iPhone coming to Canada this year

Could this announcement be more vague?

Ted Rogers, President and CEO of Rogers Communications, made a statement this week saying, “We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year.

Strings point to iPhone as an iTunes remote

TUAW found strings in the latest iPhone beta that refer to iControl

Remote to allow iPhone or iPod to control shared iTunes over the network to play videos, music, etc.

There have been web based services you can run locally to do this, but this would be integrated into iTunes and an iPhone app. Think iTunes remote with screen.

Latest version of RemoteBuddy has a AJAX browser based remote

www.iospirit.com

New iPod iTunes Ad

There is a new silhouette ad running in prime time rotation in the US.

First such ad to surface in a year, since May 2007.

Same old same old with silhouette dancing with white iPods, shapes and bright colors.

Music featured is ”Shut Up and Let Me Go” by The Ting Tings.

Foreshadowing the demise of the iPod Classic?

iMacs revved to 3.06GHz

Al Intel iMacs get a speed bump

Intel core 2 Duo systems using specially designed chips according to Electronista. Tweaked to run using just 55 watts of power. Main board remains the same as in the "Santa Rosa" systems.

2.4GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz, or 3.06GHz processors with faster 1066MHz frontside bus

6MB shared L2 cache

2GB SDRAM of 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM standard on all but the low end model.

512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics BTO option on the 24"

Priced from USD $1,199.00 to $2,199.00

Apple Store help like a rainbow.

According to a report on ifoAppleStore

Clothing and slogans will change to better distinguish their roles

Genius and Creative employees, dark blue

Creative: “No pain, all gain”

Genius: “Not all heroes wear capes”

Specialists, light blue (previously Concierges ), “I can talk about this stuff for hours”

Concierges, bright orange, “I know people”

Business Partners, dark blue, buttoned-down shirts (polo?) with “Business” embroidered on the sleeve

Back-of-house, traditional black, “Some artists use brushes. I prefer boxes”

Manager: “My place. Your place”

BBC comes to iTunes US, iTunes rentals same day as DVD

BBC America has added content to iTunes.

3 shows at the standard $1.99 each

Torchwood (Series 1 and 2)

Little Britain (Series 3 only)

Robin Hood (Series 2 only)

Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, NEw Line, and others will be releasing iTunes rentals on the same day as DVD releases.

Apple is also selling films via Apple TV and may be taking a $2.00 loss for the priveledge. Apple sells films for $14.99, but the Wall Street Journal reports they may be paying studios a $16 whole sale price.

3G iPhones cheaper from AT&T

Fortune has a piece that says AT&T will subsidize up to $200 of the cost of the device (expected at $399 8GB and $499 16GB) with a 2-year contract

Deal only from AT&T stores and device would be locked to AT&T network

The Fortune source also says the device will be 2.5mm thinner, will contain a GPS chip, and is expected to go on sale around June 29th (iPhone 1-year anniversary).

Rumors that Foxconn has been tapped to make the 3G iPhone to the tune of 24-25 million units

3 million to be available at launch in June?

Looks like SOME AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspost now offer free iPhone access, according to MacRumors. Special "page" asks for the iPhone number. Can be fakes for laptop access by spoofing the user agent.

Apple brings Java SE 6 to Leopard

Apple released Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1 for 64-bit Intel Macs.

Adds support for Java SE 6, specifically version 1.6.0_05

Update is Intel 64-bit only and will not work on PowerPC-based or 32-bit Intel-based Macs.

Maccast One Minute Tip is Back!!

From our long lost friend John Chambers

www.oneminutetip.com

Sharing podcasts.

Play tip.

Podcasting How to

commoncraft.com/podcasting

Make sure you Mac can breathe

Listener Andy noticed his G5 PowerMac temp rising and the system shutting down.

I originally suggested resetting the SMU, SMC, PMU.

Turns out it was layers of dust blocking the fans. I get this on the lower vents of my iMac G5.

Sometimes adequate ventilation is all you need.

Listener Jim also had a fan issue, but in his case when sleeping his Mac would lock up (not wake) and the fans would be running full speed.

In his case it was Spotlight attempting to index external drives, adding them to the "privacy' list resolved the issue.

Hopefully the impending 10.5.3 update will contain a fix.

Safari has a local SQL database

Listener Rick noticed an option under Safari 3's security tab to set the size and to "Show databases" and was wondering what that was.

It the HTML 5 Client-side Database Storage API and it's built in to Webkit. The have a notes demo.

Webkit HTML SQL Demo

When on a page using the feature you can view the stored data using the Developer menus Web Inspector. activate the Safari 3 Preferences-->Advanced tab

This will be really handy for iPhone web apps.

Confusion when troubleshooting with clones

Listener was having keychain access issues where he couldn't unlock the admin screens with clicking the lock icon. It would unlock and then immediately lock again.

Tried everything including repair from the Keychain Access Utility.

Had a clone backup, so decided to restore from that and thought it worked, but turned out he actually booted from the external and was running off that.

When you begin troubleshooting going back and forth from a cloned backup, set the desktop of the clone to a different desktop.

Ultimately had to do an Archive and Install to fix the keychain access issue.

Human-powered transcription app

JT pointed me at Transcriva (USD $19.99)

bartastechnologies.com

Audio playback, multiple voices, markers, etc.

Looks like it has a nice clean simple interface

Mail eating memory and crashing

Listener Daniel was having issues with Apple Mail crashing. Saw in Activity monitor that after launch Mail.app would quickly eat up memory.

Turns out it was RSS in Mail. There was a file being rapidly created/deleted continuously in the ~/library/Mail folder.

Fixed the issue by unsubscribing from RSS feeds with Mail and then deleting the 'RSS' folder and the 'Available Feeds' file within ~/library/Mail.

Was able to then re-subscribe to the RSS feeds without issue.

Where do Recovered Files come from?

James wanted to know why sometime 'Recovered Files' show up in the trash.

Can appear on restart of your Mac, especially after a crash or improper shut down

Many apps use temporary files and they are usually managed by the app and removed. If that doesn't happen they find their way into the trash.

Sometimes they have a name that will not allow you to delete them. Find them in the terminal under ~/.Trash

Does Option+Empty still work?

Check in Finder if file is locked. Get Info, under General.

Might be permissions, run repair permissions or change with Get Info...

Make sure an app that may be using that file is not open. Can sometimes be a background app or shared app.

Remove special characters from the filename.

Use the command line.

When is a backup, not a backup?

When you destroy the original during an erase and install

Dana reminds us that when you do that, your cloned backup is now the only copy unless you have another form of backup.

I recommended DVDs and/or offsite storage for most critical files and documents.

2nd cloned backup. I have a second drive just for TimeMachine, but will clone to that as a second backup before doing an erase and install.