It may be a personal preference, but I try not to use or abuse phones that can't survive a 3-foot drop onto concrete. That's why last week I ordered myself a sweet little Pantech Breeze.

It offers one killer feature that I refuse to live without: a dedicated speakerphone button. I have this on my beloved Kyocera Slider and I demanded it on any new phone that I would buy. The Breeze brings that to the table along with a video camera and full Bluetooth support. After rebates, the phone cost about $70 and works perfectly with my iPhone SIM.

So after unboxing my new toy, I enabled Bluetooth on the phone and opened Leopard's Bluetooth File Exchange.

BFE isn't some super-spiffy CoverFlow all-dancing all-singing phone interface. It's a simple little utility program (with the emphasis on "utility") that allows you to browse your BT connected devices and use its drag-and-drop interface to transfer data to and from the unit.

Leopard recognized my phone without incident and opened the browsing window shown here. It took just a few clicks to offload my latest pictures from the phone and drag them into iPhoto. Going the other direction, I threw a few mp3 files into my Download > Audio folder and they instantly appeared onboard, ready to play.

Obviously the Pantech Breeze isn't the iPhone (even as I end up tapping its screen and wondering why it's not responding) but in some ways, it should have been. Why does Leopard offer this fantastic Bluetooth interaction between phone and Macintosh for an also-ran third party phone, while balking at any iPhone interactions? This is the interaction that should have been on my iPhone, using functionality already built into Leopard. I wonder why it wasn't baked into the flagship Apple product of the century.

Good morning, Mr. Phelps. The man you are looking at is Justin T. iPhoneuser, one of our loyal TUAW readers. Recently, Justin's iPhone went kablooey and when he tried to restore, he found that his backups were corrupted. He lost a great deal of data and time, all because Time Machine hadn't backed up his iPhone's data.

Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to help Justin back up his data with Time Machine so he never has to face this kind of data loss again. As usual, should any of your team members be caught by Apple, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This post will self-destruct in five seconds...

[This is the part where the Theme Music usually plays.]

Read on for your TUAWpossible Mission Briefing.

KavaMovies is an interesting database application aimed squarely at all the movie fanatics out there. It allows you to catalog all the movies you have seen, own, hope to see or want to buy. It connects to online sources like the IMDB and Amazon to download cover art and other information.

Once you've entered your selections, KavaMovies offers recommendations based on your collection. Finally, it also keeps track of video files already on your Mac and facilitates downloading from iTunes or via bittorrent.

KavaMovies is $35US and requires Mac OS X Leopard. It's presently in beta and a demo is available for download.

Boxee is an interesting new media center application for the Mac based on the XBMC. Separate from the OS X branch of XBMC (now called Plex), Boxee focuses on a social networking experience by allowing you to get (and give) recommendations to friends who are also on the service. You can also share your media activity with friends and vice versa.

Once installed, Boxee scans your hard drive for videos, music, and pictures. It also interfaces with various streaming sources, both for audio and video, including last.fm, revision 3, YouTube, etc. Even when playing local content it will download things like album covers and descriptions from the internet. All in all, Boxee looks like an interesting entry into the media center competition and its social networking features set it apart from more straightforward implementations like Plex.

Boxee is presently in a closed alpha test, but they're expecting to open a public beta by the early autumn. You can sign up to be notified when the open beta is available. Since it's based on XBMC it's Intel Mac and Leopard only.

Apple has just released a new security update for client and server users of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). This Security update 2008-005 is "recommended for all users and improves the security of Mac OS X," and includes fixes for a dozen or so features in Mac OS X.

This update fixes a QuickLook bug where loading a malicious Microsoft Office file could lead to "arbitrary code execution." Doesn't sound too good to me! It also fixes a DNS vulnerability that has been highly discussed over the past week (and which many other vendors have already patched).

You can download this update by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update). You can also find more information on what this update fixes by looking at Apple's support note.

The VMWare team has just released the second beta for VMWare Fusion 2.0, the company's popular virtualization program for the Mac.

The new beta adds a TON of new features, as the video above demonstrates. I got a chance to talk to VMWare today about the new beta and it is HOT. I'll be posting a more in-depth overview tomorrow, but until then, here are some of the highlights:

• Unity 2.0 - The newest version of Fusion is really focused on better Windows-Mac integration. You can now launch Windows programs from the dock or access Mac programs from within your virtual machine. You can also link folders like Documents, Pictures and Music on your virtual machine with those folders on your Mac.
• Multiple Snapshots VMWare has worked really hard to bring a Time Machine-like ease to backing up and protecting your virtual machine. You can now designate how often you want to take full system snapshots of your VM, whether once an hour, once a day or once a week, and how many copies you want to keep.
• Better Video and Graphics Graphics and shading support has been improved for Macs that have higher-end graphics cards, and even integrated Macs can now play 1080p HD video in virtual machines with considerably less CPU overhead.
• Support for more client OSs, including Leopard Server You can now run Leopard Server as a VM in OS X 10.4 and 10.5, even on client machines (virtualizing Mac OS X client is blocked by Apple's license terms). Support for the latest version of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) is also available right out of the box with Unity integration. Power users can now designate up to four virtual CPUs per virtual machine, which is great for anyone wanting to take an XServe or Mac Pro to the next level.

VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta 2 is available for Intel Macs running OS X 10.4 or OS X 10.5. New users can try the beta for free and the upgrade path (including future betas and the full version of Fusion 2.0) is free for all existing Fusion 1.0 customers.

The Dock's Stacks feature lets Leopard users view a folder's worth of stuff with one click. You'll either love it or hate it, use it or not. If you do use it, here's a little tip that improves it slightly (in my opinion).

When you've got a bunch of files from a Stack displayed in Grid View, it can be hard to spot the particular one you're looking for, especially if many of them look identical (such a collection of text files or word processor documents).

Luckily, there's a highlight you can switch on, that puts a whiter background around the file you're mousing over. It makes it slightly easier to ensure you click on the correct file.

The highlight appears normally if you use the arrow keys to move around a Grid, or if you type Command and the first letter of one of the files displayed. But this trick switches it on permanently, so that it is always in action whether or not you use these keyboard shortcuts.

Read on for all the commands.

Mac owners often look on with envy at the Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) in the Windows world. These are truly tiny laptops, often with 10" or smaller displays and weights that make a MacBook Air seem downright obese by comparison.

MoDaCo network founder and Microsoft MVP Paul O'Brien decided to get his OS of choice, Mac OS X 10.5.4, up and running on one of these little wonders. The machine is a variant of a recently released UMPC called the MSI Wind, which weighs in at 2.3 lbs and sports the new Intel Atom N270 CPU running at 1.6 GHz.

While Paul admits to a few small issues, he was not only able to load and run Leopard on the Wind, but he also documented the entire procedure in text and video (see above) if you want to make your own Ultra-Mobile Mac. After watching how easy the process is and finding out how inexpensive the Wind is, I'm tempted to try this myself! Be sure to let us know if you're successful at following Paul's footsteps.

Direct link to the video and step-by-step instructions.

We all know how rocky the transition from .Mac to MobileMe has been. It now seems to be working for quite a few folks (at least to some degree), and Apple has already pushed out an update for the service. The Mac OS X Update for MobileMe 1.1 is available now through Software Update. Note that if you aren't yet seeing the update, try signing out of .Mac via System Preferences and then back in again -- you should see a dialog asking you if you want to download the update.

As per usual, the notes are sparse, but it is recommended for users of 10.5.4 and "includes general system fixes that enhance your Mac for MobileMe." Let us know if it improves things for you.

[via Macworld]

Last month, I wrote a post about Apple certifications in general. Today, I'll focus on Mac OS X certifications.

If you're a Mac geek who wants to make a living troubleshooting Macs, these are the certifications to get because they are your ticket to becoming a member of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN). ACNs can build a relationship with their local Apple store and get references for work that can't be performed by Genius Bar techs, and they're listed on the Apple Consultants Network website. The rest of this article is after the break.

TUAW blogger Steve Sande is an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator and volunteers as the South Central US Regional Champion for the Apple Consultants Network.

The Mac OS X 10.5.4 update might have made you restart your Mac, but it also added "RAW image support for several cameras." While Apple didn't tell us what these cameras were in Software Update, they did later update the RAW support page for Mac OS X Leopard.

According to the page, Apple's update added the ability to use the RAW format on these cameras:

• Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi / Kiss Digital x2 / EOS 450D
• Epson R-D1 / R-D1s
• Leaf AFi 7
• Leaf AFi 6
• Leaf AFi 5
• Pentax K200D
• Pentax K20D

Those of you waiting for your SLR camera to be supported under Leopard might have received a surprise in your Mac OS X update.


[via ArsTechnica]

In our giddiness about OS X 10.5.4's release yesterday we neglected to mention that the server version of OS X has also been updated to 10.5.4. The server update (which you can download directly here, or get the combo updater here) includes all the fixes that were in the client version of 10.5.4 in addition to the following, server specific, fixes (this is taken from the KB article describing the update):

• Improves reliability of Directory Services
• Mobile home directories now work on Mac OS X clients bound to Novell eDirectory
• Includes the Web Objects 5.4.2 Update. For more information about the content of this update, see About the WebObjects 5.4.2 Update
• Improves Mac OS X Server Security. For more information on the security content of Mac OS X Server 10.5.4, see this article

One of the the stranger changes in Leopard was the loss of the ability to dial (and send text messages) from the Address Book to a Bluetooth paired cell phone. Fortunately, however, Nova Media has released its Phone plugins to return this functionality to the Leopard Address Book and other applications through a system-wide Service.

When installed it allows you to call a number or send a text message just by right-clicking on the number in the Address Book (or selecting it elsewhere and invoking Phone plugins from the Services menu). It works with a number of phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson; check the compatibility list for details. Annoyingly the iPhone is not compatible.

Nova Media Phone plugins is $9.95 and a demo is available.

[via Hawk Wings]

Teaming with Parallels, Media Temple has just announced the start of private-beta period for its latest (mt) Labs offering, the (xv) Xserve-Virtual -- which they are dubbing "the world's first VPS Leopard Server." Although virtual servers running Linux or Windows are pretty standard hosting options, this is one of the first Mac hosting opportunities I have seen period (outside of a co-lo), virtualized or not.

Now that Apple has sanctioned the virtualization of OS X Leopard Sever on Apple hardware, both Parallels and VMWare have announced plans to integrate Leopard Server virtualization into their product lines. While VMWare is integrating Leopard Server in its upcoming version of Fusion, Parallels is taking a decidedly more enterprise approach and working Leopard Server virtualization into its Parallels Server product. Parallels Server uses Parallels' bare-metal hypervisor architecture and as such, each virtual machine runs its own kernel and operating system.

Media Temple, which already partners with Parallels in its (dv) and (dpv) Nitro products, is going to be the first official hosting launch partner for Parallels Server for Mac, offering Leopard VPS hosting on Xserve hardware. The Xserves used by (mt) are running 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400s with 32GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM and 3x300GB 15,000-rpm SAS with 16MB disk cache drives on a Xserve RAID Card. In the private beta (apply here), the Xserves will be split into 8 virtual machines, with each VM guaranteed 2 GB of RAM and two cores of CPU resources. The advantage of using a virtual machine as opposed to a physical Xserve, aside from cost, is that hardware maintainance is taken care of by the host. Plus, if something goes completely haywire, the virtual machine can just be reinstalled to its starting point.

The (xv) can be used to host websites, run iChat and iCal server, use Podcast Producer and for anything else a regular Xserve running on a LAN can do. Anything you can install on a regular Mac, you can install on the (xv), and you can control the (xv) using both Screen Sharing and Remote Desktop. Media Temple is still working on the scalability plans for the (xv) but are planning on offering a scale-on-demand package similar to its (dv) product.

Although pricing is currently undetermined, Media Temple will be using the beta testing to find out which configurations are most efficient to help set the ultimate price.

If you have experience running a Mac server, you can apply for the (xv) beta here. It's really exciting to see OS X virtualization, both for enterprise and for home/small business use take off. I can't wait to see the final product!

Thanks Jen and Jorge!

EA has made the Spore Creature Creator trial available for download on both Mac and PC. A while back EA promised simultaneous release for Mac and PC, and they seem to be on track with the Creature Creator which is available for purchase at $9.95.

The Spore Creature Creator is a preview and demo for the full Spore game, which is scheduled for release on September 7. As you might expect from the name the Creature Creator allows you to build and customize creatures which you'll later be able to use in gameplay once the full game is released. I've been playing with the trial this morning and it does look very promising.

The Spore Creature Creator is Leopard and Intel Mac only. It requires at least an ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100. It will apparently not run on computers with the GMA 950 integrated graphics chipset on OS X (though, it will on Windows). The trial version can be downloaded directly from the Spore trial site.

Thanks, Shiraz!