macbook

iAlertU 0.27b brings the car alarm to your Mac portable

iAlertU Capture 20071205 200258 iAlertU 0.27b brings the car alarm to your Mac portableYou know what happens when people hear a car alarm, right? They come to the rescue and subdue the unwitting thief until the police arrive!! Okay, that almost never happens. More often than not no one does anything until after several minutes of hearing the medley of alarms cycle when someone yells out of a nearby window, “Hurry up and steal that car already!!”

Hopefully, iAlertU 0.27b will be more effective. iAlertU works with your MacBook or MacBook Pro’s Sudden Motion Sensor, the iSight and the Apple Remote to allow you to arm and alarm your portable.

You use your Apple Remote to arm iAlertU with a telltale “chirp!!” At this point iAlertU will be on guard waiting for Sudden Motion Sensor activity, keyboard and mouse clicks, screen closure and/or AC adapter removal. If someone moves your MacBook without properly disarming iAlertU, the alarm sounds. While the alarm is blaring, the iSight camera kicks in and snaps a picture of the would-be thief and emails it wherever you like. (I suggest using a Flickr account) To disarm iAlertU, you simply hit the Apple Remote again–”chirp! chirp!”

iAlertU is currently free, but it’s in beta, so you never know about the future.

Note:UPDATE (12/06/07 – 19:59 PT): iAlertU has been updated to version 0.28b.

Apple posts Battery Update 1.3 for 15-inch MacBook Pros

Grab this update via Software Update if you have one of the following machines:

  • MacBook Pro (15-inch)

  • MacBook Pro (15-inch Glossy)
  • MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo)
  • MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.4/2.2GHz)

Battery Update 1.3 updates battery firmware and addresses battery performance issues with the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Your computer’s power cord must be connected and plugged into a working power source while running this update.

After the Battery Update has been installed, any additional batteries you put in your 15-inch MacBook Pro are automatically updated.

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Sonnet offers Combo FireWire/USB ExpressCard/34 but you’ll have to wait for 10.5

SonnetFireWireUSB 20070822 203447 Sonnet offers Combo FireWire/USB ExpressCard/34 but youll have to wait for 10.5Sonnet Technologies announces the immediate availability of the FireWire/USB ExpressCard/34 card for notebook computers with ExpressCard slots. While the card is compatible with Windows-based notebooks today, compatiblity with MacBook Pro computers will have to wait until the release of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Sonnet’s FireWire/USB ExpressCard/34 features one USB 2.0 and two FireWire 400 (1394a) ports and provides users the ability to hook up multiple peripherals at the same time, including printers, external drives, digital cameras, DV camcorders, scanners, iPods, and more. Each port offers full-bandwidth data throughput. This card works in ExpressCard/34 and ExpressCard/54 slots, and features hot-pluggable and hot-swappable device connection with automatic device configuration.

The FireWire/USB ExpressCard/34 card is available now for USD$69.95

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