512 Pixels

Ryan Kim:

ReadItLater just raised $2.5 million to bulk up its content shifting operation while online document site Scribd, a start-up with $26 million in funding, just launched a new reading app that has similar features. Meanwhile Apple is preparing to go live with iOS 5 that also allows users to read web content later.

If you’re Marco Arment founder of Instapaper, known for popularizing the time-shifting reading genre that is now suddenly quite popular, what do you do? Nothing, really.

He told me that even with the new competition and funding news by ReadItLater, he feels no more compelled to take on venture capital.

The whole venture capitalist thing really is getting old to me. I’m glad to see the developer of one my all-time favorite apps taking the high road.

Casey Johnston:

A new Android trojan has cropped up that records phone calls and related information, according to a blog post by an employee of security company Total Defense. The trojan is triggered when the Android device places or receives a phone call. It saves the audio file and related information to the phone’s microSD card, and includes a configuration file with information on a remote server and settings used by the trojan.

The best part of this is that the app tells the user it has the ability to “intercept outgoing calls,” and people still seem to be installing it.

I really hate that Apple approves every app before it is available to the general public.

Chris Foresman at Ars:

According to reports from Engadget and Phone Arena, both Radio Shack and Target planned to offer between $30 and $50 off of the price of an iPhone 4 with a two-year contract. We verified Monday morning that Radio Shack has a current promotion running through Saturday, offering the iPhone 4 for $169.99 and $269.99 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively. Radio Shack is also offering up to $100 credit for the trade-in of a previous iPhone model, dropping the price to as low as $69 with contract.

It is always darkest right before the dawn.

From AFP548’s Lion Server review:

Does this mean that OS X Lion Server is a slam dunk upgrade for everyone? No. In fact there are some folks that I don’t think I could even recommend to remain on the platform. If you are making a living doing web and mail hosting on Mac OS X Server then you are probably going to be better off moving to some other Unix or even Windows. The total gutting of web configuration when it comes to sites and virtual domains means you are going to be doing a lot of the same work in Apache2 conf files as you would be elsewhere. You can certainly get the job done on Lion Server and he price is right, but there just isn’t a compelling reason to do so.

For people that want to mange services for Mac, Windows, and iOS clients though Lion is fantastic. While the tools may have changed, the services that we’ve always had are all still here. Everything benefits from the upgrades of OS X Lion as well, with 64-bit now being the only way to go. The price is great and the install is simple.

Most impressively, you get a full blown MDM server for “free” with Lion Server. No developer account or third parties required. Just turn it on and go. This is bringing with it a huge shift in the way we think about client management on the Mac and I think the change will be for the better in the long run.

Andrew Cunningham at AnandTech:

Lion Server’s main problem, from an IT person’s point of view, has less to do with the software’s functionality and more to do with Apple’s software support model. Lion Server is a good product that maintains most of the appeal of past OS X Server versions, but like the client version of Lion, it’s clearly a transitional product that makes many changes and foreshadows many more, and there’s less tolerance for that sort of thing in the server room than on the client end. If your organization depended on something like the Print or QuickTime Streaming service in Snow Leopard Server, or the ability to join Windows clients to Open Directory, Apple decided that those services were obsolete and got rid of them; now you’re stuck having to find something else to do the same work.

With the Server Admin Tools so clearly on their way out and Server.app not quite ready to pick up all the slack, the direction that OS X Server is headed isn’t very clear. It’s a good product today, but what will it be in two years? In five? This is the sort of thing that server admins, especially Windows server admins used to Microsoft’s longer guaranteed support cycles, worry about, and with Lion Server Apple isn’t doing much to allay those fears.

This 11,000 word review is well worth the time it takes to read if you depend on OS X Server. Like the client version of OS X, this really feels like a beginning and an end.

As Apple shifts more toward the consumer end of the spectrum, those of us with Xserves are feeling more and more like dinosaurs with each release. To say that I’m nervous about the future of OS X Server would be a massive understatement.

Peter Bright:

Another month rolls round, bringing with it another bunch of browser market share statistics. July was the first full month during which Firefox 5 was available, so it was the first indication of how well Mozilla’s new Rapid Release schedule would play in the market.

First the overall market share numbers. Internet Explorer is down 0.87 points to 52.81 percent. Firefox is down 0.19 points, to 21.48 percent. Chrome and Safari both made gains, of 0.34 and 0.57 points each, to 13.45 and 8.05 percent respectively. Finally, Opera fell slightly, by 0.08 points to 1.65 percent.

The day Internet Explorer ends its dominance, web designers around the world will celebrate. Standards should always win in the end.¹

Jason Snell at Macworld:

The MacBook Air has never been a laptop for everyone. It began as a niche laptop for a tiny sliver of the population, but in the intervening three years there’s been a sea change. Today, most people in the market for a Mac laptop should seriously consider the MacBook Air. Sure, there are some people for whom it’s a poor fit—but I suspect they are increasingly the exception, not the rule. (There’s a reason Apple’s marketing slogan for this version of the Air is “The ultimate everyday notebook.”)

At just a hair below three pounds, the 13-inch MacBook Air will probably hit the sweet spot for users accustomed to larger computer screens. But for my money, the 11-inch Air is the real winner here. At $999, it’s now holding down the low-price end of the Apple laptop market. It will almost certainly be the laptop of choice for students, and they’ll love its light weight and small size.

Then upgrade it to an i7 processor with 4GB of RAM and a 256GB hard drive, attach it to an external display and peripherals via its Thunderbolt port, and you’ve got a tiny system with an amazing amount of power. The 11-inch MacBook Air might not be the perfect computer, but it’s as close to perfect as Apple’s ever come.

It has more linen, unsurprisingly … and the ugly-as-sin Address Book from the iPad and OS X Lion.

Harry Reid, to the New York Times:

I am relieved to say that leaders from both parties have come together for the sake of our economy to reach a historic, bipartisan compromise that ends this dangerous standoff.

If the state of Ohio re-elects John Boehner, we should bomb it.

While SSDs are all the rage — for good reason — MacBook Pro users looking for the maximum amount of storage possible should be rejoicing tonight, as WD has launched a 1TB drive that will fit into Apple’s notebooks.

This little app seems pretty neat, if you’re into huge icons flying back and forth on your Mac.

Since yesterday’s post by Kevin Lipe about the Performa 578, I’ve gotten several emails from you fine-looking readers wanting to write guests posts about old Macs you’re passionate about.

By all means, I would love to post your stories about old Macs!

So, get in touch. In your initial email, please indicate which Mac model you are planning to write about, so I don’t have systems covered more than once.

After we talk, please submit your work in Markdown or HTML. I will be editing posts to conform to AP style, and will link to your site or Twitter account in the Editor’s Note at the top of the post.

Thanks. You guys are the best.