New and Noteworthy: Mac Pro review: A true PowerMac successor; Check for free Wi-Fi hotspots using your iPod; more

Mac Pro review: A true PowerMac successor AnandTech is the latest to review Apple's Mac Pro, concluding "The Mac Pro is pretty much everything the PowerMac G5 should have been.  It's cooler, quieter, faster, has more expansion and it gives you more for your value than the older systems ever could.  If you were happy with your PowerMac G5, then you'll definitely be happy with the Mac Pro.  And if you're a heavy multitasker, you will quickly be spoiled by the four very high performance cores that have found their way into the familiar looking chassis." More.

Check for free Wi-Fi hotspots using your iPod ComputerPartner reports that AnchorFree has announced the release of wiPod, an iPod application that helps you find free Wi-Fi hotspots. "Using the Notes feature available on late-model iPods with screens, wiPod saves you from having to visit AnchorFree to find free Wi-Fi spots in whatever area you're visiting. You can select an area you'll be visiting and download a list of names and addresses of all the free hotpsots in that area." More.

AMD Opteron 2000 vs Intel Xeon 5100 digit compares the Xeon 5100 architecture (used in Mac Pros) to the AMD Opteron 2000 series. "The results show that Intel has reclaimed its crown in a majestical fashion. The Xeon 5150s were 35 per cent faster in Maya software renderer and 16 per cent faster in mental ray than the Opteron 2218s. Intel?s chips also gave an 18 per cent boost to Photoshop over AMD's rival. The performance over the Power PC G5s was equally impressive. The 5150?s Maya software rendering time was a whopping 90 per cent faster, and its mental ray score was 32 per cent faster. It was also 27 per cent faster in Photoshop - though this is not something you could translate to the new Mac Pros as an Intel-native version of Photoshop is still at least six months away." More.

Previously on MacFixIt:

• Boot Camp Beta 1.1 released: Adds Mac Pro support; preset partitioning; iSight support; more
• MacBook and MacBook Pro SuperDrive failure (#2): Battery-related?; Try PMU reset; more
• Tutorial: Solving Java problems: Improper rendering/function 
• Mail.app: Problems sending/receiving mail? Check for duplicate accounts; use OnyX function
• Problems mounting disk images: Try booting in safe mode; clearing certain caches

Resources