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The following is a compensated review for PokerStars for Mac.

If you’ve ever played online poker, you’re probably familiar with PokerStars.com, one of the most popular poker sites on the Web. The ‘Mac-friendly’ poker reference site PokeronaMac.com, is reporting that the Mac version of PokerStars’ downloadable PC client will be hitting the Web soon. If you want, there’s a place to voice your support of the new Mac version, and press PokerStars for its release.

Now, it’s pretty neat that PokerStars is choosing to support a Mac client, especially in light of the fact that most new Macs will run Windows just fine. It speaks to the volume of PokerStars’ subscriber base that they have seen a significant demand for a Mac client from their customers. However, what I don’t understand about PokerStars or many of the other popular poker sites is simply why a well-written Java client is not the standard. Java will run on Mac, Windows, and even Linux, and it’s this sort of thing that the sometimes cumbersome, always lethargic language was designed for. There’s no offline play in the downloadable clients of any of the companies, as far as I know, so it seems that there’s no reason to use the player’s computer as the source of the application, when a universal client-server language exists that is universally compatible with all desired target platforms.

In spite of this note (and perhaps someone from PokerStars will care to comment), I think it is pretty nifty that the Mac client will be coming out. I’m only a little hesitant because there doesn’t seem to be a release date on PokerStars.com or PokeronaMac.com for the Mac client, and this wouldn’t be the first time that such a project never appeared after a lot of advance publicity. I certainly hope this isn’t the case here, but only time will tell. Until then, hope springs eternal!

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Our resident Apple toady made a passing remark this morning to me after seeing a colleague’s new iPhone, something like this: “Hey, his iPhone’s better than your BlackBerry.” Now, my BlackBerry is about three years old, nowhere near top-of-the-line, yet that horribly biased statement got me thinking. After all, it’s undeniable that the iPhone’s Mac OS X-based environment is slicker and prettier than the BlackBerry’s rather austere JAVA environment. But the point of a smartphone is, for lack of a better word, to be smart, and the BlackBerry still does a better job.

It boils down to one thing above all else, beyond the minor problems like no expansion slots and no one-touch phone dialing (the other half of ’smartphone’): no 3rd-party apps. Apple, as has always been their hallmark, wants to keep everything in-house, so we get a phone that shows Youtube, but not Flash-based content on the bundled Safari browser. And, we get a phone that can do barely a tenth of what my JAVA-based phone can. Here’s what my BlackBerry can do right now that the iPhone will never be able to do:

1. S/FTP access
2. Remote Desktop access
3. VNC access
4. SSH
5. Opera Mini browser
6. SharkModem tethered modem software

The list goes on, but the point is that RIM made a good decision to go with a technology that was demonstrating itself both universal and capable of being deployed on handheld devices. All of the apps I’ve mentioned are 3rd-party, and I’m not counting gadgets like Gmail which may be on both phones. Apple decided to keep everything tightly under wraps, and now they’ve delivered a phone that’s glitzy and slick, but also inherently limited in scope. And that’s why the BlackBerry line is still better.

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Gizmodo has released a short bullet-point list of the features the iPhone doesn’t have. These are not just annoyances, like the fact that you can’t really dial a number without bringing up a virtual keypad; they’re full-blown problems that should remind everyone that, when it comes to copyright protection, only Apple sees themselves as more invulnerable than Microsoft. I’ll explain in a minute. First off, here’s the list:

• Songs as Ringtones
• Games
• Any flash support
• Instant Messaging
• Picture messages (MMS)
• Video recording
• Voice recognition or voice dialing
• Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Streaming (A2DP)
• One-size-fits-all headset jack (May have to buy an adapter for certain headphones)

Stuff we already knew it didn’t have
• 3G (EV-DO/HSDPA)
• GPS
• A real keyboard
• Removable battery
• Expandable Storage
• Direct iTunes Music Store Access (Over Wi-Fi or EDGE)

Let’s recap. Clearly, Apple went for the multimedia experience here, and a keyboard and buttons would’ve just gotten in the way. Now, why doesn’t the battery come out? Didn’t Apple learn from its previous iPod debacle that preventing customer access to easy replacement for a part that is known and expected to wear out is a terrible business tactic? And on a similar note, it’s great to have 4 or 8 gb of storage built in, but what if I want to save some mp3s on a miniSD card on my computer, then put it in the iPhone to play? Never mind that, actually. iTunes’ “you don’t really own the song you just bought” mentality will surely wipe any musical bit or byte right off any external card or device. It gets better, too. Since you only bought your iTunes mp3 to listen to on mp3 players, you can hear it on your iPhone, but not as a ringtone. Why? Because then they can’t sell you a 30-second excerpt of the same song for another $2 fee.

Furthermore, it’s clear that the phone itself isn’t the leap forward in technology that Apple claims it will be. The recent ad campaign which features Youtube on the iPhone cleverly masks the fact that the phone doesn’t have Flash support, meaning it couldn’t play Youtube videos through its mini Safari browser, only through the proprietary app. Other multimedia content, in other words, is out of reach, making the Youtube offering just a semi-useless carrot to entice the teen crowd. Also, Mossberg’s review of the typing says that, while the iPhone did a good job of guessing what he’d typed (it can’t be possible to push the right ‘virtual’ key on a tiny touchscreen keyboard all the time), it wasn’t as smart as the Blackberry’s word recognition.

Finally, of course, the thing only runs on AT&T’s recently acquired EDGE network, which certainly won’t help me where I live, and probably will only work (and slowly) for people in major metropolitan areas. Plus, the iPhone’s $499 (for the 4gb) or $599 (for the 8gb) price tag is deceptive when compared to other phones, since there’s no way to get a discount on the iPhone with a new service contract. In other words, a BlackJack, which lists at $199, but is free with most contracts, is actually a full $500 cheaper than the iPhone, not merely $300. Just another way for Apple to suck more of its annual tithe out of its devout following of trendies.

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The following walkthrough was submitted to macwindows.com a few years ago by one Todd Miller, and seems to work well for anyone who, through whatever circumstance, is using a Mac / Apple keyboard on their PC. For the truly lazy, here’s the actual .reg file you’ll be creating as a zipped download: Remap Apple Keyboard F13-F15 for Windows (426). Just unpack it and double-click it to change the registry to remap the appropriate keys to F13-F15. NB: This probably won’t work for G4 (black on clear) Mac keyboards. The reason is the numpad, which inexplicably has a second “=” on it, even though there’s one right next to the “delete” key (hey Apple, how’s about one less = and one more mouse button, eh?). If you have a G4 keyboard, scroll down past these instructions–you’ll need to install a small app, but there’s still hope for you too.

1. On your PC, copy the following lines into a text file. NB: There is a break between 5F and 00 for formatting in this blog. Please make sure to remove any spaces when creating your .reg file.

REGEDIT4

4. Reboot.

Function keys are now remapped to their PC equivalents.

For G4 style keyboards

1. Download and install a small app called KeyTweak from the following site.

2. Either play around to tweak your keyboard in KeyTweak, or just download the .ktw file that remaps your PrintScreen key: Remap Print Screen for Apple G4 Keyboard (337)

3. If you are playing around with KeyTweak, I highly recommend ‘Half Teach Mode.’ In this mode, you type a key to let KeyTweak get the key number, then click on a virtual keyboard to remap it to the desired key. It’s very straightforward and KeyTweak shows you the full name of the keys you’re remapping, as well as the number assigned by Windows to it.
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So, it’s technically possible to change a short name in OS X using the Apple-endorsed procedure listed on Apple’s site, but that method involves doing some really horrible things to your computer, since you’re basically using the BSD subsystem to trick OS X into thinking you’re the same person you were while actually creating a ‘new’ account.
Poking around on the web yielded this nifty tool, however, that seems to make renaming your account a snap. You can download it here, then check out the documentation at this website.
It doesn’t seem to work any differently than would the sketchy and complicated solution offered by the nice folks at Apple, but it does it automatically, so you can screw your computer up at the speed its processor runs, not just as fast as you can type. Good luck!

There is an exciting new program out there for Mac users on campus: OSXvnc allows IT staff (well, me) to log on to a remote computer in order to see what’s on the screen and help out with troubleshooting. The program only allows a connection when it’s open, so you have complete control over when people can log in remotely, and won’t have to worry about potential spying or intrusions. This software may help keep Mac support alive in some form….but we won’t know until we can test its effectiveness in a real-world environment. So, if you’re interested, please drop me an email at vhauri@gmail.com to discuss joining the beta test group. In addition to helping me provide you with better support in the future, being in this elite testing group will give you something to hold over your PC-loving friends and colleagues.

The OS X ’short name’ is a mysterious entity too often ignored by Mac users wishing to interface with a Windows network. By ensuring that your computer’s short name is set to match your myPlymouth login name, you can obtain quick and easy access to network resources such as your M: drive, your department’s shared storage, and even your email. To check if your short name matches your username, go to the apple menu, choose ‘System Preferences,’ then choose ‘Accounts.’ The account you are currently logged in under appears highlighted on the left of the window, and on the right-hand side is a field called ’short name.’ If this is not your myPlymouth login name, call the Helpdesk at x2929 to have it changed. You’ll be amazed at how much easier accessing your network resources can be.

If you ever forget your password for OS X, it’s easy to reset. Simply boot off an Apple system CD (usually a grey disk) or a copy of OS X. When the installer loads, check the menus at the top of the screen for the ‘Reset Password‘ option (it’s located in different menus on different versions of the CDs). That will let you erase the password and start over.

Holding down various keys on boot allows you to do some pretty nifty stuff with Macs:

• Holding the ‘T’ key on boot starts up the computer in target mode - it can then be connected to another Mac and will appear as a standard FireWire drive on the Desktop.
• Holding the ‘Option’ key on boot will bring up a menu of all the drives attached to your system, and allow you to choose which to boot from. This is handy if you have both OS 9 and OS X running on the same machine.
• Holding the ‘C’ key on boot will boot from the CD drive. This is used for re-installing the operating system, or running tools such as TechToolPro.
• Holding down the mouse button on boot opens the CD drive. Very handy, if you’ve ever gotten a CD stuck that the Mac won’t recognize, but still won’t eject.