Don’t know how long these will be there but as of 5:54 PM PST on 1/3/2007, Amazon.com in the US appears to have listings for both iLife ’07, iLife ’07(Family Pack), iWork ’07 and iWork ’07 (Family Pack).

In case they remove it soon the screen shots are here.

Thanks to Oliver for pointing me to these.

Update: You know the more I think about it… could this just be really, really early speculative pre-marketing on Amazon’s part? I mean, we know iLife ’07 and iWork ’07 will be out one day, right? Some clever marketing exec knew if they posted these now they would tons of link love, right? Look closely. There is no “buy” or “pre-buy” button. Instead you can sign-up to be alerted when (and if) the product is available. Maybe this Macworld buzz is a little too loud? My head hurts.

Apple has just released a beta of their widget making tool Dashcode. This is significant for a few reasons: 1. it’s rare that Apple issues a beta version of their software; 2. Dashcode will be made a part of the official release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Apple made it available to users of Mac OS X 10.4 “in order to get feedback from a broad range of users.”

The idea behind this application—making complex Java/XML/HTML programming simple—is what the Mac experience is all about. Developer tools made more approachable to the average consumer is something a lot of us would like to see. I know I’d love to put a pro-tool like WebObjects to use, but I’ve found the learning curve too steep. Maybe this is an indication of the direction Apple is taking for these kinds of apps.

I’ve never tried previous versions of Dashcode (and truthfully, I’m a fairly infrequent Dashboard/widget user), but I intend to give this one a try. Unfortunately, by downloading and installing it, Apple’s EULA is crystal clear that I can’t discuss anything about it, especially on a blog. Bummer! If there are others in the MacCast community who have used earlier versions of the software and aren’t covered by any legal restrictions, please post your comment below and share your impressions.

The Dashcode beta release will expire on July 15, 2007 (which hopefully also gives us a no-later-than date for Leopard’s release). You’ll need a free Apple Developer Connection login to download it.

Look what is now on Apple’s home page. I think Macworld is going to be ahh-mazing! If you are going to be around in San Francisco next week don’t forget about my Thursday night events. You’ll find full details here, but at 6:00 PM we have the Mac Podcaster meetup at the Apple Store San Francisco. Then starting at 8:00 PM is the Mac Mingle Party, co-produced with Deb Shadovitz from Mac Efficiency and sponsored by RadTech, TeachMac, iProng, Now Software, and MacSpeech. It should be a ton of fun and I hope you all make it.

On the front page to the Apple website, Apple not only welcomes us to 2007, but they also tease us: “The first 30 years were just the beginning.” Below the text is a black Apple logo, backlit with bright beams of light.

Apple was founded on April 1, 1976 and according to Wikipedia, Wednesday, January 3rd marks thirty years since Apple Computer was incorporated. Of course, we’re all anticipating big announcements from Apple at next week’s Macworld— so this is really a perfectly timed tease. Check back for MacCast MacWorld coverage and be sure to share your thoughts in post comments and the MacCast forum.

Happy New Year, Mac Geeks

Listener Jason pointed me to this video tip he found posted over on lifehacker.com. I figured, since many of you may be new iPod owners, you could find this useful. Personally, I don’t have much love for the iPod earbuds and use a pair of over-the-ear Sony headphones. I do however, carry my original iPod earbuds as backup up, so this tip will help me keep things untangled in my laptop bag. It’s sometimes the simple things that make me smile.

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/maccast/MC20061229SP.mp3]
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MC20061229SP.mp3 [28.6MB 01:02:27 64kbps]

A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Special edition of the MacCast where we discuss Apple’s design history. This is the first in what I hope may become a series I do with my good friend Victor Cajiao from Typical Mac User and Immigration Tales. Victor and I take a look at how Apple’s ideas about design began and how their design language and philosophy shaped their products through the years. It was a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

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When you received your new Mac it included iChat which you could use to connect to AOL’s Instant Messenger service. iChat is a fine application and particularly useful for video chats, but in this article I am going to try and talk you out of using it for normal text based chats and talk you into switching to the free application Adium.

Friend’s List

If you have a number of people that you chat with (I have around 100 people in my buddy list) then I find the Adium a more efficient display. You do give up seeing the current icon for people but most people I know have the same icon day after day. iChat supports groups as does Adium but if you only want to see the people who are online and use groups in iChat you can have all of the friends who are offline moved to a Offline friends group. Adium allows you to group your buddies and also show or not show offline buddies completely independently.
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So you just bought your parents or significant other a shiny new iPod for the holidays. Great, but now your ears are burning with questions like, “How do get my CDs on this thing?” or “Why are my favorite playlists not syncing?” or “How can I subscribe to this podast?”. Well don’t worry because we got your back. Our good friend Richard Tanner (writer of the ever popular, “Hitchhikers Guide to the Macintosh” series) has put together a helpful “Beginners Guide to iTunes” (PDF ~2.1MB). This is the perfect companion for any new iPod owner who needs a little help getting started with iTunes 7. The well organized 16 page guide is in a printable PDF format and includes helpful full color screenshots to guide a new user through all aspects of using iTunes. Now, Richard is from the UK so the guide (and some language) does skew slightly toward the other side of the pond, but the concepts taught are all solid and should translate regardless of your geographic location. I hope you find it helpful and a big thanks to Richard for taking the time for sharing this with the community.

Download your free Beginners Guide to iTunes (PDF ~2.1MB) by Richard Tanner

In a series of posts, I’ll be exploring the past, present and future of Apple’s wireless networking strategy, from 1999 to the impact of Apple’s newest Atheros-based Airport cards in the latest Core 2 Duo Macs, and what it means for compatibility and performance in the short and long term.

I’ll also be detailing some Airport tips and tricks, as well as covering security, setups, and troubleshooting strategies.

The Wireless Revolution
After 7 years, Apple’s wireless Internet and networking solution, Airport, has come a long way, as has the rest of the wireless industry when it comes to networking and internet sharing.
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Parallels Desktop for Mac, the popular choice for virtualization on your Mac has a new beta version available for download now. Beta 2 (3084) has several changes, including partial support for USB 2.0 devices. Parallels Desktop for Mac costs $79, and the beta version is available for registered users who want to give it a try.

This new beta version builds on the functionality of the recent (3036) release, with improved and new features. USB 2.0 support is now provided for devices including hard disk drives, printers and scanners, (which work at full native speeds!). Parallels advises that “isochronous devices” like Bluetooth peripherals and webcams do not yet work, but they’re working on the issue, and we can expect that at some point soon, they will.

You can now burn CDs and DVDs directly in Parallels virtual machines, and play any copy-protected CD or DVD just as you would on a “real” PC. This is a major improvement over the existing capability of virtual optical drives.

Additionally, improvements have been made to “Coherence” mode. “Coherence” lets Parallels run Windows applications from the Mac OS X Dock, and integrates the Windows desktop into Mac OS X, blurring the line between Mac OS X and Windows. With beta 2, users can place Windows apps on the Mac desktop or in the application dock; use command+tab to cycle through Windows and Mac applications and use Coherence in either Windows XP or Windows Vista.

There’s better support for using Boot Camp partitions in Parallels Desktop, full support for both FAT32 and NTFS partitions, easier offline configuration, and other changes.

Users who continue to utilize a Boot Camp partition will also appreciate the lack of having to “re-activate” Windows each time you switch between Boot Camp and Parallels. Activate Windows only once and work in both environments.

The install guides and transporter tools continue to become improved and easier to navigate, as well as other features.

Users can appreciate the speed of development in this software, and the overall stability of Parallels in beta form. My initial testing of this beta has been promising, but I have as yet not tried any USB 2.0 devices, or disc burning.

Any MacCast readers/listeners that try the new features, please leave a comment and tell us what you think.

The download is available here.

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/maccast/MC20061222SP.mp3]
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MC20061222SP.mp3 [21.1MB 00:46:00 64kbps]

A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Special edition of the MacCast. I was lucky enough to secure an interview with c|net’s podcast diva Veronica Belmont. She took time from her busy schedule to talk with us about her recent nomination by Maccast listeners to become the successor to Justin Long as the next “Mac Guy”. In addition, we discuss her passion for Macs, gadgets, technology and gaming. I ask her how she got into all this tech stuff any way, and we talk in general about women in technology. Of course we finish it up by taking a look inside Veronica’s Applications folder and pull out some of her essential Mac apps. I also asked her about what she has going on in the new year. It was a great interview and I want to thank Veronica for agreeing to come on.

Happy Holidays and enjoy the show.

New music, I’ll be there on Christmas by Karmyn Tyler

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LINKS
Veronica Belmont
c|net Buzz Out Loud
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