We’re quite interested in Lexmark’s new Web-ready printer. The 4.3-inch colour touchscreen it carries, WiFI support and integration with MobileMe, the iPhone and iPod touch alongside the capacity to gather Apple RSS feeds intrigue us.

Interact ($199) is an all-in-one (AIO) inkjet printer, one of eight new wireless AIOs the company announced last month. It prints, faxes and scans, uses Lexmark's new Vizix print and ships with a three-year warranty.

For iPhone/iPod touch photo printing users must download the free LexPrint App from the App Store. Also interesting, MobileMe compatibility means you can access photos stored on the online service directly from the printer, using the touchscreen.

A slight upgrade for music makers out there, Apple has introduced WaveBurner 1.6.1, an update to the component application included within Logic Studio.

The upgrade resolves a number of niggles which had been impacting users of the CD mastering and authoring tool. Musicians use this to produce demo discs, premasters, Red Book–standard CDs, and Disc Description Protocol (DDP) files.

Sundry matters updated within this release include:

Update: Firefox has also (coincidentally?) released their 3.6 beta today.

Verizon FiOS Mac customers might be interested in this one: Verizon is now offering a conduit for your iPhoto and iTunes to work through your FiOS DVR.  You need to have reasonably recent versions of Mac software and a FiOS DVR.  It is sort of like a (more) crippled AppleTV.   Want more information?  The nice young lady below will explain it to you as if you were a two year old:

Verizon doesn't explain whether or not iTunes videos will work, or maybe it did and we couldn't listen to the whole thing.

[Via Engadget]

Disappointing reports claiming the 27-inch iMac may suffer performance problems have begun emerging, emanating from Apple’s Discussion Forums.

It's not at all clear what the root cause of the problem is, but we've noticed a big uptick in people complaining about performance issues on new 27-inch iMacs on Apple's support boards.

The most common symptom seems to be incredibly slow Flash video playback, others complain there's a bug forcing the hard drive to spin down. There’s even reports these Macs ship with a corrupted Snow Leopard build installed on the computer.

“I just upgraded my 24" iMac to the new 27" iMacs that just came out. Well, now every flash-based site like youtube or hulu runs unbelievably slow. Looking at activity monitor, Flash is hitting about 100-110% of my cpu. It basically makes the browser unresponsive and the video is choppy,” one user claims on the Apple forums.

It must be stressed these reports do not claim all new 27-inch iMacs are so affected, it seems to be a problem (or series of problems) which afflict only some units at this time.

Apple’s latest pre-release Mac OS X 10.6.2 beta (Build 10C535) is now in distribution to developers.

This new build focuses on graphics drivers, trackpad preferences and virtual machine creation. Good news: like the preceeding beta, this new version lists no known issues, reinforcing expectation Apple will ship the new OS imminently.

As previously reported, one serious bug fixed in this release is the one in which guest account problems could see users losing all the data held in their regular accounts. The update also ushers in native support for the new Magic Mouse.

Tweaked components include: AppleBacklight, Battery Menu, Dictionary, Expose, FileSync, Family Controls, Fonts, Front Row, HFS, Inkwell, iPhoto, MobileMe, OpenCL, Parental Controls, QuickTime, Screen Sharing, Spell Checker, Spotlight, Time Machine, and USB.

Via: AI

For those of you lucky enough to be picking up a new iMac, you may want to bump up the memory a little bit from Apple's standard configurations. Apple is notoriously pricey (though less so recently) when it comes to memory upgrades so you may want to consider a doing it yourself. No worries. Apple has you covered there too. 

Apple's new support document HT3918 covers the easy steps to upgrading your RAM (spoiler - it is exactly how you'd think you'd do it).  Apple requires the same 1066MHz SDRAM that were in previous models.  You can pick this up at Amazon (2x2GB)4GB for $80 or the 8GB (2x4GB) upgrade for about $600-$700.

Pasted installation below:

Sure, Microsoft Office may be the de facto standard for word processing, spreadsheets and all that sort of work-related thing, but does it have to be? After all, even the student edition sets you back $126.99 - isn’t that cash safer and happier in your pocket, or even spent on one of our regularly updated bargain Toys?

If you’re looking for an alternative, there’s a new free toy in town, where NeoOffice.org has introduced a new version of popular, OS X-friendly, open source office suite, NeoOffice.

This adds Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard support, and includes NeoOffice Mobile, which provides a way to securely share NeoOffice files with other users and other computers.

With Windows 7 out the breech and Snow Leopard already purring on many Macs, news that VMWare Fusion 3.0 ships today, October 27, is well-timed.

You may have missed the brilliant weekend deal which enabled you to pick up a copy of this sophisticated virtual machine software for just c.$27 this weekend...however, it is available now through Amazon in the US at $5 off book price, $74.99. (Steeper discount on a higher price in the UK, where you can pick up a copy for £58.99, as against the £68.46 book price).

We have been impressed by the speed and parity with which the virtualisation software runs guest OS’s on the Mac. The Unity engine is extremely stable (as far as we can tell), the integration between the OS’s impresses, and it opens your Mac up for Open GL and Directx support.

Better still, if you plan switching to Mac and have an old WIndows install disk, using the built-in Migration Assistant for Windows, VMware Fusion 3 can convert your entire PC and bring it over to your Mac in a few easy steps, giving you access to your Windows applications, documents and other files. Just install a simple application on your PC, connect it to your Mac with a cable or wirelessly, and VMware Fusion will guide you through the rest.

Apple has unleashed a pair of important software updates, one for users of its professional applications, the other for Mac OS X server admins (whose numbers recently begun to swell on the release of the Mac mini server configuration).

Pro Applications Update 2009-01 is for users of Apple’s professional video- and audio-production suite, Final Cut Studio. Information on the update is available below.

Server Diagnostics 3X106 is a free package of tools that test your server for hardware issues. “Apple Server Diagnostics (AXD) runs a customizable set of tests to help you diagnose issues with server components,” Apple states. Components include the Boot ROM, Ethernet controller, fan, hard drive, memory, power supply, processor, sensor, USB ports, and the video controller.

“You can run AXD in Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which is referred to as AXD EFI tools, or in Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server,” the company adds. This software is available here.