A lot of people who are the proud owners of an iMac aren't satisfied with just serving one master, so to speak. Thanks to the Boot Camp utility developed by Apple Inc., iMac users are given the opportunity to run Windows based applications through a separate partition on their hard drives.

Unfortunately, a lot of problems have been surfacing when it comes to running their dual-OS iMacs properly. These were most commonly found on computers that used NVIDIA's MXM slot format for the 24-inch iMacs. However, word from AppleInsider is that testers from Apple are validating a small patch that can solve these hiccups in the system.

Customers are having an especially hard time convincing customer support that these glitches in their systems were inherent to the iMac and not just a glitch within Boot Camp. Also, because Boot Camp is considered a beta when run under Mac OS X Tiger, it receives no official technical support from Apple.

The new patch confirms that the system failures can be controlled through software alone and its success depends largely whether the testers can isolate the remaining bugs in the system. Labeled as "iMac MXM Updater 1.0," the new patch has yet to have a release date, but with the advent of the new Mac OS X Leopard this October, the MXM updater will have the opportunity to be tested on the newer operating system as well.

Seems like the iPhone has acquired quite a following. It has even attracted the intense focus of more than 300 hackers who have gathered last weekend in San Francisco.

The iPhone was released last June 29 and since then has become so popular that a recent survey found it more popular than cars. A device that combines the iPod music player with a mobile phone that allows internet surfing, the iPhone is naturally the source of a lot of people's interests, even those who want to maximize its potential even if they go through unconventional means. Like a weekend camp designed for hacking.

In an effort to get what Apple won't give them, 300 (plus) brave hackers set out to find the limits and capabilities of the iPhone. Organized by Chris Messina, the iPhoneDevCamp was held in a borrowed office complete with its own message board projected on a big screen. The event was not sponsored by Apple and efforts by Adobe to make participants sign nondisclosure agreements were met with a quick boot.

Hackers at the camp have produced a number of unusual and interesting results. One found a way to make iPhones yell out like Chewbacca when dropped. Another figured out how to flip through the top 10 photos on Flickr with the touch of a finger. A useful program also went out to make the iPhone function as a baby monitor. One program that got some hype allowed customized home pages with iPhone icons. "For example, a user can put an icon for the cable station CNN on their home page if they want to go to the site every time they turn the iPhone on."

By the end of the camp, 45 new programs for the iPhone were demonstrated, not including those that the more secretive programmers have chosen to develop by themselves. Perhaps we may yet see more things spark in the future from the endeavors of the 300. We should also see more from the developers of the iPhone themselves and third party developers now that the public has shown so much interest in it.

Ever since the release of Apple's Boot Camp, Mac users have been able to use those Windows programs that just don't have a Mac companion. The only problem was the fact that you had to reboot your system to do it. CodeWeavers have changed that.

CrossOver is a program by CodeWeavers that allows Mac users to install and run windows applications natively on any Intel Mac. But it gets better: with CrossOver you don't even need a copy of windows.

We've mentioned CrossOver before but they have recently come up with a new version of the beta. If you're not into using experimental software, you'll have to wait for the official release. There's only one bit of sour news to report on this product: you're gonna have to pay eventually, but it's cheaper and easier than Boot Camp and a copy of Windows XP. By the way, before checking out the read link, keep in mind that right now it's only for a 60-day free beta.

Download: [Codeweavers' CrossOver 60-day free beta]

Apple has released version 1.1 beta of their world-famous software that allows Intel-based Mac users to run Windows on their Macs. Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows. Boot Camp will also burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don't have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.

Boot Camp 1.1 beta includes:

• Support for the latest Intel-based Macintosh computers
• Easier partitioning using presets for popular sizes
• Ability to install Windows XP on any internal disk
• iSight camera support
• Support for built-in microphones
• Right-click when pressing the right-hand Apple key on Apple keyboards
• Improved Apple keyboard support including Delete, PrintScreen, NumLock, and ScrollLock keys

Apple advise current users yo Boot Camp to update to the latest version. You don't need to partition your hard drive again (unless you want to change its size) or reinstall your Macintosh and Windows software or documents, but it's very important to update the Boot Camp Assistant software, create a new Macintosh Drivers for Windows CD and install the updated software it contains on Windows XP.

You can find the 202 MB download over at Apple's dedicated Boot Camp site.

WWDC is a conference for Apple developers that gives the company a chance to show them some love while disseminating important information about the next-gen hardware on Apple's launch horizon. There is no live stream coming from the event floor, so minute to minute coverage (complete with pictures) is all there is until Apple makes the footage available after the event.

Mannymix03, a member of our forums, has been kind enough to make up to the minute posts about the event to keep us all informed about the latest happenings at WWDC 2006. So far, so much information has come out of the event that it would be impossible to detail it all here. I will do my best to give you a brief rundown of the important finds that have been discovered thus far.
 
In his usual style, Steve Jobs kicks off the conference with his enthusiastic rundown of what Apple has in store for us in the near future. He began with his usual optimism by quoting record sales figures and mentioning the unprecedented level of penetration that the company is experiencing in the OS market.

After stroking the developers egos by detailing how much of their work Apple sold the previous year, Jobs goes on to discuss the move to utilize Intel chips and the upcoming move into the next generation of Intel chips known as Core 2 Duo. While all the information about new chips and the smart architecture of the new Mac Pro kept folks interested, the news that kept many on the edge of their seats was about Apple's upcoming OS.

After giving Microsoft some of the spotlight by highlighting the ways the Redmond-based giant has appropriated technology from Apple in the past, the details about the OS (Leopard) were released. Along with 64 bit compatibility at the UNIX layer, meaning you can run both 32 and 64 bit applications smoothly and without the aid of emulation, there was mention of a built in backup feature for the OS called Time machine that backs up "everything" in real time. This new feature is not as cut and dry as it seems however. Apparently, with Time machine you get a robust backup system that is capable of full system restores as well as an ala carte system that allows you to bring back just the files that you need.

When integrated with the Finder disk searcher, we are one step closer to having all of our information stored in a searchable database that is backed up in real time. So now you can search for, and find, a file even if you have already erased it! Wonderful! Even I couldn't lose data if I had a set up like this! One of the things that I found a bit surprising was the fact that every copy of the new OS will ship with Time Machine, Bootcamp, Photobooth and Front Row and Spaces. Each one of these modules provides functionality, like a virtual desktop (Spaces), photo editing and sharing (Photobooth), music, video and other media (Front Row), that is not included with other operating systems like Vista.

Spotlight, Core Animation and Universal Access are additional applications in the works at Apple. Spotlight allows you to search the drives of all of the Macs in your home from any one of them. Core Animation is a powerful program that allows you to deconstruct media into its various parts (video, music,ect) and manipulate it into a new creation. Universal Access is designed to allow all people, whether blind, or otherwise disabled, to use their new Mac with ease. With all the new software being developed and hardware changes galore happening at Apple, you'd think that they would be the ones with all the delays and shoddy releases instead of Microsoft!

Mail, Dashboard and iCal have also been updated and changed! Stationary, Notes and To Do's to mail have been integrated into the new email system that will come with the new OS. Dashboard has over 2500 widgets and with Dashcode users can easily create their own customized widgets. With Web Clip and Dashcode you can turn any part of a website into a widget that will update every day keeping you in the know with your favorites on the web. Then there's iChat and iPhoto, which are integrated and will offer multiple logins, invisibility, animated buddy icons, video recording and tabbed chats.

This is near information overload here so I suggest that you digest this as quickly as you can then can come back and get some more! The conference is more than three days long so you can be certain that Jobs and Co. will continue to hit us with surprises well into this week!

Finally, for those with short attention spans, here is a brief list of the key innovations that were revealed this morning:

• 64-bit
• Core animation
• Universal access
• Enhanced parental controls (who cares about that?)
• iCal
• The complete package
• mail
• Spotlight
• Dashboard
• Web Clip and Dashcode
• Announcing Xcode 3 at the afternoon session
• Spaces
• Time Machine
  

Keep an eye out for updates to follow. For those who got their appetites whet and are looking for ways to satisfy their "Apple" craving, check out the video of the conference's Keynote Address delivered by Apple top honcho, Steve Jobs.

It's the Boot Camp Effect - people preferring a Mac over a PC due to the presence of the Boot Camp software. And it seems like the Boot Camp Effect will be Apple's key to equating or superseding Microsoft's success. This is according to a Piper Jaffray research.

The said report reflected that of 42 near-term PC shoppers, 8.3% are considering to get a Mac computer over a PC because of the Boot Camp software. Analyst Gene Muster wrote that this interest in the Boot Camp-capable Macs will see Apple gaining market share over the next 12 months, which can also see Apple completing its transition to Windows-capable Mac computers fitted with Intel microprocessors.

The release of the new Windows-functional Mac OS, 10.5 Leopard, may lead to a 2007 gain in momentum for the Boot Camp Effect.

The world - and I'm not referring to just the Mac faithful here - has been hearing about Boot Camp for a while now. People have been singing its praises right from the start, and many a reviewer has been putting the program through its paces on his or her computers, trying to see if it's worth all the acclaim.

Personal Tech Pipeline's Michael Brandenburg spent a month running Boot Camp on his MacBook Pro, and has come away handily impressed. As a matter of fact, in his own words, "After a month of having it all in one machine, I wonder how I ever survived with only one operating system."

Firstly, he says, although installation of Boot Camp does require up-to-date software and firmware, it's pretty straightforward - you just need to let the installer do its thing and run the Boot Camp Assistant. Brandenburg's only big dilemma during this process was when he had to decide how to format the new Windows partition: formatting the space as FAT32 gives the Mac OS full read/write access to the Windows drive, whereas creating the drive as an NTFS partition only gives OS X read access. FAT32 is less secure and/or stable than NTFS, and Brandenburg decided to go with NTFS as a result.

Brandenburg also found out that there are a couple of rough patches when OS X and Windows are running on the same machine.

• The Mac OS X can at least read the Windows drive, but Windows can't make heads or tails of the Mac partition. (A product called MacDrive from Mediafour competently takes care of this oversight, but it still is very much an oversight.)
  
• Mac's adherence to a one-button mouse directly clashes with Windows' right-click requirements. This isn't the problem it once was, though, due to the fact that OS X supports two-button mice, and besides, a right-click function of sorts does exist in OS X, as any Mac guy worth his salt knows - hold down the 'Ctrl' key while clicking. (Software applications do exist to make up for this, too.)
  
• OS X and Windows interpret the system clock differently. The clock gets thrown off when switching between the OSs - in Brandenburg's case, by five hours (!). It's the easiest issue to solve, though, as users just have to sync with a network time server to fix it.

Brandenburg finds these glitches merely minor annoyances, though, and says that they'll hopefully be dealt with once and for all when Boot Camp's officially launched with Leopard in 2007.

On the whole, Brandenburg's negative experiences with Boot Camp didn't detract from the ease and convenience it afforded him. He found himself leading some sort of a dual life with his MacBook Pro, running Windows for corporate applications during the day and OS X for personal stuff afterwards. He concludes by saying that Boot Camp "works like a champ to bring the true Windows environment to Mac machines", and adds further that "if the final release straightens out a few quirky driver issues, Apple will have a real winner on its hands." I can't agree more - I'm very much looking forward to Leopard's release to see just how much better Boot Camp will be once Apple's ironed out all its kinks.

Do you like booting into windows for the occasional PC program but hate how hard it is to hold the option key down? Well then today is your lucky day because govdavid has released Boot Camp Sargent v.1 Beta. Boot Camp Sargent is an Applescript program that reboots your mac into either Mac or Windows. It also comes with a script to reset your start up disk to Mac OSX so you don't have to go into your system prefs to do it.

All you have to do to install these scripts is to Drag them to your computer, and into the dock (or other launcher) if you wish.

[Download Boot Camp Sargent .1 Beta]

+ >

Now that we have the equation, let us give some equivalents to the variables.

Parallels Desktop = A desktop and server virtualization solutions provider. It allows one physical machine to run numerous operating systems simultaneously as completely isolated, independently functioning virtual computers. That means that you can use Windows programs at the same time as Mac applications.

Boot Camp = Lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows. That means when you hold down the "alt" key you can choose between the Mac OS and Windows. Simply restart to come back to Mac.

Now that Apple on their Get A Mac campaign acknowledges the use of third-party software solutions such as Parallels Desktop for Mac, is the equation correct? Is it really greater than the Boot Camp?

If you've already got a nifty new Intel-powered Macintosh computer (or if you're like me and day dreaming about the day you'll finally have one all for yourself) chances are that you've heard about the ability to run Windows.  There are plenty of decent reasons to run Windows on your Mac, so let's not start with the "why would you do that to your Mac?" lines.  (I hate using Windows, but my job requires it, simple as that.)

Right now the two best options available to you are to use Apple's Beta software, Boot Camp, or a virtualization app called Parallels.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses, so you may be confused as to which is right for you, based on your Windows needs.  Well the good folks at NoteBookReview put together a lengthy article about what both apps do, how to install them, results of using each, and pros & cons of both options.  It's very well thought-out and written so anyone should be able to understand.

If you've already begun running one or both of these solutions on your MacBook/Pro, Mac Mini, or iMac, let us know your thoughts.  I'm especially interested as I hope to be mauling my very own MacBook soon...