News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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Orbicule on Wednesday announced the release of Undercover 2.5, an update to the theft recovery software for Mac OS X. Undercover 2.5 costs $US49 ($A73); updates are free for registered users.
Undercover can activate a Mac after it’s been stolen and transmits network information, screenshots and even iSight pictures, to help aid police and other authorities with theft recovery. It will also simulate a hardware failure on the Mac, in the hope that a thief might send the Mac out for repair or sell it; Undercover can then warn the new user that the computer has been stolen.
Improvements to Undercover 2.5 include a 75 percent reduction in memory usage. CPU usage has also been “dramatically” reduced, according to the developer. Undercover now only connects to the Internet when a network change occurs. Dozens of bug fixes and “under the hood” enhancements have also been made. Undercover requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Has this sort of software ever worked for you? Share your experiences in the AMW Forums.
We write a lot these days about all the things Apple makes that aren’t the Mac — iPods, iPhones, Apple TV and so on — but the Mac business has never been better than it is right now.
Jim Dalrymple,Pjilips Michaels and Jason Snell | Oct 21, 2007
For watching movies, Jobs announced that the second iteration of the Apple TV will allow movies to be downloaded (and even rented) directly from the iTunes Store without the need for a computer to get involved. Of course, this feature is only relevant to Americans, but as an increasing number of Australians are figuring out how to access the US iTunes Store it's worth noting. The iTunes rental service includes both new release and "catalogue" films from all the major studios.
Matthew JC. Powell | Jan 16, 2008
Apple on Wednesday released an update to QuickTime, version 7.4.1. Available for download from the Software Update system preference, QuickTime is also available from Apple's downloads web site. Separate updaters have been posted for Mac OS X v10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. The update "addresses security issues and improves compatibility with third-party applications," according to Apple. Apple provided no additional details about those changes in the release notes, but confirmed that this update addresses a previously reported incompatibility between QuickTime 7.4 and Adobe After Effects. According to a separately posted note on Apple's web site, QuickTime 7.4.1 also includes a security improvement that can prevent a malicious web site from causing an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.
Peter Cohen and Robert McMullen | Feb 7, 2008
Confounding the rumour sites that couldn't decide whether to predict a MacBook Pro revision this morning or just a MacBook revision, Apple has unveiled updated versions of both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. That ought to keep them guessing. Both lines have been updated with faster processors, plus larger hard drives and, in the case of the Pro, faster graphics by NVidia. Most significantly, the MacBook Pros now feature the same multi-touch trackpad as the MacBook Air.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 27, 2008
As I type these words, I am waiting for Apple's Developer Connection web site to ease up sufficiently for me to download the long-awaited Software Developer Kit for the iPhone (and iPod touch, just by the by). In a way, I hate developer-oriented announcements — "here's a really cool thing we're working on, and it's available now, and hoi polloi can have it in about six months". Actually, it's the six months I hate.
