Apple Seeds Build 10F58 of Mac OS X 10.6.4

World of Apple Reports:

Apple today gave a select number of developers access to the fifth build of Mac OS X 10.6.4. Build 10F58 includes a multitude of fixes and like the previous build of Mac OS X 10.6.4 contains no known issues.

Mac OS X 10.6.4 build 10F58 weighs in at 593.2MB in its delta form.

Apple first began testing Mac OS X 10.6.4 towards the end of April, a public release is unknown at this point but will most like be in the June timeframe.

Included seed notes below.

Included in this update

  • Resolve an issue that causes the keyboard or trackpad to become unresponsive
  • Resolve an issue that may prevent some Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications from opening
  • Address issues copying, renaming, or deleting files on SMB file servers
  • Improve reliability of VPN connections
  • Resolve a playback issue in DVD Player when using Good Quality deinterlacing
  • Resolve an issue editing photos with iPhoto or Aperture in full screen view
  • Improve compatibility with some braille displays

Known Issues

None

Focus Areas:

  • Graphics Drivers
  • SMB
  • USB
  • Voice Over
  • VPN

Portal Update Released

Steam has just released a new Portal Update….

Portal Update Released: “Portal Update Released Updates to Portal have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

  • Portal Performance improvements
  • Fixed crash during offscreen rendering
  • Fixed overbright screen when rendering with Radeon X1x00 on 10.5.8
  • Fixed subtitle mode to not include sounds, use close captioned mode for that functionality
  • Fixed achievement awarding being delayed to map change
  • Fixed view jumping when coming back from the in-game UI to the game
  • Improved support for using the Command key as a key bind”

(View the rest of the article at Portal Update Released)

So YOU want to cosplay: An introduction

You wake up in the morning, practically vibrating in excitement, with the thought in your head: Today is the day.

What day is it? Why, the day of your first convention of course!

As you approach the front of the convention center, wearing your favourite superhero’s logo proudly across your chest, you suddenly are struck with a strange sense… because standing before you in the long line waiting for passes, is the living embodiment of the superhero you so love. For a moment you pause, unsure if you actually woke up that morning, so striking is this person before you. But after a swift pinch on the inside of your arm, you realize you are not dreaming and that very much is a flesh and blood rendition of your hero.

This phenomenon is called “Cosplay deja vu”, a term I just coined about five seconds ago. But if you are not familiar with the sensation that has been sweeping the Western geek world for the last ten years, you are soon going to find out more than you ever thought you needed to know. Cosplay is short for costume play, and as with most ridiculous things, it originated in Japan. The name is a pretty good indication of what is consists of: basically, a person attempts to replicate a character from some form of fandom, be it comic books, anime, live action TV, etc. At first it was not very big here in America, but as anime conventions became more popular more and more cosplayers began to pop up. Now the culture of it is huge, and it is uncommon to NOT experience cosplayers at a convention.

Read More via So YOU want to cosplay: An introduction.

News – New Release – F.E.A.R.

Steam / Valve now has the original FEAR trilogy available (FEAR, FEAR Extraction Point, and FEAR Perseus Mandate) available from the Steam Store for $9. This is a fantastic bundle, especially for $9.

One of the great first person shooters of all time is now available on Steam. This exciting package includes F.E.A.R, F.E.A.R. Extraction Point and F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate!

Be the hero in your own cinematic epic of action, tension and terror.

News – New Release – F.E.A.R..

Steam has some preliminary Mac Hardware survey information…

Here’s a sneak peak at some of the preliminary findings we’ve gathered about Mac hardware since we launched on that platform just over a week ago:

  • Roughly two thirds of all Steam Mac users are running on a laptop.
  • Portal (with the same code base across platforms) is one fifth as likely to crash on a Mac than on Windows.
  • And one week after launch, already more than eleven percent of all Steam purchases are for the Mac.

You’ll be able to dig deeper into those numbers sometime next month, which is when we’re planning to ship the complete report. After that it will be automatically updated each month with new survey data.

So…  The first week there was only roughly 10-15 games available for the Mac, and yet 11+% of their sales were for Macintosh versions…  Or played on Macintosh systems…

Portal is 4/5ths more likely to crash on a Windows system…

Hmm..  I can’t wait to see the full report…

(View the rest of the article at News – New Mac Games, Hardware Survey, and Portal)