October 1st, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops
Just when Apple has started to make some friends at Greenpeace, it looks like another one of its fine products might be a wee bit toxic. According to the French newspaper Liberation, that mysterious stench emanating from your Mac Pro contains benzene — which can irritate the eyes, skin and respiratory tract. Instead of being a mere inconvenience, that smell could be a cloud of poison gas that threatens to dizzy up, nauseate and migraine-ify you and everyone you care for. Apple has yet to issue a statement on any of this, but until it’s all straightened out, those of you with the stinky Macs might want to seriously consider wearing a hazmat suit when checking your email.
Update: Apple tells Macworld that “We have not found anything that supports this claim, but continue to investigate it for the customer.” Funny — that’s exactly what we used to say during long car rides.
[Via the Guardian]
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Posted in Apple, greenpeace, toxic, mac pro, MacPro, benzene | No Comments »
September 25th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over years (aside from the fact that Segway users will always be looked at strangely), it’s that Best Buy’s inventory systems are famous for turning us on to forthcoming wares. Just this year, strange part numbers in its stock system have correctly predicted the arrival of new MacBook Pros, the Nikon D90 and an unlocked US 3G Touch Diamond. Now, we’re feasting our eyes upon the latest snippet from Future Shop’s (Best Buy’s Canadian sibling) inventory system, which shows a half dozen new Mac placeholders for French and English language machines. Unfortunately, “Apple Mac” is about as vague as it gets, but we wouldn’t be shocked one iota to see new MBPs surface in the near future. C’mon stock system — don’t let us down.
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Posted in Apple, rumor, mac, os x, OsX, best buy, BestBuy, macbook, macbook pro, MacbookPro, leak, mac pro, MacPro, inventory, future shop, FutureShop, place holder, PlaceHolder | No Comments »
August 18th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals, Storage
As your never-ending quest to find peripherals specifically made to match beautifully with your PowerMac G5 / Mac Pro continues, we’ve one that’ll surely shoot right to the top of your must-have list. Nervian’s CardReader Pro slips just under the front handle of your tower, providing (almost) integrated card reader functionality without putting a damper on your rig’s style. Better still, the USB 2.0 unit supports 52 different flavors of flash memory, ensuring that just about every card you toss in there will mount in short order. There’s no word on how costly this will be when it ships in October, but those definitely interested can nab 15% off by signing up for details at the outfit’s website.
[Thanks, choco]
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Posted in card reader, CardReader, sd, flash memory, FlashMemory, Flash, sdhc, mac pro, MacPro, PowerMac, cf, compactflash, multicard reader, MulticardReader, CardReader Pro, CardreaderPro, Nervian, powermac g5, PowermacG5 | No Comments »
June 29th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops
Well what do you know, ZDNet’s German bureau has apparently released a functioning overlocking tool (ZDNet Clock) for Mac Pros and Xserves. Vater Steve doesn’t look kindly upon such things, but with a little luck (and a lot of cooling) you might be able to eke out a few hundred extra MHz from your aluminum clad box without tipping off any Geniuses the next time you bring it in for repair. Unfortunately, for the time being it only appears to work on newer Pros and Xserves — not laptops or iMacs — running the latest release of Leopard.
[Via Computerworld]
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Posted in Apple, software, mac pro, MacPro, overclocking | No Comments »
June 15th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming
Hey Mac users, tired of looking longingly at that PC-lovin’ ATI Radeon HD 3870? AMD has teased you long enough, and at long last, the Mac & PC Edition has arrived. This card is optimized for use within Apple’s Mac Pro systems and includes 512MB of GDDR4 RAM, 320 stream processors, PCI Express 2.0 support and twin dual-link DVI ports for treating that pair of 30-inch Cinema HD displays like they ought to be treated. Check the read link for the full list of specifications, and get set to drop $129 when this one lands later this month.
[Via TUAW, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Posted in Apple, mac, amd, graphics, ati, mac pro, MacPro, GPU, Graphics card, GraphicsCard, PC, 3870, radeon, hd 3870, Hd3870 | No Comments »
April 15th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals
Owners of first-generation Mac Pros, rejoice. Unless you already laid down the cash for one of those upgrade kits meant only for early 2008 machines, that is. For the rest of you, Apple has delivered a new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit built specifically for your machine. As expected, the card itself looks the same — twin dual-link DVI ports, 512MB of dedicated GDDR3 RAM, etc. — but the Apple store now carries two distinct products to distinguish between the card compatible with early 2008 rigs and the Mac Pros before it. If you’ve managed to hold off buying a new machine this long, you can order yourself an all new graphics card right now for $279.
[Via MacRumors]
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Posted in Apple, nvidia, breaking news, BreakingNews, geforce, cpu, mac pro, MacPro, 8800GT, Graphics card, GraphicsCard | No Comments »
March 13th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops
Sure, we think the iMac is a nice machine, but sometimes you want to add a PCI card or six, and when the cheapest beslotted Mac starts at a whopping $2,799, mods like Hideo Takano’s Mac Pro Mini just make you wonder what could have been. Of course, there are no slots in this bad boy either since it’s based around a stock 2.33GHz Mac mini, but it is a mighty impressive effort — actually, check out Hideo’s whole Mac Mod Lab site for even more sick Mini mods.
[Via Unplgged]
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Posted in Apple, mac, case mod, CaseMod, mod, mac pro, MacPro, mac mini, MacMini, mac mini pro, MacMiniPro | No Comments »
January 18th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops
It looks like Mac Pro users wanting to get in on some of the latest and greatest action without ditching their old system altogether are still out of luck, despite a recently released “upgrade kit” from Apple that got some of their hopes up, and caused some consternation for anyone that actually took the plunge on one. As a number of users have reported on various discussion forums (one of which is linked below), the $349 GeForce 8800 GT upgrade kit only works in the newest Mac Pros, and not the older models, due to their lack of support for PCI-Express 2.0. That little detail was indicated as requirement by Apple, although many apparently assumed the cards would work because of the inherent backwards compatibility in PCIe 2.0. As you might expect, many users are none to pleased with Apple actions on the matter, with some claiming that the company’s interested only in getting customers to buy a new system instead of prolonging the life of their old one. Shocking, we know.
[Thanks, John]
Update: Nvidia’s Director of PR emailed us to let us know that the company is “in the middle of bringing out an upgrade kit based on the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTsolution for all Intel-based Mac Pros.” What’s more, this upgrade kit “should be out in a few weeks.” So there you have it, folks. We’ll see if they deliver as promised.
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Posted in Apple, nvidia, geforce, mac pro, MacPro, geforce 8800 gt, Geforce8800Gt | No Comments »
January 17th, 2008 by
Filed under: Desktops, Features
We don’t know what you’re looking for, but outside a few minor cosmetic changes (like one RAM riser board being upside down now) and a few technical changes (like SAS drive support, dual 16x PCI-E slots, etc.) Apple’s new high performance Penryn Xeon machines — the Mac Pro and Xserve — look just the same as they were two weeks ago. Except faster now — according to their site, anyway. Sorry to disappoint, though, Apple didn’t demo the quad PCI-Express slots running eight simultaneous 30-inch monitors. Maybe next time.
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Posted in Apple, hands-on, mac pro, MacPro, penryn, xserve | No Comments »
December 6th, 2007 by
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops
We’ve taken a “don’t stop believing” approach to Apple ultraportable rumors up to this point, and there’s no reason to think these “fresh” predictions from CNBC’s Jim Goldman are anything different, but they at least serve as a nice refresher in the lead up to Macworld in January. Goldman predicts the new Pro laptop will be half the thickness of the MacBook Pro, the hard disk will be replaced with NAND storage, and Apple will be selling the thing for $1,500 — the same price the black MacBook currently goes for. He’s purportedly citing sources that claim to have seen the product, and says that the laptop is supposedly due to show up at Macworld. Jim’s sources also say that the 3G iPhone is supposed to hit shelves by late May or early June of next year, which beats out some industry predictions of a late ‘08 release.
Of course, since it’s just a month before Macworld, it’s about time the rumor mill heated up a little beyond incessant Macbook and iPhone rumorings, and MacBidouille is stepping up to stoke the flames. The French rag is claiming that the Mac Pro will get bumped to an 3.2GHz eight-core Penryn setup (totally believable) featuring NVIDIA QuadroFX graphics (sure) with a BTO Blu-ray burner available (maybe), and that DVD Studio Pro will be renamed Disk Studio Pro and refocused on BD authoring (another definite maybe). On top of that, MacBidouille also claims that OS X 10.5.2 will be released, and that it will be “the largest and most important intermediate system update ever released by Apple.” We’re a little less sure we buy that, but as always, only time and Steve will tell.
[Thanks, L2 and Mark]
Read - Jim Goldman predictions
Read - MacBidouille predictions
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Posted in Apple, ultraportable, rumor, rumors, 3g iphone, 3gIphone, macbook, mac pro, MacPro, penryn, macworld, jim goldman, JimGoldman | No Comments »
