AppleInsider reports that the next version of Apple’s productivity suite, iWork ’11, is ready for launch but will likely debut alongside the company’s Mac App Store very early in 2011.

People familiar with the matter say development of iWork ’11 wrapped up this fall and the software was initially slated for an introduction alongside iLife ’11 last month, but was held back at the last minute for undisclosed reasons.

Apple’s revised plans currently call for the company to launch the new productivity suite alongside the forthcoming Mac App Store, these same people say. The applications included in the bundle — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — will be available for purchase individually when the Mac App Store debuts.

According to the report, Apple is still deciding whether to offer a retail box version of iWork ’11 or if it will be available exclusively through the Mac App Store.

Source : Apple Insider

The ex58 chip set is not supported under Leopard 10.5.0 and our installation DVD is 10.5.0 so we can not just install leopard as we did previously with our EP45 build. Here we need a different route. First let us gather our parts.

Steps:

First we connect the hard drive we want to install leopard on to our working Mac system. You can accomplish this by directly connect to any available SATA port or to the USB to eSATA dongle to your laptop. Open up disk utility from Applications/Utilities and select the disk you have connected. Then Click on the Partition tap and select your desired partition scheme. For our drive we selected 1 Partition.

Put a name for it and make sure it says Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in the format drop down menu.
Now click on options and button and make sure that the GUID partition option is selected and then click OK. Click Apply and Disk Utility will start format the drive according to our selections.

Now we need to install Leopard on our fresh new drive. We start by inserting our Leopard DVD into our working Mac laptop or desktop and it should pop up a windows with an icon that says Install OS X. Fire up terminal from Applications/Utilities and type the following: Note that each line is separate.

cd /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/
cd System/Installation/Packages/
open .


A finder windows will pop up with lots of packages to choose from.
We need only one, the OSInstall.mpkg. Double click on that file and it will start the Mac OS X Installer. We go through the option we want and when you get to the destination part we simply select the hard drive we prepared earlier. About 20 minutes later we have Leopard 10.5.0 installed on our fresh drive. Now we find the Combo updater we downloaded and double click on the dmg file, and run the installer but also making sure to select our fresh drive as our destination.

Final steps:
After the OSX installer and the combo updater we now have 10.5.7 or 10.5.8 depending on your selection installed and ready to boot. If you remember correctly, our build used eVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX275 and so we need to install the correct drivers for it. Navigate you browser to the Nvidia’s site to download these drivers or to eVGA’s site. We used these ones here from eVGA. Double click to mount the dmg and install the drivers.

Now we shutdown the mac and remove the hard drive and install it in our build machine. We also plug the EFIX(tm) Module in the first USB header. Booted up the machine and went into bios to set the EFIX(tm) to boot first and we have a working Mac.

Problems:
The X58 chipset and the core i7 for some reason run the clock fast when booting with EFIX(tm) version 1 but not with version 1.1. So if it is 9:00 pm in about 2 minutes real time it would be 9:04 and not 9:02 so time is twice as fast. This messes up a lot of programs like Growl and QuickTime.

In Part 3 we get rid of EFIX(tm).

In regards to two previous posts we have here, Apple could be releasing Snowy earlier and leaving the event for some more interesting gadget???

Image and Source: Macrumors.com

Here are the specs:

We first assembled the Gigabyte Motherboard into the case. Some careful consideration should be taken with the Extreme board from Gigabyte because they come with Huge Heat Sink that fits into a slot of its own and cools the chipset of the motherboard. Make sure you dummy fit all the cards you want as to see how or in what order you might need to install these. After securing the CPU bracket for the Zalman Cooler from under the motherboard, we proceeded to installing the motherboard into the case. We then screwed everything in, and fitted the OCZ Ram modules before installing the CPU. We then installed the CPU and applied a bit of thermal grease that came with the Zalman Cooler, Arctic Silver, just enough to cover the CPU and create a really thin layer on top of it. We did the same thing for the heat spreader of the motherboard chipset. Installed the Zalman Cooler and then the heat spreader onto the motherboard and making sure everything is fastened snugly. We then installed the Graphics card. Here you can see how huge the card is. The 200 series from nvidia are pretty wild in size. After we fitted everything in and make sure all your wires are connected correctly, we fired up the computer and made sure BIOS and other setting are all correct and working. To make sure that the components for our build are in good working order, we installed windows and loaded all the drivers. Below you will find a gallery of all the images we took. In Part 2 we will look at how to install OS X on this beast!

So far, the release of 3.0 OS for the iPhone and iPod touch is scheduled for today the 17th. According to various sources and information gathers, the update will be available anytime after 8:00pm Kuwait time. All you have to do is connect your iPhones or touches to your itunes and keep clicking check for updates. Now this is just a guess of the time but we shall wait and see what happens in the coming hours.
Check tuaw.com for more instructions on checking the release of the OS through terminal

Note: People with unlocked/jail-broken iPhones please don’t update at all until someone releases an unlock/jail break for 3.0! Or Wait Till Friday!

The devTeam is at it again! They just demoed the unlocked iPhone 3.0 OS in this video you see below.

They are probably going to release it on June 19th a while after the iPhone 3.0 OS is release by Apple to make sure that Apple doesn’t push last minute changes so make sure you watch out for this bit of news. Here is a link to ultrasn0w.

http://ultrasn0w.com/

Sources: too many to list! Techtree.com

Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 4 delivers improved reliability, security, and compatibility for Java SE 6, J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4.2 on Mac OS X 10.5.7 and later. This release updates Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_13, J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_19, and J2SE 1.4.2 to 1.4.2_21.

Please quit all web browsers before installing this update.

For more details on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3581

Whatch their ads here :

As you can see The ads specifically target Apple’s Macs as having a higher cost than PCs. Hesseldahl rehashes the usual arguments on cost, but also gets a rare comment from Apple’s PR department on the new ads. Apple’s Bill Evans said of the ads:

“A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want …. The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.”

Some Apple Fans created this parody of Mircorsoft ad which we find to be quite funny

Sources: Youtube , MacRumors

Google’s Mike Pinkerton just posted the first screenshots from the Mac build of Google’s Chrome web browser.

Apple has announced on their MobileMe news page that they have enabled file sharing via iDisk.

We’re pleased to announce that you can now use your MobileMe iDisk to share files with others simply and easily. Instead of attaching a large document to an email and hoping it’s not too big to be received, you can place the file in your iDisk and use the new Share File command in the iDisk web app. It lets you send your friends, family, or colleagues a link they can click to download the file directly. You can password protect the link if you choose to and even set how long it will be available.

Apple has also provided a video tutorial demonstrating the process, which involves simply selecting a file, clicking a “Share File” button, and customizing options and the message to accompany the link to be sent to the recipient.

Source : Macrumors

Source : Apple.com