So here is the list of apps taken from the email newsletter :-

ShoveBox

Catch all the little scraps of information that you can’t immediately act on, but don’t want to forget. ShoveBox sits up in your menu bar, waiting for you to drag in text, images, URLs, and more. With the QuickJot feature, entering new items is a breeze… and the new rules feature will automatically sort them for you! [more info..]

WriteRoom

WriteRoom is a simple, but powerful app that provides you with a distraction-free writing environment. When you’re ready to write, launch WriteRoom and let all the virtual distractions cluttering your screen melt away. Focus purely on your writing. [more info..]

Twitterrific

Follow your friends’ chatter on Twitter with Twitterrific, the popular Twitter client for your Mac. Designed to sit along the side of your screen, Twitterrific lets you participate in Twitter’s real time conversations and status updates through a sleek, minimal interface. [more info..]

TinyGrab

TinyGrab is a simple, powerful app that enables you to quickly share screenshots of everything on your Mac. Grab a screenshot, and TinyGrab will instantly upload it and copy the URL to your Clipboard so you can easily share it via email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, and more! [more info..]

Hordes of Orcs

Defend your human village from hordes of murderous orcs! Freeverse’s take on “tower defense” lets players strategically place and upgrade different types of towers to rain arrows, fire and more down on incoming waves of enemies. Just make sure you don’t let any orcs pass by your defenses! [more info..]

Mariner Write

Mariner Write is a powerful, yet streamlined word processor for Mac OS X. Boasting an elegant interface, as well as hundreds of intuitive features such as the ability to read Microsoft Word documents, Mariner Write has everything you need to turn out great-looking documents. (Unlocked at 500,000 participants.) [more info..]

Hurry sign up and grab this free apps. MacHeist.

Product Marketing Manager for Desktops (Asia Pacific), Melvyn Chan, was on hand to tell us all about the new iMacs. A quick summary of its top features:

• New 21.5-inch (1920×1080 pixels) and 27-inch (2560×1440 pixels) configurations with 16:9 display
• LED backlight with IPS technology for a 178 degree viewing angle
• The entry level iMac comes with 3.06 GHz Intel C2D, 4GB RAM (expandable to 16GB), NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card and 500GB HDD (expandable to 2TB). It only goes up from here.
• Wireless Keyboard & Magic Mouse now comes standard with all iMacs

Apple stressed that the new iMacs give you greater bang for your buck. The new entry level iMac costs RM4,299 compared to RM4,499 of the previous entry level iMac. The savings are event greater for the 27-inch iMac compared to the old 24-inch iMac–RM6,999 to RM8,199.

The higher end 27-inch iMacs can be configured with the quad-core Intel Core i5 or i7 “Nehalem” processor, which features four processor cores on a single chip. Trick out an iMac like that and the Mac Pro will start to feel a little worried. In fact, I asked Melvyn if the iMac would cannibalize Mac Pro sales and he responded that the iMac was aimed squarely at consumers and power users while the Mac Pro’s niche is more of the professional film production studios. Still, the new iMacs pack a lot of punch into it’s slender package.

The new iMacs will be available on November 11 through the Apple Online Store and Apple Authorized Resellers. The Intel Core i5 and i7 quad-core iMacs are available for order and will begin shipping this November.

Personal thoughts

The new iMac definitely lives up to its billing of being the ultimate all-in-one. It will look great on your study desk and deliver great performance in a designer’s studio. Once again Apple’s commitment to high-quality design and products stands out in the iMac. Just view the iMac video and you’ll be blown away by the attention to the smallest detail.

It also just looks super cool–like something that came out of the future. Indeed, more and more of Apple’s products seem so futuristic and far ahead of other technology today. Just think of the iPhone, and now the new iMac and Magic Mouse.

The event

I was really fortunate to be invited by Apple/Rantau PR to the event. Apple’s PR manager even said she reads the blog which was a big ego-boost I just want to say thanks for the opportunity and I hope to see more Apple activities and events in Malaysia.

See also the hands-on of the Magic Mouse and new MacBook.

Apple Magic Mouse

I personally think that the Magic Mouse is very promising… but falls short of being a product I would use. The Magic Mouse is supposed to be multi-touch, so why isn’t there pinch and zoom? It comes standard with all iMacs now, so it will definitely be quite common to see, but I will wait for version 2.0 with pinch and zoom before I give up my current Mighty Mouse (the one with the nipple), which I’m pretty happy with.

Apple unibody white MacBook

Quick first impressions of the new MacBook is that the shape looks kinda round, but the features are real solid. Performance wise, this new MacBook will probably match the entry-level MacBook Pro with its new processor and battery. The LED backlit screen will be welcome for many MacBook users who complain that their screens pales in comparisons to the MacBook Pros. All this for only RM3,599.

Final word..

Let me know if you enjoyed the videos. If it’s not super embarrassing, I may do more videos. If you liked them, please rate them in the myMacBUZZ YouTube Channel.

First, is the new faster iMac. This ultimate all-in-one Mac now comes with kick ass display. The new iMac comes with two big LED-backlit display sizes to choose from, 21.5-inch and a 27-inch both with widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio perfect for watching HD videos. This could easily replace your TV screen, too bad I didn’t see and Blu-Ray drive or an HDMI input.

Second, the low-end MacBook model gets closer to it’s unibody aluminum big brother. It now comes with a durable unibody enclosure made of rugged polycarbonate. It also has the glass multi-touch trackpad, and there is an option for a 500GB storage.

Just when you thought Apple had abandon it’s Mac Mini line, they upgrade it. Externally nothing much has change, internally however everything gets faster. There is also an option to get a Mac Mini with two 500GB hard disk and also an option to have it come with Snow Leopard Server. You could easily turn this tiny machine into a kick ass home server.

Lastly, Apple introduced a new mouse. Lets us all put behind the Mighty Mouse days, and just forget it ever happen. The all new Magic Mouse looks slick. Actually it looks like a soap bar. One button? Two botton? It actually looks like it has no button at all. Trust Apple to came out with yet a non-ordinary mouse.

It has a seamless Multi-Touch Surface. You could program it into a two button mouse, scroll in any direction, zoom screen, and two-finger swipe. Anybody planning on getting a new mouse?

Information regarding the prices and availability in Malaysia’s market coming soon, keep reading MyMacBUZZ.

Updates: New iMac, MacBook, Mac Mini and Magic Mouse are already available at the Apple Store Malaysia

In May 2007, Steve Jobs publicly announced a change in Apple’s environmental policy, a move that would make the company ‘A Greener Apple‘. At that time he unveiled plans to reduce toxins in their manufacturing processes, and later in 2008 committed to minimising their carbon footprint.

Today, Apple produces some of the greenest, most eco-friendly electronics in the market. They’ve have begun to report greenhouse gas emissions on the complete life-cycle of their products, instead of just during the manufacturing process. And you can really see how far Apple has come in their green initiative.

The picture above compares the packaging size of my iBook (2004), MacBook (2007) and unibody MacBook (2008). The reduction in packaging is very obvious, meaning that Apple reduces their carbon footprint in packaging and shipping.

Apple has also designed their products to be extremely energy efficient. The chart above compares the carbon dioxide emissions of their latest products against older models and an everyday lightbulb. This reduction is huge for preventing climate change. Clearly Apple is working hard to become greener.

Many of us don’t consider the environmental impact of our products when we purchase them. It’s not really our problem. But unfortunately, humanity’s impact on the environment and climate change is very real, and our kids will be the ones who suffer the impact the most. Already we can feel the increasing heat every day. The proof is in the receding glaciers.

Source: NASA – View a larger version

I for one am glad to know that every time I invest in a new Apple product, care has been taken not only in the design, features and manufacturing of the product, but also in the decisions about its environmental impact. There’s really no better feeling to be typing on my awesome, came-from-the-future MacBook, and knowing that I’m helping to support a company that cares as much about the environment as I do.

If you want to learn more about how Apple reduces its environmental impact and yet create awesome products at the same time, check out this video of their MacBook manufacturing process. The environment impact part starts about 5:25 into the video.

Also be sure to check out Apple’s new Environment website.

The giveaway starts Monday, 5 October and we’ll be picking a daily winner until Thursday.

Here are the prizes you stand to win:

• iPod shuffle (3rd gen) x 3
• Gameloft goodie bag x 1

Follow these simple steps to take part in the giveaway:

1. Identify the activity you want to attend at Discovery Week @ Pavilion. Their full activity schedule is here.
2. Post a tweet announcing what activity you want to attend
3. Use the hashtag #DWPavilion and include this link: http://j.mp/mmbdwk
4. Be sure to follow @myMacBUZZ on Twitter. Don’t worry, we don’t spam our followers
5. Bonus points for tweets which get re-tweeted, so get creative!

Here’s an example which you can post:

@myMacBUZZ i want to attend the iPhone Dev Tech Talk at #DWPavilion so i can build cool apps http://j.mp/mmbdwk

Another example:

I’m bringing my IT manager to the iPhone in business talk at #DWPavilion so he’ll support my iPhone at work @myMacBUZZ http://j.mp/mmbdwk

It’s really that simple. Just post a tweet and you could walk away with a cool prize. Happy twitter-ing!

Terms and conditions

1. This giveaway is only open to followers of @myMacBUZZ in Malaysia
2. Winners will be chosen daily, at random and announced via the myMacBUZZ official Twitter account. Further instructions will be given on how to collect your prize.
3. Winners will have to collect their prizes from the Discovery Week roadshow at Pavilion KL from 7-11 October 2009. Uncollected prizes will be forfeited.
4. Yes, the only way you can take part in this giveaway is through Twitter. If you don’t have a Twitter account yet, you should.

Most of us have the wonderful iLife suite on our Macs but we never really use it. iMovie is a real gem and the whole suite is a big selling point, especially if you’re the creative kind. So here’s a quick intro into iMovie to encourage you to give it a try.

iMovie is Apple’s consumer level video editing application. Despite being a ‘consumer’ application, it’s really powerful and chocked full of features. Here’s an example home movie that showcases the kind of quality videos you can create with iMovie.

Share with your friends:

This short film, “Run” was produced by the Discovery Week boys. (Jump ahead to 1.15 in the video to skip the pre-roll—click on the timeline).The boys used almost all of the iMovie features in this video, including:

• Stylish transitions
• Titles and supers
• Video effects
• Image stabilisation
• Sound effects and audio editing
• Exporting the video to YouTube

I believe the video used only the standard iMovie sound effects, and even with that it successfully created a spooky atmosphere for the video. The only feature that I think wasn’t used was iMovie’s green screen effect. Yes, you get green screen and image stabilisation in the free iMovie.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t take much to put together a cool video like the above. All you need is a video camera (or even your point and shoot in video mode), iMovie and some creativity.

And don’t worry about iMovie being difficult to use. It’s really very intuitive like all Apple software. At the most, just view a few of the iMovie tutorials on Apple’s website to get started.

** Shameless self plug **

Sometimes you need an incentive to put together your own movie and taking part in a contest is a good incentive. Here’s my entry for DiGi’s Pimp My Broadband contest. Best video wins a MacBook! Think you can do better than mine?

Share with your friends:

P.S. I would really appreciate a vote if you like my movie –> Please Vote!

In conclusion, iMovie is really fun and easy to use. You really should try it out. Once again, iMovie is part of the iLife suite that comes free with every Mac. This means you already have it. Go ahead and poke around in your Applications folder and give it a spin. Here’s to you becoming the next Steven Spielberg (or the next YouTube sensation)!

It’s back again! Discovery Week returns for it’s 5th instalment, this time at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. This Discovery Week is hosted by Epicentre and will be held 7-11 October (Wednesday-Sunday).

Discovery Week is an event put on by Apple resellers in Malaysia for the public to *discover* Apple products like Macs, iPods and of course, the iPhone 3GS. In Malaysia we don’t have Mac Geniuses but at Discovery Week you’ll find the next best thing–Official Mac Evangelists. These Evangelists are experts in Apple’s products and will be able to help you with your buying or switching questions.

Highlights at Discovery Week V

You’ll have special deals during the show. If you’ve been planning on buying that iPod or Mac I’d advise to wait another 10 days.

Introduction to Snow Leopard – learn more about Apple’s latest version of Mac OSX.

Gameloft game showcase and contests – sneak peeks of their upcoming games and also a Real Footbal 2010 competition!

Sessions about developing for iPhone and iPhones for business (bring your IT manager to this one).

The Discovery Week boys have been playing with iMovie and will be highlighting Apple’s movie making application at the iMovie booth.

A chance to win some free iPods! Be a fan of Discovery Week on Facebook and find details of the roadshow schedule on their official site.

Giveaways by myMacBUZZ! Yes! In conjunction with Discovery Week we’re giving away iPods and exclusive Gameloft merchandise. More details will be posted soon, please stay tuned!

Updated 2 Oct: Added more event highlights and link to full schedule.

The return of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs returns

First things first, Steve Jobs is back! He said that he is greatful to everyone, especially to the mid 20 year old guy who died in a car crash as he is now using his liver.

After that, he announced that the iPhone and the iPod touch will have a new OS, the iPhone/iPod touch OS3.1. New features include Genius for App store, where the feature will recommend applications to you based on the the apps that you have installed in your devices.

iPhone OS gets updated to 3.1

iTunes 9 was also announced and will feature plenty of new stuff. You can now organize your applications on your devices on iTunes. No more going through the pages of apps on your iPhone/iPod touches. Home Sharing is another new feature where it lets you share your songs, videos and even applications to up to five devices within the same network. It’s really easy as well since it’s just drag and drop.

I’m not too familiar with LPs (I’m not that old) but it seems that iTunes LP will re-enact memories from buying LPs. LPs will come with lyrics, live performances videos, interviews and much more.

Games demo followed after that with some really promising games like the HALO-esque Nova, Riddin Ribbon, Madden NFL 2010 and Assassin’s Creed. With resource hungry games like this, I knew that there’s gonne be a new iPod touch and I was right!

iPod updates

New iPod line-up

Well the iPod touch is not really “new” but it does have Open GL 2.0 and there is a 64GB version! Prices of most iPods have dropped as well!

Updates on the other iPods include a storage bump for the Classic, from 120GB to 160GB, new colours for the shuffle, as well as a stainless steel special edition one.

The biggest announcement of the event has to be the fifth generation iPod nano, and it now features a camera! The new nano has a larger 2.2 inch screen as well to act as viewfinder. It’ll also be built with an FM Radio in it but who needs radio when you have your own play lists? You can also blast your music with the nano’s built in speaker and record voice clips using its microphone. Nike+ owners will also be delighted to find that it has a built in pedometer to calculate your calories after a workout. It comes with nine colours and it looks to be as slim as the fourth generation nano.

Unfortunately the iPod nano’s camera can’t capture still images. In an interview with David Pogue, Steve Jobs explained that this was because the camera sensors wouldn’t fit into the extremely skinny iPod nano. Well, let’s just hope that camera components grow smaller soon.

I can’t wait for the Malaysian launch and you know that I’ll be bringing you guys coverage from the local event as well. Until then, good night!

Image credits: Gizmodo & MacWorld

I got a chance to install Snow Leopard build A432 (which is the final retail build) into a few Macs that I own. This is a short observation so far:

• The installer is much polished compared to previous OSX. Utilities is now highlighted right on the main panel instead of the menu bar. It present you the installable locations right on the middle. There are much fewer steps that you need to go through before the installation start. The installation begin without a full restart until about 10%
• The right click menu on dock items is now black + blue highlight, very nice.
• Time Machine icons goes gray when not setup/in use.
• Airport menu now show you list of WiFi with icon showing signal strength.
• When you drag a file to different drive the (+) sign no longer shown, sad.
• By default the desktop is empty, it doesn’t even show your harddisk. You have to enable that.
• There’re sleep shortcut is clearly shown on the Apple menu.
• Screenshot is now named with date and time. “Screen shot 2009-08-26 at 8.09.31 PM”.

• Stack’s grid view is now scrollable to accommodate more icons.
• Adobe CS3 confirm working on my MacBook Pro.
• 4 finger swipe will unlocked for all capable MacBook & MacBook Pro. Chinese handwriting will also works at the same time.
• On screen keyboard (Keyboard Viewer) is now resizable.

To prepare yourself for the upgrade in coming days, start doing your backup just in-case!