For those who visit OS X 411 regularly, you may have noticed there haven’t been many recent posts, in fact this is the only post made for October 2008. The reason behind this is time. I haven’t had time to write articles. I do plan to continue writing, its just that I’ve had a lot to do with school, work and other projects. I expected this to happen and enabled user registration. This means you can write an article for OS X 411 (visit the write an article page for information on how to write).

Stay tuned…

As of today, OS X 411 now allows anyone to register for an account and submit articles to be published on the main blog. Anything you write that clears review will be published for the whole Mac community to see.

It’s simple to sign up, choose a username and supply an email address, we’ll then send you a temporary password for you to login with. Once your account is made you’ll be able to write and submit articles for our editors to review. For more on this process, visit OS X 411’s write an article page.

If you have news, tips, tricks or a how-to that has something to do with Apple’s Mac OS X, share it with the world: get it published on OS X 411.

More: Write an Article or Register for an Account.

Hello OS X 411 readers! Since your last visit to OS X 411 you may have noticed a few changes, namely the site design. OS X 411 now has a new theme styled like Leopard’s Aurora (or sky) background which has been used widely throughout the Mac community to represent Leopard.

OS X 411's July Changes

There will also be several other changes to the site in the next few weeks, namely a user-based system for writing articles so you and other readers can write and let your voices be heard by the Mac community. The details on this have not yet been worked out but it should work through Wordpress’ administration panel with editors having the final say on any article.

Stay tuned as the above mentioned items have taken a good deal of time to work out and have (unfortunately) taken time away from writing articles for OS X 411.

Steve Jobs’ Keynote was THE event here at WWDC, the event that everyone wanted to attend. While many people I spoke with in line waiting to grab a seat at the keynote came to WWDC strictly to watch the keynote, many others are here primarily for the sessions and labs. See my posts: Waiting in Line @ WWDC, The line moved… A little, and On the way to the Keynote.

At the keynote Steve introduced iPhone 3G, MobileMe and Snow Leopard, all of which were in one way or another predicted beforehand. The iPhone 3G is slimmer, blacker/whiter (in 16Gb only), faster, cheaper and available July 11th. MobileMe is replacing .Mac as Apple’s syncing and online storage service, Apple also extended support to Windows computers and added push services. Snow Leopard, the next version of OS X (10.6) was also announced and should be available in about a year. See my posts: Snow Leopard is the next OSX, iPhone 2.0 Software, MobileMe, iPhone’s First Birthday, iPhone 3G and WWDC: Day Two + Snow Leopard.

OS X 411’s coverage of WWDC08 was superb and I wasn’t expecting to to go so smoothly. Since I’m attending WWDC as a student I was worried about even getting into the keynote, last year Apple denied access to students. Luckily, this year Apple allowed everyone into the Keynote and I was lucky enough to grab close seats. Just how close? Well, we were less than twenty rows from the front, my friend Jason guessed about ten (see the picture below for the pure awesomeness). We had the actual iPhone development team sitting in the row in front of us, I’m not sure we could have gotten any closer, VIPs were in the closest rows, Al Gore was one of them.

In addition to having great pictures I updated the site with new information within seconds of it being said and had photos up shortly after I updated the text. Although I did not cover the keynote word-for-word like other sites, I got my readers the information FAST. The person I was attending WWDC with checked sites like Engadget, and I had photos and news up before them on a few announcements (I guess there is something to be said for the “little guy”).

I’m scheduled to attend Apple’s 2008 WWDC, and providing I can grab a seat at the Keynote (Monday @ 10AM PST) I’ll update OS X 411 with live updates. Check the tag wwdc08live for up to the minute updates as well as the main page. I will also be posting all announcements to the blog as individual posts.

I’ve been working on a few reviews for OS X 411 and have one almost finished (they take longer than I expected). I’ll be putting the text up shortly and I’m working on getting a video going too. The video of the programs seems to be taking me the longest to complete, and I may have to do without it. In these reviews I’m creating sections titled Background Information (which will have information like how much it costs, what it takes to run it, etc), What does it Do (is the main part of the review, its got a summary of what the application does and how to do it) and a final section titled My Thoughts (which covers the actual rating, my opinion on whether its worth buying/downloading and what I feel it could be used for). Another section I’ve prepared is the Video section, but that may not be in all reviews.

Well, I’ve somewhat decided what I’m going to do with this site. I still don’t have all the details worked out, but I’m hoping to use this site as a software review site. Yes… there are a lot of them out there already, but I hope to get a forum going here for discussions (instead of just comments on a blog).

I’m going to start off with software I use all the time, like QuickSilver, Growl and Adium (all freeware, and software I’m always using). I’m going to try to stick with freeware as much as possible because its great when people write free software for OS X (there is some great shareware out there too, but free stuff is better).

Once I get a few reviews up I’m going to get the word out about this site and hope to get some community involvement (in the forum).

Thanks for showing some interest,
Robert

I’ve been working on a new theme for most or all of my websites that use Wordpress. I’ve got it running on this site right now in a almost-finished state. I call it Retro Glass for its modern elements with shiny plastic/glass and its retro aspects like the header image.

Right now I’m still working on it so its not available for download yet. Depending on how well it looks and performs when I’m done with it will determine whether I offer it for download.

If or when I offer it to the public I’ll post something about it here and over at my personal site RobertHodgen.com.

I’ve moved OSX411.com over to a new server. I’m also reworking the site (what I think it should be, design, etc.). It’ll take me a little while to get the site put together (again) and to come up with new ideas for it. I’ll post about any new items that get put up.

Robert 

Thanks for visiting OS X 411, its a small blog that focuses on Apple and their operating system, OS X (as well as some hardware like the iPhone, their laptops and desktops).

Most of the stuff I post up here are solutions to problems I have had, or tips that I’ve come across that I feel other mac users could use. Check out the categories for posts tagged with specific information (tips, hacks, hardware, etc.).

OS X 411 has a RSS feed, I don’t post much, but I post stuff that I feel is important.

Thanks for visiting,
Robert