macBlogger - Apple Mac Blog

What better way to open your first macBlogger post than with an awkward attempt at a pun?

Parallels Desktop version 3.0 has just been officially released. The desktop virtualisation solution that allows you to run OS X and Windows (or some other operating system) side-by-side on your mac, has been under the spotlight quite a lot recently - not least because there have been free copies attached to Mac sales at a number of retail outlets in Ireland and elsewhere.

For anyone who has found themselves with a shiny new copy, or is considering forking out for the privilege of experiencing the best of “both” worlds, Web Worker Daily has written this comprehensive outline of the new version. There is a free 15-day trial available when you download the software here.

Apple have began the advertising campaign which they hope will see iPhone go from shop window into your jean’s pocket.

I have to congratulate Apple on the adverts they have released to date. They are exactly how ads should be. Informative, short and simple. Each of the three adverts actually demonstrate the iPhone in use.

It’s a far cry from their ‘I’m a PC, I’m a Mac’ campaign which was only successful in further portraying Apple users as snooby gits who look down their nose at Windows users.

Anyway, enough of that. Here is the first advert:

The touch screen looks amazing. The functionality looks unreal. The features, well, they are feature rich. Add Zoolander and Hansel (he is hot like a hot cross bun) into the mix and wham!, you have a product which I didn’t really care for up until now. This advert below illustrates the phone’s capabilities more than the one above:

There is a third advert which demonstrates the use of the GPS and Map software available on the iPhone. That looks really cool.

I know what you’re saying, ‘Bah, I want one, when is this thing coming out already’. Ken blogged of a release date of the 29th of June but I would presume that’s a US date as no arrangements have been made with European carriers.

The iPhone is set to enter the EU market in and about the €550 mark. Is it worth it? Probably not. I’m personally going to wait until maybe until the third iteration. Apple aren’t going to get it spot on from the get-go and that price above will probably be halved within 18 months of its release. As a rule I generally never buy brand new technology, but the iPhone is tempting..

Are you going to get an iPhone?

The recently released Image Upload Widget allows you to nearly effortlessly upload images from your desktop without having to visit Image Shack.

Using the Image Upload widget is a fairly straightforward process. Simply locate the picture file that you wish to upload, click and begin dragging it with your cursor, and while continuing to hold down your mouse button, bring up your dashboard - by default, by pressing the F12 key. Drag the picture file so that it is above the Image Upload widget’s drop container, then release the mouse button to drop the file onto the widget. You image will be promptly uploaded to Image Shack, and depending on the preferences you have set on the widget’s back-side, the direct link to the image will either remain intact, or be converted into a TinyURL, before being copied to your pasteboard

And if that’s a bit confussing there is a demonstration of the widget in action is available on their website.

It’s a neat little widget for those who want to upload a single image in a hurry. But it doesn’t scale at all and there is no synchronization with any accounts. For the immediate future, Flickr with their dashboard widget are miles ahead on both features and service. Image Upload Widget is still a nice addition and I’m sure it will evolve over time..

JSM is an open source application developed by an Irish Mac user which allows you send SMS text messages from the comfort of your desktop. Their page on Source Forge explains all you need to know..

JSMS is a FREE open source program which lets you send text messages to any Irish mobile phone using your mobile operator webtext account. Now supports Meteor.ie Vodafone.ie & O2.ie! You can leave the program open all the time on your PC.

You must have a valid Meteor, O2 or Vodafone Ireland phone number and password to use this sms tool.

I’m going to setup my Meteor account later this evening to test out this neat little application.  JSM also works on Windows and Linux. It is developed in Java.

Download JSM

Robbert and myself are currently providing the content on macBlogger but we are eager to get a community of bloggers involved with us. This is a great opportunity for you to get involved in what we hope will be a very successful site. If you would like to help out then please get in touch via this contact form.

Recently a lot of Dutch ISP’s deceided (without warning) that they wanted to close port 25 connections other then to their own mailservers. By doing that they hope to reduce the spamload on the servers and lower the abuse complaints, and even worse ending up on a blacklist because one of their users fucked up.

But on the downside a lot of business clients who run their own SMTP server couldn’t send out mail anymore. A lot of clients had issues. Most of them solved this on my advice by changing their smtp port to a port above 1024, say 1025. Most of those ports aren’t blocked.

I had a problem, since i travel a lot with my mac i actually wanted the same but easy to install and easy to setup. I googled around and found what i was looking for, best of all it was free aswell: Rapido SMTP

What is Rapido SMTP?
This free utility helps Mac users set up a full SMTP mail server in less than a minute. In fact, RapidoSMTP allows you to turn on the Postfix SMTP server built into Mac OS X, which will allow you to send mail out the command line, from PHP, or from Mac OS X applications like Apple Mail, Eudora or Microsoft Entourage.

Installation
Installation is easy, just download the dmg file, and execute it. Be sure, if your isp blocks port 25, to change the post to a different number.

Is it possible with RapidoSMTP to setup an open relay?
NO. By default, we put the SMTP Open Relay as OFF. Like that, nobody can take control of your Mac and use it as a spam server.

Why RapidoSMTP is useful?
RapidoSMTP is useful for example when you move often with a laptop. You will no longer have to setup a different smtp server to send emails. But this product is also a great tool for developers. For PHP programmers, web designers, and other software developers, it’s often useful to set up a local SMTP server on the development machine and communicate with it through “localhost”. This is because you can let the local SMTP server do the job of communicating with a Smart Host, or set up the SSL connections, if required, or work with the DNS System, without your having to figure out what to do to effect these in your code. In your code, you simply talk to “localhost” and leave it to the Postfix Enabled-SMTP server to do the rest.

Testing your installation after installing and activating the SMTP server.
You can test this using Terminal. First, type in this command:

telnet localhost 25 (or if you set a different port telnet to that port)

If you see a :

Connected to localhost.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
220 iMac.local ESMTP Postfix

it means RapidoSMTP has successfully set up your Mac to send mail. You can type ‘quit’ at this point to get out of the telnet session. The in your mail.app set the outgoing smtp to 127.0.0.1 or localhost and you are done.

Questions ? Just ask me ! Robbert

A quick tip: Keep your download windows tidy. That will improve load time on both mac and windows.

Robbert

I’ve come across another nice program, X Resource Graph by Gaucho Software.

X Resource Graph (XRG) is a nice freeware utility that presents system monitoring data in a self-contained bar. The graphs provide quick and easy summaries of the various operations of your system, from CPU usage to memory consumption to network traffic. It even has a temperature monitor. In case you get bored or still feel understimulated with information, there are even graphs for monitoring stocks and local weather.

XRG’s user interface is configurable; you can choose what data you want to see. If you don’t want to see what’s happening on your ethernet interface, you don’t have to see it. The interface also supports skins. It’s pretty easy to configure the look to match your favorite background. On my machine, XRG is configured with transparent borders and background, only showing labels and graphs, so it doesn’t clutter up my desktop.

XRG is not a widget. I’ve seen a few other system monitoring widgets out there like iStat nano, but I use widgets so infrequently lately that something like iStat would annoy me.

Overall, X Resource Graph is a great, free system monitoring app. Everyone should give it a try at least once. Maybe twice.

Robbert