General News

Apple plans the official obsolescence of a few of their older Macs

deadg4 20090202 205002 Apple plans the official obsolescence of a few of their older MacsOn March 17th, the following items will be officially deemed “vintage” or “obsolete” in Asia-Pacific, Canada, Europe, Japan, Latin America, the United States and retail Apple Stores. After that date, Apple will not provide service parts or documentation for these products and the items cannot be sent in as Mail-In Repairs to AppleCare Repair Centers. Time to hit your parents up for some new tech, boys and girls.

Here’s the “vintage” list:

  • Xserve RAID

  • Xserve (Slot Load)
  • Xserve (Cluster Node)

…and here’s the “obsolete” list:

  • PowerBook G4
  • Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)
  • Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)
  • Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)
  • Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)

Yup, the G4s are almost done as far as Apple support is concerned.

What’s the difference between “vintage” and “obsolete”? It’s kind of a legal thing. Service parts for vintage products are only available to repair older Apple products purchased in the state of California, as required by statute.There is no difference between vintage and obsolete products anywhere else.

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Peel back the layers on your screenshots, window by window

layers diagram with arrows 20090126 220653 Peel back the layers on your screenshots, window by windowI don’t know what I’d use this for, but it is very, very cool.

A Madrid-based software developer called wuonm has announced the release of Layers 1.0, a unique screen capturing utility. It creates Adobe Photoshop compatible screenshots where each desktop icon, menu item and each window from every open application is isolated on its own layer.

Layers 1.0 is priced at USD$19.95 for a single-user license. A full-featured, demo that generates water-marked images is available. For a limited time, wuonm is offering a discount on licenses as launch promotion…just USD$14.95.

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Merlin Mann explains what he keeps in his menu bar


Merlin’s First Desktop Tour from Merlin Mann on VimeoMy hunch is that the people who devote most of their time to productivity are the ones for whom the act is a constant battle. These are the people who have high demands on their time but have the most trouble staying on task and “getting things done.” I think this may be true of productivity guru Merlin Mann of 43 Folders fame. And it is because of this that I think Merlin is so effective: he’s not an authority on which productivity methods work because the processes comes easy to him, but because they do not. It’s as if, if Merlin can use this method/gadget/application and be more focused, it should work for everyone.

So, when I found that 43 Folders had posted Merlin’s First Desktop Tour, I was hooked. In the video, he goes icon by icon and explains what each application or menu item does and why it’s great.

After watching the tour, I’ve committed myself to looking in to BusySync and FuzzyClock, but I’d like to offer an alternative to Spirited Away in the form of Desktopple Pro which has all of its functions and then some.

[ Via Lifehacker ]

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