To enable certain functions hold down the following keys immediately after the chime.

• Option - Displays all possible boot sources including Windows on Intel Macintoshes.
• C - Start-up via optical media (CD/DVD).
• T - Target disk mode. Lets you use your Mac as an external hard disk via Firewire.
• N - Boot from the network (if NetBoot server is available).
• Mouse button held down - eject optical discs.

Added new iPhone, iPod touch and pink iPod nano to the iPod specification database.

The Shirtless Apprentice is a weekly podcast delivering practical tips and advice covering a wide range of digital video activities. Beyond the quirky name the web series has some fantastic tips for both new comers and established people in digital video.

Each episode provides an informative look into different aspects of digital video such as how to set up lighting to syncronising timing on multiple cameras and provides a not too serious interlude that allows you to really soak in what the episode is telling you.

The Shirtless Apprentice is well worth a look for any existing or upcoming podcast producer or anyone who wants to have fun with video.

www.shirtlessapprentice.com

The advent of the Intel based Mac has changed Apple’s product lines drastically especially the type of products the company can create. The Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Xeon and Pentium M (used in the Apple TV) already provide a flexible base to create a wide range of products aimed at consumers through to professionals.

Apple’s product range already utilises a multitude of these technologies including their low end computer that is hard to upgrade and impossible to update the graphics, continues to produce the all in one computer that helped the company return to profitability but is difficult to upgrade and becomes a throw away item if you need a larger display and then there is the professional Mac Pro workstation that now has 8 cores across much of the line and is upgradable in every way. As it stands there is a huge gap in the product line between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro when you take the all in one out of the equation.

Is it time for Apple to reintroduce a cube-like computer that allows for a limited amount of expandability and caters for people who may want to hook up external displays? Intel’s processors are so varied that such a product would be easily created and could compliment the 24″ iMac and fit below the low end Mac Pro. The product would have to be positioned below the entry level Mac Pro but somewhere above the mid range iMac to ensure the product does not overlap the Mac mini and Mac Pro as to avoid a repeat where the G4 Cube was priced higher than the low end Power Mac.

Possible configurations could include a Core 2 Duo clocked at 2.4GHz similar to the 24″ iMac or a Core 2 Extreme version. The addition of upgradable PCIe graphics would enable the computer to drive Apple’s 30″ display and cater for upgrades in the future as previous cube owners have enjoyed. Priced at US$1599 and US$2099 the new cube would still reflect value for the iMac and it’s built-in display and the cube with it’s expandability. Using the Core 2 Extreme processor will keep the product separate from the Mac Pro, while offering customers a mid range option beyond those offered in Apple’s existing computer lines.

Apple has had some bad experiences from their previous forays into a mid range product with the failure of the G4 Cube, and the poor sales of the single processor Power Mac G5 but only because the products sweet spot has not been found. Creating a product that mirrors the 24″ iMac’s but adds expandability and maintains a relative price point could be the spot Apple needs to find in order to exploit another part of the personal computing market.

Suggested reading: Origin of the mid ranged Mac: the G4 Cube and Power Mac G5 SP

In 2000 Apple released a product that would not survive much longer than a year after release before quietly slipping into discontinuation. It was just three years prior that Steve Jobs returned to the company and with successes of the iMac and iBook behind him. During the keynote at MacWorld New York conference Steve Jobs announced toward the end of his address that he had just one more thing that would add another product to the Macintosh family (”and it’s not a laptop!”).

Proclaimed by the CEO as the most beautiful thing ever to come out of Apple, the new Mac was housed in a 8″ cube and punched the power of it’s bigger brother the Power Macintosh G4. With features to match the Power Mac’s and one of the most unique designs ever to grace a computer, the Power Macintosh G4 Cube (or just G4 Cube) should have been a very lucrative product.

Maybe it was the price coupled with buyers not quite knowing where the G4 Cube fit in relation to the the full sized Power Mac, the 8″ cube didn’t sell all that well even after a number of price decreases. In July 2001 the cube was “put on ice” in a press release with Apple stating there is a small chance they might reintroduce an upgraded model of the unique computer but there were no plans to do so in the near future.

Skip to October 2004 which saw the introduction of a new low end Power Macintosh G5 featuring a single processor based around the G5 platform that was introduced with the iMac G5. The new low end Power Mac provided an entry point to the Power Mac range but one that was crippled with a slower bus and fewer features of it’s bigger siblings. Poor sales of the new entry level Power Mac saw the model dropped quietly not long after the release of the revised Power Mac G5’s in June, 2005.

Continue to read Part II: Should Apple introduce a new Cube?

Your decision to buy a laptop probably was motivated by the ability to use it where you see fit whether that be on the couch, the patio or the car. Your MacBook’s battery dictates how useful your computer is away from power and in turn it’s worth ensuring that it remains in optimum condition. Beyond following Apple’s advice on maintaining your Mac’s battery, monitoring the condition will give you a good idea how your battery is performing.

CoconutBattery does just that - it provides you with a stack of information that is useful for monitoring your batteries condition. The application allows you to see how much battery power is left on your current charge as well as the capacity of the battery which always depletes as it ages. Beyond providing vital statistics in the present, coconutBattery allows you to log your batteries total capacity which allows you to compare the depletion over time.

In addition to monitoring your batteries condition, to make the most of your MacBook’s portability Apple recommends adjusting the Energy Saver features, adjusting your displays brightness down and turning off unused features such as AirPort and Bluetooth when using your MacBook on battery.

CocunutBattery is available for download from coconut-flovour as freeware.

Apple Tidbits was launched during Apple’s 30th birthday celebrations in April, 2006. Launching with the tidbits in the facts section, the site has now grown to include even more information detailing Apple’s history. Amongst the content Apple tidbits includes screenshots depicting the evolution of Mac OS X, a comprehensive and challenging Apple history quiz, a selection of videos including older and not so old ads, a complete iPod model database and the list goes on.

Since the inception and then creation and the consequential launch of Apple Tidbits over a year and a half ago, the site has remained true to it’s original premise: to provide an interesting oversight of Apple’s history. I am pleased to now have refreshed the look of the website and hope that our readers continue to find the site of value. Please help share the information on Apple Tidbits by bookmarking and linking to the site. I always look forward to any comments and questions.

Andrew (site author)

Ever put something in the trash and forgotten what the heck it is? Using Leopard’s Quickview feature you can check your files out just as you do in any Finder window.

Techspansion proudly quote some of the tech industry’s best reactions to VisualHub and for very good reason - it’s great.

In this world of digital video VisualHub provides a one stop shop for converting to and from the many different video formats out there today. The application presents a very simple interface with an area to line up the files you want to convert and an area to select what format you want them changed to. After this, it’s just a click.

VisualHub can output to many formats including AVI, MP4, WMV and Flash. It also gives you the capability to tweak the video’s bitrate and other things like cropping through the application’s advanced settings. VisualHub processes the conversion in a reasonable amount of time with the ability to queue up multiple movies a major connivence.

VisualHub cements itself as a must have especially in this day of accessing media on the internet, converting it to play on a multitude of gadgets such as AppleTV, iPhone and iPod all the while providing a very simple and quick experience. A demo of VisualHub is available from Techspansion’s website and costs a tiny US$23.32.

Added new Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard screenshots.