Apple Stores "Black Friday" sale

Apple Retail stores will have in store specials Friday (today)

Based on past years expect select Apple hardware to be discounted 3-8%

3rd party hardware and software with bigger savings.

iPod will be a hot holiday gift item. Shortages expected.

Businessweek is reporting that many retailers are getting far fewer iPods than they requested.

Two retailers are reporting getting as few as half of their weekly orders.

Apple shipped it's 30 millionth iPod.

Apple announce long term agreements for Flash memory

Apple announced it has reached long-term supply agreements with Hynix, Intel, Micron, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba to secure the supply of NAND flash memory through 2010.

Apple intends to prepay a total of $1.25 billion for flash memory components during the next three months.

That's a lot of memory. How long until we see Flash boot drives?

Aperture is Gold Master. Should be out next week.

Rumor is it will include a printed manual and tutorial DVD

If anyone wants to do a review that would be great.

Mac OS X 10.4.3 for Intel cracked

According to the OSx86 Project, Mac OS X 10.4.3 for Intel, released about two weeks ago, has already been hacked to run on Non-Mac Intel hardware.

Apple uses TPM restrictions which is almost uncrackable, but hackers have figured out how to fool the OS into thinking it doesn't need the authorization.

Apple ITunes Music Store ranked 7th in US retail sales

According the The NPD Group, in Q3 2005, Apple's iTunes Music store made its way into the Top 10 list of U.S. retailers based on "equivalent number of units (albums) sold".

Apple ranked 7th. the top 3 were 1. Wal-Mart 2. Best Buy 3. Target

NPD used 12 tracks per album in order to compare sales between physical CDs and individual tracks

TiVo will support transfer to iPod

The New York Times reports that TiVo is announcing both iPod and Sony PSP support for its Digital Video Recorder (TiVo)

Tivo Press Release

The newest version of TiVoToGo software will allow users to transfer recorded television programming to 5G iPods

In testing soon. Available to Tivo Series 2 users in the first quarter

Customers report Issues downloading full album purchases from iTunes

Also seems to be effecting Podcast downloads.

Users see errors suggesting that the contents of their shopping carts have changed, that the server cannot be located, or that the album they are attempting to purchase has been modified.

Many of those affected reside in Canada, and many are using an internet service provider by the name of "Rogers Communications". "Shaw" customers are also reporting issues.

Listener Jason mentioned this and points to this Apple thread

iTunes Download Issues

The Snowball Interview

Thanks to Snowball

www.snowballspc.com

Where in the world is J.H.?

The winning postcard for the iTunes Gift Certificate was J.H. The email address I had was for jharrison, but was bounced.

Please email me.

maccast@gmail.com

Warning on Switch Rez tip

The SwitchRez utility mentioned on the last show allows access to many resolutions, refresh rates, etc. that may not be supported by your monitor or card

Madrau, SwitchRes

You can select a mode that won't work and be "locked out" of your display. Zap PRAM to get your display back.

Also can potentially damage your display, so know what you are doing.

Batteries not covered under AppleCare

According to the AppleCare rep I spoke with a battery should have 1 to 1.5 years of useful life. (approx 350 charges/discharges)

Lots of Feedback on moving iLife libraries

Sheri points out a great how to article for moving iTunes library

Playlist: Moving iTunes Library

1) Create a new folder for your iTunes on another volume

2) Change the iTunes music folder location, in preferences Advanced tab, to point at the new location.

3) Check the "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized" and "Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding to Library"

4) Click OK

5) From the Advanced menu choose Consolidate Library. When you click Consolidate, iTunes will copy not only your tracks to the destination you designated, but also your library’s playlists (ratings will be maintained as well).

This article goes further to show you how to have multiple Macs share one iTunes Library

iPhoto Library is a bit trickier

The general consensus is that the best way is to use the procedure described where you make symbolic links.

What to do for OS X Maintenance

From Listener David

My opinion on

Alsoft, Disk Warrior

DiskWarrior

ProSoft Engineering, Drive Genius

Drive Genius

MicroMat, Tech Tool Pro 4

Tech Tool Pro 4

I personally use

Apple Disk Utility

Cocktail

Cocktail Utility

Defragmentation

Do i need to do it?

How often? (every 2-3 months)

Bootable disks?

Use your OS X CD/DVD

Use a Firewire Hard Drive

CharlesSoftBootCD (not Tiger compatible yet)

www.charlessoft.com

Cool trick for sizing list areas in iTunes

From Jason B.

Double clicking the little line in between the column tittles like Name, Time, Bit Rate, Artist, Genre, etc, it automatically sizes that column to the right size (size of the longest item). This works in some other programs, but not the Finder strangely.

Thoughts on 2-button laptops

Play comment from Brian

Rumors of new Intel laptop possibly having a second button

More comfortable for me personally to use the Ctrl+Click, rather than the thumb contortion.

trackpads are already so unnatural.

"iPod thumb"

Better off learning keyboard shortcuts

PocketMac Review

Play review from David

PocketMac

Mixed reviews on both MissingSync and PocketMac

Markspace, The Missing Sync

People report better success with Palm devices. Tiger and iSync offer built-in support for PalmOne (Tungstun, Zire, Treo) devices.

iSync Supported Devices

All work best if you use Mail, iCal and AddressBook. Entourage seems to have the most syncing issues.

Review of Apples new Concierge service

Play review from Charles

Apple Retail Stores

How to run FinalCutPro 4.5 on a new G5 Mac

Play tip from Cailean

Save yourself $400 to $700

XBox 360s overheating? Hmmm.

The XBox uses an IBM PowerPC with 3 3.2GHz cores

Is any Mac owner surprised the PowerPC runs hot and is overheating?

Microsoft claims this is a limited number of units and to be expected with any major launch like this.