Apple Professional
Certification Series: Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server
If you’re a Mac geek who wants to make a living troubleshooting Macs, these are the certifications to get because they are your ticket to becoming a member of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN). ACNs can build a relationship with their local Apple store and get references for work that can’t be performed by Genius Bar techs, and they’re listed on the Apple Consultants Network website. The rest of this article is after the break.
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Popularity: 15% [?]
Apple posts new online seminars
One of the hidden gems of Apple.com is the collection of free web seminars available 24/7 that cover a wide range of topics and applications. A few weeks ago, Mat posted about the iWork for Business seminar, but a lot of other new seminars have been posted recently.
Some of the highlights:
- Mac for Computer Forensics and e-discovery
- New to the Mac for business users
- Podcast Producer
- News and Sports editing with Final Cut Pro
While a lot of the newest additions are aimed at OS X Leopard Server users or for business users, many of the tips and techniques can be applied for home users too. If none of the new seminars strike your fancy, the existing library of seminars offers some really nice introductions for creating podcasts, using Final Cut Studio or Aperture, and managing a Mac-based network.
Although the video seminars are free, registration is required. Thanks, Corey!
Popularity: 9% [?]
Apple leaves placeholder text in a published MobileMe page, eh?
Canada has many things going for it: maple trees everywhere, single-payer health care system and a one-of-a-kind Apple page. One of our readers just tipped us about an error on the MobileMe signup completion page for Canada. Apparently, Apple’s designers left in some placeholder text on the signup “thank you” page. While Apple does (yes, they really do) make some mistakes, leaving greeked text on a webpage isn’t usually one of them.
You can see the Freudian slip by visiting Apple’s Canadian MobileMe signup completion page. Read
Popularity: 9% [?]
Parallels Server for Mac available now
In October, when Apple introduced a change in policy allowing Leopard Server to run in a virtual environment on Apple hardware, Mac IT geeks everywhere looked forward to the day that they could run Windows Server, Linux and OS X Server all off their pretty Xserves. That day is today, because Parallels Server for Mac is now out of beta!
According to Parallels, this is the “…first server virtualization software to run on Intel-based Xserves…and to power VMs running on the Mac OS X platform.” Similar the the Parallels Desktop product, Parallels Server lets you run virtual instances of different operating systems on top of OS X Leopard Server, including Leopard Server. The next beta of VMWare’s Fusion, which like Parallels Desktop is a consumer product, will support Leopard virtualization as well, but Parallels Server is a little different and aimed at a different market.
The difference is that the hypervisor used in Parallels Server is hardware optimized and takes advantage of Intel’s VT-x acceleration (which new XServe and Mac Pros have) to provide a more robust experience with better allocation of resources and memory. This makes the experience much more akin to running a completely separate machine, as opposed to running one OS on top of another.
Yesterday, we reported on Media Temple’s new (xv) project, which is the first official service that will be run on Xserves running Parallels Server for Mac. The (xv) will be running multiple VMs of Leopard Server, but Parallels Server can also support Linux (Debian, SUSE, Red Hat and Ubuntu), Windows (Server 2008, Vista, XP and Server 2003 and Windows 2000) and FreeBSD 6 and 7 as guest OSes. So if you run your website off of CentOS (which is based off of Red Hat Enterprise) but your company network runs off of Leopard Server, you can do both off of one Xserve.
Make no mistake, this is an enterprise product, and as such, it is pricey. Parallels Server for Mac is $1248.75 for the software and one-year of support and maintenance and that’s before you add in the cost of any software licenses you might need, but that’s still a lot less expensive than another Xserve.
For enterprise users who are interested in virtualization, definitely check out the free trial.
Thanks Russ! Read
Popularity: 17% [?]
Graphics Powerhouse: ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC edition
Mac Pro users — it’s time to power up the graphics capability of your machine! ATI has announced the new Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition. Whether you’re a serious gamer or a graphics designer, this new card features 256-bit 512MB GDDR4 frame buffer memory, 320 stream processors, twin dual-link DVI ports to run two 30″ Apple Cinema HD displays, PCI Express 2.0 support, and more.
One of our readers pointed out that you can even use the HD 3870 in Windows running in Boot Camp on a Mac Pro. The Radeon HD 3870 runs in any Mac Pro and will be available in late June for a MSRP of $219.
Thanks to TJ & Seth for the tip! Read
Popularity: 16% [?]
