Linked List: August 28, 2009

Friday, 28 August 2009

RipIt 

My thanks to The Little App Factory for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote RipIt, their excellent simple DVD ripping app for Mac OS X. RipIt makes it easy and obvious to get your DVDs onto your computer, with a simple one-click interface. Check out the screencasts on their web site to see just how easy it is.

They’ve got a special offer for DF readers: save 25 percent off the regular $20 price through 31 August 2009, using the coupon code “DARINGFIRE2009”.

The iPhone Is Going to China 

China Unicom:

China Unicom and Apple have reached a multiyear agreement for China Unicom to sell iPhone in China. The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. We will share more details at that time.

Leander Kahney Disputes $2.4B iPhone App Store Estimate 

He quotes iPhone developers Layton Duncan and David Barnard, who present compelling numbers suggesting it’s about a $500 million business right now.

I Believe in Murphy’s Law 

How I upgrade to a new version of Mac OS X, from 2007:

So, in short:

  1. Do a complete backup clone to an external FireWire drive.
  2. Test that the backup is indeed bootable and up to date.
  3. Unplug the backup drive.
  4. Pop in the installer DVD and launch the “Install Mac OS X” app.

[Update: Starting with Snow Leopard, instead of booting from the DVD directly, you should instead pop in the installer DVD and launch the “Install Mac OS X” app on the disc. This will reboot your machine from the DVD, yes, but first it will download any necessary software updates that have come out since the disc was pressed. It’s a subtle but very nice improvement to the installer.]