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Hello,
As you all have noticed we have been very slow in our posts and updates. The reason being is the fact that both of us were busy or away on vacation. Time is very hard to find these day since we are both busy at work. I am asking if anyone is interested in helping us out to send us an email with your name and ideas. Also, several people from all over the GCC suggested that the site be converted in Arabic. I, for one, have a hard time doing that since I can’t put together a decent sentence. If you would like to see that happen and you are willing to contribute also please send us an email. Other issues include an Arabic podcast and guides. I look forward to here from you and listen to what you have to say. Please post your comments here or on the forum.
Mishaal

Thought we share some laughter with this skit before the big news breaks at Macworld . Enjoy :-) 

 Source : Youtube 

 Power_Boz:   

  Hello everyone and Happy Eid! November and December are usually slow news month for Apple. Nothing significant happened and thus we haven’t been posting regularly as usual. Yet, the rumors are flying around everywhere. Next month, January, his holiness Mr. Steve Jobs will be keynoting Macworld 2008 and so far Apple fanboy sites are going left and right with weird rumors. Among the most significant is the announcement of a new Macbook/Macbook Pro. According to AppleInsider.com new slimier metallic Macbooks have been sited on the Apple Campus. This could be the refresh of the Macbooks or could be the new slimier Macbook Pro 13″ or 12″, the successor to the Powerbook G4 12″. Some industry people are hinting at an all new design with touch screen capabilities, a tablet like Apple notebook. Realistically, the touch screen tablet notebook is more feasible because of the flurry of Apple patents recently filed that are all touch based interfaces. Leopard has a lot of touch screen features as well which also supports that conclusion. Think of it as a Macbook without a Keyboard and a touch pad, just a screen. So far, if you need to buy a notebook our advise is to buy. If you want a new interface then wait till something shows up for January. As for Desktops our advise is to buy. iPods are also a buy. iPhone is a no buy until a 3G version shows up on the market. If you need more help with you buying decision then give us a shout using the Contact Form Page. 

    G-Funk:   

  First of all Happy Eid to All & Happy Hollidays, Second. As Boz said, rumors are flying everywhere so we’ll have to wait and see, If you are in the market for a high-end Mac Desktop (Mac Pro) my advice would be to wait until after January’s keynote, New Mac Pro’s would surface soon as of Intel’s latest processor upgrade , Apple didn’t upgrade their Mac Pro line for quite some time, so my advice is to wait. Also, as for laptops, If you are badly in need of a new Mac laptop get one now, but my brotherly advice is to wait and see what Steve would deliver in Macwold 08. As for other apple devices like (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV and Cinema Displays), The iPods have just received a significant upgrade late this year so we won’t see an ipod upgrade in the foreseeable future. iPhone would receive a 3G upgrade sometime next year(early to mid 2008) so if you are in the market for an iPhone I would urge you to wait. As for apple TV’s and Cinema displays rumors are speculating that Apple TV’s might either receive a major upgrade or discontinue, One way or another we would have to wait and see what would apple decide on the fate of AppleTV, Cinema Displays are dropped in price, so if you really want one nows your chance to get one, but the fate of this design is still yet not determined as for the touch UI patent that was files by apple not long ago.  Once again. If you have any questions that we have not answered please do not hesitate to post your comments below or start a thread on our forum . 

Sources: AppleInsider.com

Hello everyone. We need your help. We need to hear from you your comments and suggestions to help us move forward. We started our podcast but we haven’t gotten enough of a response from you to either continue or to improve it in a way to serve you better. As a community we need your thoughts and suggestions to move forward and to orient our selves to better serve you. You tell us what you think, what would you like to see, and how we can help you in your Mac experience. Please share your thoughts and send us comments through the comment section, our contact form, or our forum. Thank you!

It is coming close to the day when we all will see Leopard roaring, or maybe just meow with a bit of claw scratch.  Let us break down visible features to see what are we really getting.

Desktop: Nothing new, every OS has a desktop and every OS has some kind of dock system.  Mac just makes it look good.  The notion of file stacks is also nothing new, Tiger has something similar if you care to look.  This one just bends to one side and is transparent.  The dock has changed a bit but also nothing worth the trouble.

Finder:  The biggest feature is cover flow, and I don’t see how this is important.  It could be a good media navigation tool and allows you a quick preview of what you are looking for but if you have an older system it would slow you down.  Another new feature is Places.  This is the new network discovery sidebar thing.  From what I have tried I can only say it is about time.  It is better then Network icon and trying to find what you want.  It also is better at finding computers and connecting to them.  Looks like that smb has been somehow tweaked to do its job a lot better then in Tiger.  No tabbed Finder though.

Quick Look: Something good that should have been in Tiger a long time ago.

Time Machine: This feature is really nice if you are stationary or you have a good network connection.  I don’t think you would want to use this over WiFi.  If you aim is simple backup then many third party options exist and some of the good ones are free.  It does, however, make it a lot simpler.  I personally didn’t enable this feature and don’t see how it would benefit my Macbook Pro or my Powerbook.

Spaces: It is bad bad bad bad.  Compared to Virtuedesktop and other third party solutions it is simply bad at doing things.  It is also ugly and the transitions lame.  But it does what it is supposed to do.

Mail:  About time we see new improvements.  Mail knows google pop servers and the todo notes is very well implemented.  It still looks the same.  I like the new Mail app and I am looking forward to using it.  Lets just hope plugins get updated to run on it.

iChat:  You can tell that a lot of thought has been put into iChat, but until people stop using MSN and switch to iChat you won’t see its benefits.

Boot Camp:  Same thing but better integrated with Leopard.  Question is will the Tiger version stop working once Leopard is out.

Looks:  Nothing new what so ever.  No new interface no new candy.  The icons are dull and plain except for the Apple application icons.  We will see if this gets improved.

So what are we getting?  Well lots actually, but nothing visible.  You get native 64 bit support and a better OS over all but most people won’t really see anything new.  So is it worth the upgrade? Yes, very much so.  As much as I am disappointed that am not seeing something really cool it is still worth it to upgrade just for the performance gain alone.  Xcode is better as well as the new DashCode but most users won’t even install these to see their benefits.  I know I have skipped a lot of other features but the ones I listed are the ones everyone would see and judge the OS with.  To me this is just another improvement release and not something drastically different.  A lot under the hood but nothing on the skin.  Take a look at the features page and you decide.  Let me know what you think.  The Leopard page says “Hello, tomorrow” I say Hello, today!

Mac OSX Leopard’s Page

After being sick for a couple of day and in pain, I decided to try and install Mac OS X Leopard on my trusty Macbook Pro and see how it fairs.  Since I had a lot of programs and data on my computer I did a backup and then proceeded to upgrade the system instead of a fresh install.  Havoc was awaiting me in the distance.  Mail failed miserably because I was using the httpmail plug in to get my hotmail account content on the computer.  Firefox was acting weird also.  Other applications refused to run or were simply acting weird.  Nothing changed in terms of looks except the menu bar on top.  It became more transparent and the Apple logo was a varying shade of gray.  The preferences change a bit but nothing noticeable.  After a couple of day of suffering and realizing that I wasn’t getting any work done because of applications freaking out on me, I decided to erase everything and start from scratch.  Of course, I backed up my user directory and proceeded to erase and install, fresh install.  That did wonders.  the wall paper changed to the green Leopard drop and things were looking better.  I setup Mail and things went flawlessly but the httpmail plug in did not work.  Firefox was a bit better but still gave me a headache.  What was surprising was all the apps were a lot faster when you start them up.  Skype was displaying its startup screen with the image all distorted and AdiumX worked like a champ.  safari is blazing fast from star to finish.  network drives were visible and brows-able a lot better then before, especially windows shared drives.   Wireless networking is better and a lot more stable when connecting to random access points or when moving from one place to another.  What can i say, i love leopard!  The preference pain for the networking and the sharing has seen some changes.  it is organized in a better way and simplifies configuration.  It also helps you and shows you what you need to do to see windows machines in the network panel in finder.  It also automatically connects as guest to windows shared folders without the hassle of having to mount each one you want.  Spaces is nice, but compared to VirtueDesktop it is lacking in features.  It is not graphically pleasing when it does its transitions but it is better suited then VirtueDesktop.  For some reason the help system is not working, or it works but there is nothing to be displayed.  Terminal finally got tabs and you can open many many terminal sessions with tabs.  It also has preset configurations to simulate sessions that is a lot easier to use and understand.  Sorry no tabs in finder yet and there seems to be no way to simply change the looks of OS X.  The Menu bad suggest and easy skinning option but I didn’t find anything that would change its looks. 
Preview has been revamped.  It is better, faster, and handles files accordingly.  PDF files look better in Preview then before.  The drawer shows the indexes and navigation is better too.  The overall look of Preview is different and better.
The cover view feature in Finder is, to me, eye candy.  I don’t get it, honestly, and it is quite useless.  It would, however, really shine if my future Mac came with a touch screen and understood gestures.
Overall, leopard seems quite responsive and fast.  It feels like its taking advantage of the new Core 2 Duo processors especially.  The interface is a lot more shiny and feels more bright and polished not dull and off which makes it look very different when you first start Leopard. 

Take a look at ThinkSecret’s Image Gallery of Leopard

I have always been an advocate of open-source software. It appeals to me from an ideological sense, but it also helps me save money and at the same time get great software that is free. I know that back home you could go some where and pick up CD for a couple of KDs and you get your self a whole set of software that simply works. The question is, if I have an alternative to a piece of software that costs lots of money, why not use it? Let me give you an example. Microsoft Office on the Mac costs $180 for student and teachers edition and more for other editions. There is an alternative called NeoOffice which costs $0 which is nothing. Plus it has Arabic language support. Most software that I intend to review is of a similar caliber. It is free and open source or donate ware.
A good question that one would ask is, why bother with open source? Well, Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD which is an open source OS. Our beloved operating system has so much to offer when it comes to open source software. Most software available to the Mac can be found open source and so most of the good ones are.
In the future, when I do a review article that is shareware or pay-ware, I will try to find open source alternatives. I would be happy to see what you, dear reader, use on your Mac and also to answer any questions relevant to the Mac.

Here are several Links about Open Source Software