[MyAppleMenu] Jul 21, 2011

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** AirDrop Only Works On Certain Macs <http://tidbits.com/article/12365?rss>
Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS

During Lion beta testing, it was clear that some Lion-capable Macs couldn't summon the right mojo to use AirDrop, which requires relatively recent Wi-Fi chips.

**** Apple OS X 10.7 Lion Roars With Futuristic, And Maddening, Upgrades <http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/6621563-452/apple-os-x-10.7-lion-roars-with-futuristic-and-maddening-upgrades>
Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times

With 10.7, Apple is once again creating an OS that looks to the future. There’s a host of terrific, tangible, practical features, sure. But on the whole, you come away from the Lion experience thinking that you’re looking at Apple’s plan for the next five years. There’s little that’s truly revolutionary about Lion, but I can’t help but lick my chops and wonder what the next few years hold in store for Mac users.

**** Laptop Docks Are Suddenly Obsolete <http://rc3.org/2011/07/20/laptop-docks-are-suddenly-obsolete/>
Rafe Colburn, rc3.org

To connect, you just plug in the Thunderbolt cable and the power cable from the monitor. You can even daisy chain multiple monitors through a single Thunderbolt connection.

**** OS X Lion Server: Making Servers Accessible To All <http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/20/os-x-lion-server-making-servers-accessible-to-all/>
Steven Sande, TUAW

Starting several weeks ago, I installed Lion Server on a test Mac while researching a chapter for my upcoming Lion book. What I found was a powerful, yet extremely easy-to-use server operating system that makes a server available to anyone who wants one.

**** Major Overhaul Makes OS X Lion King Of Security <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/21/mac_os_x_lion_security/>
Dan Goodin, The Register

The most important addition is full ASLR. Short for address space layout randomization, the protection makes it much harder for attackers to exploit bugs by regularly changing the memory location where shell code and other system components are loaded. Other improvements include security sandboxes that tightly restrict the way applications can interact with other parts of the operating system and full disk encryption that doesn't interfere with other OS features.

“It's a significant improvement, and the best way that I've described the level of security in Lion is that it's Windows 7, plus, plus,” said Dino Dai Zovi, principal of security consultancy Trail of Bits and the coauthor of The Mac Hacker's Handbook. “I generally tell Mac users that if they care about security, they should upgrade to Lion sooner rather than later, and the same goes for Windows users, too.”

**** Ten Safari Shortcuts You Should Know <http://www.macworld.com/article/160951/2011/07/safari_shortcuts.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld

Since it’s easier to use the keyboard—no need to move my hand to my trackpad—I’ve memorized a handful of useful shortcuts for browsing the Web. Here are ten that I think are essential.

**** Singapore Bets On Casino Tourists <http://www.marketwatch.com/story/singapore-bets-on-casino-tourists-2011-07-21?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch

But pursuing the casino tourist is a difficult task for a government that once banned casino gambling completely. A complex domestic environment, coupled with rising competition from its neighbors, could see a marked cooling of Singapore’s gaming market.

**** Renaming Flags In Mail On Lion <http://mattgemmell.com/2011/07/21/renaming-flags-in-mail-on-lion?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mattgemmell%2Frss2+%28Matt+Legend+Gemmell+-+RSS2%29>
Matt Legend Gemmell

**** Save Sheet Shortcuts In Lion <http://mattgemmell.com/2011/07/21/save-sheet-shortcuts-in-lion?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mattgemmell%2Frss2+%28Matt+Legend+Gemmell+-+RSS2%29>
Matt Legend Gemmell

It would be unacceptable to invite the inevitable physical slips this would case, so “Don’t Save” is now triggered by Command-Backspace (which is an excellent shortcut, since not saving means your document’s contents will be deleted, in a sense, and hitting Command-Backspace is slightly more difficult than hitting Command-D).

**** Troll Sues Apple Again: Same Patent, New Devices <http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/07/patent-firm-goes-after-apple-again-for-playlists-in-newer-products.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss>
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica

The original suit only ended up covering the first six generations of the original iPod/iPod classic, all iPod minis, and the first five generations of the iPod nano, with Apple arguing that the newer products should be filtered out into a separate lawsuit (undoubtedly because they handle playlists differently than the older products). So, Personal Audio did just that with Apple's latest-generation iDevices and threw in the iPad 2 for good measure (which was not mentioned by the original lawsuit). The company is now asserting one of the same two patents from its original lawsuit against five of Apple's newer offerings.

**** Apple Expands Free Lion Upgrade Offer <http://www.macworld.com/article/161277/2011/07/lion_upgrades.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Apple on Wednesday spelled out the details of its free Lion upgrade offer, saying that the deal also applies to Macs bought after the new operating system’s debut.

**** Save Sheet Shortcuts In Lion <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/07/21/save-sheet-shortcuts>
John Gruber, Daring Fireball

So it’s not that Command-D no longer works in this sheet, it’s that it now means “change the location to the desktop”.

**** Adobe Notes Products With Lion-related "Known Issues" <http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/20/adobe-notes-products-with-lion-related-known-issues/>
Steven Sande, TUAW

**** Fake Apple Store Clerk Speaks Out <http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/07/21/china-fake-apple-store-clerk-speaks-out/>
Wall Street Journal

Trying to reach the store’s owners has been tough. Repeated calls to the manager on Thursday went unanswered. But a store employee reached by phone confirmed that the store is not an authorized Apple reseller. The salesman said products in the store are genuine Apple products sold at the same prices as those advertised on Apple’s website.

BirdAbroad said in a post Wednesday that store staff she spoke to appeared to believe they were employees of Apple. The staffer reached by phone was under no such illusion. “It doesn’t make much of a difference for us whether we’re authorized or not,” he said. “I just care that what I sell every day are authentic Apple products, and that our customers don’t come back to me to complain about the quality of the products.”

**** New Mac Mini Benchmarks Show Significant Performance Gains <http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/21/new-mac-mini-benchmarks-show-significant-performance-gains/>
Eric Slivka, MacRumors

**** Apple's B2B App Store Open For Business <http://www.macworld.com/article/161287/2011/07/b2b_appstore.html#lsrc.rss_main>
Tony Bradley, PCWorld

The Apple B2B App Store is open for business. Only a week after first revealing details of the new platform, Apple has launched the service and businesses that use iOS devices can begin to take advantage of the benefits it has to offer.



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** The War For <i>Catch-22</i> <http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/08/heller-201108>
Tracy Daugherty, Vanity Fair

‘The novel, you know,” people whispered whenever Joseph Heller and his wife, Shirley, left a party early. From the first, Joe had made no secret of his ambitions beyond the world of advertising. In later years, he floated various stories about the origins of his first novel. “There was a terrible sameness about books being published and I almost stopped reading as well as writing,” he said on one occasion. But then something happened. He told one British journalist that “conversations with two friends … influenced me. Each of them had been wounded in the war, one of them very seriously The first one told some very funny stories about his war experiences, but the second one was unable to understand how any humour could be associated with the horror of war. They didn’t know each other and I tried to explain the first one’s point of view to the second. He recognized that traditionally there had been lots of graveyard humour, but he could not reconcile it with what he had seen of war. It was after that discussion that the opening of Catch-22 and many incidents in it came to me.”

**** The Writer Is Present <http://pbq.drexel.edu/pbq/archives/2655>
Daniel Nester, Painted Bride Quarterly

All writing is performance and persona, a suspension of one’s own disbelief. What has appealed to me about writing is its essential connection to the body (hands on keys, pen in hand) as well as its essential disconnection (the paper, screen, book, far away from the author). I’ve always regarded my own physical presence as something to overcome, usually by ignoring it, while writing. Writing is physical fact, a made thing-slash-transcription of mind; it isn’t a just symbol or stand-in of my body or anyone else’s. It’s been my way out of my husky costume.

Lately, I’ve thought about this thing called mindfulness, embracing this whole mind-body problem and thinking about my arms and legs while I write. It sounds simple, maybe even stupid, but you can only transcend so much until you fall back on your ass in the chair, the screen in front of you.

What I am saying is: I had a writer’s block and it wasn’t just my mind’s fault. It was my body’s.



SingaporeSurf
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**** The Blandness Of Sameness In The Estates <http://andrewlohhp.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/the-blandness-of-sameness-in-the-estates/>
Andrew Loh

The point is that we need to start getting away from the tiresome, boring and soul-numbing blandness of our heartland centres, and be more creative.

**** The 'Singaporean First' Myth <http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_692867.html>
Adam Liew, Straits Times

While I agree with Dr Tan's dismissal of a 'Singaporeans only' tertiary landscape, I am befuddled by his perception that Singaporeans are demanding this.

On the contrary, what Singaporeans are infuriated by are government and local university measures that excessively favour foreign 'talent' for admission.

**** Drops To Drink <http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/07/desalination>
The Economist

One answer is to desalinate seawater. That, though, is expensive, so the Singaporean government is keen to find cheaper ways of doing it. And, in collaboration with Siemens, a German engineering conglomerate, it may have done so, for Siemens says its demonstration electrochemical desalination plant on the island can transform seawater into drinking water using less than half the energy required by the most efficient previous method.

**** Murdoch Hails Singapore Model But Local Netizens Disagree <http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/07/20/murdoch-hails-singapore-model-but-local-netizens-disagree/>
Global Voices

**** ‘Employment Act Still Excludes Too Many Women’ <http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/employment-act-still-excludes-too-many-women-104211761.html>
Yahoo!

Listing vulnerable groups of women, such as pregnant women, foreign domestic workers, casual and contract workers, Aware's Cedaw sub-committee chair Braema Mathi said, "The improved Employment Act still excludes too many women at risk."

**** Politictisation Of The Presidency <http://blogging4myself.blogspot.com/2011/07/politictisation-of-presidency.html>
Blogging For Myself

**** No Concessions For Disabled – But CEOs Reap Millions <http://andrewlohhp.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/no-concessions-for-disabled-but-ceos-reap-millions/>
Andrew Loh

Now, we have a new transport minister and it seems he is just repeating what each commuter already know – the problems when using public transport. At the risk of repeating myself, these problems are not new.

When, really, are the authorities going to get to the root of the problems? Or are they going to keep asking for feedback, ideas and suggestions, and buy time? There is no need for feedback anymore.

**** æ„è§æ  湿巴刹变成超级市场？ <http://www.zaobao.com.sg/yl/yl110721_008.shtml>
梁金德, 联合早报

**** Public Transport: Feedback From Singaporeans <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/07/public-transport-feedback-from-singaporeans/>
Kirsten Han, The Online Citizen

**** Media Influence Re-written, Post GE <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/07/media-influence-re-written-post-ge/>
Howard Lee, The Online Citizen

**** The Great Transport Debate To Nowhere <http://desparatebeep.blogspot.com/2011/07/great-transport-debate-to-nowhere.html>
Desparatebeep

Competition has been proven to be a good thing and the last thing we need in Singapore is more government. Let’s work towards separating government and business and create a better Singapore.

**** The Trouble With The Singapore Workplace <http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/the-trouble-with-the-singapore-workplace.21-07.html>
Liz Zuliani, EconomyWatch

**** MAS Raises Singapore Inflation Forecast <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_693013.html>
Robin Chan, Straits Times

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has raised the inflation forecast by one percentage point to 4 to 5 per cent due to unexpected higher housing and car prices.

With more economic uncertainty from Europe and the United States, the MAS and the Ministry of Trade and Industry are also reviewing their economic growth forecast for the year, said Mr Menon, managing director of the MAS.

**** The Case Of Roslan Bin Bakar <http://webelieveinsecondchances.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/the-case-of-roslan-bin-bakar/>
Kirsten Han, Khairulanwar Zaini And Priscilla Chia, We Believe In Second Chances

Throughout the investigation, the trial and even up till today, Roslan has continued to insist upon his innocence, denying that he was even present at the scene. During the trial, several points of doubt were raised in his defence.

**** The Quote That Was Heard Around The World <http://singaporedesk.blogspot.com/2011/07/quote-that-was-heard-around-world.html>
Singapore Notes

**** Media Release On MPs’ Offices At Void Decks <http://wp.sg/2011/07/media-release-on-mps-offices-at-void-decks/>
The Workers' Party

The construction of eight offices would be a significant expense, not to mention maintenance and other running costs. As WP does not have access to limitless resources, prudence dictates that WP be conservative in spending.

In addition, in view of the constant redrawing of electoral boundaries by the Government, the long-term viability of the construction of offices for WP MPs is open to question.

**** Time To Shake Up The GLC Monopolies <http://thesatayclub.net/2011/07/time-to-shake-up-the-glc-monopolies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-to-shake-up-the-glc-monopolies>
R Ganesh, The Satay Club

Given the poor levels of service that these companies have been providing, the prices that they are charging certainly do not represent value for money. It is time that competition was introduced in all of the above industries if we are going to live up to our name as one of the freest market economies in the world. Monopolies, at the end of the day, are no good for anyone at all.

**** Strong Currency Puts Singapore Central Bank In Red <http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iKUrS9sRsnX9ENED_JxGPZxWXkvw?docId=CNG.0225070ae41d17bb66570abee97407e8.121>
AFP

Singapore's central bank Thursday announced an annual net loss of Sg$10.9 billion ($8.9 billion) as the strong local dollar sent it into the red for just the second time in its 40-year history.

The net loss for the year to March came as the city's currency hit record highs against the greenback and also jumped against the euro, driving down the value of the Monetary Authority of Singapore's foreign asset holdings.