Recently, professor Ulf von Barth of Lund University in Sweden alerted me to the fact that the mechanism has changed yet again. In the article linked above, I explained that all you had to do was download and install Apple’s Xcode IDE, and everything would be as expected. Now, you have to do a little…
John Martellaro
John Martellaro was born at an early age and began writing about computers soon after that. With degrees in astrophysics (B.S.) and physics (M.S.), he has worked for NASA, White Sands Missile Range, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Apple. At Apple he worked as a Senior Marketing Manager, a Federal Account Executive and a High Performance Computing manager. His interests include chess, science fiction and astronomy. John is the host of the TMO podcast Background Mode.
Articles by John Martellaro
Explore the Sky with the Awe-Inspiring Star Chart for iPad
Star Chart is a universal app for iOS that charts the sky for any date from the ancient past well into the future. It’s a beautiful app, always being improved, a great introduction to the night sky, but suffers from a few astronomical errors and has limited settings. The most important thing to know about…
Captain Cook Sails to China
___________________ I like the idea of Tim Cook going to China. A lot. Here’s why. It seemed to me that in Mr. Jobs’s later years, he was becoming a bit of a (necessary) recluse. While there may not be an ironclad connection, I always had the suspicion that the withdrawal from Macworld New York and…
Wonders of the Universe for iPad is Amazing
Have you ever wanted a grand tour of the universe, with an astrophysicist as your tour guide, all wrapped up with text explanations, diagrams and awesome videos? This is it, and you’ll love it. Brian Cox is a particle physicist* and professor at the University of Manchester, UK. He’s written several popular books, such as…
Okay, SciFi Fans, What Comes After iPad?
The evolution of our science fiction technology, the dramatic visions of people who dream the future for a living, have steadily percolated into our lives. These days, we take for granted synchronous orbit communication satellites, wireless personal communications, and Dick Tracy watches. Then, we dreamed of a personal tablet, and now we have it. What…
OS X Mountain Lion Galaxy Photo Identified
The galaxy, it turns out, is NGC 3190, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo (the “Lion”). It’s almost edge on to our line of sight.The galaxy was the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day for May 3, 2010. Our thanks to reader Paul Duke who sent us the tip.
Bluefire E-book Reader for iPad: Beautiful & Full Featured
If you’re only interested in Apple’s iBooks and Amazon’s Kindle reader for the iPad, you can do a lot. But if you want an alternative e-book reader from a third party and want to focus on books in EPUB or PDF format, generally without DRM, the Bluefire reader is an excellent alternative. (However, as I…
Time Warner Cable Talks About IPv6 Launch
What is TCP/IP? Why is IPv4 Inadequate? What is the Industry Planning? How Will the Change Affect Your Computer? How Will the Change Affect Your Cable Modem? What About Your Other Home Devices? I also covered security, costs and the timeline for Comcast’s rollout. If you missed that article, it’s a good intoduction to what…
The Road Ahead: The Death of the PC
Image Credit: AppleNow, the question is, when will all tablets (meaning mostly iPads, but also Android and eReader tablets) outsell all the PCs combined? Now, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that these trends are hard to reverse. For one, Apple is a capable company and when it starts the ball rolling, it’s hard…
olloclip Lens Kit for iPhone: Great at Any Angle
It’s almost a cultural certainty that the point-and-shoot pocket camera is dead. With our smartphones having 5 to 8 megapixels and support systems, like email, to get those photos moved around, posted, and albumized, there’s no point in carrying s small camera around anymore. Close up, only 35 mm tall I should point out,…
My Travels with Lion & iCloud: The Claws Come Out
The first step was to upgrade to Parallels Desktop 7.0.15050.707095, which according to the company, “adds experimental support for OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview as both a host and guest.” That means that you can both 1) run this version of Parallels in Mountain Lion (host) or 2) run Mountain Lion as a guest…
Kitabu: A Simple and Free EPUB Reader
Kitabu, from Sixty Four, LLC, is a simple, no frills EPUB reader for OS X. It has some basic but well chosen features, it’s fairly solid and, best of all, free. For serious e-book collectors, it may be desirable to have a full-featured e-book reader like Calibre or BookReader. However, others may simply have a…
That Thing You’ll do With Apple’s iPad 3
The scenario I described was visiting a friend at the beach. You take your MacBook and your iPhone. You do some work at the condo. Then, you go to lunch, and take your iPhone with you. The MacBook stays put: it would be awkward in a cozy restaurant. Maybe overheat if left in the car.…
Murasaki: an EPUB Ebook Reader for Mac Disappoints
Murasaki 1.6.1 for OS X is an EPUB 2/3 ebook reader for the Macintosh. It’s scroll-based rather than paginated and can only view ebooks in non-DRM’d EPUB format. It has some nice features, but the user interface is awkward in some areas. Murasaki, in English. means the color purple. Moreover, according to the developers, “…the…
BookReader: a Full-featured EBook Reader for Mac
BookReader 3.8 for OS X is a mature, full-featured ebook reader for the Macintosh. It has an iBooks-like bookshelf with good sorting and searching options, and it can read documents in many standard formats, including .epub, .doc, .ibooks and many more. This app looks so much like iBooks that some customers, in the past, thought…
Apple Customers Can Sometimes Just Say No
To make matters worse, engaging in every technology that comes along can not only complicate our life but also create conflicts that waste time and create frustration. I saw a tweet recently that said something like: Google+ is like a health club: everyone’s a member, but no one goes. We sign up for things that…
Customers? No. Fans? You Betcha
If that’s the case, then the real secret is not sales. It’s solving a problem. The Gateway people could’t begin to handle the intricacies of Windows, all they wanted was your credit card for the hardware. In the Apple stores, as we know, the focus is on answers. And occasional maintenance. And everything that’s on…
Developers React to OS X Mountain Lion
The three questions that were on our mind right after Mountain Lion was announced were: What are your thoughts on Apple’s plan for yearly updates to OS X? Is it stressful? Doable? What’s your reaction to Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper, especially regarding what you suspect Apple’s plans are for the future? How well is Apple doing…
Bookle: A Friendly EPUB Reader for the Mac
Reading ebooks on an iPad is a natural thing to do, but what if you want to or need to work on a Mac? The Mac can do things that the iPad still cannot, and the situation cries out for an OS X native EPUB reader. Now we have it with Bookle. EPUB and Ebook…
The Hidden Gotchas of Browser Security
My first education came from Glenn Fleishman back in 2011: “Keep your Mac safe from Web security flaws.” That’s been a starter kit for me. It’s tough, scary, but fundamental to your Internet life. As a result of my research, I’ve found that Firefox checks the OSCP database automatically while Safari, with no help from…
Theodolite App for iOS is Breathtaking
There are apps, and there are apps. Every once in a while, an app appears that’s so beautiful, so technical, and so completely exploits the Apple iDevice that it takes one’s breath away. This is one of those. Theodolite from Hunter Research & Technology is an app that pulls together many of the iDevice’s capabilities…
Simpler Apple Apps Shouldn’t be Simple-minded
Some of Apple’s new OS X apps are exhibiting an interesting tendency. Instead of a brilliant user interface to deal with technical complexity, there is the removal of functionality. However, simpler isn’t always better. In times past, we were all amazed how Apple would take complex computer technologies on our Macs, distill them down to…
Apple Confirms AirPort Utility 6 Manages Only “n” AirPort Devices
We checked with Apple, and the explanation is that the older model AirPort Express, Model A108x, supports only 802.11 b/g. One must have a newer model, A1264, which supports 802.11n, to configure it with AU 6. This limitation also extends to the older AirPort Extreme without the “n” capability. Users of OS X Lion can…
If Only Selling High Tech Were Easy
And the Galaxy Tab does have some nice features that are generally overlooked. Judge for yourself. To add more heat, there’s a rumor that Barnes & Noble is coming out with yet another new version of its Nook tablet. As I’ve said before, competitors are going to keep driving a truck through Apple’s open barn…