Listen to today’s show here! 
MC20050630.mp3 [26.4mb 57:41 64kbps]
A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 71. iTunes 4.9 is here, iPod updater released, new more colorful iPods, free iPod Minis for college students with Mac purchase and 2nd Gen Shuffle rumors resurface. iTunes 4.9’s impact on the Podosphere, listing iTunes 4.9 Podcasts from other countries, how to convince your wife to let you buy a Mac, Firefox crashes in Tiger, some questions about the iPod Shuffle, connect your Mac to a TV wirelessly, the future of Classic after the switch to Intel, a case for timely keyboard repairs and replacing the hard drive on an iMac G3. New music, Forever by 28.
This is gonna be good, I can tell.
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Dear Adam:
I am now listening to your show. I downloaded your show from your site.
Five minutes prior, I began to download your program from iTunes. It is still being downloaded by iTunes 4.9. iTunes can be very slooooooow!
You can sync the ipod in itunes manually without undocking it. In itunes, right-click (yes I believe the one-button mouse is a ridiculous anachronism that should have be trashed 10 years ago) on the ipod icon the in left hand pane. There, you will get a context menu and one of the items is update. Click this and the ipod will update. This can be done at anytime like just before you ar eready to grab your ipod and go.
Also, I don’t know about 4g ipods and minis but on 3g ipods, the podcasts will show up in the ipod library and on smart playlists. In itunes itself, you do have to drag the ‘casts over to the library manually, but using the standard podcast playlist is less of an issue on th ecomputer.
One list thing that really sucks is the lack of support for bittorrent feeds. Do you know of any kind of bittorrent plug-in for itunes that might work?
Adam,
I am a new listener, and I really like your show.
Listening to your last show you walk through iTunes which is a great idea. I think this is what alot of tech shows are missing, yes we want to know what’s new, but as listener’s we would also like to know tips and tricks with the software we already have. Love the walk throughs keep up the good work.
diim
Got my 4.9 yesterday and have already listened to the maccast back catalogue. everything works well, download speed very good (4Mb broadband). As I am in the UK I guess I,m doing the download whils the US sleeps so speed problems not evident – great show.
I have heeard of podcasting before. With the update of 4.9, I got my first listen and introduction to podcasting. This rocks. I commute everyday and this is just great for me and my iPod. MacCast was the first show I listend to and listend to all the previous shows. Great job! Im Hooked!
-Matt
A suggestion to Jim, the “Mac addict without a Mac”:
First, an aside. Jim you are a Mac “enthusiast”; changing wives WOULD be an option for an “addict!” ;-)
The real suggestion is to go into the Forums and look up the Top Ten Reasons to Switch category. There are some great and compelling lists of reasons to switch from Windows to the Mac. There’s one list that is particularly brilliant, but I don’t want to prejudice you until you find it.
if you listen to part of a podcast on your ipod then sync it with itunes it doesn’t delete it you can go in and listen to the rest of the podcast where you left off it automatically takes off. i’ve been doing this for the past few days. it works the same the other way also if i listen to half of your podcast then sync my podcasts it won’t delete it and then i sync wiht my ipod it’s there right where i left off. anyways good show.
I listened to your podcast and the comment stating that files that haven’t been completely listened to and then it is removed when you sync with iTunes. I have a 4G iPod and if I don’t finish a podcast the file isn’t remove when I autosync. It will only be removed after I go through the end of the show. Kind of weird it’s removed even if you haven’t finished the file.
You can also choose “Update ” from the File menu in iTunes.
Fan and icabod,
Are you using the “Update: Only unplayed episodes” setting for your iPod Podcast syncing? When I have it in this mode it is removing Podcasts from my iPod then next time I sync even when I am only half way through the show.
I have mine set up so that it will only keep the unplayed eps. So when I dock and autosync, if the podcast hasn’t reached the end of the podcast at least once then it will stay on iTunes and my iPod
Hey Adam,
Just want to let you know that Windows has had a inbuilt screen reader since Windows 2000. I’m not near my PC right now so I can’t give you the name of that program, but I was recently playing with it and like other Windows accessibility applications it seemed very well implemented for a free program. This recently came up on another podcast, I think it was on the Daily Source Code, and I’m surprised to hear it again. Love Windows or hate it, it must be accepted that they do consider accessibility an important part of their OS.
Love the show (started listening because of iTunes 4.9).
YAY! here’s the link to MacCast on iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=73329813
about itunes / ipod podcast sync
you mention in the podcast that when you start playing a podcast in either itunes or your ipod it would mark it as read.
I have a 3rd gen and this is not working for me, i have to completely finish the podcast in itunes for it to go away AND not to sync. if its partially played it would sync. I also have to finish the whole podcast in my ipod for it to mark it as played in itunes.
do u think it has to do with my ipod being a 3rd gen, anywyas this way works great for me.
Jonathan,
There may be a difference between the 3rd and 4th gen iPods, because I had some others say it is working the way you described. I just tried it again on my 40 GB iPod Photo and if I have played any part of a Podcast, even 1 sec, when I sync back to iTunes is sees it as “played” and removes it from my iPod. Go figure.
Right Adam. You brought the topic up on the show, about “playcount=0” is better then the “Played” little blue dots to the left in iTunes.
I have submitted this to Apple on apple.com/feedback, and hope they change it.
I LOVE the bookmarkable Mp3s and album art/chapters. And now I can read the shownotes ON MY iPOD while listening! woot!
Hey, wonderful show by the way. Anyway, I personally have five iPods and every one of them now has Mac Cast. I have told 22 people to download your show as this is exactly what I tell them daily.
Instead of browsing around to MacRumors, and ThinkSecret, I can just come to your podcast. I love it.
Thanks,
Abhishake
Email me at iloveshake@gmail.com if i can do anything to help the show out.
For those that want to see a Soundseeing Tour, you can check this
http://necc.dmit.asu.edu/
This was a tour done of Philadelphia for the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Philadelphia last week.
There was also a well attended iTune 4.9 launch party at NECC.
Great show just got on to it from itunes 4.9!
Well done I will keep this show in my list, keep up the good work.
Hey, I can’t seem to get the subscription to this show workin in iTunes 4.9. It just keeps telling me that it isn’t a valid podcast URL when it tries to update it.
So it appears in the podcast playlist, but wont download shows.
Other podcasts seem to work ok.
Hi Adam,
Love the show. Re adding new podcasts to iTunes: I’m in Australia and if you try to add a podcast iTunes asks for you mac ID and password. If you add these and there is not an iTunes Music Store in your country it comes back with a message saying this ID is not recognised. So in fact it does seem to exclude people who do not have a music store.
It does however let you subscribe which is the first thing we have been able to do with ITMS since it’s inception.
Hi Adam,
To the commenter mentioning a built-in Windows screen reader, this tool is essentially unusable for any serious work. I know many screen reader users and none of them use it. it’s called Narrator, and blind/visually impaired Windows users sometimes use it to get a real screen reader started, but not for any substantive work. Jaws and Window Eyes are both commercial products, and own most of the Win screen reader market.
I’ve put out a call to some VoiceOver users I know to send you a review of VO. I’m having serious Internet problems this week, so I can’t really put anything together and get it reliably uploaded.
Adam,
On a side note I really appreciate the new naming convention you are using “MacCast 06.30.2005” the shorter, more consice, format reads much better on my iPod! I wish other PodCasters would concider shortening thier titles for this reason. Keep up the excellent work, you are most appreciated!
Mike
Adam
I use iPodderX as my podcasting client and your tip to use a smart playlist to manage podcasts was an awesome tip.
I set up one smart playlist for genre: podcasts with a play count of less than 1 and named it “Podcasts New” and set up another smart playlist for play counts greater than 0 and named it “Podcasts Old”. Now when I sync up my iPod on my PowerBook any podcasts I have completely listened to are automatically moved to the “Old” list where I can delete them without any guesswork.
Great tip.
Scott