Parallels has announced the release of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, a new version of their virtualization software that enables OS X users to run Windows and other non-Apple operating systems side-by-side along with OS X. It goes into general circulation on September 6 for $79.99, but existing customers can upgrade now for $49.99.
Among the new features is support for and integration with OS X Lion. Lion’s LaunchPad and Mission Control can display Windows applications. Lion can also operate as a guest operating system. iSight and FaceTime HD cameras work in both Mac and Windows apps, and users can allocate up to 1GB of video memory.
Graphics performance has been improved with up to 45 percent faster 3D graphics rendering, and Windows start, stop and resume functions are up to 60 percent faster in the new release, according to Parallels. The company also claims that file copying within Windows is up to 120 percent faster than its competitor.
Parallels Mobile, the app that lets you access Parallels Desktop content through your iOS device, has also been improved, with copy and paste support, audio, and other new features.
The Loop turned two years old in June and this is by far the biggest change the site has seen since its launch. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to explain the changes and why they were made.
In April, I started looking at the site the way a reader would see it, not the way the owner would see it. To be blunt, I didn’t like what I saw and knew that something needed to change.
The site looked cluttered, and it was hard for a reader to enjoy a story. This is the last thing I wanted for The Loop.
So, we spent the last few months coming up with a solution that would be better for the reader, better for our sponsors, and still allow us to make a living.
Memberships
I’ve had many people come to me over the past two years and offer to send me money to help support the site. I want to thank you all for doing that. While I never took anyone up on the offer, it made me feel like I was on the right track with what I was delivering.
Now, I am offering a membership to The Loop. It costs $3 per month and can be billed to your PayPal account or your credit card (You don’t have to be a PayPal member).
So, what do you get if you become a member? Well, the most important thing is that you support the great writing you’ve come to expect from Peter and me, but in a cleaner, easier to read format.
I will also give each subscriber a full text RSS so you can read the site in your favorite news reader, at your leisure.
All of the content will remain free on The Loop. There will not be any walled-off areas and there will still be a truncated RSS feed available to everyone for free.
From the homepage, you can click on any of the icons next to a story to view its page. There you can leave a comment or use one of the social media buttons to share the story with your friends.
The only story type that is different from the rest is the “Linked” story. With these stories you click on the headline and you go to the external Web site. The icon next to these stories is a link, so it’s easy to recognize.
Advertising
First, I have to give a big thanks to all of my advertisers over the past couple of years. Companies like Pixelmator and Marketcircle have been with me since day one and others like SecureMac and Mac Game Store have been around for a long time.
Sincerely, thank you all.
Instead of packing The Loop with ads, I am partnering with Fusion Ads to have one small ad on the site. This tile is in the sidebar and will show on every page. This leaves the content of the story free from any type of advertising at all.
That is the only image-based advertisement that will be on The Loop.
Chris Bowler, the owner of Fusion, and I completely agree on what advertising should be and how it should be implemented. I’m looking forward to a long relationship between Fusion and The Loop.
The Design and thank you
I owe a huge thanks to Phil Letourneau who built the new site from the ground up. He put up with my nitpicking and said “no” on many occasions to my silly design ideas.
Much respect for the design and code, Phil.
You may notice that some of the posts on the site resemble John Gruber’s Daring Fireball linked list posts. I actually spoke with John on several occasions about having these types of posts and lots of other things to do with the site. Thanks John.
Shawn Blanc answered quite a few questions on his membership model, which I adopted for The Loop. Thanks Shawn.
Rick Fillion from Oomph has written so much code for the site over the last couple of years, I’m sure he cringes when he sees my number calling. Much respect Rick.
Last, but not least, I’d like to thank you, the reader. I truly appreciate every single comment, share, and retweet for The Loop. Never underestimate how much spreading the word about your favorite Web site means to the people who run it. It means a lot.
U.S. District Judge Walter Rice ruled last week against Absolute Software, which provides software and services for tracking stolen computers. Absolute sought a summary judgment in its favor, insisting that one of its theft recovery agents acted properly when he captured sexually explicit images of Susan Clements-Jeffrey communicating via webcam with her boyfriend and passed them to police in an effort to recover the stolen computer.
Clements-Jeffrey is a substitute teacher who bought a stolen laptop from a student then used it to exchange explicit webcam video with her boyfriend, all of which was recorded by Absolute’s LoJack software (available for both OS X and Windows). The judge ruled that tracking IP addresses and trying to get a location fix on a stolen computer was acceptable, but intercepting video transmissions may violate federal wiretapping laws.
LoJack isn’t the only software to do this. I expect we’ll be hearing more about this case before it’s resolved.
When San Francisco police and Apple’s investigators visited the house, they spoke with a man in his twenties who acknowledged being at Cava 22 on the night the device went missing. But he denied knowing anything about the phone. The man gave police permission to search the house, and they found nothing, the source said. Before leaving the house, the Apple employees offered the man money for the phone no questions asked, the source said, adding that the man continued to deny he had knowledge of the phone.
Your Mac Life’s Shawn King and I were discussing this story this afternoon. It’s interesting to note that the San Francisco Police said no police report was filed, yet a police officer accompanied Apple investigators to the house.
Seems clear to me the source is the cop that was on the scene with Apple.
While Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal and CNET continue to drone on about the impact of the Steve Jobs era, I won’t be pondering the MacBook Air I write on or the iPhone I talk on. I will think of the day I saw him at his son’s high school graduation. There Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and proud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his own bright future leaving behind a good man and a good father who can be sure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy of all.
A terrific look at Steve Jobs from someone with a very different perspective than the vast majority of commentary we’ve seen.
Last week John Gruber said, “Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.” Maybe for you and me that’s right. But I suspect that Lisen Stromberg strikes closer to the truth: the greatest creation any of us can hope to achieve is a happy, healthy family that loves us. That is a dent in the universe that any of us can make if we want it to.
Yet now, after all the wreckage has been cleared and the rebuilding has begun, their path is again blocked — not by flying chunks of smoldering rubble, but by space constraints.The first responders are not invited to this year’s September 11 memorial ceremony at ground zero, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office confirmed Monday.
They weren’t invited in 2001 either, but they showed up. Much respect to those people.
In his new book “Trust me, I’m Dr. Ozzy,” rock legend OZZY OSBOURNE embraces his status as a medical marvel to tell incredible stories, offer advice as only he can and shed light on his seemingly superhuman ability to stay alive. “Trust me, I’m Dr. Ozzy” will include some of the best material from the columns, as well as survival stories not found in OZZY’s memoir, his answers to celebrities’ medical questions, charts and sidebars, and much more.
Apple has just begun offering refurbished iPad 2 units in its online store, opening the way for modest price savings on available models. Discounts currently come in at only $50 off of pricing for brand-new units, and no low-end units are currently available.
The company has been offering refurbished first-generation iPads for some time, but it’s taken a while for the iPad 2 to show up. The savings are small compared to a new iPad, but Apple covers refurbished units with a full warranty and they’re also eligible for AppleCare coverage, so it’s a good way to save a bit of cash if you’re in the market for a new iPad.
Scosche has introduced the RDTX pro, a radiation detector that works in conjunction with an app on your iPhone or iPod touch. It retails for $329.99. (more…)
Using FileMaker Bento for business? The company on Tuesday released a new free set of templates called the Bento Business Organizer. Aimed at sole proprietors and small businesses who use Bento to manage their companies, the package includes eight new templates and Avery print labels for QR codes. (more…)
The Financial Times has pulled its iPad app from App Store circulation, replacing it with what the publication calls “a new, faster, more complete app” – a customized Web site – instead. (more…)
The Justice Department complaint was filed today in federal court in Washington. The U.S. is seeking a declaration that Dallas-based AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), would violate U.S. antitrust law and a court order blocking any arrangement implementing the deal.
SecureMac is celebrating the release of MacScan 2.9.1, the latest version of it’s award-winning anti-malware privacy and security software for Mac OS X. The Download, Tweet and Win! Campaign allows Mac users the opportunity to download MacScan and audit their computer for security threats and privacy issues such as tracking cookies and tweet their results for a chance to win great prizes such as a MacBook Air, MacScan licenses and gift cards to favorite retailers. No purchase is necessary.
You see, Ashley then exchanges her money for the iPad and drives home where she then opens up the FedEX container, for the first time, to find that *shock* it was a scam. She had purchased nothing more than a rather strange and surprisingly elaborately decorated wooden block, framed with black tape and sporting a replica Apple logo and iOS icons. The police report also describe a sort of “Best Buy sales ticket.” I’m personally more amused that the guys created such an obvious, but complex replica instead of using, you know, a normal piece of wood.
Hewlett-Packard Co may resurrect its TouchPad as it weighs a spinoff of its personal computer arm, the head of its PC division said, suggesting HP might revive a tablet that lasted just six weeks in the face of stiff competition from Apple Inc.
Let me make this simple HP: People don’t want the TouchPad. You had a fire sale and sold lots of them, but you lost a ton of money. Shut it down.
Elements is a beautiful, versatile text editor for iOS. Elements allows you to view, edit and share plain text documents on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. All of your data is stored in a folder on your personal Dropbox account so that it’s accessible from any device you have. Whether you’re a freelance writer wanting to write your next article, a student with a book report due or professional on-the-go who needs access to their notes wherever they are, Elements can work for you.
Spacetime Studios has announced the release of Star Legends: The Blackstar Chronicles for all iOS devices. It’s a new massively multiplayer online game from the makers of the enormously popular Pocket Legends. (The game is supported by in-app purchases.) (more…)
Our mission is to showcase the entire spectrum of products that Apple have sold to the public since 1976 – every product Apple Inc has ever produced, in the highest quality and definition possible. Every desktop, every laptop, every notebook, monitor, iPod, iPad, iPhone, mouse, keyboard, modem, cable, port, adapter, docking station, memory expansion card….and that’s just their hardware. Operating systems, productivity suites and all the great software titles that Apple have published will make an appearance too!
The Web site started off with 50 products, but more are being added all the time. Fascinating to look back at the history.
Weintraub first contacted me last November when I named his writer Mark Gurman — who is a teenager, it turns out — as “Moron of the Week” when he posted a story that Apple had opened a Twitter account. There were several signs that this simply wasn’t true. The Apple logo wasn’t correctly proportioned being the biggest. And the account was claiming that the company was giving away iPads.Clearly — to me, at least — Gurman’s post was rushed and not thought through. However, at Weintraub’s request, I redacted my post. I figured I’d give the kid the benefit of the doubt…I thought that was that. Then, two weeks later, I noticed that forkbombr.com was re-directing to 9to5Mac. According to the whois information, the domain was registered by Weintraub two days after my open letter was published.Seriously? Why are you trying to piss the guy off who owns the domain you’d like? […] How about stop being a douche and I won’t re-up for a decade.
These are a few paragraphs I chose from Stephen’s story. So many things come to mind that could be said, but jackassery sums it up pretty well.
Stem Innovation has announced the iZON Remote Room Monitor, a video camera that streams live audio and video to an iOS device anywhere in the world. It costs $129.95 and is available in select Best Buy locations, but is soon coming to Apple stores and other retail locations. (more…)
The original Songwriters Drumpack drummer Ricard “Huxflux” Nettermalm is back with another stunning MIDI pack: Songwriters Drumpack 3! Intentionally picking up where the other two packs left off, the new one focuses more on the up- and midtempo end of the scale. This is a must for all you songwriters out there looking for great, pro drum tracks, organized as different songs and in need of full song structure building blocks.
Flapcraft is a cheerfully addictive game for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, where you play as a handsome Viking doing tricks in the air by flying on a wooden log. In addition to fun gameplay and beautiful graphics, the game takes advantage of many of the latest and greatest iPhone, iPad and iPod touch technologies.
Everyone knows I love the Mac image editing app Pixelmator, but now the team has come out with an iPhone and iPad game. Of course, the art was all put together using Pixelmator, but this game looks really nice. You can watch a video of the making of Flapcraft on the Web site or buy it on the App Store.
I first found Anthony Stauffer on YouTube a few years ago and loved his playing. He’s a blues player that teaches guitarists in all kinds of styles, including one of the best guitar players to ever pick up the instrument, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Stauffer’s lessons go from beginner to advanced and are always well done. My favorite lessons are the Blues boxes — basically the pentatonic scales — where he shows you how players like B.B. King, Albert King and Eric Clapton use them. Stauffer also sells his lessons on DVD or they’re available for download.
GuitarApprentice.com is a video system that takes the guitar part of hit songs and breaks them into easy portions on multiple levels so that they are as painless and fun to learn as a video game. On the lowest level, the player only plays a portion of the guitar part, while GuitarApprentice.com plays the rest. The player gets to rock out with the entire song by playing only a few chords. As the player improves he moves up through the different levels playing gradually and increasing portions of the guitar part. By the time the player reaches the highest level, he is playing the entire song and ready for the stage! At GuitarApprentice.com a player can download the free trial song of the week or subscribe to the entire catalog. New songs are added weekly. There is no need to read music—a player just lines up his fingers as shown on the fretboards moving down the screen and strums any guitar as the fretboards drop into place.
The option to rent episodes of TV shows is no longer available on either the Apple TV, or when browsing content via Apple’s iTunes application. Previously, participating networks offered users the ability to rent a TV episode for 99 cents, with 30 days to begin watching and 48 hours to complete it.
“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows. iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”
Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook got more than just a job at the biggest tech company in the world when he signed on with Apple. He also got 1,000,000 shares of Apple stock, a bonus worth $383 million at current prices.The news comes from an 8-K filing with the SEC that details the terms of Cook signing on as CEO.
The stock vests in two five-year increments – 2016 and 2021. Assuming Apple stock prices grow at the same rate it has been, that could make Cook a very wealthy man. Looks like Apple’s Board of Directors is very serious about making sure Tim stays in charge of Apple for a long time.
Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
