The Associated Press released an article today noting that the Maine Department of Education has placed an order for more than 64,000 MacBooks. The MacBooks are being purchased from Apple as a part of Maine's Learning Technology Initiative, which has provided MacBooks to all middle school students in Maine since 2002.

The new order expands the program to high school students who did not receive a MacBook in middle school, and also provides the laptops to faculty for grades 7 through 12.

Maine is expected to place an additional order for about 7,000 more laptops within a few weeks. The laptops can also be used as an economic development tool for parents as well, providing software that links the computers to the Maine Department of Labor resources, including career centers.

Does your state, country, or school district provide laptops to every student? If they do, and they're providing Macs, let us know.

In a display of environmental posturing on both sides, Dell lodged a complaint with the advertising industry's self-governing oversight board: The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (NAD). The claim? When Apple says it has the "world's greenest family of notebooks," family could be taken to mean all models of MacBook past and present -- including models that weren't built with the environment in mind.

"Common industry usage of 'family' refers to a particular model or group of models, and not the entire notebook line," argued Dell, according to a post on the New York Times' "Green Inc." blog. Dell also complained about Apple's use of gold EPEAT ratings -- an award that many of Apple's competitors have also earned.

Standing behind their claim, Apple effectively said, "that's right, deal with it": Family, in the context of the ad "refers to its whole line of notebooks, taken in toto, [and] not a particular model or group."

The NAD said there was no problem with Apple communicating its EPEAT ratings to consumers, and commended the company for its commitment to creating an entire line of notebooks that meet the highest EPEAT ratings, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Even so, the NAD suggested that consumers could believe that "family" means a line of products (and not all the products) that a company makes. They recommended that Apple use direct comparisons between MacBooks and competitor notebooks to clarify their claims of environmental friendliness. They also recommended that Apple avoid the use of world's greenest "given the potential for overstatement." Apple? Overstatement? That's unpossible.

Apple was happy with the conclusion, with PR spokesman Steve Dowling telling the New York Times that the NAD had confirmed that MacBooks are indeed the world's greenest notebooks when compared to other manufacturers' entire product lines. It appears that Apple has taken to using the word "lineup" instead of "family" on its website.

Dell issued a statement, saying they "commend the NAD for their part in helping ensure companies represent their products' environmental attributes accurately." Dell has previously lodged advertising complaints against Lenovo, and last year the company had to stop using the slogan "the world's most secure notebooks."

We're back with another edition of Ask TUAW. This time around we've answering questions about how to resize windows too big for the screen, "compulsive" updating, booting from an SD card, Open GL in Snow Leopard, and more.

As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.

Steph asks:

I recently switched from an iMac to a MacBook Pro and now many of my windows are sized to big for the screen of my laptop. I can't reach the corner to resize them and clicking the "Plus" sign in the corner doesn't help. What can I do?

Fortunately, this is very easy to fix. Instead of clicking on the "Plus" sign (the green button) in the top left corner of the window you are trying to resize, Option-click it and the window will fill your new screen size instead.

John asks:

I realize there's a method for updating Mac OSX all the time and sometimes I get the window popping up saying I have updates. Should I always update immedietly when it tells me I have some?

Mac Life and Gizmodo are both reporting that Snow Leopard will add multi-touch gestures to all older MacBooks and MacBook Pros. This has gotten a lot of people's hopes up that three- and four-finger multi-touch gestures will be back-ported to all Apple portables that previously did not have them.

Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Apples own information on Snow Leopard's enhancements reads, "All Mac notebooks with Multi-Touch trackpads now support three- and four-finger gestures." (emphasis added)

This raises the question, what's the difference between a multi-touch trackpad and a regular one, and which models have it?

The multi-touch trackpad was introduced with the first MacBook Air in early 2008. Not only does it allow two-finger scrolling like older models, it also allows advanced three-finger gestures like swiping to go back in Safari.

One month later, the early 2008 MacBook Pro received the same trackpad, with the same gestures. The multi-touch trackpad gains this new functionality because it has an embedded controller chip, identical to the one in the iPhone and iPod Touch, which allows advanced input from more than two fingers at once.

Later, the unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros debuted with multi-touch trackpads, but also introduced new four-finger gestures, which will not be officially supported in the older MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros until Snow Leopard's release.

The original MacBook Air and early 2008 MacBook Pro are the only machines which will gain additional gestures via Snow Leopard. The only reason these notebook models are able to gain these gestures via software updates, while earlier MacBook Pros and all plastic MacBooks are not, is because they possess the multi-touch controller chip in their trackpads.

Just to break it down, this is a list of the only, and I mean only, notebooks that support multi-touch gestures, either now or after Snow Leopard:

MacBook Air (all models)
Early 2008 MacBook Pro
Late 2008 17" MacBook Pro
Unibody MacBook (all models)
Unibody MacBook Pro (all models)

If you have a MacBook Pro manufactured before early 2008 or any plastic MacBook, then Snow Leopard or not, multi-touch isn't coming your way...

Well, we're still not sure our iPhones are safe to use, and now comes word from Australia that our brand spanking new glossy screens might be hurting us as well, through bad ergonomics.

An HR advisory from Queensland University of Technology suggests that:

"Reflections and glare on high gloss monitor screens and their relation to the angle of the monitor screen, could cause the operator to adopt awkward postures when viewing the monitor screen and using related equipment. These reflections on the screen can be from internal and external sources such as the overhead lighting and/or position of windows.

Awkward postures adopted by the operator may in turn lead to an injury."

Of course Apple has moved to high gloss screens on every laptop except the 17" MacBook Pro, and the matte screen option on that laptop costs an extra fifty bucks. The iMacs are also only available with glossy screens.

Of course there are other health hazards associated with having Apple equipment, such as a tendency to have panic attacks or heart palpitations when you learn you can't update your iPhone cheaply through AT&T. At any rate, there is one advantage to those glossy screens. You'll be able to clearly see your pained face as you try to stretch into position to avoid those reflections on those mirror-like screens. So there.

Thanks to one of our readers who tipped us to this happy news via this web site

Once again, Gruber called it (aside, I wish I had his sources); the naming distinctions between the unibody 13" MacBook and the 15" MacBook Pro are now gone: say hello to the 13" MacBook Pro. Complete with a lower price (starts at $1199 and goes to $1499 in stock configurations), and more features (SD card slot, FireWire 800, 7-hour battery), the 13" MacBook Pro will likely continue to be Apple's best selling laptop.

This is an interesting reversal of branding. When the unibody MacBooks were released last fall, they appeared nearly identical to the larger, "Pro" labeled companion. The two big differences (aside from screen size) were the video card configurations (integrated for the MacBook, as opposed to integrated and discrete in the MBP) and the lack of a FireWire on the "amateur" edition. Many of us speculated that the removal of FireWire was done primarily to distinguish between the two lines and try to move consumers up to a pricier model.

There was a lively debate in the posts about FireWire's exodus from the unibody MacBook about what constitutes a "pro" machine from something that shares the same design but is smaller in size. Without rehashing the whole debate, it pretty much mirrored those "my dad is richer than your dad" fights that always seemed to break out at high school parties in my district. In my experience, when arguments essentially become "you're only a pro if the label says so," the real-world distinction is gone.

For those of you avoiding the whole WWDC live-blogging sensation that's going on throughout the web, here's a little tidbit of information you may not yet know. Apple announced the immediate availability of a largely-refreshed MacBook line. New models include a refreshed 15" MacBook Pro, a new (actually refreshed) 13" MacBook Pro, and an updated MacBook Air.

If you'll recall the 17" MacBook Pro has a fairly handsome battery that is built-in, recharges 1,000 times and lasts for 7 hours. That same battery can now be found in the 15" MacBook Pro and the 13" MacBook Pro. Apparently Apple really has a beef against user-replaceable batteries. But if they don't require recharging every 3 1/2 hours or die completely in 2 years, this may not be a bad thing.

The 15" and 13" MacBook Pros now feature an SD card slot to be replacing the ExpressCard slot of yore. Personally, I have never found a use for the ExpressCard slot but I imagine those with mobile data packages will be less than stunned. For the Firewire crowd there's some good news, the 13" MacBook Pro now has FireWire (again) so we can all put our pitchforks down.

The 15" MacBook Pro now starts at $1,699US featuring the 2.53GHZ Core 2 Duo and GeForce 9400 graphics only. Step-up models priced at $1,999 and $2,299 feature the 9400M and 9600M GT combo.

• $1,699US: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD
  
• $1,999US: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB
  
• $2,299US: 2.80GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD

The 13" MacBook Pro is essentially a re-badged unibody MacBook but now featuring an SD card slot, Firewire, and the 7-hour battery hotness The new 13" MBP can be had with hard drives up to 500GB in capacity and RAM sizes up to 8GB. It didn't take long for the aluminum 13-incher to best its white sibling.

• $1,199US: 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 160GB HDD
• $1,499US: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD

The MacBook Air has also received a little love in terms of specs increase and price decrease:

• $1,499US: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 120GB HDD
• $1,799US: 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 128GB SSD

In a thorough review of the new speed-bumped white MacBook, Macworld notes an intriguing fact: the 2.13GHz model of the $999 entry-level laptop actually outperforms the base unibody model. The magazine's benchmarks show a 4 percent advantage for the new white MacBook over the $1299 2GHz aluminum laptop; the white model even outlasts the next-generation machine on battery life by more than 30 minutes.

Unless you absolutely have to have the new industrial design on your laptop and you're willing to pay an extra $300 for the privilege, it does seem that the new white model is the better buy... for now. A performance gap like this is a strong hint that the unibody models are due for a processor bump sometime soon, if only to restore the proper order of things: faster should equal more expensive. Right?

Apple released a stealth upgrade of the entry-level MacBook this morning. The white MacBook, still priced at $999USD, now has a 160GB hard drive, a 2.13GHz processor and a slight increase in RAM speed -- 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

The previous version, released back in January, had a 2.0GHz processor with a 120GB hard drive and 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM. Other features on the revised MacBook remain the same, including the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics card that we wrote about a few months ago.

Thanks to all those who tipped us about this!

This article is old, but is still full of inspiration. I stumbled across it a few weeks ago when I was turning my dining room into a home office, and it's always neat to see how other people set up their work spaces.

The News in Print selected these in 2008, but the advice in here in still relevant and you can see how people tackle different issues -- everything from small spaces to multiple monitors and how to use your Mac Mini in conjunction with two 50-inch plasma screens. My favorite? Check out the one featuring a MacBook Pro, four Apple Displays and several digital SLR cameras with zoom lenses.

Unplggd also did an article back in 2008 on desk/computer combos, including pairing a MacBook Pro with a SOLo Lounge, a side table that uses solar power to charge your laptop if you have a spare $9,900 in Canadian dollars lying about. TUAW also had a Rig of the Day feature showcasing reader's setups. How have you dealt with the issue of finding a desk that's worthy enough for your Mac? Please share your thoughts (and photos) in the comments!

We're back with another edition of Ask TUAW! This time around we've got questions about recording audio, troubleshooting wireless issues, the best place to go for web hosting and more.

As always, your questions and suggestions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!

Petre asks:

I just bought a new guitar and I'm thinking about using it to record some of my songs with my new iMac. Any recommendations for a good method of connecting a guitar so I can record?

Fortunately, you're in luck, in that the Mac is made for people trying to do just what you want to do. There are several options to accomplish this and it really just depends on how good you want the audio to sound and what your budget is. To get the best possible quality, you're going to need a few items.

First, you're going to need some recording software. Fortunately, that's already on your iMac as you can use Apple's GarageBand for all your entry-level recording needs. Second, you'll need some sort of digital audio interface that connects your guitar's output to a USB or Firewire interface on your iMac. Some good ones to take a look at include the M-Audio MobilePre, the M-Audio Firewire Solo or the Line 6 Tone Port series. Then, all you need to do is plug your guitar into the converter and the converter into your Mac and you're good to go. Of course, you'll want to be sure and update the driver to the latest version and read the manual to get the most out of your converter.

If you're not as concerned about audio quality, you can also use a converter cable, such as the Monster iStudio Link, to connect your guitar directly to the mic input on your iMac. That will allow you to record directly into your Mac but won't give you the best possible audio quality or level of customization you could get from a digital converter.

It was just a few days ago we were talking about hacked MagSafe connectors, and now a lawsuit seeking class action status claims the innovative connectors are a fire hazard and a risk to life, limb, and property.

As an example, here's a link to some Flickr images of what is claimed is a melted MagSafe connector.

The complaint, filed last week in San Jose, California says that eventually the cord will fray from heat or wear, with a resulting danger of fire and injury. The suit, filed by plaintiffs Tim Broad, Naotaka Kitagawa and Jesse Reisman says Apple is aware of the problem and has done nothing about it.

The suit also claims when people demonstrate the problem to Apple, the company suggests they buy another $80.00US cable. Actually, we reported in August that Apple was replacing damaged or worn cables if they were not subject to abuse.

Apple has not commented on the lawsuit. It will be interesting to watch this one wind through the courts.

The power connector was introduced at Macworld in January, 2006. It has not always received positive reviews, even at the Apple Store.

Consumer Reports continues to shower praise on all things Apple it seems. In a report in the June issue, the Magazine says Apple won the top three places in the 13 inch laptop derby. The unibody MacBook was in first place, followed by the MacBook Air, with the white plastic MacBook in a solid third place.

CR also named the 15-inch MacBook Pro as top laptop in the 14- to 16-inch group, and the 17-inch MacBook Pro walked off with the honors in the 17- to 18-inch category. The HP Pavilion publicized in the first Laptop Hunters ad from Microsoft came in 4th in the category behind Dell and Lenovo laptops. The Sony VAIO FW370 that was the star of the 3rd Microsoft ad came in 5th in the 14- to 16-inch category.

Apple also took the honors for best in tech support.

This won't bring smiles to the folks in Redmond, who are going all out to convince people that Apple computers are not a good value. It should be noted that none of the Apple laptops were rated a best buy, but they all scored the highest in each category and were recommended by the magazine. Of course Apple has repeatedly said they are not trying to win on price, but on quality, and Consumer Reports seems to accept that as the case.

I generally don't put a lot of stock in CR for some of its testing, but these high ratings for Apple laptops are just one of a continuing chorus of approval from the press and generally happy Mac owners.

In what looks like a first for the Mac laptop line, support of MacBook and MacBook Pro owners everywhere, a 3rd party is offering external battery packs for MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook air models.

The batteries, from Sanho in California, are available in 4 different capacities, 60Wh, 100Wh, 150Wh and 222Wh, giving a computer like the MacBook up to 32 hours of battery life. The company is also offering a car charger. These items are all available for pre-order and will ship later this month. Prices are $149.95US (car charger), $199.95 (60-watt-hour battery), $299.95 (100Wh), $399.95 (150Wh) and $499.95 (222Wh). The batteries also come with a USB power port so you can charge an iPhone at the same time or separately.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this announcement was how the company was able to offer a charger with a MagSafe adapter, because that design is protected by Apple patents. I checked with the company president, Daniel Chin, and he told me: "What we did is obtain the MagSafe connector and cable from the original MacBook AC adapter, remove the adapter and splice in our own charger plug, which interfaces with our battery and car charger products. Since we are using the original Apple MagSafe plug and did not modify the actual plug (which the patent in question covers) in any way, we are still respecting Apple's IP and in no way infringing upon their patent."

That might or might not satisfy Apple, but it did allow the company to offer these chargers which are likely to be highly desired by some customers. At the very least, I'm surprised Apple has not offered a car charger for laptops. I can think of many times such an adapter would have been handy.

Update: Several commenters have pointed out the QuickerTek and MikeGyver power solutions for the MBP line, which predate the Sanho offering and use the same approach of sacrificing a MagSafe adapter to provide the plug connector. Apple's Airline adaptor, while electrically similar to a car adapter, is not recommended for automotive use (some have tried it with success, your mileage may vary). Lastly, you can of course use a DC inverter for in-car charging, but please be careful not to obstruct vents or leave the device plugged in and unattended... they can get very hot while in use. Happy motoring!

If you're looking for a significant performance boost for your middle-aged laptop, replacing your aging hard disk with a solid state disk (SSD) could give your computer a new lease on life.

Solid-state disks (pictured, bottom) differ from traditional hard disks (top) in that they're not constructed with platters and heads. Instead, they're more like giant thumb drives, containing memory chips designed to be written and re-written without wearing out. The upside to this is that SSDs are much, much faster to read and write to, making booting and starting applications lightning-quick.

I recently installed an Intel X25-M SSD, a 160GB drive, as a replacement for a 120GB Toshiba hard disk for my 2006-vintage black MacBook. Spendy, for sure, but for the performance increase and the extra life it adds to my MacBook, well worth it. Plus, I had my state tax refund burning a hole in my pocket.

The performance is phenomenal. The old disk booted in a respectable one minute, 49 seconds. The new disk booted in a blazing 31 seconds. Ridiculous. Windows also boots in less than half the time it took before. Photoshop CS3 launches in five seconds, Illustrator CS3 in nine seconds.

Getting the drive was simple: It's moving the data that takes time. Read on to see how you can migrate your data like I did -- including a Boot Camp partition -- with little fuss.