Apple launches Mac OS X 10.6 ‘Snow Leopard’ 

Mac OS X 10.6, code named as ‘Snow Leopard’, launched on 28^th August 2009 is claimed by Apple as the world’s most advanced operating system. Let’s find out the various small and big leaps Apple has tried to make with this OS and also the requirements a system must fulfil for you to enjoy the experience of operating system, which definitely is one of its kind. 

What’s new in the Mac OS X 10.6? 

• This new refined OS and most of the 10.6 application is compatible with 64-bit processor and is also ready to support a 16 terabyte RAM. 
• Microsoft Server Exchange support: 

1. It is very smooth and easy to connect to Microsoft Exchange server 2007 using Apple’s Mail app, taking the global address list from the Apple address book and set up meeting using the intuitive iCal.
2. Launching a mail, searching and moving a message has become twice as fast and listing the content is 4 times faster.  

• The finder is rewritten in 64-bit Cocoa making it classier with following enhancements: 

1. A customizable spotlight search option with the facility of sorting spotlight search result by name, date modified, date created, size, kind or label.
2. The item in the trash folder can be restored to the original location by selecting the item and choosing put back from the file menu.
3. We can watch a QuickTime movie preview in the icon view right in the finder.
4. Preview also provides a smart feature of previewing a file of any format like Microsoft excel, power point without having it installed in the system.
5. We can modify the default size, labelling and alignment of icons.
6. Ejecting external drives are more reliable and intelligent. Core system services like Spotlight indexing and file system events stop their work so you can remove your drive. And improved dialogs assist you in finding which applications are using the drive making it easier to know, what to close in order to safely disconnect the drive. 

• The expose, Apple’s system for finding a window on a scattered desktop, is now integrated with Dock  with the following add on:  

1. Thumbnails of all the windows, corresponding to the application that we click on the dock, opens and quickly gets unshuffled so that we can easily select the window we want to using  Tab.
2. Minimized window appears as smaller icon below the other window.
3. Windows are spring loaded so that we can drag and drop items between windows.
4. For a better and easy view of all items in the stack, stacks are now scrollable in grid view.
5. Windows are aligned in an organized grid. 

• Safari 4 : 

1. Safari in snow leopard is crash proof. If a plug-in crashes, the entire browser will not collapse.
2. The snow leopard safari has the ability to judge if a site is fraudulent or not. In case of a site being fraudulent, a warning pops up. 

• QuickTime X 

1. The interface that appears while a movie is played on the player, auto fades on moving the mouse away from the window.
2. It allows recording a video from webcam, audio and capturing the happenings on screen with few clicks. 

• The over all system related improvements : 

1. Snow Leopard makes shutting down 80% faster and waking up twice as fast also coupling it with the screen locking facility.
2. It has a smart feature that can download and update the latest driver from the internet for the new printer that we plug-in.
3. It natively supports Cisco IPSec VPN connection.
4. Snow Leopard enables Time machine to reduce the time it takes to complete the initial back up to time capsule by 80%.
5. It introduces 4 new fonts : Menlo, Heiti SC and TC , Hiragino Sans GB
6. Inclusion of Bi-directional text, a blessing for people who use Hebrew and Arabic.
7. Boot camps enable us to access the files in our Mac OS X partition from windows. 

System configuration required to support Snow Leopard: 

• Processor Type : Intel
• Min RAM size : 1GB
• Min Hard Drive space : 5GB
• Peripheral/interface device : DVD-ROM 

Pricing: 

• Intel based Mac systems, with Mac OS X 10.5 ‘Leopard’ running on it, can upgrade it to snow leopard by spending US$29 for a single user and US$49 for 5 computers that comes in a family pack.
• If you are using any of the versions older than Leopard, you need to buy a Mac Box Set which will cost $169. 

Drawback:  

One of the constraints with Snow Leopard is that it is compatible only with Intel Macs only, and for PowerPC users it’s still a distant dream. Also, a few of the test results say that it is little slower than older version of leopards. 

With Windows 7 launch in pipe line, it will be an interesting competition in the world of operating systems, and a win-win situation for all computer geeks.

Apple Tablet – Though its a new concpt and most of the features are still under veil but few features, it is anticipated to possess are:

•  It is expected to have a 10-inch touch screen display.
•  The OS will be somewhat similar to the one used in iPhone but will support larger screen resolution and higher version of iPhone applications.
•  Speculations say that this device might be free from a physical keyboard.
•  It will have a built in 3GS wireless access.
•  One interesting fight is the chip on which this device is based upon. Is it the Intel’s Atom chips or the customized chip made by PA Semi (A company that was taken over by Apple last year)

One million dollar question that revolves around this device is its price. Speculations say that it will be somewhere near $800. This project, being keenly monitored by Steve jobs himself is expected to go live in market in first quarter of 2010. But there are rumours which say Apple Tablets might hit the market as early as September 09.

The Tablet PC makes up 2% of the portable PC market.  If Apple were able to enter the market and match that 2%, given the amount of notebooks that they currently sell, they’d sell under 27,000 tablet PC’s per year.

As we slowly see the facts about the device uncover, we will keep you posted with the latest add-ons to it.

Update: On Jan 27th, 2010 finally Steve Jobs luanched the Tablet with the name ‘iPad’…. read more on this.

Steve Jobs had a liver transplant but it unraveled the flaws in Organ Transplant System

It is the geographic division that came in the forefront when Steve Jobs CEO of Apple got operated for liver transplant when he flew from California to Memphis. What does the geographic division of liver transplant means? It simply highlights the fact that a patient who has only few months to live can be denied a liver while a healthier person can get a liver transplant just because he is in a position to fly. 

It is in Memphis that the lists for liver transplant patients are shorter than that in California. The organ sharing network divides US into 11 regions and according to a rule most livers are allocated by using MELD (Model for end stage liver disease) system. MELD assigns scores to liver functions and overall health. Higher scores in the range of 6 to 40 imply those patients get priority to receiving a liver.

In the year 2008, about 17,000 American patients were on the list of liver transplant but only 6000 were lucky to get them. It is the organ system’s regional disparities on the access of liver are highly criticized by many doctors. 

The patients who can fly get themselves enlisted at multiple transplant centers in an attempt to get the liver transplantation done quickly by increasing the chances of receiving the organ. There is a need to change the local and regional organ distributing system.

The case of Steve Jobs only highlighted the issue of DISPARITY!!!

iPhone 3GS is here- Check out on its improvements!

 With Apple’s CEO Steve jobs recuperating and is about to resume work there is no dearth of ideas and innovation to get launched and connected with people. After the initial success and buzz of Apple’s iPhone, the company has thought to launch an upgraded version with higher network speed, more memory storage capacity and definitely extended battery life and a mirror image of Apple iPhone 3G. It is iPhone 3G S that is now storming in news and views. Again, the launch of iPhone 3GS definitely coincides with the release of iPhone OS 3.0.

 But one must know that iPhone 3G S is indistinguishable from iPhone 3G if you keep both the handsets next to one another with face up. However, it is the phone internals that have undergone changes. Remember that the S in iPhone 3G S stands for Speed.

 iPhone 3G S is redesigned with additional features with gaming capabilities scoring really high. One can now enjoy the cell phone features now in iPhone 3GS such as the voice dialing, video recording and multimedia messaging. From 2 megapixels, the iPhone 3G S is equipped with 3 megapixel camera and definitely improved imaging experience. RAM is doubled from 128MB to almost 256MB.  

The phone is available in the market with two memory capacities, 16GB and 32GB. However some of the flip sides to this smartphone is the call quality that is still uneven as 3G reception remains bumpy. USB transfer or storage device is still a far cry. No multitasking, no flash, no java in Apple iPhone 3GS. 

The bottomline therefore is should you buy this smartphone? also when there are other options like Nokia N97 

Need to read on more to take a well informed decision.