Section: Haven’t caught all of the Appletell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles! Appletell giveaway: Saddleback Leather laptop case “A few months ago, the fine people at Saddleback Leather provided us with a medium laptop case for review. Now they’re extending that generosity to you by allowing us to give it away to one of our readers. This is 100% waterproof full grain boot leather with a high density…” MORE » Appletell reviews HyperMac External Battery for Apple MacBook MBP-060 “Provides: Extended battery life Developer: HyperMac Minimum Requirements: MacBook or iDevice needing enhanced battery life Price: $199.95 Availability: Now What’s worse than seeing your MacBook’s battery dip below 10%? Seeing it hit zero? Okay, fair enough. But if this happens to you often, you need…” MORE » Gaming gets serious – Steam coming to Mac “If you’re a serious gamer, it’s unlikely you have an all-Mac setup. If you do, there’s probably enough power to comfortably Boot Camp into Windows 7, and enough for a decent frame rate in the latest titles. Otherwise, it seems developers aren’t so…” MORE » Apple’s iPad ad reveals new details “As reported at Appletell, the first TV ad for Apple’s iPad made it’s TV premiere during the Oscars. And you’re probably not surprised that the story doesn’t stop there. No, we actually gained some real information about the iBookstore,…” MORE » Appletell reviews the Moshi Voice Control Alarm Clock “Provides: Voice activation for alarm and time settings Developer: Moshi Lifestyle Minimum Requirements: AC wall outlet (3 AAA batteries for backup), voice Price: $49.99 Availability: Now What does an alarm clock have to do with Apple products? Not much, in this case. There’s no iPhone…” MORE » Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 9, 2010 “Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 9, 2010:  Macintosh iPod Macintosh FileMaker, Inc. has announced the immediate availability of FileMaker Pro…” MORE » Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 8, 2010 “Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 8, 2010:  Macintosh iPod Macintosh Zevrix Solutions is offering BatchOutput Server—its output workflow automation solution…” MORE » First iPad ad hits screens during the Oscars [video] ” If you were watching the Oscars last night, you may have caught sight of Apple’s brand new advertisement for the much awaited iPad. The ad itself races through (with shortened sequences, of course) several features of…” MORE » What will books actually look like on the iPad?

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Section: Mac Software , Games , Reviews Category: Real-time strategy Developer: Firaxis System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.83GHz, 1GB RAM, 1GB hard drive space, 128MB video card Review Computer: 2.2GHz 13” Macbook Pro, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM Network Feature: Yes Processor Compatibility: Intel Price: $39.99 Rated: E for Everyone (10+) Availability: Out now I might like Civilization IV: Colonization better if it were just called “Colonization,” rather than associating it with probably the best game series of all time . Then again, maybe not; its restrictive gameplay and limited amount of power in a “god game” make it something of a throwback to the early days of graphic gameplay. You are, as you might expect, a colonist who lands in the New World (either North America or the islands of the Carribean). You establish towns, exploit the land and the natives, and sell your goods back to the motherland, where you recruit more settlers to further expand your hold in the west. Your ultimate goals are self-sufficiency and, finally, rebellion. Stir up enough independent feelings, then you can break away from your homeland and, if you can survive the military reprisal, win the game. Colonization is very much a micro-management game, your population is measured by individual colonists who can be assigned specific tasks such as harvesting food or other raw materials (cotton, sugar, silver, etc.) from the land surrounding your town, or converting those raw materials into finished goods. You can assign any colonist to any task, but specialists will do it better. You can recruit colonists and specialists from Europe (or they may offer to come in search of religious freedom), or you can send missionaries to native villages in hopes of gaining converts to live in your towns.  If you buddy up to the natives, you can send your colonists to their villages to get specialist training. Managing your population and keeping them on task will eat up half your time, with the other half being devoted to trade, carting your goods around to the other colonists or shipping them back to Europe. Producing finished goods (which are more valuable) is a multi-step process; you have to have a citizen harvesting, say, tobacco, as well as another citizen working to convert the tobacco into cigars. You add more people to a particular job, or improve the buildings to make them more productive. And that’s the game, really, to try to build up trade while also building up the desire for independence (that’s a job, too; you add workers to your Town Hall). There’s very little exploration and practially no technology research (beyond building new structures that give you access to new units). Raising armies is a matter of assigning colonists to defend a city (or hiring professional troops).

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A year after the launch of FileMaker Pro 10, the Apple-owned database company is back to debut the latest version of its franchise product. FileMaker Pro 11 introduces long-awaited features and builds on the interface and engine improvements to create new capabilities. I have been taking the product through its paces for the last few weeks and I am left with the impression that this is what FileMaker Pro 10 should have been because the changes made to the interface and the scripting engine are really evident in 11. The update includes a variety of improvements that will benefit both users and developers. A New Start When greeted by the redesigned Start Screen, among the starter solutions offered as a template is a new Invoices solution. This solution allows you to track customers, products, and invoices in a single database. Invoices implements multiple tables and relationships on multiple keys and provides a great introduction to a moderately complex database. I recommend peaking under the hood to get a feel for how things are done if you are new to FileMaker. Beyond the starter solutions, you can also create a new database by starting with data from Bento, XML files, Excel spreadsheets and other sources.

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Ever wanted to play Street Fighter on a guitar? Nintendo-music masters the Minibosses share the secrets to their success.       Case Study: The Minibosses Occupation: Rock band specializing in remixed Nintendo music Gear: Assorted Macs, iPod touch units running Bebot , Pro Tools , Tablature , and NES emulators like NESticle and iNES . Friends, rockers, geeks: The Minibosses.   Take a great thing from your youth and run with it. This could be the motto of the Minibosses, a Phoenix-based rock band that for almost 10 years has taken original Nintendo videogame songs and strung them together with incredibly energetic riffs and long medleys in a standard four piece rock format (consisting of two guitars, bass and drums) to become one of the most popular touring acts for any geek event. The band, which consists of Aaron Burke (guitar), Ben Baraldi (guitar), Robin Vining (bass), and Matt Wood (percussion), originally began back in Northampton, Massachussetts, as the Jenova Project, which toyed with the idea of throwing old Nintendo theme songs into the middle of other songs for the fun of it. When the Jenova Project broke up at the end of the ’90s and the Minibosses formed in 2000, the group had found its niche.   Getting to the Good Stuff   It’s one thing to love and adore the Nintendo music you grew up with. It’s another thing to get direct access to that music in order to learn how to play it with different instruments. This is where a series of free Nintendo Entertainment System emulators such as NESticle and iNes first came in. “Those are great because with most of them you can isolate the parts and only listen to the specific stuff you need to figure out,” says Burke. This process became even easier as media players like Winamp and iTunes allowed for Nintendo Sound Files to be loaded in. Third-party extensions like Slow Me Down allow the band the slow down the tempo in order to take the songs apart and reassemble them as needed.   Enter the Mac   Before any kind of CD release, or even a live performance, editing and mixing becomes crucial

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First there were the bits of OS X information found in the latest Steam UI beta. Then Valve began sending mysterious images of their game properties to various blogs pointing to their games being available on the Mac. Finally, after teasing the Mac gaming community for weeks, Valve has announced that their social gaming service, Steam is in fact coming to the Mac. Steam for Mac will be available as a public beta beginning sometime in April. The announcement comes with word that all of Valve’s current lineup will be available on the Mac on day one, including the newly announced Portal 2 . If you’re a Mac user who just happens to have a Windows machine with Steam already installed, no worries. You can use the same license for all of your Valve games on your Mac. Just sign in with your account and download your Valve games. Valve is offering this ability to third-party game developers. So keep a look out to see if your favorite game’s developer begins offering the service. For Mac users unaware of the awesomeness of Steam, we have a quick beginner’ guide to all the features Steam brings to gaming. We also had a chance to ask Steam’s Project Manager, John Cook about porting the service to the Mac .  Here’s all the important info from the Steam team: Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve’s gaming service, and Source, Valve’s gaming engine, to the Mac. Steam and Valve’s library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April

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Your car can either be your best friend or biggest foe depending on how well you maintain it. But with the advent of the car ECU (that’s “engine control unit,” aka the car’s computer), many of the tweaks that gearheads could perform manually are handled behind the scenes by the car itself. When’s the last time someone told you they had to adjust the fuel mixture on their carburetor? The ECU takes care of that for you, on the fly. Of course, when the Check Engine Light (CEL) begins to glow on the dash, most drivers panic, and for good reason. The CEL could be something as minor as a fuel cap that needs to be tightened–or it might signify that one of your cylinders misfired. CarMD enables you to take some of the guesswork out of determining exactly what’s wrong with your ride with the help of its literally named 2100 Handheld Tester. Call it doctor–Dr. Drive Good. The CarMD 2100 connects to the industry standard OBD2-compliant 16-pin port found on most vehicles manufactured since 1996. After downloading diagnostic information from your car, you plug the device into your Mac and are presented with a list of problems recorded by the vehicle, as well as its likelihood of passing a smog test. Information is displayed clearly and can be printed out so you can take the information to your local mechanic (or fix the problem yourself, if you’re automotively minded)

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Over at Patently Apple , Jack Burcher Purcher reports that Apple is applying for a trademark called “Joint Venture.” The trademark application indicates that this will most likely be some kind of new service offering by Apple. Might Apple start providing on-site service just like Best Buy’s Geek Squad? The key clauses in the patent application seem to indicate this just might be the case: “International Class 037: Maintenance, installation and repair of computer hardware, computer peripherals, computer networks, and consumer electronic devices; information, advisory and consultancy services relating to all the aforesaid.” “International Class 042: Technical support and consulting services pertaining to computer hardware, computer peripherals, computer software and consumer electronics; troubleshooting and computer diagnostic services for computer hardware, computer peripherals, computer software and consumer electronic devices; consulting services in the field of selection, implementation and use of computer hardware and software systems for others.” Would this be a good thing for Apple customers? Certainly being able to purchase additional on-site services directly from an Apple Store would be convenient. The Geniuses stay locked behind the bar (pun intended) and Apple relies on independent third-party sources who are often part of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN) or Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASP) to provide on-site service to Apple’s customers. For many of them, paying Apple directly to set up their Xserve or Airport Extreme may be a great idea and would be consistent with the offerings of big PC companies that provide end-to-end support for larger installations. Joint Venture members would be people trained by Apple, and specializing in Macs (unlike Best Buy’s on-site squad).

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It’s probably not the first site to eschew Flash in favor of greater compatibility with Apple’s portable devices, but it’s one that’s definitely big enough to make waves. Virgin America has launched a new, Flash-free website with the stated intent of reaching more customers on Apple’s devices, where Adobe’s rich web content application is not welcome. Honestly, I think this is only the beginning of a new tide that will see corporations retreating away from either Adobe’s or Microsoft’s proprietary solutions for displaying animations and other advanced media elements in their websites. When the goal is to reach as many customers as possible, it only makes sense to take into account the limitations of some platforms. Flash may run on many portable non-Apple devices, but that doesn’t mean it does it well. As reported by the Register , the decision to go with only HTML is about inclusion, even though the move by Apple that preceded it is all about exclusion: Virgin picked HTML to give users of iPhones and other mobiles the option in the future of checking in through their phone. The battle between Adobe and Apple has seen Flash deliberately excluded from the Jesus Phone. Virgin’s new site is designed to let users check-in using their mobiles, using a system that issues electronic boarding passes you’ll be able to show to airport security staff. The plan is awaiting approval by the U.S. Transportation Security Authority. The site is responsible for 70 percent of Virgin’s $100 million quarterly revenue. Right now it’s advanced enough to suit the company’s needs, but Virgin does anticipate making the jump to HTML5 once it’s cleared by the W3C. Virgin America’s Chief Information Officer Ravi Simhambhatia added, in defense of the decision, that “[t]his year is going to be the year of the mobile [for Virgin].” The sentiment echoes Steve Jobs’ recent declaration that Apple is now a mobile device company first and foremost. There’s just no denying that if companies want to be taken seriously on the mobile scene, they need to take into account, if not focus on Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch, and the upcoming iPad. The message is clear: Apple can succeed at stonewalling Adobe

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Filed under: Apple Corporate , Apple When a lot of people get their news electronically, skimming over headlines through news aggregators, RSS feeds, and retweets on Twitter, sometimes the majority of information people will get from an article comes from the headline. When a headline leans towards the sensational side, or doesn’t accurately reflect the information that’s actually contained in the article, it’s easy for poorly-represented news to spread like wildfire. This article from the UK’s The Daily Telegraph , regarding Apple’s self-initiated audit of its overseas manufacturing facilities, is a perfect example, with its attention-grabbing headline: “Apple Admits Using Child Labour.” The sub-headline isn’t any better: “Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.” Once a person reads those words, his or her knee-jerk reaction is most likely going to be one of disgust and horror. “How could you, Apple?” they might say. If this hypothetical reader owns a Mac or an iPhone, their eyes might glance over at it with anguished guilt; if they don’t own any products from Apple, it’s just one more reason not to buy them. If you dig beyond the headline, however, to the meat of the Telegraph ’s article, where the actual reporting finally begins? Then you get a completely different story as early as the first sentence: “At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple.” That’s pretty far from the image conjured by the headline, of legions of school-aged children lined up in factories and slapping together MacBook Pros when they should be slapping together algebra homework. Instead, we find a relatively small number of teenaged factory workers — reprehensible, but not unusual at all for overseas factories. The end of this first sentence is even more important, because it puts the focus where it belongs: three factories which supply Apple. Two paragraphs later, we find another very important bit of news not reflected in the headline: “Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used.” Other news sites performed better reporting on the matter, but at least one still had an easily misinterpreted headline. Read on to find out more. Continue reading TUAW Fact Check: Apple using underage labor? No. TUAW Fact Check: Apple using underage labor

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Ever wondered what your mouse pointer actually does all day? Ever wanted to have a way of tracking where it goes while you work, and exporting that information as a map of your daily mousings? If you have, you need IOGraph. It’s simple, it’s free, it’s fun, and it’s brilliant: it watches your mouse movements

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