When Leopard was introduced, backing up became an automatic and effortless operation. Set it and forget it. Unfortunately, Time Machine backups are not off-site and don’t protect you against an on-site disaster. When I previously covered some online off-site backup solutions, Apple’s backup utility was not one of them.

Apple Backup is still a nifty way to back up critical files to your MobileMe account, or any hard drive you can mount, and I personally use it every day to back up my most critical files. I have tons of space on my MobileMe account, so I might as well use it. Best of all, it’s a free program with a MobileMe subscription.

However, in the move from .Mac to MobileMe and from Leopard to Snow Leopard, the development of this utility has seemingly stopped. The latest version is 3.1.2, and it was released on Oct. 27, 2007 — over two years ago. The branding of the program still states it does backups to your “.Mac” account and doesn’t mention MobileMe. I find it a complete resource hog while running in the background. Obviously, it’s not optimized for 64-bit processors. Humorously, it still has Quickpick options in the interface to automatically back up Internet Explorer data. Internet Explorer hasn’t been released for the Mac in over half a decade. If that doesn’t convince you Apple Backup needs updating, then I’m not sure what will.

Apple, it’s time to update Backup, and here’s what I want on the feature list.

First, make it fit into the current Apple product line. Change the references to .Mac, and optimize it for Snow Leopard. Additionally, allow me to schedule backups directly from iCal.

Next, give me Quickpicks for programs currently in use by typical Apple users. Remove the backup options for Internet Explorer and add programs such as Firefox and Quickbooks. While you are tweaking the code, make it easy for users to back up their Preferences directory. Sure, it’s not that hard to do it manually, but the average Apple user doesn’t realize how critical preferences are.

If you really want to knock my socks off, include encryption options like you did with the latest iPhones. I hate not having encrypted backups. Speaking of iPhones, how about a Quickpick to allow the automatic off-site backup of our existing iPhone backups?

Apple’s Backup application used to be a great added value for .Mac/MobileMe users and a convenient way for all Mac users to do backups. It has grown very long in the tooth and needs to be made relevant again. Apple, you have your marching orders, so get to work! Readers, don’t forget to add feature request in the comments below.

I usually have at least three browsers open at any time. One will be a Mozilla Gecko app (Firefox, Camino, or SeaMonkey) and one an Apple WebKit based program (Stainless, Cruz, iCab, Shiira, OmniWeb, or especially since Safari 4 was released, Safari itself). Interestingly, I find I like Safari 4 better on my old Pismo PowerBooks running OS 10.4.11 than I do under Leopard on my Core 2 Duo MacBook where Stainless tends to get the nod.

However, the browser I consistently use more than all of the others combined is Opera, and it’s an abiding puzzlement to me as to why Opera has thus far been unable to carve out a more substantial market niche in North America.

According to NetApplications’ HitsLink Market Share statistics watch for August, Opera now has a cumulative global two percent share (2.35 percent when Opera Mini is included) behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome, thanks largely to its popularity in Eastern Europe and Asia, where it has about four percent of the market. Opera claims that in some regions of the globe, such as Russia, Ukraine and parts of Europe, it is now the most popular browser with growth last year of 67 percent and roughly 100 million users worldwide (translation into 39 languages probably doesn’t hurt either). But its penetration in the U.S. and Canada is more like one percent. Indeed, Google’s Chrome, still a beta with no general release Mac version, has now bumped Opera from forth to fifth place in the U.S. browser market.

“The reality is that in the U.S. we have some work to do,” Opera boss Jon von Tetzchner recently told BBC News.

Opera 10 reportedly hit 10 million downloads in its first week, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out in the September Hitslink stats, but there’s no indication that Opera 10 is taking the U.S. market by storm.

Personally, I warmed slowly to Opera, which has been around since 1994, and released its first Mac versions in the late ’90s, at which time it had an interesting interface and some unique features, but was pretty awful performance-wise. However, Opera’s Mac support is now impressively strong, and since the release of Opera 8, it’s been a fixture on my desktop, and most of the time it’s the browser I reach for first for general surfing and a lot of my work-related browsing as well.

Probably one of the things about Opera that handicaps it in North America is that it’s a bit — and in some instances more than a bit — different from other browsers, which is partly why I like it, but North American consumers tend to be conformists, which explains why Windows has 90-odd percent of the desktop operating system market. When there’s the slightest learning curve to scale, many people balk. With Opera, the learning curve is not steep, but it’s there.

Have you given Opera a try? Did you stick with it? Why or why not?

MacNewsWorld’s Chris Maxcer addresses the abiding conundrum of whether to upgrade one’s existing system or buy a new Mac, noting that when you’ve had your Mac long enough, it’s only natural to start thinking about more speed and more memory.

So the operative question is whether to dig deep and go with a full hardware upgrade, or spend much less to upgrade a few select parts that will help bring your aging ‘Book back closer to contemporary standards of performance — is it worth upgrading an existing Apple notebook with more RAM and a new hard drive — or more sensible to simply buy a new one?

I would say it depends on the individual machine. I’m typing this post on a nine-year-old Pismo PowerBook that’s been considerably breathed-on, with processor, hard drive, optical drive, RAM, and wireless upgrades, and I even have a FireWire 400 PC Card adapter for it. But on the other hand, I have a six month old unibody PowerBook, with an up-front upgrade to 4GB of RAM, and it’s many magnitudes superior to the Pismo in objective terms.

Maxer says he tends to buy a new PowerBook, iBook, or MacBook every two years or so, usually around the 16-month point. I provisionally shoot for three year system upgrade intervals, but this Pismo is well outside that envelope, and still my second-most-used computer. Despite being more than a bit power challenged, and limited to OS X 10.4 Tiger, it’s such a likable tool that I’m unmotivated to move on to using, say, my 17″ PowerBook G4 as my number two laptop.

I am somewhat puzzled by Maxcer’s suggestion that, while the new MacBook Pro models are fantastic, they don’t seem quite worth the cost just yet. My contention would be the diametric contrary — the current low end 13″ and 15″ unibody MacBook Pros are the most rip-roaring value-for-the-money bargains Apple has ever produced.

However, Maxcer says he still likes his black 2.4GHz MacBook, notwithstanding its poky Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphic chipset that pales by comparison with the powerful Nvidia 9400M integrated graphics chipsets in the new MacBook Pros, but is finding the 250 GB hard drive way to cramped for his needs, and 2GB of RAM isn’t quite enough either.

Good on Chris. I’m all for squeezing every bit of useful service life out of a Mac before upgrading to a new system, so long as one isn’t terribly compromised by performance limitations for things one wants to do. So if I were in Chris’s shoes with a nice black MacBook that I was fond of, I’d buy a bigger hard drive and double the RAM — both easy and relatively inexpensive upgrades for that machine — and hang on to it for a while. The only semi-specialized tool you’ll need for these upgrades is a Torx T8 screwdriver, which can be hard to track down on short notice (I have a nice one I got from Wegener Media) and some very small Philips screwdrivers.

I’d love to have a new 13″ MacBook Pro with FireWire and a SD Card slot, but my plan is to still go to early 2012 with my current MacBook, although a new inexpensive polycarbonate MacBook, provided it has those features, could test my holdout resolve.

Chris decided to proceed with a mid-life upgrade for the old MacBook, going with a Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7,200RPM drive, with 16MB of cache, and bumping the RAM spec. with a $54 Kingston 4GB kit, which was considerably cheaper than I paid for a 4GB upgrade kit from Other World Computing (currently $87.99) for my MacBook last spring. The BlackBook would need DDR2 RAM, while my unibody machine uses DDR3, but a 4GB DDR2 kit at OWC is still $78.97.

With the great deal he got on the Kingston RAM, Chris’s memory and storage upgrade of the BlackBook came to a pretty digestible $130, which seems like good value to me, although Chris says performance gains realized are not as dramatic as he’d anticipated, and he thinks if he was doing it over, he’d opt for a 500GB 5,400RPM drive instead, noting that the 7,200RPM Scorpio’s speed causes a minor but annoying vibration. He also says that upgrading the OS to Snow Leopard provided a more substantial performance boost than the new hardware bits did.

I also expect he may notice more subtle and welcome improvements down the road. With its stock 2GB of RAM, my MacBook was a decent performer, but it’s even better with 4GB, and while pre-upgrade I had to restart the laptop every two weeks or so to freshen the memory heap, with 4GB I can go for a month or more between restarts.

Frankly, with new (or even better, refurbished late model) Mac laptop prices plumbing historical lows, and the extreme desirability of the unibody notebooks in particular, it’s harder to make a compelling argument for upgrading an older Mac rather than applying the cost of that to a new purchase, especially if you can sell your present machine for a respectable price.

What do you think? Better to hang on to a spruced-up known quantity, or go new/refurb with a fresh warranty and the latest feature set?

Talking to Flip owners, you sense a bit of defensiveness about the new Nano. It reminds me of a political discussion where you’re talking to someone who just saw their candidate lose, despite being smarter, with better positions and shinier teeth. In a sense I can’t blame them, since — as shown by Liz and Chris over at NewTeeVee — the Flip actually is a better video camera than the Nano.

But as we know, being better doesn’t matter. The new Nano will sell by the truckload, and in the process push pocket video to the masses. As for the Flip, it may not sell as many video cameras as Apple will with its Nano in the coming year, but its certainly not going to get crushed as many predict. What will happen instead — as I write in my analysis over at GigaOM Pro (subscription required) — is Cisco will actually sell more of these devices because of the Nano, as awareness of pocket video goes up.

What are your thoughts?  Will the Nano crush the Flip, or grow the market as I predict?

Now that many of us have upgraded to Snow Leopard, I would like to start a forum where you can share your favorite UI changes. Use Command + Shift + 3, Command + Shift + 4, a third party screenshot capture tool, or links to your favorite photo sharing site. I’ll start it off with my favorites.

Expose

Below is a screenshot of a new Expose feature in Snow Leopard. I opened six Safari windows and simply clicked on the Safari dock icon for a second. The dock icon lights up while the rest of the dock darkens. Very fast. Very slick.

Airport

Next is the new Airport menu. We finally have signal strength next to the network name. Before, a third-party tool was required for this.

Services

Honestly, I have never used the Services feature in the Finder. It’s cluttered and confusing. Now, it’s smart enough to know what I want to do and provide the correct options. A more thorough write up of the new Services feature is coming to TheAppleBlog shortly.

Leave a comment with links to screenshots of your favorite UI changes in Snow Leopard!

Naturally, as a contributor to this blog, I purchased a Snow Leopard family pack the first possible day. Some people may have pre-ordered on Amazon, but they missed out on the in-store experience. My mother lives close to an Apple store, so I decided to stop by and upgrade my Macbook Pro while catching up with her.

Soon after arriving she asked, “Do I need that?”

Silence.

I honestly had no idea what to say. Sure it’s a cheap and quick upgrade, but does she really need Snow Leopard on the 20 inch iMac she bought last year? Her entire computer life at home revolves around Safari, Mail, and Microsoft Word. She networks, reads, and writes. I, however, consider myself an über power user: Netbeans, Adobe CS3, and tinkerer extraordinaire. I can’t refuse an OS upgrade.

Let’s take a look at Apple’s Snow Leopard page.

The only item I see here that is actually appealing to my mother is “faster.” One can never say no to speed in the computer world. The rest sounds like under the hood features. Fortunately, the UI changes in Snow Leopard are miniscule enough to not terrify the average Mac user. I guess it’s safe to upgrade her. After all, the Apple coolness factor always entertains.

What about all of you? Planning on upgrading your parents’ computers?

Lately, there have been some murmurs that Apple is prepping an HDTV of its very own. Such a device would seem to be the logical next step for the evolution of Apple TV, the progress of which seems to have become somewhat stagnant of late.

Like our own Liam Cassidy, Michael Wolf over at GigaOM Pro isn’t convinced (subscription required), for a few very good reasons. For one, he cites the high price tag and lack of subsidization, by comparing it to AT&T’s iPhone arrangement:

TVs would not have any such subsidization, nor would they have the fairly attainable prices of the iPhone (any Apple television would likely carry a price tag of $2,000 or more), putting it out of reach for many households.

Of course, that could be offset by a deal with a cable/satellite provider, but I think Apple’s FCC headaches over their relationship with AT&T will have them squeamish about such partnerships for a while to come.

What do you think? Will there be an Apple HDTV? What price point and features would make such a device attractive to you?

I was changing something in System Preferences on a friend’s Mac a while back and stopped for a second to consider the “Other” section and the lonely little Logitech Controller that was in there all by itself. Not many applications install to the “Other” section of System Preferences and this got me wondering about what I had gathered in my section over time, and more interestingly, what other Mac enthusiasts had in theirs. So I took a quick survey over on SuperUser (currently closed beta, sorry) and figured I’d share those applications people called out as “must-haves.”

Growl: A longstanding favorite of Mac fans everywhere, this desktop notification app “lets Mac OS X applications unintrusively tell you when things happen.” This is one of the first things I put on new Macs and it’s so natural and intuitive it makes you wonder why Apple hasn’t already bought them out and built this right into the OS.

Secrets: This handy little utility from the fine makers of Quicksilver exposes all those options hidden away in application .plist files and makes it dead simple to do things like change the login window desktop image, switch to the 2D Dock, and so much more.

Perian: “The Swiss-army knife for QuickTime,” Perian adds support for a metric crap-ton of different video codecs and enclosures to QuickTime. Anytime someone tells me they can’t open a video, this is the first place I send them.

TextExpander: This handy little timesaver lets you easily insert often-used text snippets or images into a document using easily customized keystroke triggers. Tired of writing out over and over how to connect to a printer on the network? Next time a local user sends an email asking about it, just hit the trigger key and the answer is inserted right into your response.

Plaxo: This one’s for syncing up your address book across multiple computers. If some of your contacts are themselves Plaxo members, then as they update their information it will cascade down and be updated in your address books as well.

Flip4Mac: One of the few things Perian won’t play is WMV, so for those occasional times when you do need to watch some Windows Media, Flip4Mac is here to help.

This was a great way to find some new gems I didn’t know about and remember some I had forgotten. A couple of honorable mentions I should call out were iStat menus (for displaying important system info in the menu bar), and GeekTool (for displaying info from scripts or files on your desktop).

If you’ve got any of your own favorites sitting in the Other section of your System Preferences, please share them in the comments.

How long should a Mac last? Mac360’s Alexis Kayhill posed the question recently, and it got me thinking on the topic, especially since Alexis framed her column around the experience of a co-worker who had purchased a new unibody MacBook (on her recommendation) only to have Apple upgrade the 13″ unibody to Pro status with feature enhancement and a lower price a few months later.

I’m in the same boat, having also bought a unibody MacBook last February. Alexis says her friend “got burned,” though I think that’s a bit harsh. I don’t feel “burned” at all — more like a bit disappointed that I didn’t wait four more months, but you can drive yourself nuts second-guessing such things. I love the MacBook, and am already becoming convinced that it’s going to be one of my all-time favorite Macs. I just wish it had a FireWire port, which the new 13″ MacBook Pro does have.

My target for intervals between upgrading my main workhorse systems has been three years ever since I bought my first Mac back in 1992, and I’ve done pretty well at adhering to it. That would put replacement time for my MacBook in early 2012, which seems a long way off.

The way it usually plays out for me is that the first year I revel in the greater power and storage capacity of my new machine compared with whatever it replaced. At 18 months, twinges of slight frustration and dissatisfaction start to set in, especially after upgraded models have been introduced, but I really have nothing to complain about. However, by the beginning of year three, the aging Mac is usually beginning to feel compromised in some respects, and the hunt begins, although for the last three machines I’ve managed to reach or beat the three-year replacement benchmark.

Of course it helps that I like the challenge of getting useful service out of antiquated hardware. We still have two nine year old Pismo PowerBooks in very active service, and they’re great for what we do with them — text-crunching, email, Web-surfing, and so forth — “netbooks” of a sort, I suppose.

Actually, I still have most of the Macs I’ve ever owned, and only a very few are not in working order. Our six year old iBook G3 died suddenly last winter, but had been a virtually flawless performer up to the day it completely refused to respond to the power button — presumably a terminal motherboard issue. One of my daughters is still using my old 1999 WallStreet PowerBook, and the 17″ PowerBook that served as my primary workhorse between the iBook and MacBook is still in fine fettle.

As Alexis Kayhill observes, there’s a line somewhere between the disappointment that occurs when a newer, power and feature-enhanced, and possibly cheaper revision is unveiled, especially if it’s only shortly after you buy a new Mac. But there’s also the pride you feel when your Mac still looks good and works well five years (or nine years!) after you bought it.

Macs being generally more expensive than typical Windows PCs, at least up front, it logically stands to reason that they should have longer useful lives.

How about you? How often do you usually upgrade your system, and what do you consider a reasonable service life for Macs?

In the analysis of computer book sales, two things seem to be clear:

• People want to learn how to write programs on the Mac
• People don’t want to learn how to use programs on the Mac (or PC, for that matter)

The latter is especially interesting to me. Though my time in support taught me well about RTFM syndrome, there were always certain people interested in learning to use software to its fullest. This group understood that reviewing documentation was likely the best way to do that.

But expectations have changed. Usage should now be obvious or a lot of people won’t bother. I don’t mind the expectation that a manual shouldn’t be required to start using software right away. In fact, I like that attitude because developers must now give more care to their user interfaces. However, even in the best interfaces there are limits.

For my own usage, I bought an iWork 08 book to get a better feel for that suite of programs. Additionally, I downloaded a lengthy third-party Aperture guide to understand the various tools better.

I’m curious, at what point have you crossed the threshold, and either studied the full documentation or bought a supplemental book to learn a program in more depth?

What do you do with your old Macs when you upgrade to a new system? Many folks sell their old computer on eBay or locally, but that’s something I’ve rarely done. I mostly either keep them as “B-team” units, or hand them off to other family members.

My Mac laptops are tools of my trade, and I would feel pretty vulnerable if I didn’t have a spare — or two — on hand, with the most likely candidate for understudy usually being the machine most recently replaced as No. 1. For example, when my WallStreet PowerBook’s processor died without warning in August 2002, the 1.5-year-old Pismo PowerBook 2001 I’d acquired nine months earlier got promoted to No. 1 workhorse without my suffering even a day of computer-less downtime.

Even if you don’t depend on your Mac for your livelihood, it’s worth considering how much inconvenience and/or expense you’d incur if your No. 1 machine failed, needed to go in the shop or sent away for repair, or got stolen. Hanging onto old computers as “spares” is, of course, much easier if they’re laptops. Storing retired desktop rigs eats up more space than many will find acceptable.

If you don’t want to bother with the hassle of selling or storing your old machine and have no family members or friends who would be interested in taking it off your hands, either to use or as a parts mule, another potential disposal route, if it’s in respectably good condition, would be to donate it to a school, church, youth drop-in center, a day-care, or other institution that would appreciate it.

On the other hand, if the reason you’re replacing the computer is that it broke, and it’s really not worth fixing (be realistic, even if the old unit has sentimental value) try to find a disposal mode that’s environmentally responsible, rather than just tossing it in the garbage. Techno-trash has become a major global problem. For example, the average CRT monitor can contain up to 8 pounds of lead. Nova Scotia, where I live, has an environmentally sound electronics recycling program run by the government.

Apple has had free computer and iPod recycling programs since 2001. U.S. customers, who buy a new Mac through the Apple Store or Apple’s retail stores, can receive free shipping and environmentally friendly disposal of their old computer. U.S. and Canadian customers wanting to dispose of used computers or monitors at any other time may also use Apple’s recycling program by purchasing $30 prepaid shipping labels to send used units to Apple’s recycling partner. For more information on what is options are available to you, read up on Apple’s recycling initiative.

In some communities, there are also organizations that refurbish old computers for distribution to the less fortunate, either domestically or in developing countries.

So, to post the question again, what do you do with your old Macs?

My 3GS has given me (relatively) little cause for complaint since I got it, though there was the one little replacement issue for what I thought were Wi-Fi problems. Turned out to be a persistent issue that hopefully will be resolved with a firmware update, but it’s more superficial than anything else. What I haven’t experienced, and what some people are reporting, are overheating issues with their handsets.

A few users are reporting serious heat build-ups in their phones, with temperatures high enough to even prevent putting the phone to one’s face, according to PC World reviewer, Melissa J. Perenson. The problem doesn’t appear to be widespread, which could be due to it being a hardware defect in only a select few phones, or it could even be due to usage patterns. Perenson was basically doing as much as possible to incur heat, by playing games and browsing on Wi-Fi while the device was plugged in.

The PC World report comes on the heels of photos posted at French blog Nowhere Else which claim to show significant discoloration on the rear surface of a white 16GB iPhone 3GS. Apple Support Discussions also exist with users claiming to have overheating issues. Over at QuickPWN, they’re pointing the finger at iPhone OS 3.0, not the 3GS hardware specifically. Just to be clear, no one is reporting actual hardware failure as a result of heat, just temperatures so high that they make using the phone uncomfortable or almost painful.

Even if usage is to blame, as most people’s experiences seem to suggest, that’s no excuse for the devices to overheat. Apple is pushing the gaming abilities of the 3GS, after all, so it has to expect device owners to be using the iPhone for gaming for extended periods of time. And Wi-Fi web browsing is hardly undue wear and tear.

Like I said, I’ve yet to experience any heat issues, and I use my 3GS with my recently purchased Mophie Juice Pack Air to really push the battery life to the max. It does get rather warm when I flick the charging switch, but the front surface remains plenty cool enough to hold against my face without discomfort. Admittedly, I’ve yet to do any marathon gaming sessions, which was pretty standard practice on my 3G, but I plan on doing some later today, so I’ll get a chance to see if that incurs any temperature spikes.

Some are already talking wide recalls, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Apple will definitely try to resolve any outstanding quirks the 3GS may have via a software update before resorting to a much more expensive product recall. And the percentage of users reporting this problem is still small, though vocal, but that could just be because most people don’t use their iPhone for prolonged, intensive tasks, or while charging.

Let us know if you’re having heat problems below, and what seems to be causing your issues.

People seem to be fond of the iPhone 3GS’s new video recording capabilities. So much so that YouTube mobile uploads have grown by 400 percent since the device’s launch, according to some sources. I’m proud to say that I contributed to that dramatic rise with my own initial hands-on video using my phone. It was the first time I’ve uploaded anything to YouTube, and in fact, I signed up specifically for the purpose. And I doubt I was the only one.

That’s 400 percent in only six days, in case you were wondering. It’s by far the most significant single-product effect the company’s seen since its inception, though YouTube upload growth in general, as NewTeeVee reports, is trending upwards due to the growing ubiquity of video-capable smartphones and streamlined uploading processes.

Apple certainly had ease of use in mind when it designed the 3GS’s video-sharing features. Once you’ve entered your YouTube credentials, publishing content to your profile is only a couple of taps away.

This is great news for YouTube, but what about the average end user, i.e., us? A brief perusal of the video offerings available on YouTube retrieved by searching for the keyword “3GS” did indeed return many results, but the vast majority of these were “test shots” and “first video” type demos. This Disney fireworks show was fairly impressive, but very little led me to believe that the massive spike in volume was accompanied by any influx of creative or original content.

Is it fair to expect iPhone users to bring something to the table that their Curve and Pearl-toting counterparts haven’t in the realm of mobile video? I think so, for two reasons. First, we’re Apple people! How can we live up to our demographic expectations if we aren’t more creative than our BlackBerry and WinMo equivalents?

Second, we have editing capabilities, right there on the phone. We don’t even have to touch a computer to be able to put together at least a decent short clip. Admittedly, we can’t splice or add effects to video yet, but with developer access to the 3GS’s video recording functions available, it won’t be long before we get a more fully-featured editing program from a third-party source. I’m basically drooling thinking about the possibilities such an app would open up. Improvised 3GS-shot reality series? A definite possibility.

If you’ve already tried something out of the ordinary using your 3GS, or if you’ve found some interesting clips on YouTube, share them below so we can all get inspired.

One of the best reasons to get a new MacBook Pro, aside from the dazzling new screen on the 13-inch, and in spite of the SATA capping that’s apparently in place, is the extended battery life courtesy of the new built-in lithium polymer batteries. And by all accounts, even if you won’t necessarily reach Apple’s estimates, you will get more usage out of your notebook without having to connect to a power source. Or you’ll get more usage as long as you’re not running in Windows under Boot Camp, that is.

AnandTech’s Anand Shimpi has been running a MacBook Pro 15-inch through its paces over at his site, and while he was very impressed with the machine’s new battery overall, he noticed a considerable disparity between apparent power consumption under OS X, and under Vista. Nor was the difference marginal. Running OS X while only web browsing, Shimpi was able to coax a little over eight hours out of the notebook under OS X, and only six using Vista. That’s a two hour, or 25 percent difference.

Windows 7, which is supposed to make up for a lot of the mistakes Microsoft made with Vista, fared no better. The RC 1 version of the upcoming OS lasted only 5.48 hours using the same test conditions. Some of that can be ascribed to there not being final, optimized drivers for Windows 7 yet, but I doubt that accounts for the more than two-hour deficit it has compared with OS X running on the same hardware.

Windows supporters will no doubt chime in with claims that the Apple hardware is to blame, but Shimpi found some reason to believe that may not be the case. He spoke to a number of PC OEM manufacturers to see if they’d found a difference in battery life between OS X and Vista, and though none would officially go on record, some at least admitted to seeing a similar difference to the one Shimpi had found.

Since Apple doesn’t officially support any third-party hardware, it’ll be hard or even impossible to prove that OS X is, in fact, a more battery-efficient operating system, completely independent of any hardware considerations. Still, that’s one less reason to ever commit sacrilege by dual-booting your Apple notebook, which is bad news for Windows sales, no matter what the cause.

All you hackintosh experts out there, feel free to chime in with your own battery life tales, since your experience running OS X on non-standard hardware might be the closest thing we can get to a fair standard for comparison.

We had a chance to talk to Dr. Ge Wang of Smule, makers of iPhone apps Ocarina and Leaf Trombone: World Stage. He, and some of our Twitter followers, share their thoughts about the new hardware and software announcements.

With our Twitter followers, we asked for their reaction and it was definitely a mixed bag.

Our question: What are your reactions to the new hardware announcements? What are the game changers?

mattbdunn: ipod touch still $400 for 32Gb when u can pay $300 for a 32Gb 3GS iphone! Where’s the 64Gb touch? No one will b buying those
odaynasser: they flopped big time
KevYocha: as an ATT customer lack of tethering and MMS is unforgivable. The update seems great for anyone else. My 3G is new too :(
vicener: Frankly I was a bit disappointed with the iPhone 3Gs, but I am looking forward to OSX Snow Leopard and iPhone OS 3.0
bonxtivalis: Zzzzz…
ryan_doughty: New hardware is fine, For me it will be the prices and tariffs on O2 UK that could make or break this as my next phone.
freddytaul: new iphone and MB pros def stole the show. great new options and prices on the MBP’s. my ibook might be headed out.
mmccl267: pretty lame that AT&T doesn’t support tethering. Any hope that they will change that?
andreaguiar: machine hardware = excellent news + $. new iphone is nice but I think it could have used a bit more new features (3mp only?)
askbal: I am surprised no Video in the firmware upgrade for 3G. Probably just for a feature differentiation with new 3GS?
mike20: apathy and none, in that order, lol! #wwdc
cmdotkom: I am really liking the sound of the new MacBook Pro line. I need a computer for work and will look into it as an option.
decti: still no 13″ mb with 1440 resolution == sucks

And my favorite:
aaroncflores: @theappleblog will the Dev Team have jail break ready by the 17th?

What do you think about today’s announcements?

Among the things I love about my unibody MacBook is the barely audible whisper of its 160 GB, 5400 RPM Hitachi HDD shrouded in solid carved aluminum, which makes it the most blessedly silent personal computer I’ve ever owned.

It easily beats the previous high-water mark set by my commendably quiet 700 MHz G3 iBook with its 20 GB IBM/Hitachi HDD. Of course a solid-state drive would be quieter still, but I’m not yet convinced that the SSD’s higher cost, lower capacity, and unproven reliability over the long haul make it a satisfactory alternative to time-proven and relatively inexpensive electromechanical hard disk-drive technology.

This is the history of my personal quest for the most silent computing experience possible on a Mac. It’s been a long and winding (and somewhat circular) road, but recent developments definitely give me hope for the future.

The Quietest Of Computers

The Hitachi HDD in my MacBook emits a sound so subtle that virtually any amount of ambient noise drowns it out. I’m a big fan of silence, and certain Mac notebooks have been among the quietest of computers.

The first Macs — the 128k and the 512k, had no hard drives and were convection-cooled, so were very quiet. My first Mac was a Mac Plus, also convection-cooled, but had an external hard drive (a bulky 20 MB Seagate unit) that made a tiresome racket. You could boot and run the Mac Plus from a floppy as well, which I used to do when all I needed was a typing platform. The Mac Plus in this mode wasn’t completely silent. The floppy drive would grunt and click periodically, and early Mac keyboards were very noisy, but at least when you stopped to think or read the noise stopped, too.

Running Off A RAM Disk

My most silent computing came when I bought my first PowerBook, a 5300. No fan, a relatively subdued hard drive, but even better — you could turn the hard drive down and work from a RAM disk. Even though I only had 24 MB of RAM in that machine, that was plenty for a slimmed-down OS 7.5.2, a minimum installation of Word 5.1, Globalfax software and whatever documents were on the go at the time.

In those days, before we had Internet access here in southeastern mainland Nova Scotia, I communicated with editors and research sources by fax, floppy, and the occasional modem-to-modem link, all of which could be done off the RAM disk. I would spin the hard drive up from time to time to save a document or find something I needed on the disk, but I could go for hours in blissful silence. And the 5300 keyboard was much quieter than that of the Mac Plus.

Banshee Howl

Running off RAM disks with the hard disk spun down petered out with the introduction of New World ROM, but happily, hard disk manufacturers began concentrating more on quietness around that time. On the downside, Apple started equipping notebooks with internal cooling fans beginning with the PowerBook 3400c. At least these fans were thermostatically toggled, but their banshee howl was more annoying than the noisiest hard drive I’ve ever experienced.

Keeping running temperature below the fan’s activation threshold has been an operational priority for me since the introduction of cooling fans in Apple laptops. Happily, the MacBook’s fan is the least offensive I’ve encountered so far. It’s only kicked in three times since I got the unibody in February, all during brief spikes of processor activity, and it’s much less raucous than the fans in my older computers, possibly again thanks to the solid aluminum enclosure’s sound-damping effect.

Aside from those original compact Macs, Mac desktops deserving honorable mention for quietness include the G4 Cube (I bought one partly because it had no cooling fan), and the last-generation G3 teardrop iMacs, which were also convection-cooled.

“What is a “Silent” Computer?

If you’re interested in the topic of quiet computing, check out SilentPCReview.com, a web site dedicated to reviews, news and information about quiet, low noise, and/or silent computers and components as well as their energy efficiency and thermal performance. There are in-depth articles, equipment reviews and news stories related to silent computing. The site is quite PC- and desktop-centric, although it does credit the fan-cooled Core Duo 17″ iMac as “the quietest mass production PC I’ve ever heard,” and there’s a lot of interesting stuff there for silent computing aficionados. This article, “What is a “Silent” Computer?,” provides an excellent general overview of the topic.

Quiet Mice

There’s also a firm called Quiet Mouse Innovations, whose $39 and $49 QuietSmooth USB Optical mice (wired and wireless respectively) are Mac-compatible and feature three quiet switches (right, left, and scroll-wheel switch) and a scroll wheel with a smooth, quiet roll. The microswitches used in QuietSmooth mice use a patented quiet design of which the company claims to be sole licensee.

I obviously take quiet computing very seriously, and I’m wondering if any of you share my obsession. What lengths have you gone to in pursuit of silence?

Recently, two articles appeared on TechRadar documenting various command line tweaks for various apps and functions of Mac OS X. While I didn’t find anything new there, it’s nice to have two articles that summarize a bunch instead of tracking them down one by one across countless bookmarks.

To be honest, most command line tweaks don’t appeal to me. For example, I’d sooner go back to running DOS than go back to using Safari’s “standard” tabs; I love the tabs on top. Still, it’s nice to know I could make the change if I felt so inclined.

What’s surprising to me is that some of the tweaks I do like are incredibly simple — for example, the command that turns on stack highlighting even when using the mouse (No. eight in the first article above). Obviously, having the cursor over an item tells me which one will be activated if I click, and yet I like the highlight as a further indicator.

I also like the one to remove the arrows from iTunes’ interface (No. seven in the second article). Again, this is a little thing, yet I value it in a manner that’s completely out of proportion to the actual change it makes. Put simply, I hate those arrows.

Meanwhile, there’s a tweak for Safari I really like that’s not in either article. It’s one that forces a click to open in a new tab (instead of a window). You can find that one here. Though documented for Safari 3.1, I use it for the Safari 4 beta with no issues.

I’m curious what you think. Which tweaks do you really like? Do you have any to add, and do they seem like major or minor changes to you?

Quite a few folks are reporting problems in getting the Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update installed and working properly on their officially supported Macs, while “hackintosh” netbook users are finding they’re getting dramatically improved battery runtime with 10.5.7 — one of those ironies.

I’m still waiting to see how the dust settles, and also looking for a time window to drive to my “local” (24 miles round-trip) library’s Wi-Fi hotspot and cool my heels for a couple of hours while the 729 MB OS 10.5.7 standalone Combo Updater downloads over their none-too-speedy wireless LAN. In the meantime, OS 10.5.6 is giving me nothing in particular to complain about on either my Intel unibody MacBook or my 17″ G4 PowerBook, so there’s no compelling reason to be in a tear about updating.

“Belt & Suspenders”

I have never allowed Software Update to upgrade an OS install on any of my computers. It’s a moot point anyway on my glacial-drift-slow home dial-up connection, but I wouldn’t be inclined to let something as crucial and potentially problematical as an OS update run in the background even over the fastest broadband connection. I keep Software Update turned off.

I know millions do take the SU route without experiencing difficulties. But there are also those who will encounter contretemps like stalled installers, blue screens, and a variety of post-upgrade issues of the sort that get reported on MacFixIt, MacInTouch and other forums, including Apple’s, after every OS upgrade or security patch release. MacFixIt has flatly stated that “Apple’s Software Update, as presently implemented, is inherently dangerous.” On the other hand, over the course of dozens of OS X installs, upgrades and updates since OS 10.1 on my machines, I’ve never experienced a serious problem, and I attribute that, at least in part, to my “belt & suspenders” approach to updating.

That said, I’m less obsessive than I used to be about preparation. I used to do disk optimizations, or even defragment using AlSoft’s highly regarded Disk Warrior utility before running major system upgrades, but I haven’t been doing that for the past couple of years, and so far so good. With today’s larger hard drive capacities, the time investment involved in that sort of disk maintenance has become more prohibitive.

Maintenance and Backup

Before updating the OS, I do at least bring my Time Machine backup up to date (easy, and something we should all keep current anyway) and run a suite of system cleaning and maintenance routines — Repair Permissions, cron scripts, dump various caches, and so forth with my favorite system maintenance app, OnyX. I don’t believe the world would necessarily come crashing down around my ears if I skipped these preparations, but I like to proceed with things in an orderly and unhurried fashion if possible.

Maybe I would have done just as well using Software Update, but the thing about precautionary principles is that you take pre-emptive action before there is a problem so you don’t have to spend more time fixing one later. If all goes well, as it has for me till now taking this tack, at least one has done no harm.

You could argue that most of the time, running system and disk maintenance software is an act of faith, with no tangible evidence to indicate that it’s doing anything at all. But sometimes it does fix obvious problems, which suggests that stuff can also go wrong “under the hood” without any notable symptoms. Whenever I do find the time to run Disk Warrior, it almost invariably finds directory damage and files that need repair.

Common Sense Prudence

I also prefer to use the Combo updater if I’m not absolutely pressed for time on the download, which is the mode MacFixIt and other experts recommend. The standalone installer is especially useful if you have multiple computers to update and only want to download the software once. The full Combo standalone update is a more fail-safe and superior alternative to the incremental version offered by SU.

I think it’s simply common sense prudence to at least minimize use of the computer during OS updates. If one has the time (I concede that I usually don’t do this) it’s a good idea to boot the Mac into Safe Boot Mode (hold down the Shift key during a reboot) before running the installer. Be aware that starting up in Safe Mode takes a long time because it runs a media scan during the boot process, so be prepared to wait about five minutes or so before the login screen appears, which it will even if you have automatic login configured.

Happy Medium?

Is there a happy medium to be struck between “What, me worry?” and obsessive compulsive take? Neither approach is necessarily “wrong.” It really depends on your comfort level with risk, and to some degree, on the amount of time you can invest in running upgrades. However, a failed upgrade will usually burn a lot more time than an ounce of preparation.

What’s your preferred OS upgrade/update approach? Do you rush right in, hang back and take it slow, or use multiple strategies for different machines?

So I need your help, dear readers. I’ve taken a new position at my big-boy job, and it’s throwing me back into the world of coding. As with the majority of businesses, ours runs on Dell PCs, but my new lead wants to change that (at least for our group). We’re a small enough company that a shift to Macs for a small group of us (who can support ourselves technically) isn’t out of the question. But we need some sound arguments to take to our owner as to why using Macs would be a superior choice for the new development practice in our group. Think you’ve got some solid input for us?

Ideally, we’ll answer two different questions here. The first would address the best arguments for using the Mac platform as our main development machines. What makes them a better, more flexible — even more cost-efficient — solution to our large, beefy, Dell machines that we’re currently using (in between blue screens). The second bit of feedback I’m hoping for, is what you’ve found to be your streamlined software configuration for such tasks. So let’s get to it.

I must confess, it’s been awhile since I could call myself something reminiscent of a code monkey. To be more accurate, it was before I was using a Mac full time (as an adult, that is). So while I’ve got a lot of experience with Macs, I’m not well-versed in the code development side of things in their current incarnation. Obviously, XCode rocks for the likes of app development for OS X and iPhone, but that’s not what I need. We’ll be working mostly in Java and SQL. Having tight access to the command line, databases, and code repositories will be important. Multiple environments (probably via virtual machine) will be pretty helpful, too. So these are the general parameters to form our Mac argument around. Go!

The other part I’d like to address is best software setups to achieve the above. NetBeans looks like a no-brainer for the IDE. (I am, of course, open to suggestions, hence this post!) But more specifically, how are you using the other tools like databases and virtual machines and such? Do you like to use the OS X in-built MySQL database and Apache web servers? Or have you found that installing them standalone or using the likes of MAMP results in a better set of options? Which OS X tools are useful, and which third-party tools are ideal? Basically, any firsthand experience as to what works best for developing on your Mac — even if it’s using some parts of Windows or Linux in a virtual machine — is what I’m looking for here. Should we win this little war of ours, I’d love to hit the ground running rather than reinventing the wheel.

As you may be able to tell, I’ve got my own ideas for some arguments. Perhaps some of the requirements I’ve listed are leading, but I’m truly looking for your experience and input. This really isn’t meant to spark another Windows vs. OS X flame war, so let’s please stick to fact and experience and leave the emotion at home. To that end, even if your feedback is that Windows has been better in your experience, let’s hear it! I’d love to use a Mac at the office, but if it’s not going to be the best tool for our needs, then I want to know that, too.

With Apple’s hardware slowly fighting the good fight in the workplace, I’ll wager that there are others out there looking for similar ammunition to take to their tech departments to get Macs in their own shop. If you’re looking for specific areas to strengthen your pro-Mac arguments, let me know those in the comments as well. If we get enough, we can do a follow-up article and try to get feedback for your needs, too.

A big thank you in advance for the valuable input that our reader base undoubtedly has to share.

Many Mac experts recommend purchasing the AppleCare Protection Plan extended warranty — particularly for laptop users, arguing there are just too many things that can go wrong and that replacing notebooks and their parts can be very expensive. But is it really worth it?

I’ve heard that same argument advocating the purchase of AppleCare for Mac portables since I bought my first PowerBook, a 5300, in 1996. I’ve never heeded the advice, and so far I’ve had exactly zero cause to regret it with the more than a half-dozen Apple laptops I’ve owned that could have qualified for AppleCare. I’ve never made a warranty claim under the basic 1 year warranties on my Apple notebooks, and I never seriously considered purchasing AppleCare with the Apple Certified Refurbished 2.0 GHz unibody MacBook I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I hasten to emphasize that my anecdotal experiences represent a statistically insignificant sampling, and many folks out there say they’re very thankful they did purchase AppleCare. I’m glad for them, but in general I remain unconvinced that extended warranties like AppleCare are a good investment.

Scientific Corroboration

Corroborating my deduction, in 1997, Consumer Reports surveyed readers who had purchased extended warranties on electronic equipment. On average, consumers paid about as much for the extended warranty, by the time the product needed service or repair, as the average repair cost for a product of that age. In most product categories, fewer than 25 percent of units surveyed required repairs within five years.

Something else to consider before purchasing an extended warranty is that many major credit cards will double the manufacturer’s warranty period (often capped at two years) on purchases made with their card. However, if you use your computer for work be sure to read the fine print, since most credit card warranty extensions don’t apply to machines used for business purposes.

Most Warranty Issues Happen in the First Year

The strongest likelihood of warranty issues manifesting is in the first year, in which case you’re covered anyway. The second two years of coverage you pay for with AppleCare are more of a dice-roll, although given the general reliability of Apple portables, if your Mac survives the initial 12 month warranty period with no repairs needed (as is most likely), or is repaired during the first year, probability of it needing repairs during the subsequent two years is relatively low (although it could of course still happen).

From my own experiential perspective, had I purchased AppleCare for each of the five PowerBooks, one iBook and one MacBook I’ve purchased over the past 13 years, I would’ve spent something like the price of a new MacBook Pro with no benefit to show for it, which is the philosophical equation that has dissuaded me from buying AppleCare.

Telephone Tech Support Also Extended

However I’m tech-savvy enough that I don’t have much interest in extended Apple tech support (Apple’s standard phone tech support on new machines expires after 90 days.). Over the years, I think I phoned them once or twice about the 5300, but I was a lot newer to Apple laptops then. On the other hand, for some users the tech support lifeline could be vital.

Purchasers of the AppleCare Protection Plan also receive a CD containing TechTool Deluxe software from Micromat — a full-featured computer diagnostic and repair utility, which adds some value to the package.

The AppleCare Protection Plan can only be purchased while your computer is still under its original one-year warranty. All covered systems and covered Apple peripherals must either be new or newly refurbished by Apple (Apple Certified Refurbished), or still under Apple’s limited warranty to qualify for Protection Plan coverage.

Don’t Buy Until the Deadline

Note that even if you are interested in the AppleCare Protection Plan, it’s in your best interest to wait until the 12th month of ownership before purchasing, rather than buying the coverage when you purchase your computer, unless you really need or want one of the enhanced services or the TechTool utility right away. Doing so will delay the extra expense, and thus delay the ding on your pocketbook.

Despite my skepticism about AppleCare’s value, if you buy an expensive machine like a 17″ MacBook Pro and the big screen or the logic board fails after the first year, you’ll thank yourself for having ponied up for AppleCare. However, with at $999 MacBook, AppleCare coverage costs $250, adding a whopping 25 percent to the cost of the computer. If you’ll sleep better under the AppleCare umbrella, don’t let me dissuade you. Risk tolerance is a personal decision, and with any mass-produced product there will always be a percentage of lemon units, so if you decide to roll the dice, be prepared to accept that once in a while they will turn up snake-eyes.