out there, or even a crummy marketing trick. Lots of words describe Steve & his “Stevenotes”, but ‘careless’ and ‘accidental’ do not. This is, essentially, the way they’re thinking about the problem, and shows the users they want to pick up,” says Lily.

In short, Jobs has made plans to knock out Firefox, Opera, and any other PC or Macintosh browser aside from Internet Explorer. Can it be done? Obviously Steve seems to be blinded by power, thinking that Safari for Windows will be a common application for consumer Windows users.

Read [ZDNet]