There will come a time (and it may be now!) when you find yourself wanting to add or remove programs that automatically start when your Mac boots up. The first time I did this I struggled to find where the startup programs are managed on OS X. So, for the newly converted or simply frustrated here’s a quick walk-through:
Open System Preferences (if it’s not in your Dock, you can go to > System Preferences at the top of the screen)
From the System Preferences screen, click the “Accounts” icon under the “System” settings.
For each account, there is a “Login Items” tab where you can add and remove programs to automatically launch at startup. If you cannot edit your Login Items there it is one of two things:
You do not have proper access to edit the person’s account you are looking at.
You have proper access, but you need to “Click the lock to make changes.” Just look at the padlock icon at the bottom-left corner of the page. If it’s locked, that’s what you need to do.
September 27, 2007 at 12:11 am · Filed under Trivia, Games
It seems hard to believe, but this one is true. In 1999 at MacWorld Expo NYC, the public gets its first glimpse of Halo, and it’s on a Mac. Microsoft later bought Bungie Studios and launched Halo for the XBox and PC. A MacSoft port for the Macintosh followed later. Still not ringing any bells? Watch the video below.
September 26, 2007 at 11:18 pm · Filed under Games
At one of Apple’s soapbox sessions at Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference this year Steve Jobs proudly announced the Macintosh’s oh-so-late arrival to the video game market in earnest. He proudly introduced an Electronic Arts exec to talk about EA’s move to the Mac and upcoming games. The roster wasn’t incredible but it was a start. A few games in the line-up: Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, Need for Speed Carbon, Battlefield 2142, Madden NFL 08.
The excitement I felt was more around potential than that lineup. I’d pick up a console title before I’d buy any of those titles to play on any computer, PC or Mac. However, there are some titles that lend themselves to a desktop computer, and the one I had in mind was Spore. Spore is a Maxis title, and Maxis is EA. Now we’re talking.
Spore had been chatted up by Will Wright in the past year several times. Noticeably, the Mac is absent from any talk. Even when asked about other platforms for Spore, the Mac is ignored completely. Consoles: yes. Cellular phones: yes. The Mac? Not a whisper.
What gives?
Maybe it’s this: As “EA Roars Back to the Mac” (this is the “Hot News” title that Apple was running in their news loop on their homepage starting of the 18th of September) Jobs left out a few details of the ‘how’ variety. As MacNN and other sources have reported, the EA Titles being brought to the Mac will make it there by way of Cider from TransGaming. These games will NOT be native Mac OS X ports. From the MacNN article:
Cider is a portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs “without any modifications to the original game source code.” The tool loads Windows programs into memory on Intel-based Macs using an optimized version of the Win32 APIs.
It likely is a stop-gap measure (I would find it hard to believe that this is a long-term strategy) but I think if the general public was introduced to that last Cider footnote, there would have likely been some deflating “ohhh’s” from the audience. It certainly doesn’t elude to a long-term commitment or platform adoption on EA’s part. It simply sounds like the Mac’s current hardware lineup should have enough horsepower to make Cider viable for some titles.
And, while this might work for some games, I can’t see Spore being one of them. Cider playing the role of Rosetta Stone for EA: Lame. Spore coming to the Mac? That remains to be seen. If EA is considering bringing it to the Mac, I’ll take mine without Cider.
While speculation continues over Apple’s plans to offer Exchange Support for the iPhone by way of ActiveSync, another option has surfaced.
A company called iPXSync is currently conducting a limited beta for their Exchange synchronization product, also called iPXSync. Information on their web site is somewhat sparse, but it does state:
iPXSync will be offered as a software-as-service (SaaS)
iPXSync requires no hardware or software configuration changes on the Exchange Server
Real-time access to the following Exchange items is available:
Email
Message Folders
Appointments
Calendar
Tasks
Synchronization is achieved through secure (SSL) IMAP
Communication is two-way (marking a Task as complete on the iPhone marks the task as complete on the Exchange Server).
iPXSync is slated to be released to the public at large in early October. Even if iPXSync is a stable, reliable, cost-effective solution, it may still have a short lifespan-depending on what Apple’s plans are in this space. Learn more at the iPXSync web site.
UPDATE: 1 January 2008: It’s safe to say iPXSync isn’t an option. Their web site evaporated a few weeks ago without notice. Time will tell who brings an ActiveSync-like solution to the iPhone . I wouldn’t rule Apple out, and if they don’t get to it, the release of the iPhone SDK should present plenty of options.
September 19, 2007 at 10:35 pm · Filed under Software
I got the email from Microsoft Connect today granting me entry into the Office 2008 for Mac Corporate Beta.
Office for Mac is long overdue for a refresh, and I’m excited to be able to see how the suite has come together; especially with iWork ‘08 just refreshing. Details to follow once the beta is underway. The program officially starts in early October.
UPDATE: The Beta program kicks off October 7th 8th!
UPDATE: 8 Oct 2007: I just went and checked the start date of the program. It was the 8th that was indicated in the acceptance email. But, nothing happened today (yet). If anyone out there is knows something I don’t please let me know! I checked on Microsoft Connect, and there is no updated information, link to download the software (etc.).
September 15, 2007 at 11:37 pm · Filed under Hardware
For those early adopters stung by the aggressive iPhone price drop, Apple has posted a page on their web site with instructions for retrieving your $100 Apple Store Credit.
The process simply involves providing your cell phone’s phone and serial numbers, allowing Apple to verify the iPhone’s eligibility. If everything checks out, an SMS message is sent back to the iPhone with the access code necessary to redeem the store credit. All that’s left to do at that point is to claim it and spend it.
Current users of Parallels Desktop for Mac 3 can now download a feature update from the Parallels web site. The update is free, and works with any Parallels Desktop for Mac key (including 15-day trial keys).
As previously noted in my other blog context, I have been working with the beta builds of this release for several weeks. The experience has been positive, with only a few minor glitches along the way.
For those considering Parallels, trial keys are available to take it for a spin. All you need to do is download Parallels, then request a 15 day evaluation key (from the download page).
I’m not going to regurgitate the list of features in Parallels Desktop for Mac—visit the updated 3.0 page; it’s all there. I will say that speed is improved, and interoperability has been enhanced significantly between the Mac and virtualized PC.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of this product and of the company. It’s refreshing to see a company release a quality product at a reasonable price which they then make a commitment to enhancing over time.
Rumor has it Apple has licensed Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology which would allow synchronization between an iPhone and Microsoft Exchange. How important is synchronization with a Microsoft Exchange server to your iPhone purchasing decision?
Would ActiveSync (or other) Exchange Synchronization Impact your iPhone Purchasing Decision?
Yes, I need to synch with Exchange, and IMAP is not an option (96%, 1,683 Votes)
No, I already bought the iPhone (1%, 26 Votes)
No, I have no need to synch with an Exchange server (1%, 20 Votes)
No, I will buy an iPhone either way (1%, 10 Votes)
No, IMAP Exchange support is all I need (0%, 5 Votes)
No, I don’t want an iPhone (0%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,747
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If you have any comments about the iPhone, ActiveSync, and Microsoft Exchange, please comment below.
UPDATE: 13 Dec 2007: This post was recently referenced on Apple Insider (Apple Working on improved Exchange support for iPhone), indicating that ” In a recent web poll, 98 percent of respondents said support for ActiveSync or some other form of Exchange synchronization would greatly influence their decision to eventually purchase an iPhone.” At the time of Apple Insider’s post, that option in the poll was representative of 98% of all poll votes. As that post drove traffic to the poll, the numbers have deviated from the aforementioned 98%.
Spore, the latest game creation of Will Wright of The Sims fame looks phenomenal. At SXSW 2007, I attended Wright’s keynote. His presentation was excellent, and the demonstration of the current build of Spore put an exclamation mark on the keynote.If you’ve heard about Spore, you might still want to scroll down and check out the videos below. Haven’t heard of Spore? Spore is nothing less than a universe simulator filed under the category “game.” From the Spore web site:
From the mind of Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, comes SPORE™, an epic journey that takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology and eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space.
If you’ve played The Sims you have an idea of how Wright ticks, and what the game might be like. This one looks to be his masterpiece; The Sims meets Age of Empires meets Civilization… And possibly add the Genesis Device from Star Trek 2—The Wrath of Kahn. If you haven’t heard of or seen spore before here’s a few treats:
September 4, 2007 at 11:37 pm · Filed under Rumors, Software
Last month amidst much iMac fanfare a new version of iWork, iWork 2008, was announced. While iWork now touts three programs (Keynote, Pages, and Numbers) it is missing the one key component to truly be positioned as a relevant, competitive office productivity suite—a mail, calendaring, and contact management application which is compatible with Microsoft Exchange.
Now I know, I should take what Apple gives me overthrow the IT department in my company, but I’m not going to, so let’s just ignore that concept for now. There is a problem. Macs are making it into business environments on the greater set of their merits, only to be frowned upon for their abysmal support of Microsoft Exchange. Here are the options that I’m currently faced with:
Use Microsoft Office 2004’s Entourage mail client
I tried this for awhile but became frustrated with Entourage’s sluggish performance, not to mention time spent chasing down KB articles on the Microsoft site to debug mysterious behavior.
Use Microsoft’s Outlook Web Access (with Safari or Firefox)
Unfortunately, our organization isn’t running the latest and greatest version of Exchange and OWA. That said, even if we were running the latest and greatest version of Exchange, a web-based version of the Outlook isn’t a productive full-time solution.
Use the Windows flavor of Microsoft Office through virtualization
This is what I am currently doing with Parallels Desktop for Mac, Windows XP, and Microsoft Office 2007. Performance is relatively good, and I have no complaints about Outlook-it works as advertised. I would, however, prefer to not give up a share of my video and ram resources to virtualize an entire operating system in order to run one program.
Use a bunch of hacks to get Mail.app, iCal and Address Book to work with Exchange
Just kidding. That’s really not an option. Not for me, nor for anyone else who bought a Mac because of things like say “ease of use.”
What is on the horizon? Microsoft Office 2008. Microsoft was slated to release Office 2008 in the second half of 2007, and, it looks promising from the screen captures that have been released. A new, more competent Entourage and a beefed up suite all around could put the whole issue to bed. Unfortunately, that date has been moved to early 2008.
Is it possible that Apple will make a move at the problem first? In an interesting subtext brought on by the iPhone, the rumor mill is throwing around the idea that the iPhone will have Exchange support through the licensing of Microsoft’s ActiveSync.
If that is true, I’d have to say that while that while that is a great move on behalf of the iPhone, there is likely another story here. That story: Full Microsoft Exchange support with an Apple authored application. Far fetched? iWork’s interoperability with Microsoft Office’s Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents is proudly displayed on the iWord ‘08 landing page already. And, if Apple was going to make the iPhone play nice with Exchange, I’d find it hard to believe that a desktop solution wasn’t also in the works.
How would it come about? Possibly by retooling the Mail/iCal/Address Book “suite,” or, more likely by way a new productivity application geared toward the Mac user in a business setting which has full Exchange support and is available as a part of an iWork upgrade.
> System Preferences at the top of the screen)
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