Hacker Benjamin Heckendorn, better known as Ben Heck, has shoehorned the motherboard of an Apple IIGS into his own custom-made laptop case.

The Apple IIGS Original Hardware Laptop has a 15-inch color screen, built-in CompactFlash as a pseudo hard drive and stereo speakers.

The amazing piece of engineer has a glowing blue logo that flashes yellow when the disk is busy. Heck even made his own keys for the board, laser-etching each key.

It seems like it must be in danger of bursting into flames at any moment, but Heck says it puts off no more heat than a pocket calculator.

Released in September 1986, the IIGS was a powerful computer for its time, with advanced color graphics and stereo sound — the GS standing for “Graphics” and Sound.”

Heck says the hack was requested by an unnamed party. My money’s on Woz.

Heck has lot more pictures and video on his site.

.

Charlie Miller, the same man who hacked the iPhone in 2007 has successfully hacked a MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2. He won a free Air and $10,000. Competitors were unable to hack the system on day one, as organizers allowed only attacks over a network. Day two allowed organizers to visit web pages or open messages in e-mail clients. Apple is working on the problem.

More here:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/28/mac-hacked-two-minutes-flat

Submitted by lukeM|V

Take a trip with me to Fantasy Island…

The last Tuesday of the month is come and gone, and yet again my dreams of a Mac Tablet are dashed. I know it’s improper to lust after equipment this much, but perhaps that’s just where I am in life. I’ve reached a point (no matter how sad), that were I to see an attractive member of the opposite sex in a park with a Nikon D3 and Macbook Pro, I’m just as likely to think “Man, nice gear!” as any other potentially litigious thoughts. Now I know Apple doesn’t ask consumers about product design, but if they asked me about my oft-dreamed-of-tablet, here’s what I’d say:

#1. It’s an Accessory, not a Computer.
You could say the same thing about the MacBook Air, but the MBA isn’t priced like an accessory, it’s priced like a computer. The “Dream-Tablet” should be an $800 accessory to my existing collection of Macs.

#2 Because of #1, it doesn’t need to be powerful
We’ve already got “Back to My Mac,” so if Apple beefed up this service a bit to run better over public networks, the Tablet simply becomes a “Cloud Computing” device; allowing me access back to my primary machine, whose power I can harness (alternatively, Apple if you’re listening: work with VMWare and make a “Mac Cloud” that these Tablets could tap into. You could do it if you wanted to, read Nick Carr if you want to know why you should).

Disconnected, if I’m on an airplane, or a cave in Bosnia, I should still be able to read a book, play music, drive iWork, Aperture or (Lord help me) Office. That said: I don’t need to be able to produce HDR images in CS3 un-tethered.

What I’m saying is: “Dream tablet” doesn’t need the latest lap scorching chipset from Intel.

#3 It doesn’t need a big hard drive.
Really. Solid state, instant-on OS is way better than storage for the sake of storage. If I had 16 Gigs to hold documents or photos that I needed to work on (or books I wanted to read) while contemplating the fate of the kid who keeps kicking the back of my seat, that would be plenty.

But lets make it expandable, here’s a novel idea: give me a slot, where I can “dock” my 160gig iPod classic. Just slide the whole sucker in there like some kind of removable drive, and we’re good to go; storage, music, movies whatever, making 2 accessories work together seamlessly, now that’s something uniquely Apple.

#4 Remember, it’s an Accessory.
Really, so when I’m back home, I don’t want to just put it on the shelf until my next trip (which is all too often). Lets make it into an active accessory I can use in my main computing environment. Watcom digitizing tablet anyone? Apple TV remote Control? Portable media hub? (I can totally see hooking this thing up to my TV and streaming video and audio), even just as an extra monitor, whatever, lets be flexible with it.

#5 It does not need to be:
An iPod, iPhone, iTypewriter, or a super-computer capable of composing a sountrack in Logic Pro and cutting a film short in Final Cut while waiting I’m for the First Class lavatory to become available. Nor does it need to use that goofy fake electronic paper stuff from Sony (which is cool for eBooks, but nothing else). None of that, just world-class “Back to my Mac”, and the ability to run regular OS X applications with a reasonable (say Mac Mini) level of performance. That and simply OUTSTANDING battery life.

Is that too much to ask?

Readers: what would YOU want out of a Mac Tablet?

Filed under pure, wild speculation…

Many Mac Pro’s since Leopard are experiencing interment signal drops with their Airport Extreme wireless cards. This issue was first brought to my attention only after I lugged my seventy-pound monster three blocks and hoisted it up on the counter of the Genius Bar.

“It’s a known issue with Leopard,” I was apprised and sent on my way, boat anchor in tow.

Not being content with a computer that’s price compatible with a mid-tier Hyundai, and similarly incapable of navigating the Internet with any reliability, I decided to dig into this a little bit deeper, what follows are my observations only.

#1. The problem seems to be especially active when Bittorrent clients are running.
With a BT client running I’m experiencing a drop at least every 15 minutes or so. I have segregated networks (a G only network, and a N only (5mhz) network) both are Airport networks. My Mac Pro and Macbook pro are the only two computers on the N network. When the Mac Pro drops connection the Macbook Pro does not.

The engineering answer to the problem of signal drop with a BT client active is that we’re pushing bits so hard and fast the silicon might be over heating, which causes signal loss on at the computer. I could believe this except:

#2. The problem doesn’t seem as active (with a BT client running) when the Network Preferences dialog is open.
Now this I discovered purely by accident. But If I leave my network preferences pane open (not minimized) on my second monitor, my signal doesn’t drop hardly at all. I have noticed a signal drop, but it is VERY infrequent. This suggests the problem lay in code, not in hardware.

Evil Speculation: Is there some connection intentional or otherwise between dropping wireless connections and the use of BT clients? Correlation does not equal causation but I have to wonder particularly in light of:
#3 I don’t seem to loose signal when we’re not running a Bittorrent Client.
I can’t go so far as to say that the signal drop problem doesn’t occur at all when my bittorrent client isn’t running, but after several days not running a BT client, I’ve yet to observe a signal drop. I also took steps to push bits as hard and fast as I could, downloading Linux distributions over HTTP, uploading thousands of photos over FTP. The signal seemed to stay rock solid.

So I’m back to Evil Speculation again: Is there something in code that is causing these drops to happen (at all or at least more frequently) when running Bittorrent clients?

I’d like to ask our fellow Cultists to run their own experiments. If you’re not having dropping problems fire up a bittorrent client (the problem happens with either BitRocket or Transmission) and download and seed a legal torrent (can I suggest Leander’s book?) and see if it starts happening. If you are experiencing the dropping problem: are you running a BT client in the background, does it go away when you stop?

If there are any bit-jockeys out there who can trace the actual code in memory, can we find a real connection, or is this just paranoid speculation?

Though Apple’s Swiss online store retracted the announcement of an updated version of Apple’s venerable Airport Express basestation, the mother ship in Cupertino today unleashed the $99 gadget, now with speedy 802.11n data, on the rest of the world. I’m a big proponent of the Express for home use, particularly given its music sharing capabilities. It’s Apple’s best device for making iTunes more than just a support system for iPods and iPhones - even more so than the AppleTV — when it comes to music.

Apple - AirPort Express via Engadget

Tags: apple, hardware, 802.11n, airport, airport express

You want to know what’s 800 times as expensive as a 1GB iPod shuffle and twice as ugly? That would be the iDiamond shuffle, an absurdly encrusted former Apple product coated in white and pink gold and dozens of diamonds. See that ear bud? It still doesn’t sound any good. But hey, only $40,000!

Techotic via Digg

French Mac site MacGeneration discovered that the Swiss Apple Store touted a new version of Apple’s delightfully compact and stereo-friendly Airport Express that would stay the same on the outside but throw in blazing hot 802.11n WiFi on the inside, too. The evidence is in the picture above. Unfortunately, there is no word that this upgrade is on its way at any other Apple Stores, and even Switzerland, breaking neutrality, now bears not a trace of any 802.11n verbiage.

As MacGeneration puts it,

Le webmaster qui a fait la bourde a dû se faire taper sur les doigts. La page consacrée à la borne Airport Express sur l’Apple Store suisse a été modifiée et ne fait plus mention de la prise en charge du 802.11n.

Or, if you’re into the whole English thing,

[Update: 16/03 23:30] webmaster who made the bourde had to be done to tap on the wrist. The page devoted to the Airport Express at the Apple Store Swiss has been modified and no longer refer to the taking over of 802.11n.

Let’s hope the wrist-tap is temporary. How soon is next Tuesday, anyway?

MacGeneration via AppleInsider

Back in January, I was fairly effusive in my disappointment in the MacBook Air. I still think it’s a product that has a long way to go before it fulfills its promise as a thin, light, road warrior’s machine (the fact that it isn’t standard with an SSD is a pretty poor statement about its long-term reliability), but I’m now willing to admit that it hits the mark with at least some people, including people I really respect, like BusinessWeek’s Reena Jana, their innovation editor.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with Reena in the past, and she’s a constantly on-the-go kind of person, meeting with design and innovation leaders around the country. She probably travels for business more than I do. And she loves her MacBook Air:

OK, so I personally don’t have the need for many USB ports, nor for a huge, huge hard drive. And I don’t even feel that bad that there’s no Ethernet port, although I could get an attachment for it, which to me isn’t such a big deal (I rarely use the Ethernet jack). I’m reminded of when MacBook’s stopped having a floppy drive, or a dial-up jack. People were upset. But other laptops followed, because these features became obsolete. I see a parallel here, and my laptop lifestyle was starting to reflect the phasing out of DVDs and Ethernet jacks before the Air was released.

Fair points all, though I think I’d be more comfortable with the Air’s lack of a DVD drive if Apple distributed its own software, such as iWork, on USB key instead of DVD… Still, this is another reminder that a lot of people don’t need anywhere near the file storage capacity that I do. Just this weekend, I learned that my sister-in-law is desperate for an Air, as well. I’ll be very interested to hear how the Air performs in the market. I still think it will meet a fate similar to the G4 Cube, but there are some people who are incredibly excited by it.

For me, I think I’m stuck in Steven Levy’s camp: If I even had one, I think I’d probably throw it out with the newspapers by accident.

The news we’ve been waiting on for more than a year has finally arrived. According to Gizmodo, Apple this morning sent out invitations to an event at Apple Town Hall in Cupertino on March 6th to launch the software developer kit for the iPhone. Of particular note on the “roadmap” image included with the invitation is the prominent sign reading “Enterprise.” This certainly connects with the rumblings of Lotus support that have emerged in the last few weeks, and I hope it means Exchange Active Sync support. If the iPhone has integrated push e-mail support for Exchange, Apple will really start to breathe down the necks of RIM, the top-selling North American smartphone maker. It would put Apple in line to really put iPhones in the pockets of a lot more executives immediately.

Very exciting. Stay tuned, folks. I really hope that Apple allows every application developer who’s interested to make their software available for the iPhone. That’s what’s made the underground iPhone app community so exciting - the sheer creativity of the freeware community.

Apple Event for the iPhone SDK: March 6th

Tags: apple, iphone, sdk, iphone sdk, iphonesdk, exchange, enterprise, software

As anticipated, Apple took the wraps off of new hardware early this morning. In a twist on the rumors floating through the Internet, however, the Cupertino Kids updated two product lines - we get new MacBooks, but the Pro line gets a bump, too. Both lines get Penryn hardware, with the consumer line clocking in at 2.1 and 2.4 Ghz, and the pros running from 2.4 to 2.6 Ghz iron. As usual, a major difference between the lines is in graphic acceleration - the pros get some serious NVIDIA hardware, and the consumer line is still bopping around with Intel integrated graphics, in this case the X3100 system. Though history suggests the X3100 will be pretty sad for gaming, I’m excited to see benchmarks.

But there is a new pair of distinctions to the product line - environmental impact. While Apple has extended the availability of mercury-free LED backlit screens to the whole Pro line, the consumer line has the same glossy screen it did yesterday. Additionally, the MacBook Pro has a multi-touch trackpad, while the consumer line trackpad doesn’t do anything new and nifty. Gizmodo already got ahold of an Apple spokesperson about the latter, and received this spectacular explanation:

The multitouch technology is a feature of the Macbook Pro and Air, but not the Macbook. Apple has already committed to transitioning all machines to LED backlights, and will do so when economically and technically feasible.

That pretty much sums up Apple’s product strategy, doesn’t it?

Hipster thieves in Williamsburg are interested mostly in Macs, according to a couple of reports in Gawker. Burglars are lifting Macs, but leaving roommates’ Dells and other PCs behind (mostly). One commenter notes: “I’m hoping the roomate with the Dell arranged for the stealing of his asshole roomates Apple equipment.”Hipster Thief Of Williamsburg Wants Only Apple Products
Williamsburg Residents Getting Their iMacs Stolen Left and Right

Though many, including me, had looked to this morning as an opportunity for Apple to release upgrade MacBook Pros, Apple pulled a switcheroo and rolled out upgraded iPhones and iPod touches. They’re tricksome, they are!

Unfortunately, the new models - a 16 gig iPhone for and a 32 gig iPod touch - offer nothing more than additional storage and a higher price tag. Each will go for $499. Other than the capacity, they’re identical under the hood. Anyone waiting for 3G data or a GPS chip? You’ll just have to wait. My guess is we’ll see a true second-generation iPhone in June, for the one-year anniversary of the original’s release date.

Geek porn - taking painstaking photos of every step of the unboxing progress - has been around for just a short while on the Internet. It’s so recent in fact, that it didn’t exist when the Apple //c was brand new. Fortunately, there are still unopened Apple //c’s out there in the world, and Flicker user Dansays found one on eBay. And because he’s a contemporary geek, he documented every step of the process. Fascinating reminder of just how completely Apple went design in the mid-1980s. Frog Design’s Snow White language is still as sophisticated today as it was then. And the intricacies of the packaging! It’s like looking into the future - 20 years ago. Make sure to click through to see many, many more images.

Flickr via Boing Boing via Andre Torrez’s notes.

The tinkerers at iFixit have taken apart the MacBook Air to discover:

• The battery isn’t hard to remove, but it isn’t something you’d do mid-flight when the battery dies.
• Most of the internal volume is taken up by the battery.
• The logicboard is surprisingly small: it looks like something out of an alarm clock, not a reasonably-powered laptop.
• The touchpad uses the same hardware as the iPhone and iPod Touch, which may allow Apple to add new multi-touch gestures via software.
• The hard drive is the slim 80-Gbyte model, not the chubby 160-Gbyte drive found in the iPod Classic. Unfortunately, 80-Gbyte is the maximum capacity of drives this size (5mm deep).
• It’s held together by 88 tiny screws.

The MacBook Air is starting to reach customers, and early reviews of the Apple’s thinnest laptop is starting to trickle down the wire. None trickles with as much force as Jason Snell’s astoundingly thorough dissection of everything about the Air, from software to hardware, from connectivity to battery life and more. I highly recommend the review (which is positive, but laden with caveats). I think it might be the most even-handed review of the Air so far. I mean, who knew that its headphone jack was as wonky as the iPhone’s?

Macworld | Review: MacBook Air

Tags: macbookair, hardware, review

And, as a rebuttal to the rebuttal. the folks over at apcommunity have created the MacBook Paper. It really is the thinnest laptop ever!

YouTube - MacBook Paper - Print your own!

Tags: macbookair, paper, thinnovation

Picture: Malabooboo

The tech press is missing the boat with the MacBook Air.

All the grumbling about the price, the absence of an optical drive, the irreplaceable battery, shows that the technical minded misunderstand the machine.

Of course it’s not practical, it’s a fashion computer.

But it seems the target audience — fashionistas — are taking note. A quick Google shows that fashion blogs are raving about the Air.

Coquette, a blog about ‘digital fashion and style by natalie zee drieu, raves about the Air’s potential as an accessory: “This little thing is ready to tote around in your Balenciaga or Gucci bag,” it says. “I’m so getting one!!!!!”

Judging from the comments on those blogs, lots of their readers are bonkers for it too.

Compared to a $1,800 Prada handbag, the MacBook Air is a steal.

Expect long lines at the NYC Soho and Meatpacking stores.

Via Carl Howe at Blackfriars: The MacBook Air is an ideal product — in the right market

If you’re a Mac power user who would prefer a MacBook Pro over a MacBook Air for every reason save only the light device’s cool multi-touch trackpad, hold onto your seats. According to AppleInsider, the MacBook Pro line will soon sport the same trackpad, as the product category gets updated to Intel’s Penryn processor line in the next few weeks, in line with the rest of the computer industry.

This is an exciting development. The only thing about the Air that really intrigues me is the multi-touch capability, so I’ll be able to go Pro without regret if this rumor holds up. Penryn’s a processor with serious legs on it.

Though we’ve all ranted and raved about the MacBook Air since Tuesday’s launch at MacWorld, i think we’re not getting any closer to a final decision. Many people see this incredibly thin machine as an ideal travel laptop, while I think Apple got so caught up in its focus on thinness that sacrificed far too many other features. Some argue that this is a typical Apple move to kill off unnecessary features ahead of the rest of the industry, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. There’s a lot on my mind, but I’ll use some reader comments to get into it.

Brendan West: But if they had a super-thin bezel, the edges of the computer could not reach that mythical 0.16″, you see. The thinning of the shell means the still-pretty-bulky-for-its-size-LCD screen has to stop at a certain thickness.

With the MacBook, the bezel was so thick (I think) because of the emerging magnetic latch tech. With the MBA, it’s because (I think) they just couldn’t do it, cap’n.

That’s all true, but why does going down to 0.16″ matter? Any laptop is going to take up as much space as its thickest component. Apple couldn’t have gotten 0.25″ and gotten a better-looking bezel and bigger screen in the process?

Anon: “It’s still bigger than a 12″ Powerbook.” And not just a little bigger. It’s two inches wider. I just measured, it won’t fit in the laptop bag that totes around my four year old Powerbook. I agree with all the Air’s compromises (speed, ports, I can even live with the integrated battery.) But the huge footprint is probably a dealbreaker. It means the Air’s thickness and weight is more about looks then portability. I’ve had one Powerbook after another for the last 15 years, but I’m worried: I don’t see my next machine in Apple’s lineup.

You and me both.

Bone: Hey, Pete…

When you get that masters in product design / mechanical and electrical engineering maybe you can explain to Apple’s designers/engineers how to fit an 8mm thick 1.8 HD where a 5MM thick version probably barely fits and keep the thing just as thin. Same goes with the bezel.

So long as they can tell me why shaving off that 3mm is more important than providing an $1800 laptop that would have as much storage as a $349 portable media player, I’m ready to have that conversation. Three millimeters is 0.11 inches. Oh noes! The MacBook Air might be 0.76″ in more places than its hinge! Call the cops!

Ian: I also looked at my kids needs. We have wi-fi at home and they mostly use their Mac now for iPod and Thumb drive. The last time my kids listened to a CD or watched a movie on the Macbook was an age ago. They don’t know what a Firewire cable is and so will not miss it. So I think this is a great product for students as well. It is targeted at a different market…

An interesting perspective. I can’t say I disagree.

Greg Baines: It is no doubt a beautiful machine. But I was just looking at the Hong Kong apple site, and I worked out for around the same price as the air I could buy an iMac, Apple TV, and an iPod touch.

If I really needed a portable and walked intot he Hong Kong store with the money for an air, I could by an iBook, an iPod touch, an iPod classic, and an Apple TV for the price of an air.

I’d love to buy one, but it just costs too much. What a shame. With all these really decent low cost machiens coming out (but poorly designed), why couldn’t apple also bring something simple and beautifuly designed that people actually need? What about the education market?

Maybe we should all boycott the Macbook Air- it is no doubt the most beautiful computer ever made, but why do we get pushed overpriced products all the time?

That’s a bit extreme, but I agree in part. What about the education market?

Finally, I wanted to take quotes from two celebrity commentators on the MacBook Air: Wil Shipley, founder of Delicious Monster, and Steve Jobs himself. They’re both fans.

Shipley: I don’t buy a laptop because I want to replace its drive in a year. I buy it because it seems great and meets my needs today. If my needs magically morph over the coming year, I guess I’ll sell it on eBay. Or pay Apple to throw in a different drive, or something. Honestly, I think we need to admit that just because machines get faster every year, doesn’t mean that the majority of people need faster machines.

In two weeks I’ll be writing Delicious Library 2 on a MacBook Air, every day. Because it’s simple and beautiful, and I crave those things.

Well, obviously, Wil, but my 12″ Powerbook G4 is nearly five years old, and I don’t think Apple is interested in putting it back on the market as an executive laptop. Besides, people do constantly need more data storage as video editing, photo editing, podcasting and other kinds of creativity got democratized — mostly thanks to Apple’s iLife suite. I have a really hard time believing that your Air isn’t going to spend most of its time at home hooked up with either a server or NAS, Wil. Right now, 80 gigs isn’t enough for anyone really interested in maintaining a big iTunes library and adding TV and movies into the mix, as well. It just isn’t. There’s no getting around this issue. And ordinary people don’t have external hard drives, home servers or other such solutions.

Jobs: “I’m going to be the first one in line to buy one of these,” he said. “I’ve been lusting after this.”

Yep. Just as I suspected. Steve made a machine for himself, as ever. It’s just a shame that this time his view of the world was so vastly different from the realities most of us have to deal with. He lives in Palo Alto, where WiFi is ubiquitous, so forget about a 3G modem on the Air. He has a million external data storage options and more powerful computers at his disposal, so keep the hard drive tiny. He won’t buy the one with a regular hard drive, so throw in a slow, unreliable iPod hard drive instead of a real one. The rich people like Steve will all buy the one with the SSD in it, so who cares about the low end?

At the end of the day, this is my take on the MacBook Air: Gorgeous design solving a questionable goal of ultimate thinness. The model with the SSD is a dream secondary computer for the rich and famous. The other one is going to be unsatisfying to a lot of people. Most importantly, it’s just not small enough. Who decided that thin was the only way to go about making a full-featured laptop that doesn’t weigh much? And the 12″ Powerbook still hasn’t been topped as a design triumph at Apple. Period.

So I’ve been tossing the MacBook Air’s (de)merits around in my head since about 10:30 this morning, and I’ve reached some conclusions. Some good, some bad. It’s not the machine I’m looking for (I still want a small form-factor MacBook Pro), but it’s got some pluses to go with the minuses we’ve already called out. Your comments would be appreciated.
Pros:

• Dude, it’s like totally thin.
• Multi-touch track pad.
• Seriously thin.
• No, it fits in a manila envelope.
• MANILA.
• ENVELOPE!
• And it weighs three pounds.
• It’s faster than the first Core Solo Intel Mac mini that Apple released.
• The hidden port hatch is pretty darn cool.
• Overall design is absolutely gorgeous. Very few people change their laptop batteries on the fly, so I appreciate a nice, cohesive frame that hides the internals.

Cons:

• Super-minimal I/O. What, 4-pin FireWire was too bulky for you? Someone tell Sony that FireWire doesn’t work in an ultra-compact laptop!
• MacBook-sized footprint. This thing is only thinner, not smaller. It’s not taking up less of your lap, and it’s still bigger than a 12″ Powerbook.
• Giant bezel around the screen. If you’re stressing how small this thing is, shouldn’t you build in design elements that stress how much you’ve packed into such a tiny package? A 1″ border on a 13.3″ screen is available on the MacBook. How exactly does this stress professional needs and storage considerations?
• I can buy an iPod classic with a 160 gig hard drive for $349, plug it into a MacBook Air and TRIPLE its storage capacity. The fact that I can’t put the same hard drive into a MacBook Air is ridiculous. There’s no excuse for an 80 gig ceiling, no matter how thin the box is.
• No mobile broadband built-in. Kind of makes the whole “Air” thing moot if I need to find a hotspot to crank this up.
• Multi-touch on a trackpad is nowhere near as nice as multi-touch on an iPhone or iPod touch.
• Apple made a sacrifice of functionality in pursuit of a goal that might or might not be the most important virtue. Sure, thinness is a nice-to-have. But isn’t weight and overall size more important for the sub-compact market?
• MacBook Air? More like Err.