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A little tip for you weekend Lion users:

Launchpad feeling a little cluttered? Launchpad Control is a free application on OS X that will assist you in cleaning out the unnecessary apps in your Launchpad. The app is pretty simple in that you just check off which apps you don’t want to see . via LifeHacker

Download here.

Apple seems to have extended iTunes song previews to 90 seconds internationally. Apple first rolled out 90 second previews in the U.S. back in December, 2010. International song previews had been stuck at 30 seconds. According to a number of reports, the new preview lengths are available in at least Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK and parts of Europe. As with the U.S. launch, not all songs will have 90 second previews.

In the U.S., Apple had made the change unilaterally in an email to labels telling them that they would automatically extend previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds in the iTunes Store in the U.S. It’s unclear what was the reason for the delay for international markets.

As Ronald Reagan once famously said, “There you go again.” Microsoft has unleashed some new ads in Canada that suggest if you buy a PC laptop instead of a Mac you can use the money you save to take a trip to Hawaii.

Saving money? That sounds good… until you look at the comparisons. Microsoft’s chart compares various Mac laptops with PC counterparts from HP, Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Asus and others. True enough, Apple products are often more expensive than Windows laptops at first glance, especially if you don’t perceive any value in running Mac OS X and avoiding aggravation, malware and compatibility headaches. While Windows 7 is pretty good, I use it alongside Mac OS X and find that there is no comparison.

Above you’ll see Microsoft’s pairing of the 11” MacBook Air with three US$300-ish netbooks. While the price comparison is stark, the fact is that these netbooks are not even close to the MacBook Air where it counts, and to put them in the same category is silly at best and deliberately deceptive at worst.

The Core 2 Duo chip in the MBA is faster than the netbook Atom or E-Series CPUs, the 64 GB “HardDrive” in the Air is a super-speedy SSD that charges up performance even further, there’s no comparison on battery life where the Air shines; really the only comparable spec on these machines is the screen resolution. Oh, and that HP Pavilion DM1 sitting in the middle of the lineup? I’m sure it’s nice enough, but it weighs in at 3.46 lbs (1.56 kg) — 150% as massive as the slender, featherweight 2.3 lb (1.08 kg) 11” Air. How much do you have to save on chiropractor bills before the ‘inexpensive’ netbook stops being such a bargain?

Microsoft runs these campaigns when it gets worried about its OS market share slipping. Now that Apple is ahead of MS in profits, tablets, and smartphones, maybe that concern is justified. Of course, Apple slammed Microsoft many times with the “Get A Mac” campaign, but at least the ads were funny and generally grounded in truth — working off of Apple’s underdog status in the PC market, rather than playing defense as MS is doing here.

Microsoft, as it has in some past campaigns, is doing its best to mislead, and trying to sway would-be buyers on price alone when in fact MacBook Air buyers aren’t looking for the cheapest possible laptop. It would have been really interesting to put those netbooks alongside the iPad in a similar graphic, but no way does Microsoft want to plant the seed of doubt in consumers’ minds that they might consider a speedy, light, 10-hour battery Apple tablet instead of a tiny, underpowered Windows netbook.

I doubt these new ads will put a dent in Apple’s ascendant Mac sales, but they will fuel the inevitable flame wars between advocates for each platform.

Microsoft wants buyers to ‘do the math’ and select a netbook over a MacBook Air originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 06 May 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple and the musical instrument retailer Guitar Center have teamed up to offer weekly workshops in GarageBand, according to Guitar Center’s website. Starting May 7th from 10-11 AM and running every Saturday, Guitar Center will be offering four free Recording Made Easy workshops at all of its 216 stores. The aim of the workshops is to teach musicians “How to record your first song using Mac and GarageBand…You’ll learn everything from basic tracking to creating a finished song.”

The first workshop on May 7 covers “Signal Flow and Microphone Techniques.” May 14 is “Virtual Instruments and Loops.” May 21’s workshop is “Effects” and the final workshop on May 28 is “Mixing and Publishing.” After the May 28 workshop, the workshops will begin again on the next Saturday, starting with the first one. You must register for the workshops to attend. Clicking the register button on Guitar Center’s site takes you to Apple’s Seminars & Events page where you can complete your registration.

Apple and Guitar Center to offer GarageBand workshops originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 06 May 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TechCrunch reports that Apple is rumored to be negotiating some sort of deal with Nuance Communications, the speech recognition company behind the Dragon NaturallySpeaking engine that powers a number of popular applications for Mac OS X, iOS,…

Mac owners usually have little to worry about in terms of computer viruses and spyware, but a new malware attack seems to be causing issues for some users.

According to a report on The Next Web, a specialized malware attack targeting Mac users is making the rounds. Users seem to be targeted as they are browsing Google Images, with one victim reporting that he suddenly received a message stating that his machine had been infected with viruses that only a “MacDefender” application could remove. There is a MacDefender website that highlights a few shareware apps that a dedicated geocacher has written, and the site’s owner is warning people to not download the malware app.

The malware appears to be targeting Safari. The browser can be configured so that it will automatically open trusted software, and that appears to be the route of attack that’s being used. While the MacDefender malware isn’t infecting Macs with a virus or running a keylogger in the background, the author seems to be trying to scare users into providing credit card information by buying the software.

The Next Web provided some useful hints on how to protect yourself from the malware and to remove the pesky app if it is downloaded onto your Mac. If you aren’t seeing MacDefender in your Applications folder, you can protect yourself from possible infiltration by unchecking the “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” box at the bottom of Safari > Preferences > General (see the area outlined in red in the image above).

If MacDefender is already on your Mac, check out the next page for tips on how to remove it.

Continue reading MacDefender malware targeting Mac users

MacDefender malware targeting Mac users originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 02 May 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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