This is an old ad for the original Apple Lisa, and yes that is Kevin Costner.

In addition to being glossy white, the Nintendo Wii is quite Macintosh friendly from a network perspective. Wii will play nicely with your Mac even at this early juncture in the it’s lifespan, with more (wired and wireless) innovations coming shortly.

Today, there are a few notable applications to get you started playing your iTunes music , watching videos, and showing photos using your Wii and all can be ready in a matter of minutes using your home network.
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Here are a few hopefully useful and informative Mac-related links found both on the MacCast and elsewhere on the series of tubes.

Let’s take a look…

via the MacCast:

• MacCast Episode 170

• Scott gives us his thoughts on Digital Convergence.

• Andrew tries out a new CD/DVD burning Mac app called Disco.

• Adam talks with Doug Bell on the PreviewCast.

• Cynthia lets us know about an update to AppZapper, ver. 1.8.

• Charles says MacHeist is promoting Independent Mac Developers.

• MacCast Episode 170

via the Interweb:

• Yet Another Birthday Importer (YABI): a beta tool that gives Mac users more flexibility with sending important Address Book dates (like birthdays and anniversaries) to iCal. It has a simple user interface, creates read-write calendars (unlike the built in iCal features), and makes the exporting very easy.

• notMac Challenge: If you’re like me, you’ve become weary of paying $99 a month year (thanks Jim!) for the Apple neglected dotMac service. So was the person who setup the notMac Challenge, who is asking the developer community to develop a dotMac substitute, and has setup a bounty-pledge system for the like-minded. I think it’s a great idea, but I was a little concerned about accountability. I’ve emailed the creator to try to find out more, and I’ll post more in the comments, but for right now—buyer (or donator) beware. (linked from MacWorld).

• iTunes is in a slump, no it’s not. Darn, just as I was writing a long post on how Podcasts have replaced iTunes music purchases—I know they have for me!

• Gizmodo: iPhone this Monday, Dec. 18, Brian Lam says, “I guarantee it.” Note: he doesn’t say that “the iPhone” or that it’s from Apple, or if it’s a phone. And doesn’t Apple tend to release products on Tuesdays?

Here is a great opportunity to spread a little holiday cheer this season and pick up a great Mac app or two at the same time. 12 Mac developers have teamed up
Child’s Play, a Seattle-based charity started in 2003 by the guys at Penny Arcade. Child’s Play collects donations of toys, games, books and cash and delivers them to sick kids staying in children’s hospitals across North America and the world. To date the charity has collected over a million dollars in donations.

This year several Mac developers have joined the cause and organized Child’s Play Day. On Thursday December 7th if you purchase any one (or more) of the 17 products from the 12 developers listed below, 100% of the proceeds from your purchases will be donated to Child’s Play. To participate you just make a regular purchase through the various online stores (on Thursday) and then the money will be collected and sent to the charity. It’s simple and you will help bring the joy of gaming to a sick child over the holiday season. Of course, you can also donate directly to Child’s Play by visiting http://www.childsplaycharity.org

Chimp Software (Store)
iRooster — Wake up to the world’s best music–your own–with iRooster, the Mac OS X alarm clock.

Clickable Bliss (Store)
Billable — Helps you keep track of the billable services you perform for a client and then lets you create and manage invoices based on those services.

Code Sorcery Workshop
Pukka — Fast, light productivity booster for people who use the del.icio.us bookmarking service. Multiple accounts, tag completion, private bookmarking, full AppleScript support, keyboard navigation, Growl, and much more. Stop waiting around and start bookmarking faster!

Elgebar Studios
Freeze Frame — Allows you to completely freeze an application, making it use absolutely no CPU cycles.
Pencils Down — Lets teachers create tests quickly and painlessly.

Flying Meat (Store)
VoodooPad — A personal desktop wiki. You put your brain in it.
FlySketch — Draw, highlight, everywhere.
FlyGesture — Move a little, do a lot.

Happy Apps (Store)
WebnoteHappy — Organize and remember the web pages that matter to you with WebnoteHappy – a better bookmark manager with tagging, note-taking, and del.icio.us integration.

Houdah Software (Store)
HoudahSpot — Your files at your fingertips. HoudahSpot is the frontend most Spotlight users don’t know they’re missing. Find files you didn’t know you had.

Martian Technology (Store)
SlingShot — The easiest way to keep your iTunes music (and your files) in sync between two Macs.
LifeBoat — Back up your important data on your external drives, instantly.

Mere Mortal Software (Store)
Safe Place — Securely store your passwords, credit card numbers, software activation codes, or any other information you want to keep handy and safe from prying eyes.

MK&C
Knox — Simply secure encryption and backup.

Prosit Software
iDictionary — Dictionary & Thesaurus Tailored For Your iPod
App Stop — Take Control Of Your Applications

RQS (Store)
Rolling Credits — Make typographically stunning — visually pleasing — completely unboring movie credits.

I told you about the latest iTunes UK promotion involving a billboard in Piccadilly Circus on the latest MacCast. In case you missed it, Apple and Coke have partnered and placed a billboard at Piccadilly Circus in London. The billboard will occasionally display a code and when you use your UK cell phone to text the code to a special number you have the opportunity to win free songs on the UK iTunes store. Recently listener Brandon was able snap a few shots of the new signage (see Flickr links and YouTube video below) and the Coke+iTunes team handing out samples and vouchers for 5 free iTunes songs. According to Brandon if the billboard code word doesn’t change daily UK listeners can text “vibe” to 85100 up to 3 times for free music. Enjoy!

Update: Added the video of the billboard from listener Matt

Normally I won’t cross-post from other blogs, but I just saw this post and the video below over on iLounge and it was too cool not to share.

“Found in the Apple Store in Tokyo, Japan’s Ginza district: as described more fully in this week’s Overseas Report, Apple has now outfitted the multi-story elevator entrances in Ginza with video pillars that explain the contents of each floor.”

Click here now get over to iLounge and chekout the video of this thing. You won’t be sorry.

(Via iLounge.)

If you are in the US and were watching television last night, you might have been pleasantly surprised to see a new Apple commercial. This new one was for the iPod shuffle, which showed how amazingly small it actually is. The ad gets away from the previous iPod silhouette spots, and instead has a series of people clipping the 2G shuffle to their clothes. The transition effect between each person is neat—all you can see is the torso of each person, and a new one is introduced by removing or adding clothes (don’t worry, it’s G-rated) and then clipping on the new shuffle.

You can see the ad now on Apple’s website here.

MacHeist is a great new web site by the same folks who brought us MyDreamApp. It offers a unique way discover some of the great Mac software developers that are out there and an opportunity to get some of their great applications for free (well, if you are willing to do a bit of detective work). The concept behind MacHeist is that each week members are given a “heist” to pull off. These heists are like little scavenger hunts that take place on the Web and via email. The reward for successful completion of a heist is access to a vault full of great new Mac applications (downloads complete with registration codes). These heists have elaborate story lines and are cleverly constructed. You send emails to bots who respond with more clues (assuming you can formulate the right message), try to solve puzzles, break into secret web sites and attempt to uncover hidden documents and files. The MacHeist team has done a great job producing the phony, but realistic, web sites and has partnered with legit sources like MacRumors to tie it all together and add an air of authenticity. If you enjoy elaborate puzzle style games like Myst you are going to like MacHeist.
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Publisher: Bitcartel
Price: $24.95 | Free Demo

Bitcartel, creators of RadioLover, iRecordMusic, and the Radiotastic dashboard widget, recently released an update to their digital comic book reader/organizer, ComicBookLover 1.2. ComicBookLover is to comic books what the iTunes app is to music.

I didn’t realize it, but comic books are being distributed digitally and online. You can buy 40 years of the X-Men comic books archived in PDF format and saved on a DVD for $39 ($39 for 485 issues, unless I’m missing something, that’s $0.08 a pop). Yes, there are some collections that are distributed via BitTorrent are privately scanned and are likely infringing—but there are also many independent authors and publishers who are selling their wares online for very reasonable prices.
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Mac Rumors is reporting that Apple has created Japanese versions of it’s popular ‘Get a Mac’ Ads. The ads seem to be almost exact recreations of the ads played in the US but with the Mac and PC being replaced by Japanese actors. It’s pretty cool because even though I can’t understand what they are saying I know what the ad is about having seen the US version. The ads can be seen at http://www.apple.com/jp/getamac/ads/