Safari opens 4 beta

It's the proud granddaddy of the Private Browsing mode... it's Safari!

The public beta for the newest version of Apple's browser Safari is available for download for both Mac and Windows. There are some interesting new features that may somehow resemble other browsers such as:

Top Sites

Taking a cue from Chrome's home page and Opera's Speed Dial, Top Sites gives you an elegant view of the sites you visit the most.

This twist here, however is the fact that you can display up to 24 thumbnails, you can pin a site you like into a position so it will stay and place and you can see whether a site has new content when a star is clipped on the top-right of the website's thumbnail! That sounds really cool for people who usually go to sites like Twitter, Blogger, or any news site.

Cover Flow

While highly unnecessary, it's still pretty nice to be able to browse your history, bookmarks, etc. on this view. This way you are able to actually get a huge thumbnail of the website in question.

Full History Search

This feature lets you search your history as you saw it. If you remember a caption from a photo you viewed, or a shred of text in that site, you can type it and Safari finds it for you. Does it work well? Who knows, especially for Flash sites?

Tabs on top

Safari takes another page from Google Chrome- it puts its tabs on top to save precious screen real estate. Hell, it even adds the effing Plus button!

Spanking New Engine

Safari already renders sites pretty fast but the new Nitro Engine renders sites faster (theoretically, at least). Apple has some benchmarks, but why trust the benchmarks released by Apple itself? Let's wait for some third-party to do so.

Still, if you're interested in how much faster Safari is from the competition, it claims to be 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, 3 times faster than Firefox, and slightly, very slightly by just the thousandths digit, faster than Chrome. Don't know if this is true for real world conditions, but we'll see.

Native Windows Look and Feel

This is a big, big, big plus for Windows Safari users. Now Safari will adapt to Windows Aero or Windows XP's themes,a s well as their native fonts. Still, if you like the grey anti-aliased look of past Safari versions, you can choose that.

ABOVE: Windows Vista. BELOW: Windows XP.

Developer Tools

HTML coders can test web code on the spot with Safari's developer mode.

The Quintessential Awesome Bar

Firefox first offered the option for people to use the address bar to do almost anything. It can get you sites by name, by address, or by a snippet of the address.

Search Suggestions

Mac Safari offers the Inquisitor plug-in for this feature. Now, you probably wouldn't need it. Powered by Google, Safari automatically suggests search terms and search addresses.

Zoom ala iPhone

Multi-touch gestures on the new MacBooks are able to zoom text like the iPhone's version of Safari. You can also use this feature by clicking the Font increase button.

Better Standards Compliance- made even better

It passes the famous ACID test. A perfect 100.

CES: Palm Pre is what I want

Sony's bendy TV, Nyko's own Wiimote, Samsung's sleek P2, touch-screen Walkman, I can go on for days. CES is the convention that holds the Microsoft conference, which merely reiterated the stuff found in a previous developer's convention (Windows 7 beta is available for download though), but it's also the convention where all the other brands converge and show their wares.

One in particular looks like my ticket to touchsville- the Palm Pre. While I predict that it seriously won't kill the iPhone, people who know their tech will probably say that it's better. Of course, the iPhone will be guaranteed to have a new iteration by June or so and complete specs for the product aren't readily available (I'm curious about a few other features that it may or may not lack), but for now, the Palm Pre looks real nice and desirable.

It's not sleek like the iPhone, and the QWERTY keypad looks awful to press, but the software is the ticket. If Palm's new WebOS- the upgrade Palm fans have been waiting for- performs as admirably as the iPhone's, I may just jump ship and save for one. It also supports multi-touch gestures like the iPhone, but it will also give you a way to switch between open applications in a manner similar to the way you switch through 'tabs' in iPhone Safari.

OK, so perhaps I'm associating this one way too much with the iPhone. I apologize, but the iPhone is simply the de-facto standard for touch-screen phones for now. I'll try not to associate in the succeeding paragraphs.

Anyway, you may ask: It has a keypad, but where's the directional pad?! Well, you can actually use the area just below the screen to navigate your phone. 

Additionally, charging isn't a mess either- You can charge the Pre wirelessly in the literal sense through a hockey puck.

No AC adaptors.

What do you do with the hockey puck? Well you place the device on top of it, and voila! Charging.

While it's not clear whether you have to charge the hockey puck on the wall, but if you could, it would be awesome and you could charge on the road if you ran out of juice.

If you want to see it in action, watch the video below.

I'm crossing my fingers that this will be the phone for me. Seriously.

MACBOOK PRO and MACBOOK: Never a better time than now

In the past, I've always raved about how amazing Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro is. And although I've never actually cared for Apple's past power upgrades, this one is actually something to care about. Why? Because not only did they add a lot more oomph to the two models' speed, or add more hard disk space, they included something that customers will really love- a Multi-touch mousepad.

But wait, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. That last one is only applicable for MacBook Pro, but that upgrade is hella sweet. First introduced in MacBook Air, the Multi-touch mousepad uses the same touch screen technology in the iPod touch and iPhone, and take note that the only products you'll ever find these technologies are in Apple products (and maybe the Microsoft Surface as well). As I've raved before in the MacBook Air hands-on post, I loved working with photos using that pad and I practically, instantly missed it when I came back home. And frankly, maybe Apple realized that the MacBook Air won't be very hot after all, and it was a smart move to actually put it in MacBook Pro. Now, the Pro really distances itself from its other brother, the MacBook, and especially blazes it with even faster processing power (2.4Ghz and 2.6Ghz options) and actually usable graphics (nVidia GeForce 8600M GT with 256 or 512 MB memory to be specific).

*UPDATE: Wait a sec, so tapping the trackpad to do a click is already one of them multi-touch gestures? Then the MacBook Pro with Multi-touch models must already be here in the Philippines, because that happened when I tried out the MacBook Pro last Sunday!

And though the newer MacBook isn't really as post-worthy as the new addition in MacBook Pro's arsenal, the choice of having even faster speeds (2.0Ghz and 2.4Ghz for the tech-savvy) is a plus, as well as having 2GB of expandable RAM standard. Plus, you also get to only choose between 120-160GB hard drives, and if you'd like to burn more cash, why not get the fancier black MacBook with 250GB hard drive and faster everything?

Getting Fingers on the MacBook Air

Medyo pasmado nga ang mga kamay ko noon (My palms were a bit sweaty), but I dared touch that surprisingly durable feel of aluminum on that ultra-thin new ultraportable that, though it didn't make as much waves as the iPhone, cooked up quite a storm. Yes, the iPhone part was a give-away because the thing that I tried was none other than Apple's new MacBook Air.

CAPTION: It even comes in a cost-saving, smaller eco-friendly box!

Greenbelt

We went in the Power Mac Center in Greenbelt because my mother was having a one-hour facial (Murad coupon.) and the first thing I would see is not the laptop, but Apple's upgraded

 Apple TV. We tinkered with the usual iMacs, MacBooks and MacBook Pros in display but later, my brother would find the Air in a sort of not so obvious location. Funny that they should do

 that, because when we started using the thing, people were crowding up behind this, because this was the most stylish piece of Apple tech inside.

Hardware

I inspected the sides of the machine, and yes, I missed the ports that could be found on the left side, but when I checked the right side, the pull-down door was instantly discernible and it would reveal the 3 magic wishes, err... ports namely, the USB port, VGA and mini-DVI ports (one each). I kinda miss the DVD drive (What's the use of iDVD then, right?) but still, at least they covered that itch with Remote Disc which I unfortunately did not have a chance to try.

Amazingly, Apple did not compromise the user by placing smaller keyboards and trackpads,

 but normal-sized ones, hell, the trackpad's larger than the MacBook I'm typing on, and it's quite fun to use. And when I say fun to use, I point to the "multi-touch gestures" that the

 mousepad supports. You can use three fingers to switch to another photo or whatever, you can pinch it to zoom in or out, and move your fingers in a specific way so that you can rotate something. These moves are surprisingly intuitive. And opening this MacBook, and organizing

 the photos for the II-1 DVD, makes me miss them. Hell, I wondered how I could've lived without them!

CAPTION: I adore the intuitive, innovative mouse gestures! How did I ever live 

without them?!

Features

Plus, the screen looks brighter than ever, especially with its power-saving LED backlight, plus it makes the screen super thin as well!

Other features that come standard include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and not to mention the very

stylish and functional Mac OS X Leopard (which is still in my list of "Pirated software to buy when we go to Greenhills"). It's pretty speedy too for a stripped down dual core processor powered machine and it's even got 1GB more (of RAM) than the MacBook I'm using!

CAPTION: LEDs allow the screen to be ultra thin.

Predictions

It won't really sell as much here. It's not yet as practical, nor future-proof, as it should be. But if Apple released the product, or at least another iteration of it... maybe after 2 to 5 years, it (the next iteration) will sell A LOT. Because by that time, most of our streets will probably have Wi-Fi access pang-masa (public), and software will rarely be distributed by CDs and be set up for download in the Internet instead. It wouldn't be really the best time to buy a MacBook with features like these, but it's quite the pioneer, and a daring one if I might add. Because it will lead the way towards the promotion of the death of CDs (which, on the bright side, is VERY

 eco-friendly) and the Internet will be where we go for music, and pretty much many things else. This is the future, people. But it's still too early to be used frequently, lest your house is a Wi-Fi hotspot, that is.

CAPTION: Great in the long term, not so much in the short term. (ON SCREEN: Me and my little brother.)

(I didn't see the price tag......... but I bet it's more expensive than this MacBook.)

The Storm...

Today was a great day for having no long test but tomorrow? NOOOO! It would've made great timing if the long test continued tomorrow. Damn, storm!

Dep-ed... Nagsisihan na!
Remember a while ago? Everyone's going to school and it was raining, no, pouring. And suddenly, you're blocked by the security guard, who says in shock, "What are you doing??? Walang pasok ngayon, a! Go home."
Many incidents similar to this have happened across the country and Dep-Ed people are going the way of the blame game. What unscrupulous, immature behavior! Don't you agree?

Beijing 2008 Olympics
Anyway, to get my mind off this, I've decided to talk about the Beijing Olympics. Chinese are currently learning simple English... or rather a crash course. Though it's admittedly not as effective, China just wants to give a great welcome to people from literally all walks of life and all roads of the world. Just want to wish luck to them and hopefully, the Olympics are going to be great and huge... judging solely from the pictures and the efforts they are exerting, it sure is gonna be one heck of a summer!

Local TV: A Joke
Hmm... I never really watched anything Pinoy in the boob tube except Bubble Gang. But when I channel-surfed a while ago, I just can't help but notice all those sexy dancers in those noontime shows... I mean, what the heck is the purpose of putting sleazy sexy dancers in a noon time show when everybody's watching? Isn't this supposed to be controlled by the MTRCB???
The source of all this is probably the granddaddy of all noontime shows which is Eat Bulaga!. People say it was very wonderful and refreshing when they tapped Tito and Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon as hosts and yet, they (co-hosts) expanded to a nauseating number which can make viewing, well, nauseating. It's not just that, the quality itself of all primetime and daytime shows are just deteriorating in terms of quality. Good thing Tony Gloria is offering color grading services... Hopefully everyone will be able to see a higher quality in our local boob tube as well as the local movie scene!

Digital Films on the Rise
Speaking about the local movie scene, mainstream's getting tired and digital's taking it's place. It's dying for God's sakes and yet the Metro Manila Film Festival has a sick basis of judging "Best" pictures. 50% on Commercial Viability and 10% on Cultural Value? What the hell?
Good thing there's indiesine @ the Robinson's Galleria, though. It'll probably be the new hub for real (local) movies.

I wonder when indiesine will show Kubrador- one of the most acclaimed next to Maximo Oliveros...-->

Entertainment News (on the tube) are sick...
Every time I see shows like ET or The Insider, it ne'er fails to deliver a story about Britney or Lindsay or the DUI peepz as I like to call them. They aren't celebrity news at all. Heck, they shouldn't even be considered celebrities because they've only resulted into goddesses of the low and cheap and yet they influence the li'l ones (and sometimes... the teenagers). Shame.
<-- Lindsay Lohan in a beach house... If you don't mind, I'd just like to say that her chest looks extremely fake. XD
TECH NEWS
New iMacs unveiled along with bundled iWork and iLife software
Good thing we never bought the iMacs (the Macs with "cinema display"). Apple has carved it to a bigger, thinner, and not to mention, more powerful and I just drool at the thought of it (though nothing beats the 8-core Intel-powered Mac Pro).
<-- The thinner iMacs...
Apple also introduces the new versions of iWork and iLife. They've overhauled everything and even added jaw-breaking, mouth-opening effects, templates and features inside. Heck, I'm even impressed by the versatile file format saving (which means you can save files in .doc, .docx, .pdf, AppleWorks, etc. etc.) already!

Cool text effects for PowerPoint's Apple counterpart Keynote -->

Hotmail... finally decent
If you've been a Hotmail user before (like me), you'll find the interface very slow and clunky. But because of the successful Yahoo! Mail Beta, Microsoft finally followed suit. They re-labeled it as Windows Live Hotmail and gave it a better interface. At least Microsoft can finally attract more people now. (But not me!) LOL.
<-- Hotmail is apparently better now...

Surface Computing... wait a sec, doesn't Apple have the patent for that?!
Though this is relatively old news, Microsoft unveiled it's so-called "Surface Computing" technology which utilizes multi-touch (same type of touch-screen which powers the iPhone... it's basically a touch screen that you can touch with several fingers and apply pressure, etc.) and can also use your credit card to buy online by just literally placing the card on top of the surface and just letting the computer go through the motions. You can also even use place a glass on top and make whirly effects! It sounds kinda cool but doesn't Apple hold the patent for multi-touch?
<-- This is "The Surface"... the target for all those lawsuits...