Listen to today’s show here!
MC20050516.mp3 [14.1mb 30:50 64kbps]

A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 60. First Tiger update OS 10.4.1 update released, second manufacturer now making iPods, snother new iPod commercial launched during SNL, Apple stop injunction from Tiger Direct lawsuit and Apple officially announces 1st Canadian Apple Store. A comment about the MacCast forum spam attack, update on the 10 Top Reasons to Switch contest, summary of The MacGathering event, using Tiger to set up safe email for kids and why should I switch to Mac?Plus, what is Jabber? New music, “Burn in Hollywood” by Awe Persona. You’d listen if your mother told you to. Shownotes in HTML or OPML

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Listen to today’s show here!
MC20050513.mp3 [14.6mb 31:55 64kbps]

A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 59. Gates says iPod success is unsustainable, 1st Tiger update continues to loom, Apple may be leaving KHTML for it’s own technology, Apple settles lawsuit with rapper Eminem, Apple releases DVD player 4.6, Apple granted patent on Tablet computer design, Toshiba announces 45GB next-gen DVD, Malicious .MOV files possible in Tiger, Toast 6.1 blocks iTunes download burning and XBox 360 Demos were running on Macs. listener comments on MBox Tiger incompatibilities, Opinion: Curt’s 2 cents on Macintosh gaming and more Tiger tips for removing Widgets. Reminder I will be at the 2nd Annual MacGathering in Los Angeles, CA this Sunday may 15th. Please come out and say hi. New music, Waiting by Taxi Doll. Listen up. Shownotes in HTML or OPML

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Hey Mac Geeks,
The Geek, Todd Cochrane from Geek News Central has worked tirelessly over the past few months and today has announced the availability of his new book, PODCASTING: Do It Yourself Guide part of the ExtremeTech series from Wiley publishing. The book is only $19.99 and is available on pre-sale over at Amazon.com. Todd is incredibly dedicated to the podcasting medium and I can only assume he poured his heart, sole and experience into this book. If you are interested in starting a Podcast or even if you are just curious, you want to get yourself a copy of this book.

Editor’s note: I am providing information of books related to Podcasting because I have had many people ask me about it. Since these books are just becoming available and in fairness to all authors I am listing books for anyone who asks. The listing here is purely informational and in no way an endorsement from the MacCast. As I receive review copies and if I have time to read them, I will try to provide formal reviews. Reviews will be clearly distinguishable as they will be categorized in the review section of the web site.

Thanks to listener Bryan for sending in this little bit of inside info. It looks like Apple is busy prepping new TV ads and they have been finding talent in local Apple retail stores. Check out Bryan’s story.

About a month ago I was shopping at the Apple store in SoHo Manhattan when I woman with a video camera asked me to answer a few questions for her. I said sure, did my thing, and went home. Well, last week I got a call from a production company in L.A. Apple might want me to be in their next commercial! How cool. So on Monday Apple flew me to Los Angeles first class with about 50 other Mac geeks. We all had a casting call and about 30 people got picked. Unfortunately I wasn’t one of them, but the lucky ones are filming right now. We all received a free iPod Shuffle 512 for our time and had a great L.A. experience. I’m excited to see the new commercial as I will know everyone in them.

All in all a pretty good Mac geek story I thought you would enjoy.

If you want to hear more from Bryan, check out his Podcast: Comic Geek Speak

I received this great email from listener Scott. I think it proves once you give a Mac a try you’ll be convinced it is a better experience.

I was a PC person for a little over 20 years starting with the Commodore 64 and working my way up. I have spent hundreds of hours working on my own computers and helping others with theirs and it never really gets old.

I just recently bought my first Apple product, the 40gig ipod photo and totally fell in love with it. I work in aerospace on the graveyard shift and I get to listen to audiobooks all night and that helps a lot. After finding out how awesome the ipod was I decided to take the plunge and buy my first Mac. I got the new 15″ Powerbook 1.67GHz model with a gig of RAM and the extra 64MB of RAM (128MB) on the ATI Radeon 9700 so now I am REALLY REALLY in love.

I still have a really high end PC that I mostly just keep around for gaming now but use my Mac for everything else. I only wish I had given Mac a chance years ago.

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