Until now, if you had an older Mac Pro desktop computer from Apple, belonging to the first generation, the video card upgrades available were rather limited. The fastest mainstream graphics card available for these first-generation Mac Pro owners is still the older ATI Radeon X1900 XT, but that will change pretty soon...

<-120x240 Vertical Banner - left->The X1900 XT was a great card when it appeared, almost two years ago, and I wouldn't be ashamed with one in my computer at this time either, but there are better and more convenient solutions available at this time, such as ATI's HD3870 or NVIDIA's 8800GT, the one we'll talk about next.

GeForce 8800GT cards for Mac Pros are already available in Apple's online store, but their firmware requires the computer to have a free PCI Express 2.0 slot, and older Mac Pro computers don't have one. The strangest part of the problem is that most PCI Ex 2.0 cards on the market at this time have no problems working on old PCI Ex slots, but the 8800GT available to Mac users is an unfortunate exception...

The new Mac Pros come with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT card by default, and this one is far less powerful than the 8800GT, and even than the older X1900XT mentioned earlier, so it's expected that NVIDIA's decision to work on making the 8800GT compatible with older Mac Pro computers is a very good one.

Unfortunately, there is no clear information on when this is going to happen, but according to sources from NVIDIA, the new 8800GT for Macs should be available for purchase on Apple's website "in a few weeks".

We all know that the MacBook Air uses a smaller 45nm Penryn mobile CPU from Intel, right? Well, we knew that, because I just found out that information is not the truth(or the truth got a challenge, take it however you want)! According to some new reports, the heart of the MacBook Air is an Intel 65nm core that uses some technology taken from the future by the CPU giant, just for Apple...

If we look at those (few) images available with Air's processor, it becomes obvious the chip has been scaled down, but we can't get any information about the technology used in the core. The rumor is that Apple's MacBook Air has a modified version of the current 65nm mobile Core 2 Duo processor, but with smaller packaging, obviously. This is probably a custom-made Merom Core 2 Duo chip, so it's closely related to the one used already by Apple and a lot of other notebook manufacturers in their products!

According to sources from Intel, "The MacBook Air uses the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and Intel 965GMS chipset with integrated Gfx using a new miniaturized package technology". I see...pretty nice, so - despite all its detractors - Apple IS ahead of its competition.

"This new CPU and chipset allows for approximately 60 percent reduction in total footprint. The Core 2 Duo Processor TDP is 20 watts. The Macbook Air is using existing Core 2 Duo technology with a lower voltage spec in a new miniaturized packaging design. It is not a ULV processor.", Intel continued, so this should be settled - we don't have a completely new 45nm CPU inside the MacBook Pro, but I am sure we'll get one by the end of the year.

No matter how impressive may be the MacBook Air, everyone seems to have been expected more from this year's keynote. Well, unfortunately Steve Jobs is no magician, so he couldn't take a new iPhone or a completely new PMP out of its hat. Apple's gaining market share with each day that passes, and the company's value keeps going up, all backed up by a solid customer satisfaction rate...

Today, the MacWorld Conference & Expo closes its doors, but we'll have to wait less than a year until the next one. In a pretty interesting coincidence, both CES 2009 and MacWorld 2009 are going to start on the 5th of January, so some media people will probably get crazy in that period, for sure. The bad part is that the public will have to choose one of the two events, or go to both of them, and have less time to spend there. Well, that's life, but let's get back to our apples, shall we?

First of all, Greenpeace finally considered Apple's efforts of becoming a "green" company, calling the MacBook Air "a winner", and according to the ecologist organization, the mercury and arsenic-free laptop from Apple exceeds the European Standards and sets a new target in the field for other producers.

At last, the analysts expect Apple's hardware sales to go up on all fronts, not only powered by the success the MacBook Air will probably have, despite its pricing, considered too high by a lot of people. The ability to rent movies for a pretty low price using iTunes right on the Apple TV may revive the almost-buried device, because I am sure that Apple can do a lot more than just selling iPods (no offense intended, but the largest part of their revenue came from iPods for a pretty long time).

As things look in this moment, 2008 may be Apple's best year so far, but we just have to wait and see...

Since the 26th of October, last year, when Mac OS X Leopard was officially released, I had one big question in my mind: how is it going to stand up against Vista? I expected it to get a warmer welcome from its users, compared to Microsoft's latest OS, but I don't think even Steve Jobs dreamed to get so high as the last surveys show it...

The survey conducted between the 2nd and 8th of January by ChangeWave Research revealed that 17 percent of the 4,604 people questioned got an Apple notebook in the last 90 days, and 16 percent got an Apple desktop computer over the same time period. The fact that Apple's computer sales are going slowly but surely uphill is no big surprise, but the results regarding the operating systems and the customer satisfaction offered...just look at the image below!

As you can see, Vista Home Basic gets such a low customer satisfaction rating, that I think only a re-release of MS-DOS can get a worse result! With 27 percent, Vista Home Premium only stands at half the satisfaction rate provided by Windows XP, where the difference between the Home Edition and the Professional one is very small. At last, Leopard gets an amazing 81 percent, leaving me speechless. If you have something to say, please do, because I'll stop here. Any additional comment would be pointless...

Most people that have an iPod refine their music collection on and on, and the result, after some time, is that the iPod has only the songs they enjoy the most, so why lose time browsing through the CD collection when you're at home, when you can simply place your iPod into the audio system's dock and push the Play button? Oh, you may not have such a device...no problem, that's exactly what Xtreme Mac announced at this week's MacWorld!

Tango X2, pictured above, is the second edition from XtremeMac's Tango line, and comes with a subwoofer and an AM/FM digital radio packed in a compact unit, that won't take up half of your living room, for sure!

Just like the previous model, Tango X2 features precision tuned high dynamic speakers, tweeters and a subwoofer, but the improvement is the addition of the AM/FM radio with hidden display and 6 custom user presets. Also, being given the industry tendency to make things smaller(see the MacBook Air to get the whole meaning of this...), the Tango X2 is smaller than the original Tango.

Obviously, the feature remaining is the universal dock, able to charge and play any iPod having a dock connector(basically, all of them, except the iPod Shuffle), and to make things even more attractive, the Tango X2 also comes with an auxiliary line-in jack, so you can connect other devices to it as well.

Unfortunately, this product doesn't come cheap, in my opinion, because it's priced at $149.95, but since you won't find it in the stores yet, you have enough time to save some money for it, if you want it. On the other hand, if you're in a hurry, you can go to the official site and place your order now.