(Image courtesy of TUAW) Oh… my. Just when you thought the iPad name jokes were just all in good fun, a company has come along with an ill-fitting name for an iPad carrying case. If you read on, you have been forewarned. TUAW dug up today’s nugget of pre-iPad hysteria , which comes courtesy of a little company called Hip Handmaidens. The Hipsters sell handcrafted wares “born out of a bizarre group of talented housewives,” and their latest creation is the iMaxi — which the company claims is “the only Apple iPad case with protective wings.” Now you can say, you’ve truly seen it all. "With its durable vinyl outer layer and plush, quilted-cotton sleeve, the iMaxi helps keep your iPad clean and dry,” the Hip Handmaidens website description reads. “Plus, the iMaxi’s Velcro-latched, advanced wing design wraps snugly around your device, so your iPad always stays where it should. Best of all, it shields it from all those unsightly and embarrassing data leaks that would make any motherboard worry!" But it doesn’t stop there… oh heavens no. “Each handmade iMaxi can be easily customized to fit your active lifestyle,” the website claims. “Choose from white, white/red, or all-red interior options. Or if you don’t see a color you like, just ask! We can even use red thread on the interior for that special…uh…’lived in’ look.” For anyone still left reading, you can pre-order your iMaxi case for only $30 (that’s $10 off the regular price until March 30) with the click of a button and have it waiting for your iPad to arrive later this month. Or as Mastercard might put it: “Apple iPad… $499. Hip Handmaid iMaxi… $30. The shame on your face when you carry them both around… Priceless.”

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The iMaxi: Bad Taste No Longer Optional

  It was Jan. 16, 1978, and the world was in transition. The Sex Pistols were on the verge of disbanding. Future Macintosh architect Jef Raskin was settling into his new job at Apple Computer Inc. And it was snowing in Chicago. A lot. But while Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, two members of the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists Exchange, were holed up during the not-so-great blizzard of 78, they werent wasting their time playing Uno or watching Logans Run. They were making history.

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The Complete History of Social Networking — CBBS to Twitter

Apple’s powerhouse configurable tower desktop aimed mostly at semi-pro and pro users could be getting some update love in the near future, according to the latest rumblings coming out of the rumor mill today. Hardmac.com is reporting that one of its sources has solid information on the new Mac Pro, which should appear sometime in early 2009 2010. The new Mac Pro will feature a brand new Xeon CPU from Intel, if the rumors are accurate, which it will offer exclusively for a short time until the second quarter of 2009. The CPU, code-named Gulftown, boasts a huge six processing cores, which beats the current single core total by two. With two processors, like the more expensively configured Mac Pro has, that would result in a total of 12 cores of processing power. The Gulftown processor also sports 12MB of shared cache, instead of the 8MB on current models, uses 32-nm engraving instead of 45, and will feature slightly lower power consumption than the current generation Xeon. Also, even though it’s a true successor to the Xeon line currently found in Mac Pros, rumor has it that it will be ditching that moniker in favor of the “Core i9″ namesake.

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Rumor Has It: Next-Gen Mac Pro Getting Six-Core “Core i9″ Processor

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion , Hardware , OS , Software , Apple It’s a common theory that Apple is a “hardware company” not a “software company.” What does that mean? Doesn’t it actually sell both ? The idea is that Apple uses software to push more hardware sales. If Apple was a software company, you wouldn’t see the fantastic and very useful iLife bundle of applications included for free on every new Mac , including the el-cheapo Mini . Instead, they might decide to charge $99 for it, or worse, break it up into pieces and distribute it as separate packages, each with its own price. Snow Leopard’s price also seems to support this theory, especially when contrasted to Microsoft’s pricing model. Any “dot-oh” operating system upgrade priced at $29 is simply amazing. And given the fact that you can upgrade a whole home or small office full of Macs for less than the price of an Xbox 360 game…well, that’s just a special kind of awesome. The main OS competitor, however, has graciously offered its upgrade, similar in “just fixing stuff and making it run better” nature to Apple’s update, at the low, low price of $129. Ouch! At least you can save a substantial amount by buying Microsoft’s family pack at a tick under 150 bucks, but that discount will only get you three copies instead of Apple’s five. And it’s still three times the price of Snow Leopard’s bundle! But I realized something interesting about the whole “hardware company vs. software company” argument. As a Mac convert, I’ve noticed that I think quite a bit less about the hardware than I do the software. In the PC world I still live in, we talk about processor benchmarks, motherboard options, frontside bus speeds, and other Ambien replacements. However, when I talk Mac, I’m often concerned much more with the software it’s running, what OS version is installed, and where I can find a free app to do what I need

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Think different? You bet I do!

How long should a Mac last? Mac360’s Alexis Kayhill posed the question recently , and it got me thinking on the topic, especially since Alexis framed her column around the experience of a co-worker who had purchased a new unibody MacBook (on her recommendation) only to have Apple upgrade the 13″ unibody to Pro status with feature enhancement and a lower price a few months later. I’m in the same boat, having also bought a unibody MacBook last February. Alexis says her friend “got burned,” though I think that’s a bit harsh. I don’t feel “burned” at all — more like a bit disappointed that I didn’t wait four more months, but you can drive yourself nuts second-guessing such things. I love the MacBook, and am already becoming convinced that it’s going to be one of my all-time favorite Macs. I just wish it had a FireWire port, which the new 13″ MacBook Pro does have. My target for intervals between upgrading my main workhorse systems has been three years ever since I bought my first Mac back in 1992, and I’ve done pretty well at adhering to it. That would put replacement time for my MacBook in early 2012, which seems a long way off. The way it usually plays out for me is that the first year I revel in the greater power and storage capacity of my new machine compared with whatever it replaced. At 18 months, twinges of slight frustration and dissatisfaction start to set in, especially after upgraded models have been introduced, but I really have nothing to complain about. However, by the beginning of year three, the aging Mac is usually beginning to feel compromised in some respects, and the hunt begins, although for the last three machines I’ve managed to reach or beat the three-year replacement benchmark. Of course it helps that I like the challenge of getting useful service out of antiquated hardware. We still have two nine year old Pismo PowerBooks in very active service, and they’re great for what we do with them — text-crunching, email, Web-surfing, and so forth — “netbooks” of a sort, I suppose.

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How Long Do You Expect Your Macs to Last?

What Apple fan of small-and-light computing doesn’t remember that Macworld Expo Keynote? The one where, uncovering Apple’s then-latest laptop and holding it aloft, Steve Jobs declared it “the smallest full-featured notebook in the world.” By the self-satisfied smile on his face, you knew Apple was back in the ultra-portable market for good. Two years and change later, it was canceled. That would be the 12” PowerBook G4 of 2003 that met its demise in 2005, but what happened then seems eerily familiar in 2009. Since the manila-envelope unveiling at Macworld Expo 2008, the MacBook Air has gotten less Apple Event love than the time it takes Yael Naïm to sing “New Soul.” Phil Schiller spent about 30 seconds detailing a spec bump and a price drop at WWDC 2009, the same event at which the MacBook Pros saw major redesign. It was that seeming indifference to the Air that led me to ponder the history of the smallest PowerBook in relation to the fate of the thinnest MacBook.  Comparative Updates: 12" PowerBook G4 vs.

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The MacBook Air Is Doomed

Despite an incremental speed increase, the biggest update to the MacBook Air at WWDC was the price. The low-end model is now $1,499, down $300, while the high-end model with a solid-state drive now sells for $1,799, a jaw-dropping $700 price drop. Available in two models, the low-end version now features a 1.86 GHz Intel Core Duo, formerly 1.6 GHz, along with a 120 GB hard drive. The high-end now runs at 2.13 GHz, but more importantly has a 128GB solid-state drive. This is a huge improvement over the low-end model, not in capacity but speed. The problem with the 120GB mechanical hard drive is that it spins at 4200 RPM, resulting in a noticeable performance bottleneck. While the MacBook Air 128GB SSD is no Intel X-25M SSD, it’s still a big leap up from the mechanical hard drive. Apple is clearly addressing a major flaw with the MacBook Air by lowering the price on the SSD model

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New MacBook Air Lighter On the Wallet

Number Seven Hundred and Thirty Six on the list of things that really torque me off are people who intentionally and knowingly mislead folks for fun and profit. And to this list of Mortgage Brokers, Right Wing Talk Radio Hosts, and Tobacco Lobbyists, we can now add Roger L. Kay, “President” of Endpoint Technology Associates (aside — people who are “president” of companies employing 50 or less people, are number 977 on the ‘annoying list’.) El Presidente Roger authored a white paper at the behest of Microsoft titled: “What Price Cool” which serves to illuminate us all as to how we’ve been paying some imaginary “Hidden Apple Tax” all these years. Of course, a younger man might shrug this drivel off, yet as I grow older I find my patience for such things eroding. While I’m not quite at the yelling at kids to get off my lawn stage , I am quite crotchety enough to spend my Saturday night debunking this garbage. Follow me after the jump where we reveal the obviousness with which Le Presidént Kay sold his credibility. –Note: I am intentionally not imbedding a lot the original graphs, though garbage it is still copyright The Rog. I’ve linked to the original, I would urge you to check it out to verify my facts– OVERVIEW Normally, I don’t like to criticize writing style, but the folksy down-home voice that The Prez chose to write in has a charm that is wholly inappropriate for a “white paper”. It simply reeks of Redmond’s marketing department, who never fail to seize an opportunity to remind us how dumb and simple we all are by talking down to us.

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Microsoft: Not Cool at Any Price

Our old 700 MHz iBook G3 passed away quietly on Saturday evening. My wife had used it to check her email that morning, and all had seemed well, but when she tried to wake it for a late-night check just before retiring, it refused to respond. Over the next several hours I tried every method of resuscitation I could think of, plus some more than I looked up on the Internet, but no joy. The screen remained black; No start-up chime; no hard drive sound; indeed no sign of life at all other than a hum (normal) from the power manager when the AC adapter was plugged in. I tried the reset sequence for this model (Control + Option + Shift + Power) several times, also reset the PRAM, tried removing the battery and unplugging the power adapter and letting the machine sit for several hours, and eventually overnight. Nada. Perhaps a motherboard failure. I’m doubtful that the problem is the hard drive, since the screen remains dead. Evidently, this sort of failure is not unheard of, or even terribly uncommon with the G3 iBook, which was not one of Apple’s better efforts in terms of OS reliability, and this one being past its sixth anniversary in service was probably overdue, although up to now it had been a trouble-free machine. I bought the iBook — the first iteration of the “opaque white” dual USB model, on the last day of 2002, just under the wire for a tax deduction on that year. I was very happy with it. I loved the look and size, interestingly quite similar in the squared-off lines and footprint dimensions to my first Apple laptop, a PowerBook 5300, although much thinner and lighter in weight. I also loved the bright, razor-sharp 12.1-inch display with its tight pixel density (for the time). On the other hand, I’ve never much cared for the keyboard or trackpad — the former having a cheap and clunky feel, and the latter being exceptionally “jumpy” and hypersensitive. Neither was a problem for this iBook’s primary role during the first three years of my ownership, during which it served me faithfully and well as my production workhorse, sitting on a laptop stand and connected to an external keyboard and mouse

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R.I.P. iBook: December 31, 2002 – March 7, 2009

Tarus Balog got in touch to tell us this fantastic story of an original Mac that got dumped. Tarus rescued it from certain doom, gave it a little TLC – and found a little software surprise waiting for him. Get the full story, and some more great pics, after the clicky jumpy thing. Here’s Tarus with the whole story… “I didn’t purchase my first Mac until 2003. It was a 12-inch Powerbook and I ordered it the day it was announced. However, I had been using Macs for over a decade before then. “I friend of mine bought a Mac Plus through a school deal in 1986. It had an 800K internal floppy (as well as an external drive) and what was cool was that I could fit System 6, MacWrite, MacPaint and MacDraw onto a single disk and still have room for a few data files

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25 Years Of Mac: Tarus Balog’s Rescued Original Mac