OS X Leopard is by far the best OS I have ever used. It has been flawless to me with no problems, until now. Apple recently released Mac OS X (10.5.6) update to all Leopard users. Being the Apple fan boy that I am, I ran the upgrade as soon as it showed up on my desktop. Boy was this a mistake! Mac OS X 10.5.6 is riddled with bugs and issues. MacFixIt.com has released a couple of post highlighting the many problems associated with this update. Mac users beware, DO NOT UPGRADE TO 10.5.6 JUST YET!

One particular problem has me very frustrated. When I launch the OS X Mail application, which I use religiously to keep my 15 email account in control, it crashes as the result of an attachment. Yes, doesn’t that sound strange? I can load Mail just fine, but the second I click on an email with an attachment, it freezes up and crashes. It can be a image, a PDF, a doc, … it doesn’t matter, just the loading of the attachment results in a application crash.

Christina Warren of The Unofficial Apple Web log is reporting that she received an anonymous email from an Apple reseller who says they received a request from Apple to remove all Apple TV displays.

We just got an e-mail from an anonymous Apple reseller, stating that they received an e-mail from Apple with instructions to remove all Apple TV displays and literature and to destroy them (which I assume means throw away the literature, send back the Apple TVs) by September 30, 2008 at 5 PM. Additionally, the e-mail says that there will be a webcast “kick off” on September 30.

~ TUAW

This is exciting news, many people have been waiting for an update to the Mac Mini, and it is rumored that this update, could bring a hybrid version of the Apple TV and the Mac Mini. The anonymous email flags September 30th, 2008 as the possible date for the update, and that just happens to fall on a Tuesday which is the day of the week Apple always does updates.

Is this “The Brick” everyone has been rumoring about for a few weeks?

So I have received a couple of emails and comments from people asking what apps I have actually purchased for my Macbook Pro and my iPhone, so I decided to write a post letting everyone know what apps I think are just so totally awesome that I have actually spent money on them.

I will start with my Macbook Pro. I have had my MBP for a while now, so I have really had the chance to explore a lot of the apps that are made for OS X. I was a windows man up until I purchased this machine so I had ZERO Mac OS X apps in my collection.

Adobe Photoshop CS2

I lucked out with this program. As many of you know, Photoshop runs for about $650 at most locations. Well I was able to snag a CS2 version (slightly outdated, currently on CS3) on Craigslist for just $100.00. That is a heck of a deal! I use Photoshop regularly so it was my very first purchase after I got my new MBP.

Price Paid: $100.00
Homepage: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/index.html

I purchased a Logitech Harmony One remote about 5 months ago, and I am finally ready to give my review of it. The retail on this bad boy is $249.00. Amazon currently has the Harmony One for $179.99. I really wanted to give myself plenty of time with the remote before I reviewed it so I can give a thorough and accurate review.

Design

The design of the Harmony One is amazing. It is designed to fit very comfortably in the palm of you hand. Along with great ergonomics, but also has a rubber back for easy gripping. Another great design aspect of the Harmony One is a motion sensor inside so when you pick it up it lights up, but if you have it sitting on a table, the lights shutoff to conserve battery. I find this very useful when channel surfing late at night with the lights off. The button design is good. After just a few short days I found myself very easily finding the buttons with out having to look at the remote. One issue I have with the design, is the hard plastic buttons that make a very minor click noise when pushed. I have always been a fan of the Tivo controller with rubber buttons, but this is more a personal preference then a design flaw.

A few days ago, I reviewed my first ever purchased program, Media Link, for my new Macbook Pro. Well today I am going to review another product I decided to purchase; it is called Awaken from Embraceware. Ultimately it is an alarm clock and sleep timer for any Mac and iTunes. It is very customizable in that it has many options to set from volume, to playlist, and more.

I have mainly been using the program as a sleep timer so my Macbook Pro will sleep after a specific amount of time. This allows me to fall asleep with my iTunes playing but not worry about running my laptop all night long. I created a custom playlist called sleep, set the timer to 1 hour and that is it! 1 hour later my MBP goes to sleep!

I use a real alarm clock to wake me up so I have not played with the wake functions, but I know it will wake up a Mac from sleep to activate the alarm clock. It also allows you to set a different alarm for each day, and you can completely customize each day!

It is a very beautify written application. The style is at par with Mac standards, and it is very tough with customization options and advanced functionality. I have only touched on all this program has to offer, for more information please browse over to http://www.embraceware.com/software/awaken/. It is a messily $12.95 and comes with updates for life! For many years I looked for something like this on Windows, but never had any luck. Awaken works on both Intel and Power Macs, but sorry no Windows!

Price: $12.95
Trial: YES, 14 Days (Full Functionality)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Official Site: http://www.embraceware.com/software/awaken/

I first heard about this program on the TWiT Podcast. It sounded pretty interesting so I decided to check it out. It is currently in private beta mode; this means you have to get invited to use it. After my invite came I installed the Windows XP version of the program which also installed a Firefox button.

This program allows you to make notes in many different ways and share it across platform and hardware. You can make a note in a Windows Vista machine and view that same note on your iPhone with one click of the synchronize button. It works with Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X, Windows Mobile, iPhone (currently a web application, but soon to be an on phone application), and Blackberry OS (coming soon.)

I use this program daily, anytime I see a interesting article I would like to remember, or need to finish reading later, I don’t bother adding it to my, already bloated, favorites in Firefox. I just clip it into Evernote and save it. Then when I get home it is on my desktop, and if I am on a public computer I can also get to it through Evernote.com.