I know it may sound a bit too much, but when looking back at the previous Mac Pro, there is only one word to describe the performance of the brand new Mac Pro, introduced earlier today:"insane". Why would I use such a radical word? Here you have the reasons...

The picture above doesn't look that impressive, isn't it? Well, don't expect an Alienware-like design for the Mac Pro, because it looks pretty good the way it is too, but let's leave the aesthetics aside and get down to business: 8 CPU cores, up to 4TB of internal storage, and a price for the standard configuration starting at "only" $2,799.

To get things lined up properly, I have to tell you that the new Mac Pro uses Penryn-based Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors running at speeds up to 3.2GHz, with 12MB of L2 cache per CPU, so you will get two quad-core processors and a total of 24MB of L2 cache, while the dual-independent 1600MHz front side buses will carry data to and from up to 32GB of 800MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory. According to Apple, the above should lead to an impressive 61 percent increase in memory throughput, compared to the "old" Mac Pro.

The standard graphics card included is an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of video memory, but you can install up to four graphics cards and use no less than 8 30 inch displays, in this case...

Did you have enough? Well, my head hurts. I feel like my 3-months old dual core system is completely outdated already, but that's life... so if you want to get your hands on "the most powerful Mac ever", as Apple says, go to this page. Oh! One more thing - don't forget to prepare those 2,799 bucks...

Without too much noise, NiXPS released version 2.0 of their XPS viewing & editing applications, called simply View and Edit. Since they are also available for the Mac platform, it's my pleasure to inform you that, if you need to use documents saved in Microsoft's XPS format on your Apple computer, these two options can be added to the list...

First of all, NiXPS View 2.0 for Mac is a pretty simple program, allowing you to view, print and search XPS documents. You can easily browse XPS files, using the table of contents or a thumbnail view to flip through the existing pages. Priced at $100, View 2.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, and a free trial can be downloaded from here.

At last, the Edit 2.0 software, as NiXPS' flagship product, can take care of four main tasks - document manipulation, object editing, text editing, and variable data handling. Its features include data merge and extraction capabilities, conversion to PDF, as well as the ability to create personalized emails and other documents using existing XPS files. Unfortunately, its price matches its features, so you'll have to spend no less than $400 to take full advantage of them, but a free trial is also available here. System requirements are the same as for View 2.0, so if you need to edit XPS files too, you can jump over that one and grab Edit 2.0 first.

If you're using a Mac, the options for instant messaging are pretty limited, and Adium was always one of the best choices for using multiple protocols and a single application. With support for AIM, YM, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ and more, Adium got its latest version out about a day ago, bringing the current version number to 1.2.



Adium 1.0 was released back in September 2001, when the program was created by a college student called Adam Iser. That program got a few upgrades, up to version 1.6, but when the Adium team started rewriting the initial code, they renamed the program to "Adium X", and brought the version number down to 0.89.1...

Version 1.2, the one released this last weekend, comes with a long list of features and fixes, that can be found here. Leaving various updates and fixes aside, the best thing is the extended language support, with the next localizations being available: Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English (Australian), Finnish, French, French Canadian, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Adium's capabilities can be extended by the use of additional plugins, as it happens with every "serious" program, in my opinion. The last version requires OS X 10.4 or greater, and if you're using OS X 10.3.9, you'll have to stick with Adium 1.0.6, or the old Adium 0.89.1, if you don't want to upgrade your OS X 10.2 yet.

Finally, if you want to download Adium 1.2, you can do it by clicking here. Since I didn't mention it yet, I will also add that this program is completely free to download and use, being released under the GNU General Public License.

The BitTorrent file transfer protocol is no longer a tabu subject, because in the last year, more and more software producers or web services providers took the steps required to turn their products into something that you wouldn't mind to know that your family is using. Anyway, about two days ago, we just got a brand new application for downloading files using the BitTorrent protocol, and since it works as a charm on Macs too, I have to tell you more about it...


The Mac OS X version of the Transmission software has a Leopard-like look and features group labeling, filtering and sorting, statistics and the ability to sort torrents by total activity, as well as the must-have feature which allows you to assign bandwidth as you need.

The main goal of this program is to help you download files as soon as possible, with as little influence on your current activities as you can get. Peers that send corrupted data are automatically banned, the Peer Exchange feature is built in, and everything is done in the background, as I was just saying.

The Mac version of Transmission requires Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5, and comes as a Universal Binary file which can be downloaded for free from here.

If there would be a way to extend your iPod's battery life without purchasing anything else, believe I would show that to you, but the only method I can think of is to use your iPod less...and that's not a good one, obviously. Fortunately, Energizer thought of something to help you keep you iPod's in business for a longer time...



Yesterday, the Energi To Go for iPod was revealed by Energizer, and this device is as simple as possible. While I was thinking about an additional power cell, before reading the whole mumbo-jumbo, things are not as I expected, because Energizer's Energi To Go uses two AA batteries, to give you over 40 hours of audio playback, or 11 hours of video, but only when used with Energizer's e2 Lithium cells. Obviously, different other batteries will produce better or worse results...The good part of the deal is that you'll also get two Energizer e2 Lithium batteries in the pack, but pricing and availability weren't announced yet. Anyway, one thing is sure - if you're going to CES 2008, you'll see the Energi To Go in action there, so try not to miss it!