macintosh

Microsoft (finally) releases Mac Office converters

Finally.

Microsoft on Tuesday released the file format converters that allow Office 2004 for Mac to read the Open XML file formats that were introduced in Office 2007 for Windows. The converters were originally due to be available close to the launch of Office 2007, but have been delayed several times.

The delays meant that Office 2008, which supports the new formats, actually hit the market before the converters. Of course, since Microsoft makes money off new versions of Office and not off making the older product more compatible, perhaps that was part of the plan.

In any case, the … Read more

Microsoft staffing up Mac unit

Microsoft is hoping that better Windows products and marketing will eventually stem the market share gains that Apple has been making. In the meantime, the company is trying to make the best of things.

The software maker is growing its Mac Business Unit (MacBU), which just had another record year.

"The Mac BU at Microsoft is growing--we're launching our biggest hiring initiative since the inception of MacBU 11 years ago," general manager Craig Eisler said in a blog posting. "We are hard at work planning for products beyond Office 2008, and we are growing our team … Read more

Mac Office sales soar on Apple's gains

While Apple's market share gains are cause for consternation for many in Redmond, one unit is clearly benefiting.

Microsoft's Mac unit is set to disclose on Tuesday that copies of the new Office for Mac 2008 are flying off the shelves at three times the rate of its predecessor. The company wouldn't disclose sales numbers, but said the sales are the highest in the 19-year history of the unit. That continues a trend that has been going on for some time.

Senior marketing manager Amanda Lefebvre declined to give all of the credit to Apple, but said … Read more

Day 2 of Apple puffery

After Monday's forecast in which he foretold Apple moving 45 million iPhones during 2009, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is back with another aggressive estimate.

On Tuesday, Munster released a research note in which he estimates that Apple's U.S. consumer market share for Macs stands at 21 percent, while its worldwide share is about 10 percent. He comes to this conclusion by using numbers released by market research firm IDC, which found that Apple's worldwide share of the PC market grew from 2.4 percent to 2.9 percent between 2006 and 2007. He notes that … Read more

The talking dog of virtualization

I started my computing life on a Sinclair ZX81 with 1k of memory (total). If I wanted to get it to do anything of significance I had to laboriously hand code it, sometimes from a magazine that published user-submitted programs (with accompanying bug notices and typo corrections in the following month's issue). Today I work on a Mac Book Pro with dual 2 gigaherz processors and 104,857,600 times more memory (approximately). It does most things I want, including running two operating systems simultaneously.

I use Parallels on top of OS X, and let me start by saying … Read more

XO laptop: Better to give, receive or both?

I woke up Monday to the announcement that starting September 24, the XO laptop (famous as the little laptop that could) will be made available to buyers in so-called first-world countries, in quantities less than 100,000 units. In fact, for less than $400 you can give one and receive another--an excellent solution to an age-old moral dilemma.… Read more

Gather ye iPhones while ye may.

We need to have a talk.

Listen, the horned one knows you're really sick of hearing about the iPhone. Heck, Jonathan Ive is probably sick of hearing about the iPhone.

"If I hear one more word about what a design genius I am I'm just going to scream!"

The good news is, it's going to get better. The rest of the year will be more Mac-centric as Apple starts shipping new hardware and Leopard is released in October. Jobs has alluded to some great new hardware announcements in the near future and visions of tiny … Read more

Hack a Mac, get $10,000

VANCOUVER, B.C.--The prize in the hack-a-Mac contest at the CanSecWest conference here just got bigger.

TippingPoint, which runs the Zero Day Initiative bug bounty program, is offering to pay $10,000 to the hacker who commandeers one of two MacBooks. The target computers are connected to a wireless access point and fully patched, including the update for 25 vulnerabilities that Apple released on Thursday.

Originally a successful hack would be rewarded with the MacBook. There had been some rumblings among event attendees that the reward was not big enough to draw interest. To qualify for the $10,000 … Read more

Google Desktop for Mac: Why now?

One of the key benefits of using Google Desktop rather than the search functionality that ships with Microsoft Windows XP is its speed and online functionality. Vista has improved the built-in search, but for XP users, Google Desktop is a powerful search tool that does a much better job at helping you find things, even if they're online. This morning, Google released a version of its Desktop search client for the Mac operating system. Sure enough, the release has a lot of people asking why? After all, Macs have been shipping with Spotlight, OS X's built-in system-wide search … Read more

Starter kit for Mac shrine on eBay

If you saw our recent item on the shrine to the Mac and wanted to build one of your own, here's your chance to get started.

Gizmodo notes that 40 Macintosh Classic IIs are for sale on eBay, with bids starting at $799 for the whole lot (or you can buy them now for $999). But as others have noted, they're not exactly a bargain--especially when you consider what a pain it is to get rid of any old computer these days, now that they're classified as hazardous waste. But hey, if you're looking to spruce … Read more