Kirk Mastin, on printing an photo taken with an iPhone at 12x18:
Of course if you view the image closer than 2–3 ft you can see the grain in the image. However, most photos of this size are usually viewed at a distance of at least 4–6ft away. In this case, the photo looks amazing. The grain in an iPhone photo is irregular. iPhone photos have much smoother grain than many digital point and shoot cameras, which is a great thing: iPhone photo grain mimics analog film grain.
The boys and girls over at iFixit have posted a 9-page tutorial on how to remove the Mac mini’s optical drive and hard drive and replace them both with bigger, faster hard drives.
This can only be done to a new Mac mini, as the older models use the older style PATA connectors for the optical drive, while the new one is all SATA.
The procedure looks easy enough, but does involve some technical knowledge and some soldering. And, without a doubt, this would void your AppleCare - but it is a really cool way to void it.
Blair Saldanah is a collector of all things Apple, and is selling off his collection, piece by piece:
Here’s the situation: my wife needs medical care; and we don’t have health insurance. As we all know, desperate times call for desperate measures. So… I’m forced to liquidate my absolutely amazing Collection of Apple Memorabilia! Take a look around, see what you like, and email me to discuss your needs. Many items have some bargaining room (maybe!) and we’ll do quantity discounts too, so find what you want and let’s talk. You might be surprised!
There’s some really cool stuff in there - with more to come.
Mac|Life has posted a lengthy piece named “ 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know.” Here’s a tidbit:
But to help give you the street cred–that is Mac knowledge–to back up the passion, we present the 50 things you really should know if you want to call yourself a Mac geek. If you’re a recent convert to the Way of the Mac, be sure you study this compendium so you can move up a few levels of geekitude. If you’re a longtime Mac geek, test your know-how against our list–and be sure to let us know what we missed by flaming us at [email protected].
Amazon has released Kindle - an iPhone app that, well, allows users to read Kindle-formatted e-books, magazines, and newspapers. The application is easy enough to use, and the iPhone client keeps bookmarks and reading locations synced between the iPhone and any Kindle devices synced with the Amazon account, but purchases have to be made via a desktop browser, Mobile Safari, or an actual Kindle device
The obvious question here is why. Less than a month after Amazon announced the 2nd generation of their Kindle device, they have opened their platform to include the iPhone (and other smart phones will probably follow). I think the answer is simple enough - Amazon’s money isn’t in the Kindle reader, but in the content they have for sale. And with a whole lot more iPhones than Kindles out there, that content is about to be seen by many, many more consumers.
The launch of the latest Mac Mini dispels long-held rumors that the diminutive desktop was about to be discontinued. But Apple’s shabby treatment of the device still leaves plenty of questions unanswered.
Namely, why did it take so long for Apple to make a relatively minor, incremental upgrade? Why are there no changes in the case’s overall appearance? Ultimately, why did Apple do the least it could’ve possibly done with this device?
[…]
And the Mac Mini just gets weirder. There is no clear sense of who the target market is for the device, how the product is performing in sales, or why it still even exists.
I’ve had a similar thought for years. It is not that I don’t like the Mac mini - quite the opposite - I love the little box, but from an objective standpoint, it doesn’t make much sense. Most of the time when I come across a Mac mini it’s in a secondary role as a media center, a file server, a carputer or simply a spare machine.
The one exception is switchers. When Apple released the Mac mini, the slide above Steve’s head read “BYODKM: Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard and Mouse.” For the PC user, all they have to do to switch to the Mac is plug in the sandwich-shaped Mac mini and they’re off to the races. In fact, I’ve seen several Mac minis being used in tandem with a PC - via a KVM switch - as the user was slowly making the move to the Mac.
The Mac mini is bait for those Windows users who want to see what the Mac is like without spending $1000. And that’s why it won’t go away anytime soon, but at the same time, not get a whole lot of love from the boys and girls in Cupertino.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that President Obama will nominate Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission:
If confirmed, Mr. Genachowski will take over an agency that has had rocky relations with Congress and major companies in the telecommunications industry under current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The agency may also still be coping with the U.S.’s transition to digital-only television, which is scheduled to take place Feb. 17 but could be pushed back to the summer.
Genachowski has been a longtime advocate for net neutrality - the idea that the Internet is to be a free, open place for the exchange of all ideas, information and opinions… a place safe from the reach of the government or Internet Service Providers altering content or stopping Internet traffic they find it offensive or negative.
With the updates this morning, I read over this sentence and didn’t even really stop to think about it:
AirPort Extreme now operates in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously to ensure top performance for all your devices.
Here’s what that really means - that a single base station can broadcast the faster 802.11N signal for N-equipped computers (including ever Macintosh computer, including the just-updated Mac mini) and the slower 802.11G signal for devices like iPhones, iPod Touch devices, and older computers.
The benefit here is that the computers can run at full 802.11Nspeeds, since a N network has to throttle down its speed when a G-equipped device joins the network. Major win on Apple’s part.
Apple updated both the Time Capsule and the Airport base station today. From Apple:
You can now access all the files on your Time Capsule drive over the Internet. Simply register your Time Capsule with your MobileMe account, and its drive appears in the Finder sidebar of your Mac just like any other attached drive. It’s like having your own personal file server wherever you go.
Mac Rumors has more:
…now offering simultaneous 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz dual-band networking “for optimal performance, range and compatibility.” The new models also offer the ability to set up a secondary Internet-only Wi-Fi network to allow family and friends to access the Internet without giving them the password to the primary network or allowing them access to networked drives and other peripherals.
The MobileMe integration on the Time Capsule is pretty neat on paper, but if it works the same way “Back to my Mac” does, users will still have problems with the service. That said, faster wireless networking is always welcome.
Seems I was wrong about the date, but right that Apple would drop new models across the line all at once. Here are some highlights:
The Mac mini now sports an NVIDIA chipset, a Firewire 800 port, 5 USB ports, 2 video ports and runs on less power than before. Same case as before, however. The starting price - $599.
The iMac got better graphics, and now only the low-end model has the 20-inch display - all the other models are 24 inches. They all come with more RAM out of the box, and the 24-inch can take 8GB of RAM. The 20-inch model is $1199, the 24-inchers start at $1499, and they are still wrapped in aluminum and glass, just like before.
The Mac Pro is now powered by Intel’s Nehalem chipset, making the new Mac Pro 1.9x faster than the old one, according to Apple. The case is the same as it’s been, but the inside has been tweaked - mainly the bottom half, where the processors and RAM sit.
I replaced a ton of white and black batteries for Apple’s MacBook series during my time behind the Genius Bar, and saw several battery firmware updates to help the issues. Today, Apple released yet another update that “improves the ability of MacBook batteries to maintain a charge if you shut the system down and do not use it for an extended period of time.”
As with any updates, read the directions, folks.
The big story circulating around the internet this weekend was the possibility of a March 24th Apple Media event. The date was based on a couple of anonymous reports from World of Apple and My Apple Guide. While the date seems plausible, neither site has any particular track record for accurately predicting Apple’s future plans.
[…]
Of the releases, the iMac and Mac mini are expected to be smaller bumps that may not warrant a full media event. The Mac Pro, however, is expected to incorporate a major architectual jump with the adoption of Intel’s Nehalem processors. Intel is also conveniently launching Mac Pro suitable Nehalem processors at the end of March. And in a final piece of related news, the latest Mac OS X 10.5.7 developer seeds has been revealed to already “fully” support the Nehalem processors.
I’m gonna say yes: Apple will hold a big event, revamping the desktop line all at once like they updated the notebook line back in the fall.