Rumours are coming in thick and fast about all sorts of new and refreshed Apple products. It would seem that they may just carry some weight as well. With many rumours about the release of a new iMac to be coming our way seemingly any moment now, it would seem appropriate that a facelift on the iMac would come with new peripherals – wouldn’t it?

AppleInsider mentions in this post on their website a few very notable points which certainly lead to a new release of an iMac, there’s news of supply lines for the current model being restricted. Now in the past when this has been the case with other products such as the iPhone, iPods & Laptops it has almost certainly meant that there’s a new model on the way. To complement this it has been just over two years now since Apple first released the aluminium iMac in it’s current shape, all of these things say to me that it may just be time for an update.

What really catches my eye though is the thought that there may also be new peripherals such as an updated Mighty Mouse and Keyboard to go along with it. Personally I love the aluminum keyboard that was released with the original aluminium iMac. I find it easy and quick to type on, while also being nice and quiet, however I am considerably more excited about the possibility of a new mighty mouse.

Endgadget posted an article the other day about how Apple applied for new patents on the Keyboard and Mighty Mouse, these details were released on the American FCC’s website just long enough for keen eyes to grab some screen shots with pictures and all. I really do find the current Mighty Mouse a great mouse to use, and I think that it complements OS X very well. The ability to use and customise so many different buttons on the mouse in such a user friendly way is something that I seen on many other mice out there to-date. My one and only complaint about the current mouse however is that of the scroll ball. When it works it is genius, but give it some time and some frequent use and this thing gets so gunked up it renders it almost unusable.

The patents that were released seem to hint towards the new mouse containing some sort of multi-touch technology, if this is something that can replace the scroll ball while still maintaining the great user experience then I say bring it on! Given that one of our mighty mouse has a scroll ball that needs cleaning every second day I say that it is definitely time for a new model to come out.

If you are anything like me, it drives me crazy when all I want to do is sync my phone with iTunes and every time I connect it – iPhoto opens. It opens whether there are new photos on my phone or not (thats possibly the most annoying part – please fix this Apple). So I went on a mission to find out how do disable iPhoto from automatically opening when you plug in an iPhone or digital camera. Turns out that it is pretty simple!

Essentially you just need to open iPhoto, select the ‘iPhoto’ menu > Preferences > General Tab > Connecting Camera Options > No Program

This will stop any programs automatically opening when you connect any iPhone or Digital Camera, and allows you to then manually open it when you see fit.

There are other options for doing this, such as using Image Capture. I think they may have taken this out in Snow Leopard 10.6 because I just can’t find it. But presumably in prior versions of OS X you can open Image Capture and follow a similar process to selecting which programs you want your computer to open when connecting a camera.

This is going to be a series of 5 posts, and before you turn off and get all offended about what I have to say, (I know there’s a lot of Mac haters out there) I know that there are a lot of things out there that Windows is better suited to. This however is aimed towards home users, people who don’t have a large IT department to go to in order to have their tech problems fixed, or have the will, determination or patience to solve these problems themselves.

I will start by saying that if you are a gamer and a serious one – you will undoubtedly be better off with a Windows machine. If you are the person that your family and friends come to when they have an issue with their computer then chances are that you have a pretty good knowledge of computers while also having the patience to troubleshoot when things go wrong. If you are this person then switching to a Mac may not suit you but wouldn’t be out of the question

I believe that the typical home user should be able to use their computer without having to worry about having to worry about knowing what a system registry / .dll file / driver is: they should have the ability to use their computer with ease and without frustration and know that when they open a program it is going to do what they want – the first time. It is for these people especially that I would suggest a Mac.

The thought of buying a computer can be daunting enough without even thinking about going to a system that you haven’t had any experience with – this I know – while I consider myself pretty technically savvy we had just had enough of our PC’s, they were giving us all kinds of trouble. Being the impulsive type of people we are, drove all the way to Brisabane (Toowoomba didn’t have anywhere selling Mac’s at the time) and purchases an iMac our first Apple product other than an iPod. We were walking back to the car with our new computer in hand and all I could think amongst the excitement was ‘Oh my God what have we done!! We don’t know the first thing about Mac’s and this could’ve been a very expensive mistake that we have just made’. It turns out that within the two years of our initial iMac purchase we were so thrilled with our new system that we had purchased another two laptops, our little Apple famliy.

So hopefully over the next couple of days as I post my 5 reasons for choosing a Mac over Windows, this may lessen your hesitance to buy a Mac and help you understand why I truly believe they are a better choice for the General home user.

You may enjoy these ‘Get a Mac’ ads from the Apple Website > click here

It is not very often that you hear about security vulnerabilities that affect the Macintosh operating system, in fact the ’security’ of running OS X is proudly flaunted by Apple, and for the most part it makes working in the OS X environment a pretty worry free experience. However as Apple’s market share increases and the Mac becomes a more prominent operating system it is only reasonable to assume that it may become more of a target for those bad guys out in cyber world who are writing all these nasty viruses and malicious software.

It was while listening to one of my favourite podcasts – MacBreak Weekly (can be found at twit.tv), that I came to hear about this vulnerability which all revolves around Java. Now for us lowly computer users Java is not something that we actively use, its an architecture or software which lives on your computer and allows you to access all that cool content on the internet. If you have ever played online games, used web based chat then you have inadvertently used Java.

The issue of concern for people running a Mac is that there is a flaw within Java, this flaw basically allows a remote person or malicious tool to gain access to your computers code (all the bits and bytes that run behind the glossy dock and shiny windows that we use everyday). And the more worrying thing is that if you were to come across a site that did take advantage of this vulnerability, it would get into your computer all without your knowledge.

So at this time the recommended fix for this to protect yourself from any potential exploits is to turn off Java in your internet browsers settings/preferences area. The other good thing at this point in time is that there are no known web sites or Java ‘applets’ that actually take advantage of this flaw, however having said this once the bad guys are aware there is a problem it wouldn’t take someone long to put a script together.

What bugs me more about this is that Apple have known about this flaw in Java for 5 months now, yet just a few days ago a Software Update was released and guess what…flaw not fixed…I would’ve thought that with five months up their sleeves that would’ve been plenty of time to get a fix underway.

Moral of this story, don’t be complacent on the internet Mac users. We all get a little lax when it comes to security as we usually take for granted that there are no real risks out there in the wild that is the internet. Hopefully now that this flaw has been made public by the security company Intego Security (the ones that came across it) it will prompt Apple to push out an update so we can once again be happy knowing that we are safe to browse the internet once again.