I'm a big fan of RealMacSoftware's RapidWeaver web creation tool, so much so that I use it to create this site. Normally it costs $40, but you can snag a free licenced copy by purchasing this month's MacUser magazine.

Alternatively, you can go to my Mac blog and I'll show you how to get it easier than that.

The geekiest of Mac geeks are the ones to post up their "unpacking pr0n" photos the minute they get their new Apple goodies out of the box.



But this has to be the best pisstake of the process ever. This guy makes a cardboard mockup of the iPhone, prints out what looks like the front cover of the documentation, packs them into a Mighty Mouse box (which he has modified to look like an iPhone box), packs that into an Amazon box, and then photographs the unpacking of the lot and posts it on the net.



Not only that, but he has actually registered the url iphoneunboxed.com.

That is dedication. This guy is hardcr0e. Respec'!

In a comment over on Machead, Jimbo asks how we should articulate the name of the new device called tv. Apple tv? Symbol tv?



My suggestion is to go the route once taken by Prince - and call it "The Device Formerly Known As iTV"

It seems that Cisco aren't happy about Apple using the name 'iPhone' for their new all-singing-all-dancing handheld-multimedia-internet-communication-phone-thingie after all, and have engaged the services of Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

(via Mac Rumors)

One of the announced features of Mac OS X Leopard will be Dashcode, an app that allows you to create your own Dashboard Widgets. This is something I have been keen to do for ages, so I was delighted to see that Apple have released a beta of Dashcode that works in Tiger.

I have installed it and have been playing around with it for a while. With the help of some instruction from The Download Squad, I have managed to create an RSS widget for this blog.



It's kinda basic, but it does the job. I have set up a new page in the sidebar from where you can download it. Note that it will only work with the Mac's Dashboard, and not in the Yahoo! (Konfabulator) environment.

Macworld today was pretty much all about one product - iPhone. For months the speculation was rife that Apple were working on a phone, but no-one had an inkling just how advanced this thing appears to be. (Incidentally, I queried the iPhone name yesterday, and would be interested to find out how Apple got around the fact that Cisco already have a product called iPhone on the market.)

There's a good demo of the various features of the device on the US Apple site. It has the effortless handling and ease of use we expect from an Apple product, and should be the runaway success of the year.

This is a major new departure for Apple, but the mobile phone market is the one they simply had to get in on. Right now, the control 75% or thereabouts of the MP3 player market, but that is small fry compared to the massive global market for mobile phones. Here in Ireland, there are more mobile phones than people. The problem for Apple is that this is not a stand-alone product. You can't just buy one from the Apple Store and get it going. For each market, Apple must entrust their device to a carrier network to enable it to connect to the wider world. In the US, Apple has gone with Cingular. Who will get it for Ireland, I wonder? Hopefully Comreg will not be involved in any way!

I just noticed that the QuickTime link for the Keynote address has gone live. I got as far as 8 minutes in before it tanked. This happens every Keynote day. The demand for the video is huge, and as soon as everyone piles in, it's easy to get elbowed out of the way. I'll try again tomorrow.

Added Weds night: I seem to be having problems with Haloscan for this post, and have been unable to reply to Frank McGahon's comment of this morning, so I'll post it here:

And many happy returns to all in the McGahon household, Frank.From where I'm standing, one of the biggest problems I can for foresee in getting the phone out to markets other than the US, is Apple's choice of carrier. Some of the features of the iPhone were developed in tandem with Cingular, e.g. the selectable voicemail messages. Can Apple confirm that features like this will work if they go with O2 or Vodafone here in Ireland?Also there is the issue of connectivity. As far as I'm aware, EDGE isn't in use in Europe, so will Apple have to modify the handset to work satisfactorily with say, Vodafone 3G?Battery life looks good in comparison to the Treo and the Blackberry Pearl, however the battery is sealed within the device, a similar arrangement to the iPod. This will cause a bit of grief, because it will require that the phone go to a repair centre for a new battery when the installed one eventually runs out.I still want one, though...

Apple's year started as always with Macworld in San Francisco. This is the show where the company sets out its stall for the coming twelve months, and is often the showcase for new product lines.

While there weren't any completely new goodies on offer last January, the big news story was the launch of the first two Intel-equipped Macs - the iMac and the MacBook Pro. Both sported the Core Duo chip, and the MBP came equipped with a built-in iSight. iLife '06 was released as well, and it included a new app - iWeb, a basic, template-driven web-publishing platform.

The move to Intel continued throughout the year, with the Mac mini converted in April, the MacBook replacing the G4 iBook in May, and finally the Power Mac sailing off into the twilight in August, to be replaced by the new quad-core MacPro. Overall, it took just 14 months to port the entire range over to Intel.

Since then, all Core Duo models (with the exception of the mini) got bumped up to Core 2 Duo processors in the Autumn. Some prices dropped (most notably on the iMac) and installed RAM was increased. The iMac line got a new big brother, a 24-inch behemoth.

Almost as soon as the Intel machines appeared, the race was on to see who would be the first to install Windows on them. A competition was launched and eventually a shaky video appeared confirming the worst fears of the most fundamentalist of Mac devotees - Windows XP booting on an iMac. Shortly afterwards, Apple themselves released a beta of a new app called BootCamp, which allowed Windows to be installed on a separate partition of any Mactel HD. And then Parallels Desktop appeared, which enabled Windows to run on top of OS X, so that a reboot wasn't needed to swtich between the two.

Apart from its computer business, Apple had another highly successful year in the world of digital entertainment. The iPod continued to dominate the market, even though there was little enhancement of the device itself. The nano got to second generation status, and reclaimed the look of the player it replaced, with bright colours replacing the black-or-white-only option of the first generation nanos. The Shuffle got a complete redesign and became even smaller. Are we getting closer to the iPod flea, I wonder?



More competition for the iPod emerged in the form of the Zune from Microsoft. Launched in November, it had a quiet start, and so far hasn't made a serious impact into the iPod's position as dominant player.

Alongside all this was the revamp of the Apple's digital music marketplace, the iTunes Music Store. Full-length feature films were added to the offering (US store only, as yet), and the word 'Music' was dropped from the title. So far, the only movies available are from Disney, which should come as no surprise, seeing as Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on the board of Disney.

The big hype of the year has of course been the mythical iPod/phone hybrid. There have been rumours, sightings, photoshop mockups, alleged patent filings - you name it. One thing there hasn't been is a word from Apple to say that they are developing the thing at all. The balance of probability is that they are, and may even launch it at Macworld later today. Hopefully it will be resolved soon, cos I don't think that the server hosting TUAW will be able to handle another God-knows-how-many "OMG, OMG, iPhone, w00t, w00t" type comments whenever they run yet another IPod phone rumour story.

Apple did allow a couple of sneak-peeks this year of upcoming launches. Leopard, the fifth release of Mac OS X will be launched in the first or second quarter of this year (hopefully, we'll have a date later today), and it was previewed at the Wordwide Developers' Conference in August. There are some nice things in there like Time Machine and Spaces, and some pretty eye-candy added to existing apps like Mail and iChat.

The other pre-launch we were treated to was iTV, a device that will stream digital media content from your Mac or PC to your television. Emboldened by the success of iPod and iTunes, Apple are going hell for leather into the digital entertainment world. They need to get more movie studios on board, and to broaden out the availability of movies through the iTunes Store in order to make this market their own in 2007.

So what does 2007 hold for Apple? Apple themselves are proclaiming 2007 as being a special year, with this graphic on their US homepage for the last few days.

Leopard and iTV (although that will not be its name when it goes on sale) are shoo-ins, and probably the iPod phone as well. (Note to everyone who writes about this thing: Apple don't own the name 'iPhone', Cisco do and have launched a Linksys VoIP phone under than name.) The whole range of Macs will probably get one or more processor refresh throughout the year. The iPod may get a widescreen overhaul and a touchscreen interface. Or indeed it may not.

What will be the hype for this year? Will Apple decide to dip its toes in the games console market? Will Steve Jobs and Saint Bono jointly announce a new Apple product that eliminates world poverty and AIDS?

Oh, and don't forget the new Apple anti-gravity machine, the iFloat.

w00t! indeed.

There was some welcome news for Mac fans of in Galway recently, with the opening of a new shop specialising in Apple products.

3G, one of the big players in the retail mobile phone market, is also an Authorised Apple Reseller, and it is they who have opened the new store in the Eyre Square Centre in the city centre.

I was in Galway today and nipped in for a quick look. I was impressed, with a good array of hardware on display, and enthusiastic staff who seemed to know what they were talking about. One assistant I spoke to said that the Macs "were selling themselves."

Hopefully if this outlet is a success, 3G will develop the concept further.

Jim, a long-time Mac user and has just sent back his new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro to Apple and asked for a refund.

It seems that the problems that Jim encountered were not just as a result of rotten luck on his part, but are being experienced by other users too. Hopefully Apple is working on a fix for the problems, as pissing off your most faithful customers is rarely a good business move.

Mind you, if this had happened to Tom, the displeasure might have been articulated in more trenchant terms…

Doug Morris, Group Chief Executive of Universal Music, having agreed with Microsoft that Universal will get $1 for every Zune sold, is looking longingly at the iPod and wants a piece of it.

John Gruber imagines negotiations between Morris and Steve Jobs of Apple, in which Morris tries to extort agree a similar deal.

JOBS: How about you take one of those white Zunes and you turn it into a brown one, Doug. 

Jobs beams the full Steve Jobs smile.

Under €50:

A six-month subscription to ScreenCastsOnline.
Don McAllister's weekly video tutorial on Mac apps, tips and tricks is absolutely invaluable. (Not just Mac either, by the way. Don has just started a series of screencasts on what Google has to offer.) For $25, you get 26 weekly shows, mostly about 20-30 minutes in duration, with superb production value. If this was twice the price, it would still be a steal.


iWoz by Steve Wozniak
I haven't read this, and it is on my Christmas wish list. Steve Wozniak is 'The Other Steve' in the Apple story. While Steve Jobs was the public face of Apple, Wozniak was the engineering genius behind some of the company's most innovative products.

€50-€100

More RAM
Most Macs come with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM these days, but to really make the machine sing you should be looking at about 2GB+. You can get it from Apple if you like, but you will pay very well for it. Alternatively, you can order from Crucial, and in my experience delivery comes next day.

Parallels Desktop
Parallels is an app that allows you to run operating systems other than Mac OS X on your Mac, e.g. Windows XP. Why should you want to do that, you may ask? Because you can, and a Dell user can't run OS X on their machine, that's why!

Wireless keyboard/mouse
Freedom from wires, and as most new Macs have Bluetooth built-in, a wireless keyboard or mouse (or both) free up a USB port.

€100-€200

Speakers
The built-in speakers on most Macs are pretty lame, so a set of speakers would be a nice addition, particularly for someone with a large iTunes Library. I like the look of these ones.

Backup Storage
Hard drives can die, even on Macs. If your beloved Mac user has a large collection of photos, movies or music on their machine and isn't backing up, give them a back-up hard drive. And a slap. There are several brand names to choose from including LaCie, Western Digital, Iomega and Maxtor. Make sure to get one that supports Firewire (USB 2.0 will work fine too, but Firewire is faster.)

Over €200

iPod
A portable music device. Quite popular with the kids, by all accounts.

Displays
Expand the screen area of your beloved's Mac. Most new Macs now support screen spanning, which allows your dearest to greatly enhance their Mac-using experience. This Dell screen seems to get a lot of attention from Mac users, high praise indeed.

A new Mac
All new Macs now sport Intel processors, and the entire portfolio has been upgraded at least once in the last 12 months, so now is a great time to buy a new Mac.

I've been meaning to try out Apple's iPhoto Books feature for a while now, so we put together a book of photos of Aoife to see how it looks.

We got it back today, and it's impressive. We chose the hardback linen-bound one, and the finish is of a very high standard. There are 20 pages of photos in the book. You choose how many photos you want per page - it can be a single photo taking up the whole page or several photos together.


Putting it together is a doddle - just choose your template and drop the photos in, click "Buy Book" and that's it. Your book arrives 7-10 days later. The book cost €40, which on the face of it sounds like quite a lot, but for the quality of the product is good value for money, I reckon. 

We've just ordered another two copies as Christmas presents for Aoife's grandparents. Another reason to love the Mac!

I was tempted to set up a new category for this story - Bears And Their Toilet Habits - as on the face of it, it looks like it's stating the bleedin' obvious.

But this report by Nielsen Media Research should be looked at in another way. After more than a year on the market, the video-capable iPod is not being used all that much for its video capabilities. Nielsen researched a sample of iPod users, and found that only 1% of them used their device to watch videos with any regularity.

Yet whenever an iPod revision is on the horizon, the clamour is for more and better video handling on the device. A 'true' Video iPod would probably have a lot more screen real estate, and this would have a negative impact on battery performance. At this moment, Apple sees the market as preferring a 12-hour between-charge battery performance than having an all-singing-and-dancing video device, that would probably have double the drain on the battery.

Apple's focus on movie matters at present is firmly on its iTunes Store and the forthcoming iTV device, which will allow the direct streaming of online video to a TV. When you think about it, watching a movie on a TV-sized screen is a lot more satisfying than watching it on a 10cm screen, which is the size the screen of a video iPod would likely be.

John Gruber writes about attitudes to that most beloved of Web 2.0 conceits - beta.

Using “beta” as a badge of honor for released commercial software makes no more sense than using “buggy” in the same context, and it makes no more sense as an excuse, either.