book

Power outages on MacBook Pros

MacBook Pro owners are apparently having trouble supplying power to their computers both from the battery and from the wall.

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple is getting ready to introduce new 85-watt MagSafe adapters for MacBook Pros following a litany of complaints about fraying cables on the adapters. When they were first introduced, most customers liked the idea of flexible cables that would detach from the computer if subjected to excessive stress, preventing your nice laptop from flying across the floor of the coffee shop when somebody trips over the cord.

However, the flexibility of the power cable has caused … Read more

Final photos of Midas-touched MacBook

A couple of weeks ago we mentioned an outfit called Computer Choppers that will adorn your MacBook in 24k gold and, for an additional fee, a diamond-studded Apple logo. The company's site had only a few teaser shots at the time, but now they've done a full fashion shoot with a final product.

As gawdy as the whole idea may sound, you've got to view the finished work--inside and out--to make a final judgment. As we thought with the 18k gold Shuffle and the 24k iPod, there's something visually stunning about Midas-touched Apple products, … Read more

Book review--"Can't Buy Me Love: the Beatles, Britain, and America"

Some might say that modern pop music started with the Beatles. Yes, before the Beatles there was this singer, Elvis Presley, and the other guy, Chuck Berry, pretty much invented rock and roll, but the Beatles were in another league. Jonathan Gould's new Beatles biography, "Can't Buy Me Love" (Harmony Books, $27.50) provides an insightful overview of the Fab Four's career.

As Gould recounts the Beatles changed pretty much everything. Pop and rock music in the early 1960s was released mostly on 45 RPM singles, but the Beatles' producer George Martin was onto something … Read more

Sony opens book on new Reader

Rumors have been circulating that Sony was about to release the second edition of its electronic book reader--and now it's official. Sony's new Reader Digital Book, the PRS-505, will hit stores shortly, and while it doesn't look that different on the surface, it's got some notable improvements.

Next-generation electronic paper display delivers faster response and a higher contrast ratio, with eight levels of gray scale instead of four.

Slightly thinner profile.

More intuitive button layout allows for easier navigation.

Available in silver and dark blue.

The new Reader costs the same as the old Reader ($300), … Read more

Report: N.Y.-based Harvard grads score Facebook satire book deal

The New York Observer reported Monday that Greg Atwan and Evan Lushing, two recent Harvard graduates living in New York, have reportedly earned a five-figure book deal for a satirical take on social-networking phenomenon Facebook. The book pitch, called The Facebook Book, sold to Harry N. Abrams, Inc. for somewhere around $50,000, according to The Observer.

Facebook famously started in a Harvard dorm in 2004, with founder (and eventual dropout) Mark Zuckerberg and several friends creating the social network as an alternative to the school's physical "facebook" with photographs and contact information for the student body.… Read more

Japan gets new ToughBooks

Panasonic has added four new laptops to its Let's Note line in Japan. Though they're sold under the ToughBook brand here in the States, the shiny portables aren't exactly what we'd call rugged. They are engineered to survive a drop from 30 inches--about desk height--and incorporate a spill-resistant keyboard, but we've always felt the greatest strength of the Let's Note line has been the laptops' remarkably light weight. These new models are no exception: The lightest laptop of the bunch, the 10.4-inch R7, weighs just 2.1 pounds. The 12.1-inch W7 weighs … Read more

More DemoFall: Enterprise software for small businesses

Wait, there are still more tools for small businesses to get stuff done shown here at the conference this morning.

CashView.com lets small business users see all their documents online. It's a service for sending and receiving invoices, approvals, and commenting on them. There's also a calendar that shows when money is due or to be paid to you. It lets you review and zoom in on documents. The docs get online by faxing them to CashView and they upload them for you. Some people might actually have to buy a fax machine first.

Batch Book is … Read more

Apple's MacBook line to get an upgrade

According to MacSlice, Apple is set to roll out a new line of MacBooks and MacBook Pros in the near future. I know what I want for Christmas....

The specs sound very tasty:… Read more

A better analogy

The Macalope has very little to add to this Daring Fireball post on David Maynor's crappy prestige for the MacBook wireless trick (part of the prestige is timing, David) other than to note that Mr. Gruber's "frog that can recite the alphabet" analogy misses the mark. Because the horny one can tell you categorically there's no such frog (he's been to all of the mythical creature meetings and he's never seen one) and -- despite the blatherings of numerous silly pundits -- no one outside of Slashdot commenters was claiming that OS X … Read more