Don't be shocked, but here's some non-iPhone news!

Marware's project management application for Mac OS X, Project X, has received a feature and bug fix update. Project X version 1.5 requires Leopard and offers a pile of enhancements over previous versions:

• New flexible licensing system
• 60% speed improvement
• A duplicate command for duplicating tasks, milestones, resources, etc...
• Resources are dispersed to all child tasks when you drag and drop resources on subprojects.
• New project templates for Law, Marketing, Software, and more

As a former Project Manager for a large multinational corporation, I can see where this application would have limitations for large projects. However, it is a great way for smaller workgroups who use Macs to set up and track their projects. I'm impressed with the way that Project X integrates iCal, Mail, and web sharing.

Project X version 1.5 is a free update to current owners of the application. There's a free demo available for download, or you can purchase Project X for $199.95 online or from a number of Apple Stores. If you're new to the profession of project management, be sure to visit Marware's online training page for tutorials and links to PM sites.

To web developers, scripting is the glue that connects web pages and back-end systems. For example, PHP is a very popular scripting environment that has been used to write web apps like WordPress and phpBB. For those of you who use PHP, you know that it is a dynamic, weakly-typed hypertext preprocessor. In other words, it's a scripting language that is embedded in the HTML code that makes up a web page.

Inspiring Applications, Inc. hopes to catch the imagination of web developers with Yuma, their new strongly-typed, object-oriented scripting tool that is being released today. Rather than the confusing syntax of PHP, Yuma uses a simple REALBasic-like syntax. It is natively compiled to machine code on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows for high speed.

Yuma Development Server for Mac OS X is available as a free download, complete with example code, a full developer reference, language definition files for BBEdit, TextMate and Text Wrangler, and more. When you're ready to deploy your Yuma web app, you can purchase and install Yuma Enterprise Server ($149). It's a command-line app and may be set up as a daemon.

To run either Yuma Development or Enterprise Server on Mac OS X, you need to be running OS X 10.3 or later on a G4, G5, or Intel-based Mac with at least 1 GB of RAM.

Thanks to Brad for the tip.

Last month, I wrote a post about Apple certifications in general. Today, I'll focus on Mac OS X certifications.

If you're a Mac geek who wants to make a living troubleshooting Macs, these are the certifications to get because they are your ticket to becoming a member of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN). ACNs can build a relationship with their local Apple store and get references for work that can't be performed by Genius Bar techs, and they're listed on the Apple Consultants Network website. The rest of this article is after the break.

TUAW blogger Steve Sande is an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator and volunteers as the South Central US Regional Champion for the Apple Consultants Network.

Axel Springer AG, Germany's largest newspaper publisher, is moving its entire organization -- 12,000 computers -- to the Mac platform. Axel Springer will become Apple's largest corporate customer in Europe, and second largest customer worldwide. (Google is number one.)

The article is only available in German so far.

Axel Springer owns Bild and Bild am Sonntag, tabloid-style dailies (not unlike The Sun in the UK or the New York Post in the U.S.) and several magazines sold under the Bild brand. The company currently uses large-scale publishing solutions from WoodWing Software and CCI, both of which support Mac clients.

In a video message to employees, CEO Matthias Döpfner cited ease-of-use, appearance, and total cost of ownership in the reason to switch. Employees can start buying and using Macs and iPhones this month, though the entire organization will be migrated over the course of a year or two five years. (Hey, I took French in high school.)

Thanks Alex, Rouven, and bimbum for the tip (and the help with the German)!

Five companies, Atempo, Centrify, GroupLogic, LANrev, and Parallels have joined forces to form the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, which will promote the deployment of Macs in the enterprise. All of the companies focus on integrating Mac OS X with Windows and PC-based network infrastructures.

Peter Frankl, chief operating officer at LANrev, says it wants IT departments to know they can successfully integrate Mac solutions for their large businesses.

For now, the consortium offers little more than product information about each member company's software, but Frankl says the organization wants to create a resource for IT pros to share best practices.

MacEnterprise.org is a well-known community of IT professionals with similar goals, but without the financial clout of the five-company consortium. The organization has not yet responded to a request for comment.

[Via Infoworld]

4SmartPhone is getting ready to launch 4iPhone, a hosted Microsoft Exchange server for small businesses and individuals. It basically offers access to the Exchange based Enterprise features of the 3G iPhone including ActiveSync and DirectPush of email, contacts, etc. to users who don't have an Exchange server. 4SmartPhone already offers this for Symbian and Windows Mobile devices for $11-$16 a month and pre-registration for 4iPhone is available now, though prices have not been announced.

Frankly, I suspect most individuals would be better off just using Apple's forthcoming MobileMe service. But for small businesses who want to equip their employees with iPhones, but don't want to incur the upfront expense of running an Exchange Server themselves, something like 4iPhone is probably worth a look.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Computerworld is reporting on the results of a Yankee Group Research report that finds that 80% of US businesses now have Macs. This represents an huge increase from just two years ago when only 47% of businesses reported having Mac users. The Yankee Group estimates that corporate marketshare has risen to 8-10% overall with 21% of firms reporting more than 50 Mac users. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, 28% are running Windows in virtualization.

While the consumer marketshare (and better yet, profitshare) numbers have looking up for some time now, it's good to see that Apple is finally starting to gain (or regain) a serious foothold in the corporate sphere as well. It's no surprise that as more users get acquainted with Apple gear at home that they're bringing pressure on corporate IT managers to implement Macs at work as well. Things just keep rolling for the bean counters in Cupertino.

Amazingly, the commercial hackintosh maker Psystar (whose efforts in building non-Apple machines running OS X we've covered at some length) still hasn't been beat down by Apple Legal and now they're back for more. They are releasing the OpenServ series of rackmount servers which they offer with a variety of OSes including OS X Leopard Server.

There are two models: the 1U OpenServ 1100 (starting $1599) and the 2U OpenServ 2400 (starting $1999) either of which can be purchased with OS X Leopard Server pre-installed for an extra $155 (no clients), $525 (10 clients), or $1025 (unlimited clients). This machines are obviously in direct competition with Apple's Xserve. Frankly, I'm amazed that Psystar is still in business, and they keep pressing their luck. I wonder if this will be enough to push Apple over the edge.

[via Gizmodo]

Another product announced at Macworld Expo, Extensis Universal Type Server, is now shipping. Universal Type Server is designed for corporate font management, requiring Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server 10.4 or 10.5 on a G5 or better machine. My personal opinion is that this would be a perfect application to run on a headless Mac mini.

There are two flavors of Universal Type Server - Professional, which is scalable to any size workgroup, and Lite, for workgroups of up to 10 users. The server and client applications are cross-platform, running on Windows as well as Mac.

Migration paths are available for users of Font Reserve Server or Suitcase Server. The Lite package is available for $1395 directly from Extensis, but you'll want to contact a reseller for the Professional version. If you want to kick the tires before you buy, you can download 30-day free trials for both Pro and Lite.

In October, when Apple introduced a change in policy allowing Leopard Server to run in a virtual environment on Apple hardware, Mac IT geeks everywhere looked forward to the day that they could run Windows Server, Linux and OS X Server all off their pretty Xserves. That day is today, because Parallels Server for Mac is now out of beta!

According to Parallels, this is the "...first server virtualization software to run on Intel-based Xserves...and to power VMs running on the Mac OS X platform." Similar the the Parallels Desktop product, Parallels Server lets you run virtual instances of different operating systems on top of OS X Leopard Server, including Leopard Server. The next beta of VMWare's Fusion, which like Parallels Desktop is a consumer product, will support Leopard virtualization as well, but Parallels Server is a little different and aimed at a different market.

The difference is that the hypervisor used in Parallels Server is hardware optimized and takes advantage of Intel's VT-x acceleration (which new XServe and Mac Pros have) to provide a more robust experience with better allocation of resources and memory. This makes the experience much more akin to running a completely separate machine, as opposed to running one OS on top of another.

Yesterday, we reported on Media Temple's new (xv) project, which is the first official service that will be run on Xserves running Parallels Server for Mac. The (xv) will be running multiple VMs of Leopard Server, but Parallels Server can also support Linux (Debian, SUSE, Red Hat and Ubuntu), Windows (Server 2008, Vista, XP and Server 2003 and Windows 2000) and FreeBSD 6 and 7 as guest OSes. So if you run your website off of CentOS (which is based off of Red Hat Enterprise) but your company network runs off of Leopard Server, you can do both off of one Xserve.

Make no mistake, this is an enterprise product, and as such, it is pricey. Parallels Server for Mac is $1248.75 for the software and one-year of support and maintenance and that's before you add in the cost of any software licenses you might need, but that's still a lot less expensive than another Xserve.

For enterprise users who are interested in virtualization, definitely check out the free trial.

Thanks Russ!

Teaming with Parallels, Media Temple has just announced the start of private-beta period for its latest (mt) Labs offering, the (xv) Xserve-Virtual -- which they are dubbing "the world's first VPS Leopard Server." Although virtual servers running Linux or Windows are pretty standard hosting options, this is one of the first Mac hosting opportunities I have seen period (outside of a co-lo), virtualized or not.

Now that Apple has sanctioned the virtualization of OS X Leopard Sever on Apple hardware, both Parallels and VMWare have announced plans to integrate Leopard Server virtualization into their product lines. While VMWare is integrating Leopard Server in its upcoming version of Fusion, Parallels is taking a decidedly more enterprise approach and working Leopard Server virtualization into its Parallels Server product. Parallels Server uses Parallels' bare-metal hypervisor architecture and as such, each virtual machine runs its own kernel and operating system.

Media Temple, which already partners with Parallels in its (dv) and (dpv) Nitro products, is going to be the first official hosting launch partner for Parallels Server for Mac, offering Leopard VPS hosting on Xserve hardware. The Xserves used by (mt) are running 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400s with 32GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM and 3x300GB 15,000-rpm SAS with 16MB disk cache drives on a Xserve RAID Card. In the private beta (apply here), the Xserves will be split into 8 virtual machines, with each VM guaranteed 2 GB of RAM and two cores of CPU resources. The advantage of using a virtual machine as opposed to a physical Xserve, aside from cost, is that hardware maintainance is taken care of by the host. Plus, if something goes completely haywire, the virtual machine can just be reinstalled to its starting point.

The (xv) can be used to host websites, run iChat and iCal server, use Podcast Producer and for anything else a regular Xserve running on a LAN can do. Anything you can install on a regular Mac, you can install on the (xv), and you can control the (xv) using both Screen Sharing and Remote Desktop. Media Temple is still working on the scalability plans for the (xv) but are planning on offering a scale-on-demand package similar to its (dv) product.

Although pricing is currently undetermined, Media Temple will be using the beta testing to find out which configurations are most efficient to help set the ultimate price.

If you have experience running a Mac server, you can apply for the (xv) beta here. It's really exciting to see OS X virtualization, both for enterprise and for home/small business use take off. I can't wait to see the final product!

Thanks Jen and Jorge!

The upcoming iPhone 2.0 software is providing more document viewing capabilities in the form of readers for PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, but Apple still isn't providing a way to edit docs on the run.

Mariner Software announced at WWDC 2008 that they'll be resolving at least part of that dilemma with the release of Mariner Calc for iPhone. Mariner Calc is the software firm's popular Excel-compatible spreadsheet for the Mac.

Mariner Calc for iPhone is about 80% of the way to completion at this time and is expected to ship about the time the virtual doors open on the App Store. If you like to work on huge spreadsheets, you'll love this app since it sports a maximum of 1,000,000 rows and 32,000 columns.

Mariner Software President Mike Wray mentioned to Macworld.com's Dan Frakes that Mariner Calc for iPhone will support multiple sheets per document, charts, and objects. It's expected that the application will integrate with new versions of Mariner Calc for Mac. No price has been set for Mariner Calc for iPhone, but expect this little spreadsheet to be a popular purchase from the App Store.

[Via Macworld]

It's the Holy Grail of Mac virtualization: a Mac inside another computer, running happily on a virtual machine and subject to your every whim. Up until last fall, there was no framework in Apple's licensing to allow for Mac OS X virtualization; then the ground shifted and the heavens shook, and there was a way forward. Mac OS X Server is now eligible for virtualization on Apple hardware, so naturally both big Mac virtual machine players are eagerly pushing forward on this front.

Parallels is offering OS X Server virtualization as part of its Parallels Server high-end product, which is currently approaching the end of its beta; the gang at VMware, however, are going the route of integrating OS X Server virtualization into the consumer level Fusion product. VMware has announced that the next beta of Fusion 2 (and the eventual release) will include the option to virtualize Mac OS X Server. This is awesome news for anyone using Fusion now, as the upgrade to 2.0 is free for existing customers.

Of course, virtualizing Mac OS X Server is not an inexpensive proposition, as even a 10-user license of Server clocks in at a cool $499. For developers and corporate folk, however (many who would have access to volume or seeding licenses of Server), it's a great help. Video demo of VMware's new feature announcement after the jump.

Thanks Peter.

I spent three days in a class last week learning about Leopard. It probably sounds a little strange that a guy who works day in and day out on "nothin' but Macs" would be taking a class to learn more about the Mac operating system, but I did it for a reason - I am an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) and I need to keep my certification current. Within a few weeks, I'll be taking a certification exam to prove that my brain absorbed some of the course content and my years of Mac experience really have turned me into a Mac guru.

Not many people know about the certifications available to Apple professionals. Certification has a number of benefits to independent consultants and wage slaves alike, including recognition of professional competency, credibility with clients and employers, and the ability to publicize your certifications on Apple's website. For those of us who are Apple Consultant Network members, we can have clients referred to us by the Apple Stores.

Over the next few weeks, I'll post several articles about the different types of certifications available to you, how to become certified, and why you might want to consider getting certified. Read more after the break.

Recently, Apple posted a new online seminar (linked from enterprise Apple Store pages) entitled "Best Practices for Integrating Mac OS X into Active Directory." This seminar will show registered participants how to deploy machines running OS X into existing Active Directory setups.

Apple lists several things that are shown in the online seminar, some of which include:

• Integrating an Active Directory environment into Mac OS X
• Using the Active Directory plug-in in Mac OS X
• Configuring home directories (includes how to do this with mobile users)

You can watch this free online seminar by going to Apple's seminar website and registering. You will then be able to stream the video using QuickTime Player, or download an iPod-compatible file.