iTunes 11 is here and is really FAST.

It's FAST
iTunes is fast now. Which is crazy. iTunes hasn't been fast in years. But iTunes 11 feels legitimately lightweight and like something you wouldn't mind running all the time. That's a huge change. Search, scrolling, anything—in any view—is all lightning quick now.
Your Library Sidebar Is Gone
One of the biggest changes is how you get around in your Library. The old left-hand bar with Music, Movies, Podcasts, etc. is gone, replaced with a drop down in the top left of the app. The change frees up loads of screen space for more information, but also makes navigating to different forms of media slightly harder, so it's a trade-off. If you decide it's not worth the trade, you can get it back by clicking on View > Show Sidebar. You can get the status bar on the bottom back

Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac Released

Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac has just been released today as an upgrade for current users, and available to the general public for purchase on Tuesday (9/4).
 
New and enhanced features of Parallels Desktop 8 make life even better for Mac lovers. Bringing together the newest versions of the world’s two most popular operating systems – OS X and Windows – opens up a world of opportunity by allowing users to choose how they want Mac and Windows to collaborate. Here is a quick breakdown of how Parallels Desktop 8 integrates the cutting edge features within Mountain Lion and Windows 8: 
 

Vmware Fusion 5 Released And it Packs Over 70 New Features.

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VMware -- which specialises in virtualization and cloud infrastructure -- has announced VMware Fusion 5, which boasts over 70 new features for a "Windows on Mac" experience. In addition, VMware is introducing VMware Fusion 5 Professional with new capabilities designed to improve the way businesses and IT deliver applications to users on Macs and PCs.
"While the number of users adopting Macs continue to rise, the business environment is still dominated by Windows," says Jason Joel, director, personal products, VMware. "VMware Fusion 5 and Fusion 5 Professional build upon our award-winning platform, adding new capabilities that are in demand among both individual and professional users



Leveraging our experience with consumer and enterprise end-users, we believe this new version of the product is the best solution on the market for users who want to run Windows on Mac simultaneously."
The VMware Fusion 5 product family offers a way to run Windows on a Mac for individual or business use. VMware Fusion 5 has been revamped to take advantage of new technologies only available in Mountain Lion, Windows 8 and the latest Macs.

Commandline Junkies new tools in Mountain Lion.

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Terminal junkies, Mountain Lion has brought some new command-line utilities. Perhaps the most notable is fdesetup, which Apple explains briefly: "fdesetup allows third-party management tools to enable FileVault, determine encryption status, capture and manage recovery keys, and add users to a FileVault-encrypted system as well as synchronize directory-based user authentication credentials with the local credentials for FileVault access."
Apple provides a 'man' page for fdsetup, but if you want more information about it, Rich Trouton at Der Flounder has a very thorough walk-through with a bunch of screenshots and excellent explanations. I'm definitely keeping this one in Pinboard for the inevitable day when I want or need to use fdsetup. I'm also glad to have a more low-level tool for working with FileVault.
I had written previously about the "hoops" which were necessary to disable certain users from being able to unlock the computer with FileVault. That process is now a lot easier.
But wait, there's more!
Patrix over at the Ask Different blog discovered several other new command-line utilities. Some of them are generic Unix utilities (pgrep and pkill) but there are also some OS X specific ones, including:
◦ caffeinate – prevent the system from sleeping on behalf of a utility
◦ serverinfo – determine server status (is this OS X Server, and, if so, are these things enabled)
◦ sharing – create share points for AFP, FTP and SMB services
◦ tccutil – manage the privacy database
See the original article for more details. Of these, caffeinate seems like the most interesting. I have used Caffeine, the free app from Lighthead Software, to keep my Mac awake at times, but being able to do it in shell scripts could definitely come in handy.
Still missing your favorite Unix utility?

If Mountain Lion still doesn't have your favorite utility, don't forget you have other options. I have used Rudix when I wanted precompiled binaries, and Homebrew when I want to make my own. Mostly these days I stick with Homebrew, which is regularly updated by a bunch of people, versus Rudix which has a smaller library and seems to be mostly the labor of love of one developer.
Others may prefer Fink or MacPorts; I have used both in the past but haven't kept up with them recently. Both of them appear to have been updated for Mountain Lion.

Get A Thunderbolt Hackintosh! Z77X-UP5 TH Motherboard with Thunderbolt

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Found this great read for all you Hackintosh people. Complete with Video

A quick look at a new motherboard from Gigabyte that's well suited for Hackintosh builders. The Z77X-UP5 TH includes two 10 Gb/second Thunderbolt ports. This video look at Apple's Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter and the 12 TB Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID on this Ivy Bridge Hackintosh.

Mountain Lion’s New File System by oliver reichenstein

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Here is a very interesting article on the "new" file system in Mountain Lion. It's a bit of a brain bender but if you read right through it you'll get the idea.
It's not forcing you to work a new way at all as I first though but the in App structure, like IOS, is quite an interesting idea. Just read on and you'll see what Oliver has discovered. Make sure you read it right through to the end to really get it and how theres some interesting logic here.

Apple has been working on its file system and with iOS it had almost killed the concept of folders — before reintroducing them with a peculiar restriction: only one level! With Mountain Lion it brings its one folder level logic to OSX (no again this is not forced). What could be the reason for such a restrictive measure?
Classic folder systems don’t perform too well. One reason is that organizing folders is engaging in the tiring discipline of information architecture. Information architecture is hard brain work. Just like a chess problem, it seems obvious once done, but takes considerable mental energy to figure out a clear and simple information architecture. And mainly, you just don’t want to do it all the time. Tying folders (sort of) to an app and reducing them to one level could solve a lot of these problems.
Folders-in-folders don’t work
The folder system paradigm is a geeky concept. Geeks built it because geeks need it. Geeks organize files all day long. Geeks don’t know and don’t really care how much their systems suck for other people. Geeks do not realize that for most people organizing documents within an operating system next to System files and applications feels like a complicated and maybe even dangerous business. Remember that autoexec.bat file?

Mountain Lion Tweaks, Niggles and a few adjustments to help

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I now have Mountain Lion successfully installed on 2 systems (I haven't tackled my Hackintosh yet and probably won't for a while)
Things have gone well, theres been the odd head scratch and then realisations of whats going on. Most things are great but there are a few niggles and one I haven't quite figured out yet. Ill start with it.

Mountain Lion's Notification Center And How To Get It Working Your Way.

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Notifications can be tweaked on Mountain Lion to suit most any workflow.

Getting Mountain Lion's new system-wide notifications to work best for your own needs may take a little adjusting. Notification Center gives developers an (official) standardized way to send notifications to the user, but also a way to consolidate and control those notifications. We show you how to make the most of what this first desktop incarnation of Notification Center offers.
Apple provides system-wide notification APIs to developers, but it is up to them to support it. Apple has naturally included support in its own apps, such as Mail, Messages, and Reminders; Safari also supports notifications sent from webpages using the Web Notifications API. Some Twitter clients, such as the Tweetbot alpha, support notifications, but alas, the languishing official Twitter client does not. Other applications, such as Outlook 2011, still rely on their own notification system. Plenty of others rely on Growl, a popular third-party OS X notification system that thankfully can still run on Mountain Lion.
Taking control

Apple releases Power Nap-enabling firmware updates for recent MacBooks

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With Mountain Lion, Apple includes a Power Nap feature that allows recent SSD-equipped MacBooks to perform certain jobs while asleep, including backing up to Time Machine, checking for email messages, and performing some iCloud synchronization tasks. But owners of some MacBook Airs (2011 or newer) and retina display MacBook Pro models found Power Nap conspicuous in its absence when Mountain Lion was first released.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Apple made a firmware update for these Macs—called MacBook Air SMC Firmware Update 1.5 for the MacBook Air models—available via Software Update. Once you download the update, you just double-click it to run it. You’ll be prompted to restart your Mac and then the update will be applied. On a 2012 13-inch MacBook Air that process took a couple of seconds.
To make sure the update was applied correctly, launch System Preferences, select the Energy preference, and look for the Enable Power Nap option in the resulting window.

Apple Releases Mountain Lion review and details.

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Apple Released Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 today. It's the the Little Details that can make a big difference and here are some of them
A lot goes into a major update to an operating system. Rather than write yet another comprehensive review we want to touch on features and shortcuts that you might not easily encounter on your own — or that we think are so cool they deserve mention.

Apple to ship Mountain Lion on 25th July (US)

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Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would ship Mountain Lion, the latest version of its OS X operating system, starting Wednesday.
COMPLETE COVERAGE
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)
Mountain Lion features you may have missed … Read on ….

Microsoft backtracks on Macs and Office 365

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Microsoft Office for Mac will be offered 'at no additional cost' to subscribers of Office 365 pay-as-you-go plans

Computerworld - Saying that a spokeswoman "misunderstood" questions from Computerworld, Microsoft today backtracked and confirmed that Mac owners who subscribe to the upcoming Office 365 Home Premium will be able to acquire Office for Mac 2011 as part of their subscription plan.
Previously, the company had said that Mac owners would have to purchase Office for Mac 2011 separately -- at list prices starting at $120 -- but could link a copy of the suite to their Office 365 subscription plan for some basic file sharing functionality. Read on …………….

Apple unveils next generation MacBook Pro with Retina display; updates other MacBook models

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Along with updating the existing MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, Apple has reinvented the MacBook Pro with a Retina display, as announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote on Monday.
The standout feature of the Retina-display model is the brand-new, high-density display. The new MacBook Pro's 15.4-inch (diagonal) screen has four times the number of pixels as the previous model at 2880 (horizontal) by 1800 (vertical), for a total of 5,184,000 pixels or 220 pixels per inch.
Despite its glossy screen, it has a 178-degree wide viewing angle, has 75 percent less reflection, and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation, Apple says. The company says it was able to achieve this reduction in glare by building the layers of the display into the laptop’s Unibody frame, eliminating the need for a separate cover of glass.

The laptop has a 2.3GHz quad-core i7 processor with 8GB of 1600MHz RAM (upgradeable to up to 16GB), a GeForce GT 650M graphics processor with 1GB of VRAM, and 256GB of flash storage.
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display weighs 4.46 pounds, heavier than a MacBook Air, but similar in weight to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Like the new Air, it has no optical drive. Closed, it’s 0.71 inch thick—about as thick as the base of the old MacBook Pro but about as thin as an Air. Unlike the current wedge-shape of the MacBook Air, this laptop has a uniform thickness.
The new MacBook Pro with Retina display offers up to seven hours of battery life and 30 days of standby. Apple noted that the battery cells take up much of the interior. Built around flash storage, users can opt (when ordering) to equip the new MacBook Pro with up to 768GB of internal flash storage. It also features the fastest graphics on a Mac laptop—Nvidia GeForce GT 650M.
The laptop also has 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0. a FaceTime HD camera, and dual microphones using beam-forming technology. There’s also the obligatory glass Multi-Touch trackpad and backlit keyboard.
It also features an SD-card slot, HDMI out, two USB3/USB2 ports (one on each side), two Thunderbolt ports, and a headphone port. Apple also announced Thunderbolt-to-FireWire 800 and Thunderbolt-to-Gigabit ethernet adapters. The new MacBook Pro also ships with a new, thinner MagSafe 2 power port.
Apple spaced the fan blades asymmetrically so that the fan noise is not a uniform sound, but more dispersed. The laptops is also environmentally friendly, with Energy Star 5.2 certification, and is arsenic-free, BFR-free, and PVC-free. It is also highly recyclable, and has mercury-free glass.
Prices for the new MacBook Pro with Retina display start at $2199. It’s available immediately.
Updates to non-Retina MacBook Pro models
In addition to introducing the MacBook Pro with Retina display, Apple has updated the standard MacBook Pro line.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is now available with a 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 500GB hard drive starting at $1199; and with a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, and a 750GB hard drive starting at $1499.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 4GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and a 500GB hard drive starting at $1799; and with a 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, and a 750GB hard drive starting at $2199. Build-to-order options include faster quad-core processors up to 2.7GHz, additional hard drive capacity up to 1TB, and solid state storage up to 512GB.
Both 13-inch and 15-inch (non-Retina) MacBook Pro models can be upgraded to 16GB of memory, but, oddly, Apple doesn’t offer build-to-order upgrades for the non-Retina models.
There were no announcements regarding the 17-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple’s MacBook Pro release came as the company also updated its MacBook Air lineup with new processors and USB 3.0 integration.

MacBook Air gets new processors, adds USB 3.0

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Apple introduced new Macbook Air models at Monday morning’s WWDC keynote.

The new Airs—which come in 11-inch and 13-inch models—run on Intel’s third-generation Core processor (Ivy Bridge) family: a Core i5 chip in the standard configurations, with a Core i7 processor available as a build-to-order option. The updated laptops ship with 4GB of memory, but you can expand that to 8GB.
The updated MacBook Airs now come with USB 3 in addition to USB 2. There's still a single USB port on each side of the laptop, but each incorporate both standards so you don’t have to think about which one to plug into, according to Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller. A high-speed Thunderbolt port alongside lets you easily connect to external displays and a variety of other peripherals. The 13-inch model also has an SD card slot. Both sizes feature an updated MagSafe 2 power port, which uses the same technology as the original MagSafe port but has been slimmed down for a lower profile.

The MacBook Air’s FaceTime camera has been updated to match the MacBook Pro's FaceTime HD version, offering 720p resolution.
Schiller claimed that the new Air's 1600MHz RAM offers better performance than the memory in the previous generation Air, and the new Intel HD Graphics 4000 offers up to 60 percent faster graphics performance. The new Air also uses a faster SSD (solid-state drive) for storage; Schiller said the new SSDs can provide data-read speeds up to 500MBps, which is up to twice as fast as the SSDs in the previous models.
Configurations and options
The 11-inch MacBook Air features a 1.7GHz dual-core i5 processor and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor. It comes in a 64GB-SSD configuration for $999 and a 128GB configuration for $1099—that’s $100 less than Apple charged for the previous higher-end 11-inch model. Both 13-inch MacBook Airs got a $100 price cut, too: The 128GB model costs $1199 while the 256GB version costs $1499. Those 13-inch laptops feature a 1.8GHz dual-core i5 processor and 4GB of memory. All Airs feature Bluetooth 4.0, stereo speakers, and an omnidirectional microphone.
Build-to-order options for the MacBook Air include a 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 processor, up to 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 onboard memory and up to 512GB of flash-memory (SSD) storage.
The 13-inch MacBook Air delivers up to 7 hours of wireless battery life, while the 11-inch MacBook Air provides up to 5 hours, Apple says. Their batteries use advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology to provide up to 1,000 recharges, according to the company.
Availability
The new MacBook Airs ship immediately. They ship with OS X Lion, and starting today, customers who purchase a Mac are eligible for a free copy of Mountain Lion when it becomes available.
Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available from

Mountain Lion Info: to ship in July for $20 USD

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In Monday’s keynote address at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed several new tidbits about Mountain Lion—including its ship-date.
Apple’s vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, took the stage to announce that Apple’s newest OS X release will be ready for consumers to download in July. He also chose eight new features to highlight during the keynote, including some—such as Dictation on the Mac and Power Nap—that weren't included in the Mountain Lion preview we saw in February.
iCloud
OS X Lion already integrates with Apple’s iCloud service, but Mountain Lion is taking that integration a step further with Documents in the Cloud. The February demo briefly touched on this feature, showing off integration in Preview; at the keynote, Federighi announced that the cloud data service will now be integrated with other Apple apps (including the iWork suite).

Developers will be able to enable iCloud integration in their own programs (though presumably only those that have been sandboxed) by using a software development kit. Federighi also briefly demonstrated iCloud syncing for Reminders, Notes, and Messages.
Notification Center
Borrowing a card from iOS’s deck, Mountain Lion sports its own Notification Center for apps and alerts. At the keynote, Federighi showed off a new icon for the service along with a Do Not Disturb option and auto-disabling when your Mac is connected to a projector.
Dictation comes to the Mac
No, Mountain Lion users won’t get Siri just yet, but Apple is bringing forth system-wide dictation. It reputedly works anywhere on your Mac that you can type, including third-party apps—even, as Federighi joked, in "Microsoft Word!"—and websites.
Sharing
Mountain Lion’s extended sharing features have been pretty well-documented, and Federighi gave a brief rundown of those during the keynote, mentioning built-in support for Twitter and Flickr sharing anywhere that you can Quick Look a file. Developers will also be able to add a standard Share button to their apps. It also appears that Mountain Lion will finally introduce the long-rumored integration with Facebook to OS X.
Safari
We’ve previously covered Safari’s new unified search bar and faster JavaScript rendering engine in Mountain Lion. At the keynote, however, Federighi unveiled iCloud Tabs, which uses Apple’s sync service to let you quick access any tabs open on your other iCloud-enabled devices.

Power Nap
A new Mountain Lion feature exclusive to SSD-equipped Mac laptops, Power Nap works behind the scenes to keep your Mac up to date while it’s sleeping or you aren’t using it. With Power Nap enabled, your Mac can automatically sync email, calendar appointments, notes, and reminders; update Photo Stream; download app and OS updates; and back up to a Time Machine drive.
AirPlay Mirroring
Good news, streamers: You’ll be able to mirror your Mac's screen to your Apple TV (at resolutions up to pixel-for-pixel 1080p) using the Mac’s new AirPlay menu-bar control. You'll also be able to use AirPlay to stream any audio from your Mac to AirPlay-enabled audio systems.
Game Center
In another move to unify accounts across iOS and OS X, you’ll be able to use your iOS Game Center login to keep track of your Mac games and achievements in Game Center. You can also challenge your friends to turn-based or head-to-head games, either Mac-to-Mac or iOS-to-Mac (assuming the game has App Store options for both iOS and Mac users).
Aside from those major features, Federighi also mentioned VIPs in Mail, Launchpad search, Gatekeeper, offline reading for your Safari Reader list, and new features for Chinese users.
Developers also have a lot to look forward to with SDKs for iCloud and Game Center along with more than 1700 new APIs for sharing, Notification Center, high-resolution graphics, gestures, and more.
Mountain Lion is set to ship sometime in July via the Mac App Store. Anyone who purchases one of Apple’s new laptops is eligible for a free upgrade; otherwise, you can upgrade for just $20 if you’re running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later.

Mac Flux Web Design Software Updated to version 4.

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Grab a demo copy from http://www.theescapers.com/ and have a play. There are screencast to check out too.
Grab the quick start PDF its easy to follow and steps you through building a whole website.

Great news if your into web design, the highly successful Flux WYSIWYG web design software just got a major update to version 4
theescapers just released version 4 today with some great new features.
Flux is an advanced HTML5 Web Design application, capable of creating stunning sites from scratch. Flux isn't a template based solution, though it does have a few templates, it's a creative design environment. Flux has comprehensive support for HTML and CSS, including Image Maps, CSS Gradients, custom fonts, and almost everything else. What makes Flux stand out for me is the WYSIWYG interface which is unlike anything else I've seen. You don't need to know code at all but at the same time the code is all there for you to use if you want. You can import existing sites and it immediately shows in Flux as a beautiful WYSIWYG interface.

Heres whats new in version 4.

New in Version 4
Embedded Inspector

Do everything from a single window.

FreeCode

FreeCode allows you to code however you want, but still allows you to make changes visually.

All New FTP

FTP and SFTP completely re-written, rock solid and dependable.

Gradients

A graphical CSS gradient editor makes this complex area simple, and you can easily export the gradients as images for backwards compatibility.

Image Maps

Full support for MAP and AREA tags, complex polygons can be easily manipulated.

AutoComplete

AutoComplete knows your code, completing tags, colors, even image paths.

What You See Is What You Get

Flux has an amazing WYSIWYG rendering engine, which means you can drag, stretch, and move objects like a you can in a DTP application, and your webpages will look exactly how you intended.*Flux will generate all the code for you, with no unneccesary tags.
Size, position, even margins and padding can be altered with handles on the elements themselves. If the properties are stored in external CSS stylesheets, these are automaticaly updated.
*On standards compliant web browsers
Code

If you’d rather type your code, you can do that too. The objects you create in the Code Editor will appear on the page as soon as you stop typing, they can then be edited using the WYSIWYG display.
Flux doesn’t make a distinction between typed code, or objects created by Flux, you can create anyway you like, and Flux will understand.
The Flux Code Editor has syntax highlighting for HTML and CSS, auto-completion and line numbering.
FreeCode allows you to type any code you want, yet Flux still understands and allows you to use WYSIWYG controls or handcoding.


Grab a demo copy from http://www.theescapers.com/ and have a play. There are screencast to check out too.
Grab the quick start PDF its easy to follow and steps you through building a whole website.

Intel's Unreleased Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K Running Mac OS X Lion

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Thanks to TonyMac for this info
Well it's official- Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge platform runs great on Mac OS X Lion. Here's a few screenshots of the Core i7-3770K running at stock 3.5GHz on a Z77 motherboard submitted to us via an anonymous tip:



 
Because there are no Macs yet with Ivy Bridge, the tipster had to use a modified kernel to boot. We can't wait to test out these chips to see what else they can do. Intel's official release date for Core i7 and Core i5 desktop CPUs is April 29th. Check out the Hardware News and Rumorssection of the forum for more information on upcoming products. 

For discussions on this and other topics, register today at tonymacx86.com!

XBMC 11.0 - Eden released

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It's been over a year in development so it's great news that the latest major release of XBMC (11.0) is finally ready and available for download. You can find XBMC 11.0 here.


XBMC 11.0 Milestones include Addon Rollbacks, vast improvements in Confluence (the default skin), massive speed increases via features like Dirty-region rendering and the new JPEG decoder, a simpler, better library, movie set scraping, additional protocol handling, better networking support, better handling of unencrypted BluRay content and structures, adjustable display refresh rate in OSX (to match the already available feature in Windows and Linux), AirPlay support, an upgraded weather service with geoip lookup, and much, much more. Check out the highlights in the summarized changelog.

The new Confluence

In addition to our many software improvements, we’ve increased our reach in the realm of hardware support since Dharma was released. Eden marks the first in-sync stable release for the Apple TV2, iPad, and other iOS devices. We’ve vastly improved the method by which we handle input, including heavily upgrading JSON-RPC support, making remote control support much, MUCH simpler in Windows, and enabling unique methods of device communication with hardware. And now even AMD devices are supported for GPU video decoding in Linux to some extent, thanks to the inclusion of VAAPI.
Beyond XBMC 11 for Windows, Linux, OSX, and iOS, we are also happy to announce XBMCbuntu Final.
XBMCbuntu is very similar to past versions of XBMC Live. By default, the user boots directly into XBMC, and if he/she chooses, he or she will never see the underlying OS. However, unlike Live, XBMCbuntu is now built upon a full LXDE desktop environment, which has a web browser (Chromium) with a fully updated (and updatable) version of Flash built-in and a GUI package manager ready to install and update all of the normal Ubuntu programs a typical Linux user might use. The user may now toggle between XBMC, which auto-starts, and a normal desktop if he or she chooses. And, perhaps most exciting for many users, XBMC will now be upgradeable, both from command line and from the GUI package manager, without fear of crashing the XBMC experience.
Naturally, those users who do not want to see the desktop will never need to. When you boot your computer, you will be booted directly into the XBMC homescreen, just as you are right now. The only clear difference is the new power underneath the hood. Those users who have already installed the Beta version of XBMCbuntu can upgrade to final using the apt-get upgrade commands.
There are truly an incredible number of updates and improvements between Dharma and Eden. But don’t take our word for it. Download XBMC 11.0 Eden now.

Mountain Lion 2nd release reveals Twitter notices, contacts protection

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The second developers release of OSX Mountain Lion has been released to developers and a few new things have shown up. More to come no doubt.






New iCloud service may sync open tabs as well
Among the small but significant changes are automatic Twitter notification options, a new iCloud button in Safari that will let users sync tabs across devices, and more explicit permission in OS X when an app wants to access personal information stores such as the Address Book.
The latter change reflects a move already made in iOS 5.1 to better protect users' contacts after it was discovered that a number of apps were circumventing Apple guidelines and uploading personal information without explicit user permission. Mountain Lion will also feature a new "Privacy" panel in System Preferences where users can manage what apps can access in terms of personal data, MacRumors reports.

Mark Gurman notes that users of Mountain Lion DP2 can also opt to have Twitter for Mac notifications turned on, which lets replies and direct messages be shown on the desktop in the Growl-like Notification Center that is set to be another new feature in Mountain Lion. Also noted is a new optional "iCloud" button that offers to sync open tabs between devices, letting a user start web surfing on one device and continue on another. The syncing may also preserve the previous state of the tabs (a feature found in Lion already) so that all tabs can be re-opened on a new launch.

Mountain Lion is expected to be released this summer.

Parallels Desktop Update Supports Windows 8 Preview, Mountain Lion

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Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac has been updated to provide experimental support for Windows 8 Consumer Preview, including simple download and automatic installation of Windows 8 via the Parallels New Virtual Machine Wizard.  
The update also adds experimental support for OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview as both a host and guest.  Now Mac enthusiasts and developers alike can safely try Windows 8 Consumer Preview and OS X Mountain Lion in Parallels Desktop 7 virtual machines to protect their Mac from potential mishaps or corruption of important files that can occur with preview versions of software, says Parallels CEO Birger Steen.
Additionally, Parallels Mobile users can remotely access and control their Mac as well as its Windows 8 and OS X Mountain Lion virtual machines, applications and files, via their iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. A free trial of the No. 1-selling Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac software is available for download at http://www.parallels.com/desktop.   Current Parallels Desktop 7 users can get the update by selecting the Parallels Desktop menu and clicking Check for Updates. 
 
Parallels allows you to get and automatically install the free Windows 8 Consumer Preview by going to the Parallels Desktop menu and selecting File, New and Windows 8 Consumer Preview in the Parallels New Virtual Machine Wizard. In just a few clicks, Parallels Desktop 7 automatically downloads and installs Windows 8 Consumer Preview (English, German, French, Japanese or Chinese simplified) in a new virtual machine so you can discover and play with the dramatically redesigned Windows operating system and use your Mac OS X applications and files at the same time – without rebooting. 
 
Microsoft recommends that users don’t install Windows 8 Consumer Preview on their primary machine, given that is not a final version and could crash, causing the loss or corruption of important files. If Windows 8 crashes or corrupts files when it is running in a Parallels Desktop 7, you can simply delete the Windows 8 virtual machine and start over without any damage to your Mac.