May 31, 2008 Jun 2, 2008 Sunday June 1, 2008
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Dear potential Dock icon candidate - How to decide what icons make it to your dock
I have a whole batch of criteria for what makes it in my dock and gets tossed. I know we all have something that makes us promote an application to its often-clicked life in the Dock. I thought I would share some of mine and also see what readers do with their Dock icon set. These aren't in any particular order of importance. Does the application have a good icon? I mean some of the developers are great programmers, but they desperately need a graphic artist to design them some justice. I don't hide my dock, so if I have to look at it I want it to be pretty. Do I get convenient options or controls from the Dock's contextual menu? Take for example, Mail lives in my dock for many useful reasons. One of these is the options I get from right-clicking on Mail's Dock icon. With this I can immediately check my mail as well as create a new message or note. Did you also know that if you drag an item on the Mail icon it will attach the item to a new message? I do this frequently all day and its become part of my workflow. Is the application used daily? I love being able to come to work in the morning and have immediate access to the things I need to do in my Dock. I used to fill it up with Applications, but with this little hack you can enable the Recent Applications menu in the Dock. I've found I really only use about 10 applications a day anyway. Files and folders have to have many of these criteria as well. Most of the folders I put in my dock are current project folders, network volumes (they automatically connect if you put them in the Dock), and Downloads. There you have it, very basic criteria for getting into the Dock. Its prime real estate for developers and more importantly Mac users. What criteria do you have for your Dock?
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Apple Files for .me Domains
New top-level domain (ostensibly from Montenegro). Apple has filed for “apple.me”, “ipod.me”, “itunes.me”, and, I presume, others. These domains are open for anyone to register starting June 6, but the actual .me top-level domain doesn’t go live until July 17. I think it’s merely a coincidence that this TLD is going live right around the same time that it appears Apple is set to launch a service called Mobile Me. ★
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NYT on the Success of the Disney/Pixar Merger
Brooks Barnes on Disney and Pixar: “Cars� tells the story. The film was regarded by some critics as one of Pixar’s weaker storytelling efforts, and it generated soft foreign sales when compared with hits like “Finding Nemo.� But “Cars� has pumped billions in profit into Disney via a wide range of ancillary businesses. The film racked up over $460 million in global ticket sales and has sold 27 million DVDs. Related retail products have generated $5 billion in sales. A “Cars� virtual world is opening on the Internet, a “Cars� ice-skating show will begin touring the nation in September, and work is under way to bring an entire “Cars� experience to the Disneyland Resort in California. ★
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Double trouble for Windows Safari users
Filed under: Internet, SecurityWindows users might have more of a headache when it comes to the Safari "carpet bombing" bug. Macworld reports that combined with a bug in Internet Explorer, attackers can run malicious applications on a victim's computer (obviously without their consent) using Safari for Windows. Aviv Raff, according to Macworld, reported the IE bug over a year ago, and warned of its consequences when paired with a carpet-bombing-like scenario. He recommends to stop using Safari for the time being. Microsoft issued a security advisory in response to the "new public reports of a blended threat" combining the two problems. Microsoft suggests in the advisory that changing the default folder that Safari uses for downloads will protect users from these attacks. True, it all starts when the user follows a link, so (as always) be careful what you click on.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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TUAW Best of the Week
Filed under: Features, TUAW Business, Weekend ReviewWelcome to the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment. It's been a while since Apple has released a large group of updates ... they definitely made up for it this week: Mac OS X 10.5.3 Mac OS X 10.5.3 (Server) Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 2.1 Logic Express Update 8.0.2 Security Update 2008-003 iTunes store over EDGECan't get enought of that mobile iTunes WiFi store? Brett tells you where to find information for running the iTunes store on your iPhone over an EDGE connection (no matter how slow that might be -- some may people enjoy 10-15 minute music downloads). Delicious Library 2.0 is now shippingDelicious Library is the definitive way of storing your actual collections of books, movies, music, games, and more. Recently, this cool piece of software was updated to version 2.0, which includes tons of new, Leopard-only features. Leopard running on an Atom ProcessorWith Leopard running on one of the most portable processors out there, could this mean that Apple might have a tablet or portable up their sleves (possibly literally)? The Apple /// ResourceGot some old Apple /// hardware laying around with nothing to run on it? Well, Dave shows you how to get some cool software to run on it. iPhone SDK beta 6 is hereWith the latest release of the iPhone SDK beta "out the door," things are starting to shape-up as it comes to the iPhone 2.0 firmware release. Could a new iPhone be around the corner as well? RapidWeaver 4 shipsRealmac Software released their cool web design software, RapidWeaver this week. This is the fourth major release of RW -- and it could be the best. 'Mobile Me' the new name of .Mac?TUAW broke the news last month about a .Mac refresh being imminent but now someone has found "Mobile Me" as a possible name of the possible to-be-announced re-branding of .Mac. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Talkcast reminder: WWDC preview, 10 pm ET tonight
Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts Last week's talkcast was a valedictory to our trans-Atlantic comrade, Nik Fletcher, who has ended his tenure with TUAW but remains active over at Download Squad. Download the show from Talkshoe, play it from the Flash player in the continuation of this post, if you like, or pick it up on iTunes. Join us again later tonight, Sunday June 1 at 10 pm ET for our WWDC preview show. We'll be talking to developers (hint -- developers, if you want to talk about your products to Mac users, c'mon down!) and giving away the trivia prizes we neglected to hand out last week. Continue reading Talkcast reminder: WWDC preview, 10 pm ET tonightRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments