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iPhone RSS feed added; new poll today; PotW returns! Site News
First, it's been a while since we had a new poll ... so I rectified that. As I'm in the midst of adjusting to iPhoto '08, I thought it'd be interesting to see how things have changed in three years. In July of 2004, we ran this poll, asking how many digital photos you had on your Mac. At that time, over 50% of the respondents had fewer than 1,500 images on their machines. I think the figures will be quite a bit different this time, so I've expanded each range to give a bit more room on the high end. So give iPhoto or Aperture a quick glance and tell us how many pictures you've got stored in there.

The other bit of site-related news is that we now have an iPhone RSS feed. As I expected, the volume of iPhone hints has dropped since the introduction, but if you want to keep up with the occasional tidbit, subscribe to the RSS feed. (You can see the details of this feed (and the 20-odd other feeds), including the total number of hints to date (42) on the RSS page, linked just below the site logo.)

And in truly shocking news, look for a (gasp!) new Pick of the Week (PotW) selection later today. Yes, returning after an Eagles-like absence ("For the record, we never broke up. We just took a fourteen year vacation"), the Pick of the Week has returned to work. I was thinking of going in and backfilling for the months it's been idle, but that wouldn't be fair to the apps I chose to put in the past weeks, as they wouldn't get a full week's worth of exposure in the box at the top of the site. So I'm just going to pick it up as of this week. If you're new here, the Pick of the Week is a program that I find interesting, typically (but not always) something that's a bit off the beaten path that you may not have heard of. This table shows the 2007 winners, and from there, you can link back to see everything from 2002 onwards. As always, if you have nominees, feel free to email them my direction -- you can use the Contact Us link at the bottom of any page to do so.

-rob.
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New iPhone category added... Site News
It appears my initial iPhone hints assessment was wrong -- I thought we'd only see a handful of iPhone tips and then it would fade into the background. Instead, there are now 15+ iPhone-related tips in the queue after only a week. I do expect things will slow down as we move forward -- just like anything new (iTunes 7, etc.), the iPhone is getting a lot of attention right now. However, I felt that this volume of tips merited a new iPhone section, to make it easier for folks to either see just the iPhone tips, or to not see them at all.

You can use the Hints by Topic drop-down in the sidebar to easily see just the iPhone tips. If you're at the other end of the spectrum (and you're a registered user), you can set your preferences so that you never see iPhone tips. Just visit your account's Preferences screen, and place a checkmark next to iPhone in the Excluded Items section of the page, then click Save Information.

And yes, I'm very much looking forward to October, when I expect we'll start seeing a flood of hints on Leopard, iLife 07/08, and iWork 07/08 (assuming those are also released with/near 10.5). But after 26 months and 938 tips on 10.4, there's just not a lot of top-secret 10.4 information to be found. So until 10.5 comes out, we'll have the usual mix of application tips, AppleScript and Unix tips, and yes, now iPhone tips as well.

-rob.
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Today is iPhone tips day... Site News
Apple's new iPhone has obviously garnered a fair bit of press of late, but we've not said a lot about it here on Mac OS X Hints, despite the fact that the iPhone runs OS X. That's because, as of now at least, the iPhone is locked down very tight, and there just aren't a lot of tips out there that go beyond anything you'd find in the manual. However, between myself, my Macworld coworkers, and others out in net world, there are a few things that have been discovered.

Rather than trickle those few things in over time, I thought I'd just dedicate today's hints to the initial small collection of iPhone hints. I don't expect a flood of iPhone tips in the future, so I'll publish those as they come in, in the regular mix of other tips. But for those who have iPhones (I had no plans to have one, but then something unexpected happened), today's tip collection should help you get started with your new device.

For everyone else, we're back to business as usual tomorrow. As always, if you have no interest in seeing iPhone (or other types of phones) tips, registered users can disable any hint category, including Phones.
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Holiday today ... and new iPhone poll! Site News
Tomorrow is the Independence Day holiday here in the States, and I'll be spending the day with the family. Hints will return as usual on Thursday. For something to do in the interim, go ahead and vote in the new iPhone poll.

-rob.
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It's Safari 3 tips day... Site News
Well, mostly. There are a couple others in the mix, but most of today's tips are about Safari 3. Amongst the tips, there are two Safari for Windows hints -- this isn't a sign of change, but since many of us will be using Safari on Windows in Parallels, Boot Camp, or Fusion to test sites, I felt it fair to share these hints. As with iTunes, we won't get into actual Windows-related hints here, but if someone submits something about iTunes or Safari for Windows that may help Mac users use those apps better, then I'll probably run the hint.

-rob.
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OS X 10.5 'secret features' prediction poll... Site News
Leopard secret features poll

Last year at WWDC, Steve Jobs noted that there were "many" features they weren't showing us yet in Leopard. This year, we should (I think) see those features, as Apple will be releasing a "feature complete" beta at next week's WWDC. On Monday, Steve will take the stage to (presumably) discuss Leopard and other things of note. Anything mentioned during the talk is public knowledge (unlike the rest of WWDC, which is under non-disclosure), so I thought it might be fun to speculate for a few days on what you think the single most interesting "hidden feature" might turn out to be...

I'll be interesting to see if anything on this list (beyond zfs, which seems to be a known fact now) is actually in the Leopard beta.

-rob.
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Next week's hints site schedule... Site News
Monday of next week is the Memorial Day holiday in the US, and as such, there won't be any new hints posted that day. From Tuesday through Friday, Kirk McElhearn will be once again be handling the daily updates -- I'm headed out Saturday for my second-ever Geek Cruise, this time heading for Alaska from Seattle.

As with my first cruise last fall, you'll be able to read trip dispatches (and see pictures) on Macworld's MacMania page (which is presently populated with the blogs from last fall).

-rob.
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Rob's sick... Site News
I posted three hints on Rob's behalf today; he came down with some sort of fast-moving bug last night and is under the weather today. Things should be back to normal on Monday.

Sorry I didn't have time to try out some of the more elaborate hints that are in the queue; and I hope none of the ones I posted are dupes.

Kirk
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Sneak preview: The newest macosxhints.com theme! Site News
As most of the regulars know, we have but two themes for the macosxhints.com site -- the default white/blue scheme, and darker "classic" view that recalls the site's early days. Well, today, after many long months in development, and a very full final day (it's 11:59pm on the 1st, according to my clock) of pounding on the CSS, HTML, and Geeklog's layout templates, I'm pleased to reveal the third official macosxhints.com theme, as seen in the image at right (click the image for a much larger view):

My objective in working up this new theme was to capture the simplicity, elegance, and power of Derek Zoolander's patented "Blue Steel" modeling pose. Using Derek's work as the benchmark, I looked for design inspiration from many sources. After a long and arduous search, I finally identified the perfect Blue Steel counterpart to use as the basis for my design: Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove. This landmark album featured an all-black cover, and when I recalled its simple yet powerful imagery, it struck me: this is perfection in design! So thanks, Spinal Tap, both for the music and the inspiration for the site's newest theme. I owe much to your groundbreaking design efforts!

Registered users will be able to activate "Spinal Tapestry" very soon now; I'm just putting the finishing touches on the CSS, and hope to have it all wrapped up sometime tomorrow. It's been a long day of final-rush coding and testing, preceded by many months' worth of setup work, but I think you can all see that the end result has justified the energy expended on the theme's development!

If you'd like to know more about this theme's early development, you can read any one of these four background articles; they cover the process in great detail.
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It's that time again -- favorite browser poll posted Site News
It's back! That's right, the occasional browser wars poll has returned! I usually try to ask twice a year, but it's been over 12 months since we last ran the survey. And so, just what is your favorite browser of the moment? I added two new choices this time -- IE for Windows under Parallels and Other Windows Browser via Parallels -- for any of you Intel-Mac-using folks who might find a Windows browser to be your current favorite.

These polls are always interesting; the last time around, Safari won with 57% of the votes, followed not so closely by Firefox (22%) and Camino (11%). Safari's numbers were actually down from the poll before that, where it received 64% of the votes, Firefox was about the same, and Camino was at 6%. Will Safari's share be down again this time? If so, which alternative browser is gaining the most? Vote now and help determine how things shake out.
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