What's it all about, Alfie?

This morning I saw that Safari 5.0.1 is out on Software Updates and even though it's got just a few little security patches, it's nice to stay clear of the bad people out there bent on doing harm.

This morning Apple dropped new drivers for the new Magic Trackpad on Software Updates, and as a consequence, added inertial scrolling to the existing MacBook Pro users - like me. I installed it primarily because I'm a guy that believes in staying up to date, but when I started to use the inertial scrolling I was simply blown away.

This is what I love about the iPhone, and now it's on my Mac. This makes it so much less effort to scroll around things. Very nice. Very slick.

There is only one Apple. Long live the King.

In the latest MacBook Pro lineup, there's an automatic switcher from the built-in Intel graphics chipset to the NVidia chipset. Which is great, but there's been quite a bit of complaining that this is a power stealer - even the simplest of apps force a switch to the high-power, high-performance, graphics, and then your battery life drops to the floor.

So this guy has made a new menu bar app that tells you what is in use, what applications are forcing it's use, and even allows you to force it to a mode. Pretty neat.

If I am lucky enough to get one of these before Apple addresses the problem in some update, then I'll want to get this to make my life a lot easier. Slick coding.

OK, I'm as big an Apple fanboy as they come - I think it's for good reason, but that doesn't mean that other people see things my way. I was reading Daring Fireball this morning and came across this iPhone vs HTC Evo cartoon that's just about the funniest thing I think I've seen in months. It takes a little bit to get going, but the guy's response to the near mindless desire for an iPhone 4 by someone that doesn't have the first real clue about why, is just priceless.

Give it a watch...

I've got a 1TB external drive for my Time Machine backups, but I know that someday soon, I'll need to upgrade it to larger space. When I do, I'll probably go with a very large drive system - say 4TB or more, and I want to move all my old Time Machine data to the new disk. I've done this a few times in the past, but I wanted to have a single place where I had all the instructions so I didn't have to worry about forgetting what sites I used, etc.

So here it is:

1. After attaching, formatting (Mac Journaled), and naming the new drive, launch Time Machine and switch it off.
2. Unmount the current Time Machine drive by dragging it to the Trash. Remount it by either turning it off and then on again, or mounting it with Disk Utility. You do this so it loses its Time Machine icon and appears with the typical orange external drive icon.
3. Launch Disk Utility, select the old drive, and click on the Restore tab.
4. Drag the Time Machine partition from the old drive to the Source field in the Restore tab. Drag the new drive’s partition (assuming there’s just the one partition) to the Destination field.
5. Enable the Erase Destination option and click the Restore button.
6. Wait while Disk Utility does its job (this can take several hours).
7. When the job is done you’ll see two identical volumes on the Desktop. Unmount and disconnect the one that shows a capacity of 500GB (the old drive).
8. With the new drive mounted, open Time Machine and switch it on. Click on Select Disk and direct Time Machine to the new drive that contains your copied Time Machines backup.

Time Machine should do the right thing and use that drive for its backups. Should you need to restore you’ll find that all your old backed up data is on this new drive.

I saw that iOS 4 was finally on iTunes, and was able to upgrade my iPhone 3GS! I'm excited about all the new features, and then the iPhone 4 that's supposed to be steaming it's way to me in the very near future. Very exciting times!

I'm expecting a slightly sluggish response on my iPhone 3GS, but it shouldn't be too bad. It's supposed to be capable of handling all the features, and there's not a ton that's really taxing on the new OS right now... but we'll have to see.

UPDATE: as I've been using the new iOS, I've noticed that my 3GS is not nearly as responsive as it used to be. The camera app, specifically, has had major delays in processing. Now I don't know exactly why this is, but it's not something I'm really happy to see. Kind of a let-down.

[6/22] UPDATE: I power-cycled my phone this morning, and ran a few critical tests. Additionally, I've read several other reports, and it seems that my initial problems really were transient, and it's far better now. Glad to see the rebound.

This morning I noticed that iTunes 9.2 is out on Software Updates, and contains all the additions for iOS 4 devices - including the new iPhone 4, that I should have in a little over two weeks. Golly... that's a lot longer than I thought when I ordered it yesterday, but I guess I'm just excited about this guy.

Anyway, they made improvements in the thumbnails of album artwork, which is all fine by me, and a few other things - like iBooks and PDFs for iOS 4. All good, and glad to see it.

Late last night, I upgraded Liza's MacBook Air to Mac OS X 10.6.4 on Software Updates, and this morning, it's my MacBook Pro's turn. It's something I've been looking forward to based on the notes and comments I've heard about what's in it. I've heard of changes in OpenGL and OpenCL, but also in other subsystems in the OS.

I noticed that Mail.app got a few changes as it re-indexed my mail when it started for the first time. That's a nice sign. In any case, it's here, and I have it - Great!

Yesterday I tried several times to order an iPhone 4 from the Apple Store. It was always a problem with the AT&T account verification. It was quite the sight. I wasn't really surprised because of the number of iPhones out there now, and all the features that are in the iPhone 4 certainly make it something you want to have - if you can drop the $500 for it.

Yeah, my contract isn't up, but it doesn't matter, I've had enough of the contract extensions that I'd like to just get to the point that it's not something that I have to deal with. Plus, I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it.

Sadly, the initial lot of the Launch Day iPhone 4s was sold out by 4:30 yesterday, so even if I'd have gotten in later in the day, it wouldn't have mattered. Still, it's impressive to see the demand for the iPad and iPhone 4 as strong as it is. Amazing is a word that comes to mind.

So this morning, I ordered one - a 32GB Black one, and it should arrive some time around July 8th. As long as I have my 3GS, it's OK to wait, and I can upgrade it to iOS 4 when it gets here in a week or so.

Exciting times... can't wait to get it.

O happy days! Yesterday at WWDC in the Safari Series of talks, Apple announced that Safari 5.0 was going to be released, and this morning it has shown up in Software Updates! Fantastic news. The big improvements are in HTML 5 support, the Nitro Engine (JavaScript), adding the Bing search as an option, and probably biggest of all are the extensions.

Now you can write extensions in a manner similar to Firefox and Chrome. In fact, the talk had Cabel from Panic showing a new extension - Coda Notes, that allows you to 'mark up' a web page, and then send it all to an email address where the reader can see what you saw, and the marks you made. Very neat looking.

Well, it's great to see Safari keeping up with the improvements in Chrome. The competition is good for both.