A New home …

This blog, The Mac Track, has moved to themactrack.com

Christmas Apple Advert

Apple have launched a new ad for the festive season

Keeping software up to date

Most of us have a wide range of applications installed on our Macs. A lot of them are self-updating either when you load them or if you instruct them to look for updates using one of their built-in menu options. Additionally, the Apple Software Update service takes care of keeping the OS updated automatically (accessed via Apple Logo menu item located in the far left of each menu bar).

Wouldn’t it be great to have a tool that combines all of the above, plus also managing updates to ALL your applications in one place?

Well, now you can with the website iusethis and it’s associated program AppFresh

Simply register with the website, run the application and you get a custom-built report on your applications and if there’s a newer version available. Where possible you can also initiate a download of the updated application.

The site covers Applications, Apple OS, widgets, plug-ins and preference panes.

It’s a great one-stop-shop to keep your Apple Mac as fresh as a daisy

If you don’t like the idea of a 3rd party application examining your system then there’s even a manual version: simply search for the application on the website and add it to your profile.

News Flash: BBC iPlayer live for Mac

The BBC iPlayer is now live and available for Apple Mac users

Visit the BBC website to see the new iPlayer

BBC iPlayer for Mac launching on Christmas Day

Updated 11th December 2007: Further reports confirm the BBC’s plan to launch iPlayer on Christmas Day so the Queen’s speech can be viewed along with the rest of the Christmas Day schedule. Mac and Linux users will be able to access the BBC’s content, finally

09/12/02: Rumours are afoot that the Mac/Linux version of the BBC iPlayer will be launching on Christmas Day, 25th December 2007. Whilst this would be great if true, it seems a slightly odd choice of day when support teams etc will be their holiday break etc. I’m sceptical but would be more than happy to be proved wrong.

Stay tuned, more info as and when I get it …

The BBC iPlayer (for Windows only – at the moment) can be found at here

Updated 11th Dec 2007 with link to one of the sites showing the rumours.
Updated 10th Dec 2007 with link to one of the sites showing the rumours.

Does your Mac display horizontal lines?

If your Mac is suffering from problems with broken thin black horizontal lines, appearing at random intervals, as well as redraw problems then Macworld’s Mac911 article may hold the answer. If your Mac has an ATI Radeon X1900 XT (Rev. 1) graphics card then it maybe over-heating.

Follow the advice in the article which may help to solve the issue, if this fails then the next step it to contact Apple. It’s been reported that sometimes Apple is prepared to swap the card for a Rev. 2 version which seems to resolve the problem.

More details can be found in this Mac911 Article.

If you are suffering with this annoying issue hopefully the above steps will provide you a with solution.

Tomb Raider comes back to the Mac

Lara Croft finally returns to the Apple Mac, in a soon to be released new game entitled: “Lara Croft, Tomb Raider Annivesary“

Billed as her biggest adventure to date amazon.co.uk shows a release date of 10th December 2007, but at the time of writing is not yet showing as being in stock. You can order it from Amazon using this link: Tomb Raider Anniversary for Mac

Inside Mac Games have details of the news release here.

Web Browsers

Just a quick note regarding web browsers (aimed mostly at new Mac users). When I used to/had to use Windows I used Internet Explorer (IE) and then progressed to Firefox. On Apple Macs IE is not available (hurrah!) so what are your choices?

My 3 main browsers of choice are:

Firefox – Available at getfirefox.com

Camino – Available at caminobrowser.org

Safari – Available at www.apple.com/safari

Depending on the website you visit you may find one of the above browsers more suited than others (for example, Camino for Wordprss blog editing).

 

Windows Apps on a Mac?

Reports are around detailing various strange and curious finds deeps down within the Mac OS, is MS Windows support around the corner, check out one of the reports here: Softpedia

If could be a red herring or course but it would be great if Apple did indeed have a plan to support Windows apps.

Updated: 6th Dec 2007, see comment below with details that this could be a myth.

Pinball

I’m addicted to Monster Fair Pinball at the moment, by LittleWing Pinball. It’s a really slick and fast pinball game. Very responsive and the ball has a great ‘real world’ weight feel about it as you play. It’s fast and furious with bonuses you can unlock and different ‘shows’ you need to complete
LittleWing also offer different versions of Pinball tables, each one being a separate game (and purchase).

Free demos of each game are available, limited to around 90s of playtime so you can get a feel for each one. Of course you can’t get into the more advanced features in this timeframe but it’s certainly a nice taster.

Right, off to bash the flippers some more … if you know of any other Pinball games worth playing on the Mac please let me know.

Game Summary and features, courtesy of LittleWing Pinball: