For the first time in years, the Mac has been widely publicised as being used in a governmental setting. For the Mac community, this can only mean great things are afoot, regardless of the technology choices made by the new administration in the long run. Indeed, while it is no secret that governments and governmental agencies have dabbled in Mac...

Reader Petra Hildebrandt recently suggested that I share with you a few of my favourite freeware applications. Since yesterday's post was about networking and troubleshooting, it seems only appropriate to continue in the same vein and look at a few tools that can neatly assist the budding trouble-shooter. Much like yesterday, none of it may be earth-shattering, but I find...

Thanks to its UNIX underpinnings, Mac OS X is a remarkably robust network client. I knew not what this really meant until I had to build a QuickTime streaming server broadcasting all around France over a NAT-protected WiFi link crossing the Seine river and get it to play music in front of the national press. However, despite its outstanding resiliency,...

The current economic climate and the old-world flair of traditional trade shows are often blamed for Macworld's slow, and somewhat humiliating, demise. After its move back to Boston — a thinly masked prelude to the cancellation of its east coast edition —, its original version is now widely suspected to be on its last legs. Certainly, IDG has announced there...

The latest trend in interface design seems to be making computers speak like humans would. This is why many interfaces today have eschewed precise wording or technical terms in favour or lighter-hearted, vaguer words. We're no longer "processing data," we're "thinking about it," and a post wasn't made "seventeen seconds ago" but "just about now." Everywhere blogs and usability books...

This news just in, Steve will not be gracing Macworld Expo 2009 with a keynote. For the past couple hours, the blogosphere has been quietly buzzing with unusually tame speculation about the meaning of this announcement and its potential effects on investor confidence. Overall, nobody seems unduly worried about the health or future of Apple's CEO, and a nice consensus...

For years, I have made no secret of my shameful passion for Opera, the little-loved, under-appreciated star of the browsing world. For years also, I have bemoaned Opera's lack of interest in anything design-related. True to form, the Opera engineers were releasing a great product, digging its grave slightly deeper with every release, omitting to update buttons here, botching themes...

Back in the days when I used to write on the Apple Discussions Forums under the pseudonym of Mimi — I know, I know —, the Mac OS X Installer was a rather sorry mess. Today, it's a fine piece of updating goodness, save for one particular weakness: it does not automatically download and install updates on a freshly initialized...

John Gruber yesterday published an excellent piece entitled Listen to Tim Cook, in which he exposes some of the characteristics that underlie Apple's uniqueness and explain their ability to withstand market seizures by moving in unique, brand-specific directions. As often, I find myself in agreement with John's piece, and I could not encourage you enough to give it a read....

Jason Snell, over at Macworld, tells us that Apple has redesigned the icon of the Energy Saver preferences pane into one of these newer, more energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs that are progressively entering our homes. As I do not own one of these new MacBooks, I cannot check this assertion for myself, but I will trust him, and I invite...