Jump to content

InsanelyMac

Manage articles
Show all categories
  • Swad

    Azureus 2.5 released

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    For those who are still longing for the perfect OS X torrent app... well, you'll probably have to wait a little longer.
     
    Azureus 2.5 was released a couple of days ago, however, and after playing with it, I'll have to say it's an improvement over previous Universal builds. One of the best features is the ability to - gasp! - open a torrent by clicking on it from your desktop. Seriously. It's in the changelog. For those needing a little more power than what Transmission can give (along with a little less RAM), the app of the blue frog may be the answer.
     
    Azureus is free and can be downloaded from SourceForge.
  • Swad

    ATI introduces 5 new video cards

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    ATI announced today 5 new video card models, some of the first product announcements since the purchase of ATI by AMD. All of the models are within the x1000 line. Starting with the cheapest, we've got the Radeon X1300 XT, Radeon X1650 Pro, Radeon X1900 XT 256 MB, ATI’s Radeon X1950 XTX and X1950 CrossFire. Interestingly, both X1950 are priced the same (USD $449).
     
    [H]ardOCP (mentioned to us in Reader News by embries) had this to say about the new high end models:


    TI has proven they are a leader and not a follower with the X1950 XTX. ATI has released the world’s first consumer 3D graphics card with GDDR4 memory clocked at the highest ever stock speed that chews through games when it comes to high definition gaming. Memory bandwidth looks to one again be the defining factor in 3D performance. With a re-designed heatsink/fan unit, faster memory, and lowered price, the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX and CrossFire Edition are both serious 3D gaming video cards for the [H]ardcore that offer some value over NVIDIA’s more expensive 7950 GX2. ATI’s CrossFire dual GPU gaming platform looks to have just grown up. Anandtech notes that ATI is moving to simplfy its product lineup to just 8 card models:


    - ATI Radeon X1950 XTX
    - ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
    - ATI Radeon X1900 GT
    - ATI Radeon X1650 Pro
    - ATI Radeon X1300 XT
    - ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
    - ATI Radeon X1300 256
    - ATI Radeon X1300 64-bit With Apple using a GeForce card in the standard configuration of the Mac Pro (something carried over from the Power Mac G5), we're still unsure if we'll see variations of these cards in future Macs or, instead, a move away from ATI by Apple. What are your thoughts?
  • REVENGE
    Five Apple Retail employees were fired recently for illegally obtaining a pre-release version of Leopard floating around on the usual Bit Torrent sources. The employees were overheard discussing their actions (presumably obtaining, installing, and using the pre-release Leopard), and when news of this incident reached Cupertino, Apple launched an investigation ending in the admission by all the employees of their illegal actions. This is not surprising considering two years ago, Apple had tracked down and sued 3 individuals who it claimed were the originators of the leak of Tiger before it had been officially released. That case was eventually settled out of court with the defendants.
     
    One terminated employee said: "All of us know that we violated our NDA and ethics policy. Therefore, because we had the character to tell the truth and to face the consequences of our actions, we were terminated." The employee wonders if such "drastic penalties" were warranted for this situation, remarking that: "My only question is, if we all lied and denied it would we still be working at Apple today? Even more so, is that the kind of person that Apple wants working for them?" Perhaps this should be considered wise advice to posterity, as Apple claims there could be more "terminations" in the future.
     
    Thanks to Xiberia for posting this in Reader News!
  • Colonel
    Microsoft has been fighting against Mozilla Firefox for years now by pushing directing people back to Internet Explorer (which had adopted several of Firefox's features). They've also made certain webpages that don't display correctly with Firefox. Ars Technica notes, however, that new developments might be evidence that the browser wars are cooling.


    Last Saturday, Ramjii posted a message in the newsgroup "mozilla.dev.planning" asking Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer and any other Firefox developers if they'd be interested in visiting the Windows Vista Readiness ISV Lab. Ramjii said that he's made a special exception for the Mozilla team since this isn't how the lab invitations normally work.
     
    As part of my mission as an advocate for open source applications on Windows, I've gotten spaces set aside at the Windows Vista Readiness ISV Lab. In the past the company has only invited commercial software developers to these labs. I'm committed to evolving our thinking beyond commercial companies to include open source projects, so I went to the non-trivial effort of getting slots for non-commercial open source projects.
     
    We don't know yet if Mozilla has accepted the offer, we do know that someone from Mozilla who goes by the name of Mike Schroepfer responded to the email by saying, "I believe we are already in contact with your team via email. We will follow-up there." This sounds like a good response for Mozilla... but you never know. If this is what will get Firefox into Vista at launch, I'll be happy.
  • munky

    Multi-threaded OpenGL Coming...

    By munky, in OSx86,

    Mac Gaming and Multithreaded OpenGL


    According to the articles, the new Mac Pro already incorporates the new multi-threaded OpenGL in the pre-installed version of Mac OS X (10.4.7). The official release of the new version of OpenGL for existing Mac owners remains uncertain.
     
    According to some people I've talked to, multi-threaded OpenGL games will see huge gains in performance. With multi-threaded OpenGL, the game, for example, can run off one core/CPU, while OpenGL can work on the second core/processor for its processing. So they work in concurrent fashion instead of co-habitating one CPU.
     
    One demo reportedly had a doubling of frame rate when taking advantage of the multi-threaded OpenGL. And with dual and multi-core processors becoming commonplace, many customers will be able to take advantage of these optimizations.
  • Swad
    No word strikes fear in the heart of a MacBook owner like "random shutdown." (That's technically two words, but we're going for drama here...)
     
    Equally as dramatic is a potential cure for this shutdown problem from the folks over at MacFixIt. One of their readers decided to take matters into his own hands and fix the problem himself. The result? No more shutdowns.


    I found that if I take off the top case, the problem never happens. So I tried to see if it's related to the top case by loosen the screws to see if that fix the problem. At first it seems so random that I was unable to be certain which screw is causing the issue. Later I found out if I tighten the bottom, it sure to happen. So now I put a spacer (usually found in those stand-offs of those no name brand PCs, red in color, round, hard paper type) around the center post of the top case, tape it so it won't come loose.
     
    After placing the Kapton Tape, I pushed the CPU to 100%. When the temperature reaches 85 degree, the fan will turn on at high speed and the temperature will lower back to about 77 degree. Tried many times, the computer did not cut off at all. Please note the red spacer on the Centre Post of the top case, the Kapton Tape on the edge of the top case where it touches the heat sink. I also taped the Trackpad/Keyboard cable just in case. We've heard from several of you that you've been dealing with this exact problem. If you try this, let us know your results.
  • Swad

    SlimBatteryMonitor now Universal

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    For those of you who relish in giving Apple's battery icon the boot, run - don't walk - to the latest version of SlimBatteryMonitor, which has just joined the Universal club. It allows you to tweak the menubar battery icon and "takes up to 70% less space" than the Apple version.
     
    If pimpin' the UI be your thang, this free little utility is just for you. As always, impressions and pithy comments welcome.
  • Swad

    Merom vs. Yonah

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    If you are or have been considering a MacBook (Pro) recently, you’ve probably asked yourself, “Do I need this now or should I wait for Merom?” It’s always tough with Apple to remain content with your last generation hardware, but there is some good news. While Merom is indeed an improvement over Yonah, it’s not enough to make you throw yourself from a Cupertino building for buying the older hardware. Anandtech slapped a Core 2 Duo (Merom) chip inside a Core Duo (Yonah) based ASUS Z96Js and analyzed the results. The verdict?


    While Core 2 Duo does look nice, as long as you've got a good notebook today you'll probably want to wait until Santa Rosa before upgrading (at the earliest). With Santa Rosa, clock speeds will go up slightly but more importantly we'll get access to a faster FSB. Unfortunately a side-effect of keeping Core 2 Duo fed with a faster FSB is that while performance may go up, battery life may go down. It'll be interesting to see what Intel can pull off with the new platform; one of the funny things about performance and battery life is that if you can complete a task quickly enough thus returning your CPU to an idle state faster, battery life will grow even though instantaneous power consumption may be higher.
     
    For Apple users this means that early adopters of the new MacBook or MacBook Pro won't be too pressured to upgrade again by the end of this year. Of course Apple has this way of making incremental changes irresistible.
     
    Overall, Merom may not be as big of an upgrade to Yonah as Conroe was to NetBurst, but the bottom line is that you get equal or better performance in every test without increasing cost or decreasing battery life. Owners of Core Duo laptops really have no reason to worry about upgrading for now, and waiting for the Santa Rosa platform before your next laptop upgrade seems reasonable. Those looking to purchase a new notebook on the other hand have no reason to avoid Core 2 Duo models, assuming pricing is consistent with what Intel is promising. There will be a delay of at least a few more weeks as we await availability, and testing and validation by laptop manufacturers may delay things a bit more, but within the next month or so you should be able to get a Core 2 laptop.

  • REVENGE
    Reliable sources have disclosed that ATI's next generation high end GPU, the R600, will in fact have 64 physical pipelines. This, coupled with a 512 bit GDDR4 memory interface, a unified shader architecture, and high clock frequencies could put NVIDIA's G80 [a "dis-unified" GPU] in some big trouble. To put this into perspective, the R600 is expected to be an advanced version of the Xbox360's R500 Xenos GPU, which only has 48 physical pipelines. In addition, the R600 will be fully DirectX 10 compatible, meaning it will include Shader Model 4.0 support and run all of the best looking next generation video games as well as run DirectX 9.0 video games faster.
     
    On a side note, these developments bring back the doubts I have about the new Intel Macs becoming a great gaming platform. Sure, transferring to the x86 architecture might make developing/porting games to Macs more feasible, but what happens when your platform cannot support the latest developments in graphics technology standards?
     
    Upcoming games will soon begin taking advantage of the latest capabilities DirectX 10 hardware has to offer, but while DirectX development has been making leaps and bounds, what about OpenGL? OpenGL was originally intended for CAD applications only, and even with the latest OpenGL 2.0 and available add-on extensions, OpenGL has yet to implement a DirectX 10 / Shader Model 4.0 equivalent instruction-set. In addition, next generation games are expected to start using physics acceleration, and while Microsoft has already announced plans to develop a “DirectPhysX” type of library, I’ve yet to hear of a “OpenPL” project.
     
    So unless Microsoft decides to port DirectWhatever to OS X, it seems that Mac gaming has just been out-monopolized once again.
  • kevin_4e
    If you use Anchor Free (one of the most popular free hotspot finders), check out wipod, which allows users to “look up free hotspots quickly and easily right from your iPod”... Google has relaunched its own web-based word processor, writely, which is currently under beta (and doesn't support Safari)... Familiar with the popular messaging client Adium? Then you may be excited to hear the latest news about Foom. Foom is currently under early development by Chris Forsythe and Evan Schoenberg (Adium Lead and Project Managers). Although there is absolutely no information on what they may creating, TUAW claims to keep an eye out for it.
     
    By now you may or may not have found Insanely Mac’s official music and movie recommendation thread. There you can find what other forum members are listening and watching... Want to know what our latest moderator, DaxTsurugi is up to? Check out his frequently updated blog... And finally, definitive proof of why you should never pick on a Flash animation.
×
×
  • Create New...