As many of you who are on the forum know we have recently been under attack by a spammer. This scum has attacked the MacCast forum and sent out email to the users registered there under the guise of being me. I sincerely apologize to everyone who is being affected. I would never SPAM anyone and I am very disturbed over this issue. I have found the culprits ISP and I am working with them to shut this person down. I am also looking into ways to better protect the forum in the future. I will be upgrading the software today so bear with me as there may be minor hiccups as we transition. I am also; even though it is much more work for me, changing the registration process so I now need to approve all users who register. Hopefully these steps will prevent further incidents like this. Again I am very sorry this happened to all of us.

Christopher sent in this info about a new System Preference pane to help you manage your Widgets.

Adam-I just wanted to drop you a line and tell you how much I love your show and tell you about a little app called Widget Manager. This application installs into your system preferences pane and allows you to ‘manage’ your widgets meaning that you can remove, disable, or enable all of your widgets. The app is free and here is the link to the download site. Hope this is helpful and keep up the great work

[ Widget Manager from Downtown Software ]

Listen to today’s show here!
MC20050509.mp3 [12.2mb 26:37 64kbps]

A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 58. Dashboard Widgets susceptible to attack, Four new European iTunes Music Stores launched, iTunes 4.8 released with support for video and new iPod+iTunes “Skater” ad debuted on SNL. How to chat with MSN and Yahoo users on iChat using the Jabber interface, why Stuffit Expander and Internet Explorer are not included with Tiger, Kenneth says try Camino, it’s fast and an iPod Shuffle review, tips and commentary from the Frat Pack. New music, Someone by Charlie Don’t Surf. The sound your hearing is the future calling, don’t tie up the line. Shownotes in HTML or OPML

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MacCast listener Clark sent this warning for PGP users who are considering moving to Tiger:

A note for those using PGP 8.x and Tiger. This combination also
causes problems, especially with Mail.

Symptoms are things like loosing your mailboxes and loosing your POP
entries. Literally you enter the POP information. After attempting
to connect
you will receive a message indicating that new attributes are
available for synch. You are asked if you would you like to save
them. If you select yes,
your POP entries and usually your mailboxes are toast! They are
still available in Library/Mail, but now you really need to be a geek
to rebuild your entries.
Solution: Dump PGP for now. Stability will return and life will once
again be like having a crisp Granny Smith’s on a warm summer day!

There is a note on the problem at http://www.pgp.com/products/tiger.html

So if you are using PGP, quit for awhile.

I do not know if this affects the GNU version of PGP (PGPFree) yet.

Listener Scott sent me this info about a great, and very in depth, article on the tech of Tiger.

John Siracusa writes these in-depth looks at the technology of OS X
and has been reviewing each release since DP2. He is a hard-core user
interface guy with some strong opinions of things Apple is still not
doing right (oddly, these are things they were doing right in the
pre-OS X days).

He also spends quite a bit of time talking about changes in the file
system, how Spotlight works behind the scenes, as well as what this
might all mean for where Apple is headed with OS X features.

I thought you might enjoy the read – one Mac geek to another.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/1

He all I did a fun interview with Paul over at the Austincast. We talked about the MacCast, the current and future state of Podcasting, technology, indie music and more. We talked for over an hour. You can find the file over on the Austincast blog or in the Austincast Podcast feed. Enjoy.

Listen to today’s show here!
MC20050508.mp3 [19.8mb 43:11 64kbps]

A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 57. All Mac models now shipping with Tiger, Tiger not playing nice with Windows, Apple releases Bonjour for Windows, OS X Tiger 10.4.1 seeded to developers, MacDevCenter offers Tiger tutorials, iPod Shuffle grabs 58% of flash based MP3 market, Pod2Go Developer releases SpodLight to add Spotlight indexing to iPods, iTunes Australia launch held up by record company and new Oasis album released 4 weeks early on iTunes Germany. Special Report on using Tiger continues. I discuss my Tiger issues with iChat AV and wake from sleep. Also a tip on using the new dictionary in Tiger. Darrell’s Guide for New Mac Geeks #5, questions about MacCast voicemail, how to burn Mac DVDs on your PC, Bluedogbanter.com promo and Spotlight and indexing Entourage. I debut a new opinion segment from Curt covering his thoughts on Apple’s advertising. I will be at the 2nd annual MacGathering in Hollywood California on Sunday May 15th, please come out if you can. Updates on the MacCast contests. New music, The Fall by Innocent Noise. Your ears will never be the same. Shownotes in HTML or OPML

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Hey MacGeeks. I wanted to let you all know that I will be on the Podcasting discussion panel on Sunday May 15th at the Regional Mac Gathering in North Hollywood next weekend. If you can make it out, I would love to see you there. Here is the official press release for the event:

Mac Users Gather in Southern California May 13-15
Los Angeles, California — April 12, 2005.

The 2nd annual Regional Macintosh Gathering the for Southern California hits Los Angeles May 13–15, 2005, just days after the release of Tiger. With top notch instructors and key people from top Mac companies, the show promises to be an excellent learning and social event for all Mac users and even for people considering a Mac.

“I look forward to the Mac Gathering because Deb’s previous seminars and product shows have been informative and fun,” says attorney Evan Braude of Long Beach, California. “Deb’s events had enabled me to discover invaluable information that I use everyday in my law practice.” In fact, this year’s show promises to be helpful to many businesses. The Business Track sessions are highly beneficial to anyone who uses a computer for business. (Yes, even Windows users, and they’re welcome.)

Of course it’s not just a business show. People new to the Mac or to OS X can spend two days learning all the basics. (Three days really — there are special programs on Friday.) Advanced users can fill their days with more technical topics. And design-oriented folks have plenty to choose from as well.

This is a show where Mac users can walk around and know that everything pertains to their OS. But Mac users don’t live and work in a vacuum so it’s also a show where users can learn similarities and differences of a Windows counterpart when there is one. Vendors have been invited to bring their Windows versions to help Mac users to choose software with which they can work in a Windows world.

Thomas Dickan, President of the West Orange County Macintosh Users Group (WOCMUG) expresses what many group leaders have also said. “The community has far too few real opportunities to really gather together and grok Mac. Our members are excited about the Mac Gathering. We’ve been spreading the word and expect a first-class showing.”

“Some people wonder if local shows are worthwhile. A well-produced show like the Mac Gathering gives vendors an opportunity to reach many people who cannot travel to the larger shows due to jobs or distance. I saw this again and again as an Apple Software Account Manager for the western US” explains Jim Cadenhead. “I hear people say the internet serves the need nowadays. But it doesn’t replace in-person knowledge, meeting, and learning. Users still want to know vendors…to ask questions in person…to see the reality right before their eyes.” Today I’m a Business Partner Rep for IBM — and I have every intention of being at the Mac Gathering. There’s just too much to learn and too many people to meet to pass on such an opportunity.”

Elaine Stannard, one of the leaders of the So Cal Mac Owners/Users Group (SMOG), confirms Jim’s findings. “Last year’s event gave me easy access to vendors without travel hassles & hotel costs. The seminars I attended were excellent & I took advantage of some vendors’ discounts to shop. I look forward to this year’s Mac Gathering being bigger and better and hope it will become a dynamic annual event.”

The Mac Gathering will be held at Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn, just off the 101 in North Hollywood, California. Special sessions take place Friday, May 13. The Exhibits and Sessions run from 10am through 6pm Saturday and Sunday, May 14-15. For more information and to register, visit MacGathering.com.

Listener Sam sent in this tip:

Spotlight is a wonderful wonderful thing, but some people have noticed occasions when a document or group of documents have not been captured during the indexing process. In such cases, one might want to reindex the volume. Apple did not build into Spotlight a way to reindex, but it can be done quite easily.

1. Open Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/)

2. Type the following:

sudo mdutil -E /

to reindex the root volume, or:

sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/volumename

to reindex another volume named volumename.

3. Enter your admin password when prompted to do so and press enter.

4. You will receive the message “Volume index removed. Index will be rebuilt automatically.” in the Terminal window. You can monitor the reindexing progress in the Spotlight toolbar drop-down window.

5. Hooray, get back to using Tiger!

OK. So I need to send a BIG thank you out to Craig over at the Behind the Scenes Podcast. He has graciously allowed me to hijack his cam feed for the GeekCam during the day. The cam is pointed out the window towords the Pacific ocean and is not too far from my office so you can have an idea of what I see out of my office.