Synology Inc., the leader in next-generation Network Attached Storage (NAS) servers for the home and small to medium sized business markets, has release the Mac client for Cloud Station^Beta enabling easy, yet secure Dropbox-like data synchronization for Mac users.

Cloud Station syncs and backs up users’ content seamlessly across their PCs, Macs, and DiskStation or RackStation. When offline, computer users can still view and edit files, and the changes will be synchronized to other computers when Internet connection resumes. In a business environment, account users can own their particular Cloud Station folders, or share a Cloud Station folder to collaborate on a project.

Availability
Synology Cloud Station^Beta package and its Windows^® and Mac clients apply to the following models: DS412+, DS112, DS112j, DS712+, DS212, DS212+, DS212j, RS2212+, RS2212RP+, RS812+, RS812RP+, RS212, RS812, DS1512+, DS1812+, DS3612xs, RS3412xs, RS3412RPxs, DS3611xs, RS3411xs, RS3411RPxs, DS2411+, RS2211+, RS2211RP+, DS1511+, RS411, DS411, DS411+II, DS411+, DS411j, DS411slim, DS211+, DS211, DS211j, DS111, DS1010+, RS810+, RS810RP+, DS410, DS410j, DS710+, DS210+, DS210j, DS110+, DS110j, DS509+, RS409+, RS409RP+, RS409, DS409+, DS409, DS209+II, DS209+, DS209, DS209j, DS109+, DS109, DS109j, DS409slim, DS508, DS408, RS408, RS408RP, DS108j

Cloud Station is available as a free download at http://www.synology.com/support/download.php

Apple CEO, Tim Cook. Image source: WorldTVPC

Apple continues its impressive financial streak with another record-breaking fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2011. The Cupertino company posted a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion ($13.87 per diluted share). This is almost double the results in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin increased from 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter to 44.7 percent. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Apple generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations.

iPhones continue to be a huge cash cow for Apple, selling over 37 million iPhones in the quarter, a 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 15.43 million iPads, a 111 percent increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple isn’t only about smartphones and mobile devices, though. Macs, much contributed by sustained interest in the iMac, enjoyed a 26 percent unit increase. Sales of iPods may have dwindled 21 percent compared to the year-ago quarter, but this still meant Apple pushing 15.4 million of the portable media player to consumers.

With another impressive quarter at hand, Peter Openheimer, Apple’s CFO lamented, “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Apple’s momentum has also kicked Exxon as the world’s most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of $416.76B, beating the energy brand by $6 billion. The new King of Wallstreet (again) ploughs on!

Apple is set to launch its breakthrough set of free cloud services tomorrow called iCloud together with iOS 5, as announced during the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event in Cupertino on October 4, where the tech giant also revealed the new iPhone 4S. The much-awaited iCloud includes iTunes in the Cloud, Photo Stream and Documents in the Cloud, that allows you to automatically and wirelessly sync your content to iCloud and pushed to different devices including your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC. iCloud will be available globally at launch.

iTunes in the Cloud automatically downloads new song purchases into your devices without having to manually sync. It also lets you download previous purchases including music and TV shows with no additional cost. iTunes Match scans and matches songs in your music library to more than 20 million songs available on the iTunes Store, offering high-quality, DRM-free 256 kbps AAC encoded alternatives. Unmatched songs are uploaded to iCloud so you can play songs, albums or playlists from your music library on your devices. Very cool.

Photo Stream lets you take a photo on one device and have it automatically appear on your other devices. Documents in the Cloud keeps your documents up to date across all your devices. It works very much like Dropbox. Apple’s iWork productivity apps for iOS, Pages, Numbers and Keynote will take advantage of iCloud storage. iCloud also lets you see your App Store and iBookstore purchase history and download those apps and books to any of your devices at any time. Purchased apps and books can be automatically downloaded to your devices, not limited to just the device they were purchased on.

iCloud Backup is a much-anticipated service, especially for me. It automatically and securely backs up your most important information to iCloud daily over Wi-Fi. iCloud Backup backs up your photos and video in the Camera Roll, device settings, app data, home screen and app organization, messages and ringtones. Comes in especially handy when you need to set up a new iOS device or restore information on one you already own.

Most importantly, iCloud works seamlessly with the center of your universe – your Contacts, Calendar and Mail. Your me.com email are up to date across your iOS devices and computers, and with icloud.com you have easy web access to your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find My iPhone and iWork documents.

The Find My iPhone and Find My Friends apps are handy location-based additions and are available as a free download from the App Store.

Pricing & Availability
iCloud requires iPhone, iPad or iPod touch users running iOS 5 or a Mac running OS X Lion with a valid Apple ID. iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, TV shows, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available starting in the US later this month for $24.99 a year.

For more information about iCloud, visit http://apple.com/icloud

According to the Financial Times, Apple has overtaken Lenovo, the world’s third-biggest personal computer maker by shipment volume, for the first time in terms of sales.

Strong demand for iPhones, iPads and Macs pushed Apple’s second quarter sales in Greater China which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. An increase of six fold year-on-year, to $3.8bn.

China is an important market for Apple, and recently became the second largest market for downloads in the Apple’s App Store. Apple’s hit tablet, iPad 2 has been selling like hot cakes since its introduction in May this year.

China’s Lenovo, which impressively was the PC industry’s fastest-growing company for the seventh consecutive quarter, is still the PC market leader in China. China sales rose 23.4 percent year-on-year to $2.8bn. The Chinese company’s share of the Chinese PC market grew 2.3 percent to 31.7 percent.

Lenovo gained market share across all regions and overtook Acer to take the world number three spot last quarter, based on reports by the IDC.

In North America, Lenovo’s shipments rose 30.8 percent from a year ago against a 4 percent decline in the overall market. The US market has become an important pillar of Lenovo’s profits.

HP still holds leadership position with 26.9 percent market share while Dell is a close second with 22.6 percent.

Worldwide PC shipments surpassed 85.2 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 2.3 percent increase from the same period last year, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

Apple shipped over 1.8 million units of Macs in Q2 2011. Data only includes desktop PCs, mobile PC including mini-notebooks but does not account for tablet devices like the iPad.

Bring out the champagne glasses, do cart wheels, plank. Whatever. We’re ecstatic and honoured to be informed by gargantuan “online magazine rack” content aggregator Alltop, co-founded by none other than master marketer and author Guy Kawasaki that vernonchan.com is joining the likes of TUAW, MacWorld, MacNN, Macrumors and Appleinsider in the Apple category. Being a huge personal fan of Guy since “Selling the Dream” and “The Macintosh Way” days, this is certainly a milestone which inspires me to write better and do bigger, better things.

Guy Kawasaki is no stranger to the Apple world, being the former official Chief Apple Evangelist (a role never before seen in the history of Apple). Oh by the way, LIKE his latest book “Enchantment” on Facebook to download “The Macintosh Way” book for free.

My love for Apple goes far beyond its products alone. Its culture and philosophy of making beautiful, desirable, creative, simple things has seen this deep fondness and respect for the Cupertino company through 2 decades.

My first knowledge of Apple goes way back to 1984, in the glory days of the Made-in-Taiwan Lingo 128 PC. I spotted the Macintosh all-in-one and I told my dad, “I want that.” My first encounter with the Mac didn’t surface until 1993 though. It was then the first PowerPC 601 processor-powered series hit the market. The PowerPC of course, was the alliance between Apple, IBM and Motorola. The PPC 6100 I first played with belonged to my college senior, which cost a horrendous amount of money at that time, but was revolutionary. Ran System 7. Before long I was going through system files and extensions to tweak the machine for him. Keyboard shortcuts were learned very quickly, something the Mac excelled at. Yes, the geekiness started way back then.

Source: Lowendmac.com

Several years later, I purchased my first ever Mac. Then a powerhouse of a desktop – the PowerMac 8600 tower, with its 604e processor running at a blazing 250Mhz, 1GB RAM and 8MB of VRAM. It had great expandability, though no match to the top-of-the-line 9600 (which had 6 PCI expansion slots) –  the machine of choice for creative pros. It ran Mac OS 8.6 (upgraded). I remember playing Myst on it, and first dabbled with Macromind (later Macromedia) Director, Dreamweaver and Futuresplash Animator (which later evolved into Macromedia Flash). 6 months down the line, Apple introduced the ground-breaking beige “Gossamer” Powermac G3s which saw a new motherboard with a faster system bus, a third-generation “G3″ PowerPC CPU (PowerPC 750), using a completely different type of memory, backside cache and included a personality card slot. It was also the first time Apple shipped a PowerMac with a high-speed EIDE drive, which rivalled Apple’s own SCSI-2 drives.

The mid-to-late 90s was also the time when I ran an Apple site called MacNutt, which was handcoded in HTML using BBEdit, and ran off free Geocities (yes it was that long ago). This was the site that got me a job at the Apple reseller where I originally bought my PowerMac from, a year or so before. It was there where I was graphic/web designer, Apple sales rep, and also technical support! I loved it. I also co-founded Macclub.net with my ex-boss, an Mac community site. Self-hosted on our Mac server running Quid Pro Quo (remember that?) and Filemaker Server. Awesome stuff.

Several years later, I started MacXcess.com (1999-2002) when I was based in London for over 2 years. Thanks to the active Mac scene there I had a chance to attend some good events including lining up like an idiot to grab the first copy of Mac OS X 10.0. and also review cool stuff. MacXcess.com had a pretty solid following, and was aggregated by MacSurfer.com. Appleinsider once sent me email saying, “Love your writing style!”. In its heyday, MacXcess.com was one of the Top 50 Mac sites in the world, as listed by Lowendmac.com.

How things have changed. Yet not.

The Alltop listing is a BIG deal. At least for me. Is it reason to celebrate? Hell yes! I’d like to first personally thank Advertlets who have been supportive of vernonchan.com, the awesome Rebecca Saw, PR/Media firms (you know who you are), my peers in the tech world (yes you), friends and all my fans and readers. You’re awesome. Thanks for the support. While this is cause for some celebration, ultimately, it inspires and motivates me to work even harder to be better.

Swag. Goodies. Freebies. Giveaways.

I’m in a generous mood. I’ve got iTunes credit, Boomwave iPhone 4 and iPad cases, Starbucks gift vouchers and more to give away every Wednesday from next week, July 13 till August 31. All you need to do is LIKE my Facebook page (and follow me on Twitter if you will) and wait for further instructions. Cool?

Yes 4G‘s unified communications tool – Yes Life is finally here for the Mac! Since the launch of Yes 4G late last year, Mac users have been envious of their Windows PC counterparts. Well, no longer. Yes Life now available not only on the Mac but also iOS – so those with iPhones and iPads, you’re in luck.

With the Yes Life app, you can make and receive calls or SMSes to and from any iOS and Mac OS X device simultaneously. All you need is a Yes ID to login, even if you’re in another country! Amazing? Yes!

The Yes Life Mac app (v.1.8.2.4) is built on the Adobe AIR framework. The Yes Life iOS app (v 1.0.10) is an iPhone-optimised app which will run perfectly fine on the iPad/iPad 2. The app can be magnified 2x for those who need to see things bigger! Hopefully there will be an iPad-optimised ‘HD’ version in the near future.

Yes 4G has a special Starter Pack with iPad 2. When you purchase an iPad 2, you can purchase the Yes 4G Starter Pack for RM450 which comes with a Yes 4G Huddle (RRP RM399), RM50 activation fee and free – 10GB data, 250 SMS messages and 250 minutes of voice calls (worth RM150), valid for 30 days. This promo runs from 12th May 2011 – 12th July 2011 (2 months). Available exclusively at Mac Studio (Plaza Lowyat, Berjaya Times Square and Bangsar) and Machines (Lot 10, Midvalley Megamall, Sunway Pyramid, The Gardens and AEON Bukit Tinggi)

For a limited time only, get your Yes Life Trial app for iOS that comes with RM5 credit. The trial ends after 14 days or when the RM5 credit runs out, whichever comes first. To continue using after the trial period, you will need to head down to www.yes.my to reload.

Also, head down to Yes Talking Apples to win one of 3 iPads!

Hunch.com used 75 million answers to questions that it asked its 700,000 members to predict particular demographics, personality and other characteristics based on their computer type. Check out the infographic to see which computer user profile you identify with most. Full infographic after the jump.

For more details, visit Hunch.com

Apple released a Mac OS X v10.6.5 update recently for all Snow Leopard users. Contains mostly bug fixes, including performance, reliability and stability issues, as well as patching of security flaws. As usual, I prefer to install the Combo update as opposed to just patch over an existing running version via Software Update. Having run it for over 24 hours, no notable difference except some speed enhancements overall. No WiFi issues as reported by some. Pretty solid update, now can you please release Lion v10.7, pretty please, Apple?

Overview of fixes and improvements

• improve reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers
• address performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture
• address stability and performance of graphics applications and games
• resolve a delay between print jobs
• address a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme
• resolve an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal
• address an issue where dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide
• resolve an issue with Wikipedia information not displaying correctly in Dictionary
• improve performance of MainStage on certain Mac systems
• resolve spacing issues with OpenType fonts
• improve reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays
• resolve a VoiceOver issue when browsing some web sites with Safari 5

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4250.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.