MacCast 06.28.2007 - Show #191
Media/Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
* Mandaandthemarbles.com
www.mandaandthemarbles.com
V News
V The week of the iPhone
* YouTube 12th iPhone app. New commercial on Apple's site
V Apple and AT&T announce service plans for iPhone
* 3-plans. $59.99 (for 450 minutes), $79.99 (for 900 minutes), or $99.99 (for 1,350 minutes)
* All three plans include unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes, and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling.
* Family plans (starting at $109.99 for 700 minutes and 2 lines, additional lines are $29.99). Existing AT&T customers need to add a data package starting at $20.00/mo.
* Read the fine print says TUAW. They noticed the fine print of Apple's iPhone plan page states you need a two-year contract and to pay an activation fee to enable iPhone's features, including the iPod.
* Activation at home using iTunes to select plan and set up and sync phone from Mac or Windows
V Early reviews are starting to surface and the Mac-friendly press is loving it.
* Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret consider it “a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer"
* David Pogue (New York Times, “it makes Treos and Blackberrys look obese.” “It’s fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate.”. As for email, it’s “fantastic. Incoming messages are fully formatted, complete with graphics; you can even open (but not edit) Word, Excel and PDF documents.”
* Not all parts are rosy. Weaknesses include tricky typing at first, EDGE (painfully slow), no one-touch or voice dialing, limited apps, and no video capture.
* Apple stores will be hosting an iPod premier event at 6:00 PM on Friday. Closing from 2:00 to 6:00 PM
* The Street.com reports their sales estimates show Apple may sell over $200 million in iPhones on "iDay"
* Apple opening 2 new stores, The Bayshore store in Glendale, Wisconsin, and the Woodland Hills store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
V Apple Updates Security, Safari Beta and OS X
V Security Update 2007-006 for Mac OS X v10.3.9 and Mac OS X v10.4.9.
* Addresses issues with WebKit. Fixing a XMLHttpRequest command exploit in Web Core and a WebKit bug where a maliciously crafted Web site could cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.
V Safari Beta 3.0.2 for Mac and Windows
* The update addresses security issues
V 10.4.10 Update
* Contains enhancements to Bluetooth, RAW camera support, updates for third-party applications, USB connectivity, recent security updates, and other minor issues. The update is recommended for all PowerPC and Intel-based Mac computers currently running Mac OS X Tiger
* Popping sounds at consistent intervals or just before sound plays on some Intel systems (mini, iMac, laptops). Audio sleep issue. Workaround is to keep an audio app, like iTunes, playing but turn the volume down.
* Updates to all of the Final Cut Studio applications bringing improved stability, performance, and more
* SuperDrive Firmware Update 2.1 for MacBooks and MacBook Pros, improves readability of certain CD media.
V Apple iTunes moves to number three
* The NPD Group reports that iTunes has surpassed Amazon to become the 3rd largest distributor of music, in any format.
* 10 percent of all music sales in the US
* Wal-Mart and Best Buy take the top two spots respectively with 15.8 and 13.8 percent shares
V Sponsor
V Audible.com
* Free audiobook if you sign up and try out Audible Listener Gold
Audible Offer
* With over 35,000 titles to choose from it's easy to find something that would interest you. Work like podcasts when synced with your iPod, remember playback position, chapters, etc.
V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V uPnP and security
* As pointed out by listener H.M. and this comment from the Antelope, not to be confused with the Macalope.
* Last show I mentioned a tool called Lighthouse that used uPnP with your router to open dynamic routes for apps like bittorrent, chat clients, etc.
* Anytime you open up ports through a firewall you are opening up a potential security hole.
* Some people also feel uPnP itself is a security risk as it allows locally running apps to automatically open up ports for themselves. You can disable it in your router and most ship with it off for security reasons.
* Security Now podcast on the TWiT Network.
V Synchronizing on the Mac
* On one episode I recommended ChronoSync
* Gregory was a fan of a discontinued app from YouSoftware called YouSync. He preferred it's UI to ChronoSyncs.
* YouSync was actually licensed to You Software by it's creator ExecutiveSync. The creator Jason Weber is busing building the next version as a Universal app. Send your support.
* Might also look at Martian Slingshot
Martian Slingshot
* or SilverKeeper from LaCie
LaCie Silverkeeper
V Learning to develop Cocoa Apps
* Listener Nick wanted some good places to start for learning Cocoa
* Start with these two books:
Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass
Learning Cocoa, O'Reilly Publishing
* and these sites/podcasts:
MacDevCenter, www.macdevcenter.com
CocoaDevCentral, www.cocoadevcentral.com
Apple Developer Center, www.apple.com—devloper
LateNightCocoa, latenightcocoa.com
CocoaBlogs, cocoablogs.com
V Reach out to developers and the Mac developer community
* Wil Shipley Developer of Delicious Library
* Gus Mueller Developer of VoodooPad
* Brent Simmons Developer of NetNewsWire
* Austin Sarner Developer of Disco and AppZapper
V Review: Shapeshifer
* Play review from Robby
* I appreciate his warnings and I am not a big fan of APE
V Other interface moding stuff:
* CandyBar from Panic
CandyBar
* Get icons and wallpapers from IconFactory. Also checkout Pixadex.
IconFactory
V How Time Machine Works
* From listener Joel
* he points out that ZFS is not needed to make it possible.
* Explained fairly well by Scott Forstall, from Apple Inc. There's a video from the WWDC 2006 Sessions titled "Mac OS X State of The Union" available freely for Apple Developer Connection members.
V Here is quickly how Time Machine works :
* At first, a complete backup is made. After that, snapshots are made regularly (actually every hour) by a low priority daemon that listen to the changes in the file system. The snapshots are read only to prevent a user from mistakenly deleting them.
* When a file is deleted, a new snapshot is made with only the changes in the file system. It takes virtually no space to do it. When a new file is created, only the new file is added to the backup and a new snapshot is created. All the rest are hard-links to the first backup.
* Everyday, a general snapshot.
* To save space, an API makes it possible for developper to mark files as not to be backed up. Cache files, temporary files and index files are not backed up if they are placed in the standard location.
* Fairly simple and straight forward, but still seems like you'll need a lot of extra backup space.
* The guys at MacBreak Tech say you will want an external drive for each Mac you are planning to use TimeMachine with and it may not be ideal for large workgroups.
V YouTube everywhere, except FrontRow?
* With YouTube coming to Apple TV and the iPhone listener Carmen brings up a good point. Why isn't YouTube in FrontRow?
V Why does my trash have "Recovered files"?
* Listener Andrew wants to know... Sometimes when I warm-boot my Mac, even when the trash is empty before, once it's booted sometimes there's a folder in the Trash named Recovered Files. Do you know what that is? Is it important?
V From Apple's tech support site:
* The recovered files are temporary files used by Mac OS X applications. Usually temporary files are deleted by an application when it no longer needs them. If an application quits unexpectedly, the temporary files may not get deleted by the application. When you restart your computer, Mac OS X moves these temporary files to the Trash.

You can retrieve useful files by dragging them out of the Trash. In most cases, however, the temporary files are not important and it is safe to empty your Trash. Check with the manufacturer of the application if you are not sure.
V Closing
V Podcast Marketplace
V Thanks to my sponsors
* The Gadget Locker
The Gadget Locker
* Audible.com
Audible Offer
V Maccast makes Shuffles jumpy
* Several people have mentioned this issue
* Sound begins to break-up and degrade about 30 mins into the show on 1st gen Shuffles
* Seems to be an issue with the AAC version of the show.
V Until I get it fixed, subscribe to the MP3 edition for syncing with Shuffles
* 1) Copy this URL, http://feeds.feedburner.com/maccast/
2) Launch iTunes
3) In the 'Advanced' menu select "Subscribe to Podcast...", paste the
URL, and click OK.
Maccast MP3 Version
V Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
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V 206-222-2788 (20-MACCAST-8)
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* MacCast Forum
forum.maccast.com
V New music, "Tallest of the Tall" by the band Breva
* Artists Web Site
brevamusic.com
V Microsoft Surface Parody
* A hilarious overdub of Microsoft's intro video for it's Surface tabletop computer environment. Done by SarcasticGamer.com
Surface Parody