Alfred DiBlasi is at it again. A few months ago, he impressed us with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh he found on ebay. What's impressive about that? It was still factory sealed. Never opened, never booted, never used. That's the kind of find that makes my beige, vintage heart flutter.

This time around, he's playing with a vintage Lisa in an exhaustive demonstration video. Before booting it up, he takes it apart and discusses the innards, piece by piece.

Next is the money shot as the computer boots up, and Alfred moves through the UI. It's a pretty cool demonstration of a nice piece of Apple history.

Thanks for sharing, Alfred. What's next?

The event is real, and that of course brings with it the usual flood of rumors and speculation. Latest off the rumor mill assembly line is supposedly the leaked dimensions of a new iPod Touch and nano -- iLounge has their hands on what they claim are dimensional drawings of the new iPod nano and a "Touch 2G," which, as you might guess, is an iPod Touch redesigned with iPhone 3G specs in mind. We'd say that you should make sure to take the requisite grain of salt with these, but with all the rumors Apple fans end up eating, we're kind of worried about your blood pressure by now. Better stay away from this one -- we'll know next week whether it's real or not.

We should say, though, that the nano design does look similar to the one originally posted by Kevin Rose a little while ago, which gives credence to both rumors. On the other hand, if someone was manufacturing dimensional drawings and claiming they were real, wouldn't they make them line up to the majority of the rumors so far?

Earlier today, many iPhone owners on the east coast (including yours truly) were experiencing data problems with AT&T. Specifically, my data transfer all but disappeared, including web and email, over EDGE. The weird part was that my iPhone was reporting a strong signal. It seems I wasn't alone.

Electornista is reporting that the issue affected users from New York to Missouri, Massachusetts and North Carolina. AT&T responded and, as of this writing, it's been worked out. A representative said, "There was a routing issue affecting some wireless data use in the Northeast region ... technicians determined the cause and restored service at 11:56AM EDT."

So, flip on your iPhones, east coast-dwellers. We're back in business.

Update: Belkin reps have contacted us to say that the JoyPod, while a fascinating idea, is not a product they have in development. Oh well!

I guessed that we'd see a more official iPhone controller sooner or later, but I didn't think it'd be this much sooner -- Touch Arcade has unearthed this photo of a Belkin-branded game controller/case for the iPhone and iPod touch called the JoyPod. Looks pretty slick, though as Engadget points out, the ratios don't really work out -- odds are that the final product will have to be a little longer to fit the iPhone in there.

Very interesting, though -- now I'm curious to see if Apple really will support stuff like this. Supporting a third-party controller would seem to go against His Jobsness' suggestion that a multitouch screen could be used for anything (even typing on an awkward non-tactile keyboard), but clearly there's a demand, from consumers if not from devs themselves, to move game controls off the screen and onto buttons you can feel while pressing. How else will you be able to "exprimir al maximo tu iPhone o iPod touch"?

Yeah, so that black MacBook you bought a couple of years ago with an 80 GB hard drive isn't lookin' so hot now, is it? You know things are bad when you have to delete your pr0n videos to make room for incoming email. You'd like to swap out the hard drive, but your tech skills are sucky. What do you do?

Go to Instructables! They're always doing something fun over there, like showing how to install Tiger on a PC. There's also a recent post (surprise!) about how to upgrade your measly MacBook hard drive and preserve your existing data. Afterwards, you'll be doin' the happy dance, too!

Advance note to commenters: yeah, we know this isn't exactly rocket science, but for those who might be a little squeamish about actually yanking the hard drive out of their MacBooks, these step-by-step instructions should put their minds at ease.

A few weeks back on the Talkcast, we had an interesting little discussion about just where Apple's boundaries were on the App Store -- so far, you really only get kicked off if you charge too much, if your apps vibrate wrong, or if you steal someone's copyright. Oh, and there's that one more little exception: if you provide folks with the ability to tether the iPhone's networking ability to your own Mac.

But now the rumor mill says that last one might just have been removed because Apple is planning a tether solution of their own. Gizmodo claims that one of their readers is corresponding with His Steveness himself (a fact we find obviously dubious, but hey it's Friday of Labor Day weekend, so we'll give 'em a pass). You'd think that Steve Jobs would reveal the fact that AT&T and Apple were trying to offer a tether solution through a slightly better venue than a quickly jotted "Sent from my iPhone" email, but remember how we first heard about the SDK -- the man knows how to stick important pieces of news in strange places.

The original emailer mentioned tethering for the fee of an extra $30 a month (which seems exorbitant considering that Netshare did it for a one-time charge), but then again, AT&T's networks are going to get even more waterlogged should something like this come down. So odds are if Apple does work out a deal, it's not going to be cheap.

The Psystar saga continues. Back in April, Psystar went public with the first commercial Hackintosh clones. For US$554, they'd send you a Core 2 Duo minitower with Mac OS X preinstalled. In June, they released rack-mount servers with Leopard Server preinstalled in both 1U (starting $1599) and 2U (starting $1999) configurations.

Last July, the inevitable happened and Apple filed a lawsuit against Psystar citing copyright infringement, and demanded that they recall all machines. Psystar responded by acquiring legal representation from Carr & Ferrell, who previously settled with Apple in another case.

Still with us? Good. This week, Psystar seems to be preparing to countersue Apple, citing anticompetitive business practices. Specifically, the suit alleges that Apple's practice of restricting OS X to Apple hardware is "...an anticompetitive restraint of trade."

We think that's a stretch, but this story sure is fun to follow. We'll keep you updated as soon as anything changes. If you want a claim-by-claim breakdown of Apple's suit against Psystar, check out Nilay Patel's full accounting over at Engadget.

[Via Electronista]

Just as quickly as Open Tech opened up, the Mac clone creator has decided to put itself up for sale. Of course, we're not sure who would buy a company that could be sued at anytime by the Mothership.

Open Tech has information about the sale on their website. For just $50,000 (payable via PayPal, oddly enough), you will receive the following:

• Open Tech name
• Open Tech website
• Trade secrets (as in secrets to ripping off Apple)
• Press contacts (are they selling the actual people?)
• 2 Open Tech machines with the OS of your choice

This information comes on the heels of Mac clone maker Psystar being sued by Apple for copyright infringement among other things. So, if you are looking to buy a company with built-in legal trouble, Open Tech looks like it could be a good scam deal.


[via MacNN]

Wired has published the results of the iPhone reception survey they were running, and clearly Antarctica needs way more coverage. But they also pulled a lot of useful data out of places where people actually live, and it probably doesn't surprise you.

3G performance is slow almost all over, especially in cities where the 3G service is getting overloaded. If you want to have fast speeds, hang out in Germany and the Netherlands -- those folks had the fastest speeds (and it's no coincidence that the 3G network there has three extra development years on its American counterpart). The worst reception is apparently in Australia, as Optus and Virgin users had their iPhones chugging along at just 759 Kbps.

What can we draw from this? Just like those Swedish scientists told us, it's the service, not the phone. But you know what Mark Twain said about statistics, so just in case you want to draw your own conclusions, Wired has kindly made a Google Spreadsheet of all the data available to anyone who wants it. Anyone want to try putting together that heatmap?

Last night, Apple issued an update for the MacBook Air. With the oh-so creative title of "MacBook Air Update," this update is recommended for all users and fixes "issues with video playback and processor core idling."

According to Apple, this update should not be installed until applications that modify processor operating characteristics (i.e. frequency and voltage), like CoolBook, are removed from the system. Apple says that these applications are not supported.

You can download this update by visiting the Apple support download website or by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update). Apple has published a support note with extra information about this update.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings in September.

It's time once again to head back to school. Some are entering high school, while others are going to college for the first time. If you're taking your Mac with you, you need to learn some security basics. In this post, I will show you how to secure your operating system and hardware.

Operating System (Software)
Mac OS X makes a great operating system for students and businesses because of its inherent security. However, any computer without a strong password or other means of security is an accident waiting to happen.

The first thing you need to do is set a login password. To do this, go into Accounts in the System Preferences pane. Once there you will be able to set your password for logging in. While in Accounts, you might want to disable automatic login. This forces your computer to ask for a password upon startup and makes it harder for someone to walk up to your computer and use it (or steal it and use it).

Turning off Sharing services is another way to protect someone from remotely connecting to your Mac. Go to System Preferences > Sharing. Once there, un-check all sharing services that you don't use. Disabling File Sharing, Remote Login, Screen Sharing, and other services such as these can save your Mac from being "hijacked." If you must have these services turned on, then make sure you have a secure password set.

Hardware
Securing Mac OS X isn't the only thing you need to do. If you live in a dorm, or in a shared apartment, then you may want to consider securing your hardware. No matter what security measures you put into place, they can always be circumvented by someone just stealing the machine.

Most Macs have a standard security port to connect a lock. This is a great way to protect notebooks as well as desktops and even printers and other peripherals. The locks are fairly inexpensive (around $40 US) and can save your expensive hardware from being stolen. You can find them at most big-box computer retailers and even online from companies like Kensington.

More on security...
If you want more information on Security and your Mac/iPhone, then visit TUAW's Security category. You can also get more TUAW Back to School goodness by visiting our Back to School page.

AppleInsider says that Apple has yanked the Push notification framework from the latest version of the iPhone 2.1 firmware beta. Push got a lot of play during WWDC -- it's a service that will send information to the apps on your iPhone as needed (tweets, for example, will just come rather than having to refresh Twitterific all the time), but apparently Apple doesn't think it's ready for the stage yet. They've wiped it from the beta, claiming it needs "further development," and haven't given any indication of when it might return.

Here's hoping it gets back in there before the expected release sometime in September, but then again, it's not like Apple should be taking any new chances with features right now. From Mobile Meh to iPhone activation problems, Apple's got to make sure that any more widescale releases go as swimmingly as they possibly can.

[Via Engadget]

PhoneNews claims they can "confirm" that Apple will speed-bump the MacBook Air with a Penryn-class Intel Core 2 Duo processor, increasing the clock speed to 2 GHz and up. The story also notes that, since the processor requires more power, the Air will ship with a higher-capacity battery and 60-watt power adapter.

Engadget goes further, noting that clock speeds could (theoretically) reach 3.06GHz. Also, they speculate that the Air could feature improved integrated graphics if it adopts the Intel Centrino 2 chipset.

Alternatively, Engadget notes that Intel plans to release several flavors of low-voltage Penryn chips in September, which might indeed be slated for the MacBook Air. Using these chips, however, would decrease the power requirements noted by PhoneNews, not increase them.

PhoneNews says national retailers have been alerted "to be prepared for the upgrade." This may be part of several laptop announcements rumored to be happening in September.

[Via IGM.]

Sure, Apple claims the 3G is fast, but with all the problems with 3Gs connecting all over the world, just how fast is it really? The folks at Wired.com have decided to find out, and they need your help. They'd like you to test your iPhone at the TestmyiPhone.com network speed testing site, and then hit up their global ZeeMap to register your speed.

Instructions are over on their website, and they're testing both Edge and 3G upload and download speeds, so you'll have to run three tests total. You'll also have to sign up for a ZeeMap account.

The eventual payoff will be a relatively clear look at iPhone speeds around the world. Wired says that they'll eventually average global data, but there's a lot of things that could be done with data like this -- heatmaps? Speed per carrier? Once they get a good set of figures together, there's probably all kinds of things that can be done.