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There has never been a Macintosh program that has been so loved, so reviled, so controversial, so often purchased, so written about, and so often taken as a signpost for the health and well being of the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit as MS Word. A program of this scope, almost like a public figure, has…

The 3.1 update also improved handling of locked files when archiving and purging, added an option for speeding up analyzation speed by comparing just modification dates, fixed several bugs, and more.SmartBackup 3.1 is priced at US$27 and is available for download at the SmartBackup Web site.

Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sanho, the maker of HyperMac portable battery chargers, in late September. According to the filing, the HyperMac product line infringes on six different patents related to Apple’s MagSafe charger connector, the iPod and iPhone dock connector, and cables.HyperJuice: the new HyperMacThe HyperMac product line included several sizes of…

According to Mr. Um, Apple missed analyst expectations thanks in part to product warranties. “Based on our analysis, an ‘over accrual’ of product warranties of  about $170 million (warranty accruals increased by $300 million quarter over quarter while warranty claims only increased $131 million) drove 90bps of the margin miss and impacted EPS by $0.18,”…

Designed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, Tianhe-1 is comprised of 7,168 Tesla graphics chips from Nvidia and 14,336 central processing units designed by Intel, according to CRN. In 2009, Tianhe-1 reached 500 trillion calculations per second (half a petaflop). Tianhe-1 is currently listed as #1 in a listing maintained by the University of…

Want FaceTime in blocked regions? Try FaceTime HacktivatorApple blocked FaceTime support in several Middle East regions with the release of iOS 4.1 presumably as a preemptive measure to avoid running into problems with local laws.Since FaceTime Hacktivator requires jailbreaking, or hacking your iPhone to allow the installation of third-party apps that aren’t available through the…

“The company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in future periods compared to levels achieved during 2010 and anticipates gross margin levels of about 36 percent in the first quarter of 2011,” the report said. “This expected decline is largely due to a higher mix of new and innovative products that have higher cost…

A trojan horse is a term used to describe software (as in maliciously crafted software, or malware) that is disguised as something benign. It requires user interaction to install itself, which almost always means that a Mac user has to give the malware permission to install itself, including entering their password. Boonana, however, is a…

Why all the fuss? Two reasons.First, there are those who prefer keeping a Lock switch on the iPad and are upset about the change. Balancing this out, there are at least an equal number of users (me included, having never used the Position Lock) who welcome a Mute switch’s arrival on the iPad. The result? A controversy.…

“As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called,” Mr. Fries told the magazine. “He was mad at [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we’d just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer.” Mr. Fries was then the vice president of game…

The employees that are suffering from n-hexane exposure have been receiving treatment in Suzhou’s Number Five People’s Hospital for the past six months.Sick workers in China think Apple is to blame.The workers claim they were building products for Apple and even had some of the Apple logos they had been gluing to product cases. Apple,…

The version 1.1 update added the ability to check in for reservations, add reservations to iCal, request help in Apple retail stores, and more.Apple Store 1.1 is free and is available at Apple’s iTunes-based App Store.

According to Mr. Zapfel, Unisys will be providing support and “other services” to both corporate and government agencies that buy Apple gear. He also said the contract was signed just this month, and it would mark a rare move by Apple to turn to an outside source for providing such services. Historically, Apple has not…

“When logging into a website you usually start by submitting your username and password. The server then checks to see if an account matching this information exists and if so, replies back to you with a ‘cookie’ which is used by your browser for all subsequent requests,” Firesheep developer Eric Butler said on his Web…

Apple’s App Store currently has some 284,000 apps available, according to third party site AppShopper.com. That breaks down to 266,374 iPhone apps and 37,290 iPad apps, with some overlap between the two categories. Indeed, Apple has either pulled or seen pulled by developers more than half as many apps as the Android Market boasts in…

The remixremote high-definition noise-isolating metal earphones with microphone by V-moda are available in four metallic colors.   The Remixremote earphones are available in 4 colorsThe MSRP is $99.99 and they are available in the Apple Stores and other box stores as well as on-line. I found five sets of the Nero color on Amazon.com for $67.23.The…

While Ms. Battino is remaining tight-lipped over how the pics made the jump from her personal iPhoto library into eXtreme Cam Girls, she’s more than happy to express her anger over not getting compensated for the shots.“I was just upset that I’m not being paid for my pictures,” she said. “I’m not embarrassed.”Apple Store guidelines…

Local officials claim the data center should go into operation “any day now,” according to Data Center Knowledge. Apple executives have said they planned to bring the facility online before the end of the year, although they haven’t confirmed exactly what the facility’s purpose will be.Even though the data center hasn’t gone into action yet,…

Mr. Gibbs also said, “They discussed American competitiveness and education, especially reforms such as the president’s Race to the Top initiative. They then talked about energy independence and ways to increase job creation.” President Obama was visiting Silicon Valley to attend a $30,000 a plate fund raiser for the Democratic Party that was held at…

In the world of software, the term deprecation is used when a feature is considered to be obsolete or on the way out. In this case, Apple is telling software developers that the version of Java for Mac OS X that is ported by Apple is on the outs, which may or may not be…

“Limited browser support for the HTML5 <video> tag has forced web designers to scramble for a solution that would work across platforms as well as browsers,” Adobe wrote in a blog entry. “To help customers overcome these challenges, Adobe has released an easy-to-use, totally CSS-customizable solution that shifts gracefully from the HTML5 <video> tag to…

One of the biggest changes in the new version of iPhone is a full screen mode where the app takes over your entire screen. Many Windows users will find this mode comforting, and iOS users will find it familiar, as well. Apple has added new slideshow themes that will automatically create slideshows based on places, albums,…

Starbucks Digital NetworkStarbucks Digital Network will offer six different “channels” such as health, entertainment and business, along with access to social networking services. To help personalize the service a little more, Starbucks will also offer a local channel that includes Zagat listings, Foursquare’s location-based service, and Yahoo!’s own Patch news service.To help kick off Starbucks…

Mr. Ozzie was instrumental in pushing Microsoft into cloud-based services on the Internet. Mr. Ballmer said he “helped catalyze our drive to the cloud.”Microsoft’s Ray OzzieMr. Ozzie will help with the transition as he moves on, and he’ll spend some time “focusing his efforts in the broader area of entertainment where Microsoft has many ongoing…