MANILA BULLETIN Wednesday • 12 January 2011 • 5

Of Macs & Tux

By ROM FERIA

The App Store is Open

OS device owners are plication icon literally jumps from the

i
familiar with the iTunes
App Store. Linux users
are familiar with the ap-
plication repositories.
Today, Apple integrates
the two together and creates the Mac
App Store! iTunes App Store users
should find its familiar interface too
comfortable that they may end up buy-
ing applications.
Mac App Store requires Mac OS
X 10.6.6. Installing the update and re-
booting the Mac brings you with a new
icon on the dock - a blue Application
icon. Clicking on it brings you to the
familiar App Store interface. Frankly,
the interface looks like the iTunes App
Store, except that it is a different ap-
plication.
Apple has an impressive 1,000+
applications available on the store
at launch, ranging from free utilities,
such as Twitter for Mac, to USD100
and above applications.
Buying an application takes on
two steps -- click on the application on
the store and authenticate using your
iTunes user account. After you enter
your username and password, the ap-
store and settles on the dock -- whilst
it downloads and installs. Pretty slick
UI trick! Well, this isn’t unfamiliar to
those using the store on an iOS de-
vice.
Deleting the application, on the
other hand, is still the same click-
drag-and-drop-to-trash routine. You
can find all the applications on the /
Applications subdirectory, just in case
you’re confused on where it goes after
installing it.
Apple uses the same Apple ID
for iTunes and Mac App Store. This
makes it dangerously easier to click
and buy those apps, specially those
that are less than USD10! What is
even more enticing is the significant
discount that Apple gave for some
of its applications, e.g. Aperture for
USD80! Personally, the first applica-
tion I downloaded and installed is volves copying three files from the ap- developers will be discouraged to
Twitter for Mac! plication package off of a free applica- add their application to the store.
A few hours after its opening, some- tion and using those files for all other Overall, it looks like a great start!
one on the internet already posted a applications. Looking forward to applications, such
way to get around the Apple DRM, the So just find someone who will ille- as Skype, Kindle for Mac, Transmit,
security feature that ensures that ap- gally give you a copy of the application SpeedDownload, Chrome, Firefox,
plications are linked to your account and boom! Adium and others in my /Applica-
with the proper authorization. It in- I hope that Apple improves this or tions subdirectory.

“Free Play”

Children and adults alike cannot
keep the fact that games are part of
their life in one way or another. Some
games are fun and child-friendly,
while others are mature and quite
violent. In the interest of this article,
we will focus on the latter.
Many children nowadays shoot
monsters, zombies, people, animals
and more. As a result, what they
see are blood, death, cruelty and
violence. Although these are just
graphically represented made of
long lines of codes, three questions
would often haunt parents -- (1) do
these games affect the way a young
child thinks and grows? (2) Is it
enough for the government to al-
low young kids to buy violent games as
long as they have their parents beside
them for consent prior to purchase? (3)
Does the government need to come up
with a law that regulates the purchase
of “Rated Mature” games for minors,
just like what we have now for ciga-
rettes and alcoholic drinks?
In California, the Supreme Court is
deciding whether they will be regulat-
ing the video game industry to forbid
the selling of mature games to minors.
Here in the Philippines, I have not
heard of any legislator looking at this
concern, mainly because we have a
lot of political issues needed to be ad-
dressed. A study made by Dr. Craig
A. Anderson, Ph.D. – a Distinguished
Professor and Director of Center for
the Study of Violence – gathered two
groups, where one group played vid-
eo games and the other did not. The
groups were then compared on their
performance on some measure of “ag-
gressiveness” like finishing word stems
and administering noise blasts.
Anderson summarized that violent
video games indeed promote aggres-
sive behavior and violence. However, by
comparing the rate of crimes commit-
ted vis-à-vis the increase of aggressive-
ness brought by violent video games
to minors through the years, they did
not see any significant assertion of the
study’s results.
The tests may have been completed
in such a short span of time and
tracking these children’s growth
may be quite a huge responsibility
for Anderson. So what now?
I think everyone should under-
stand that violent video games are
not “promoting” anything. Instead,
they are just allowing. The gamer
world is a free environment that
allows us to choose what we want
to do. There are no signs that tell
us to punch or shoot, but the tools
to do so are readily available -- just
like the real world.
What is your say on this –
should violent games be forbidden
to minors or not? (Glenn Rich-
mond Ong)