Atom tablet coming from Apple

Intel's German chief Hannes Schwaderer caused quite a stir with comments made earlier in the week that lead some Mac rumor sites ad blogs to believe Apple was developing a tablet Mac that would be based on Intel's new Atom processor for ultra-mobile devices.

Later Intel spokesman Mike Cato denied the rumor saying Schwaderer's comments were misinterpreted by the media. And what he meant was the Atom chips are part of a strategy to bring a new Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform to market and Schwaderer was merely using the iPhone as an example of the MID platform. Apple

There are no current plans to put an Atom into an Apple product.

Atom is available in 1.33, 1.6 and 1.86GHz versions for low cost ultra mobile computers and a low voltage version running at 800 MHz to 1.1GHz for devices like smartphones.

Another interesting new chip from Intel is the quad core, 2.53GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9300.

Originally supposed to be rated at 45-watts, it;s now looking to be more like 35 same heat and power envelope as current dual-core Mac notebook chips.

Due out this summer if Apple does go with the chip in pro notebooks expect a high price tag. The QX9300 is expected to be at $1,038 per chip in 1,000-unit batches.

This weeks 3G iPhone watch

According to Macworld UK, O2 CEO Matthew Key said they would be making an iPhone-related announcement in conjunction with Apple “in the coming weeks.”

Network World.reports that AT&T will complete its 3G mobile broadband network by the end of June, becoming the first U.S. carrier to fully deploy High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology over its network.

Analysts from Piper Jaffray claim most 3G changes will be cosmetic beyond the new chipset. Thicker (to accommodate 3G chip which is bigger), new faceplate, they don't mention black (or colored) back. Target June 9th announcement with a mid-June release date. Gizmodo is claiming a "confirmed" June 9th launch date.

3G to bring mobile access to iTunes Store, but on 3G only?

As many as 60 people were already lining up for the iPhone in NYC. Not really, turns out it was for a shippment of current gen phones.

Latest Phone 2.0 beta builds hint at "Location" services in Maps and Photos that could allow for geo-tagging of photos. The new system als now asks permisson to transmit and use location data.

Sidenote fun rumor of the week: Apple TV reconfigurable mutlitouch wireless bluetooth keyboard and remote. Heys would be physical with a Touchscreen area to the right of the keyboard. Would probably cost more than the AppleTV, but hey it would be Schweet!

Add 12 more countries to the iPhone global dominion

According to a Reuters report, France Telecom's Orange has confirmed that it will launch the iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets in 2008.

The AT&T iPhone wi-fi saga continues

CrunchGear is reporting that AT&T was set to launch free Wi-fi hotspot access to iPhone customers last Thursday, but pulled the plug at the last minute.

A reported company memo states, "The iPhone Wi-Fi offer that was scheduled to launch today has been canceled. Nothing has been announced by the company to our customers and will not impact existing customers. Additional communication will be provided if the status the project changes."

It's thought AT&T originally wanted to open up the Wi-fi to lessen the sting of the 3G launch on current 2.5G iPhone owners. Guess they figure it's better to cash in on the rabid anticipation... think they did a focus group?

These guys are seriously confused. Earlier in the week they also reportedly restricted iPhone purchase to 1 per customer with a credit card required for purchase only to return to the 3 per customer limit a day later.

Sounds like the business dev and marketing guys need to go on a corporate retreat and have a big love-in or something.

Mac sales up 50% for April

NPD Group is reporting that Mac unit sales are up 50% year over year for April. Revenues were also up 46%.

iPod unit sales were also up, but not quite so dramatically at a respectable 15% with a smaller 10% increase revenue probably due to a large portion of iPod unit sales being attributed to increases in the lower priced iPod Shuffle.

NPD also reported via AppleInsider that Apple's Airport is one of the top selling 802.11n routers and has garnered an 10.^% share of the market based on unit volume.

The AirPort Extreme lead US retail sales as the top selling router in April and the new Time Capsule topped sales as the most popular Network Attached Storage device

Phishing scam targets iTunes users

A new scam is aimed at iTunes users

Macworld reports that security firm Proofpoint Inc. has an alert about a scam email being sent to iTunes users.

The email points them to a fake Tunes billing update page that asks the user to provide information including credit card number and security code, Social Security number and mother's maiden name.

These scams are not knew, but this seems to be the first time where Apple has been used as the target brand.

As always you should always be wary of giving out this type of personal information on-line

According to eWeeek, 3 security bugs were also found this week in iCal by security firm Core Security Technologies

The expolits use maliciously crafted .ics files to potentially take control of a machine or launch denial of service attacks.

Only import .ics files from trusted sources and be causious if you connect to a CalDAV server.

New Apple get a Mac ads, including an extended cut.

"Pep rally", "Group", and "Sad Song"

"Pep rally" focuses on Apple's growing popularity on Collage campuses

"Group", and "Sad Song" again target Microsoft's continued woes with Vista

"Sad Song" has PC (John Hodgman) singing the "Visa Blues" and is also available on Apple's site in an extended version.

Apple also has added an iPod+iTunes ad featuring Coldplay. It features the group silhouetted against brightly-colored lights and reminds me a little of the latest Apple TV Take 2 designs and splash screen. I think it is one of the best looking iPod+iTunes ads so far. The add promos the bands latest album "Viva la Vida" which will be sold digitally exclusively through iTunes.

West Coast Canada finally represents with an Apple Store

This Saturday Apple's first store in Vancouver, Canada will open

Apple currently has 3 stores in Toronto and 1 in Quebec.

May 24th the Apple Store in Vancouver's Pacific Centre Mall will open it's door and the first 1,000 customer will get a free t-shirt.

LED backlighting in all Mac Notebooks by 2009

According to a piece by Ars Technica

Apple has plans to get LED backlit displays in all it's notebooks by 2008.

So far only the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro 15" have LED backlighting standard. The 17" Macbook Pro has it as a BTO option.

Apple's main LCD supplier, Kenmos, is already expected to ship as many as 1.5 million LED Backlit Units which is a 500% increase over last year

The move to LED backlighting is all part of Apple's "greening" initiative, but also has the benefit of providing better battery life (lower power consumption) and thinner displays.

Pystar Patches their Mac Clones

Maybe I was wrong about these guys. Apple sure seems to be ignoring them.

They are supporting their customers with 13 official patches and updates on their support site. Including hosting ones form Apple (more fodder for legal fury?).

Fixes for supporting their NIC card with Airports, a fix for Time Machine, Quicktime, and security updates among others.

Apple has remained suspiciously quiet.

Apple and CBS sued over Mighty Mouse

According to Macworld Man & Machine makers of a water proof mouse called the Mighty Mouse used in hospitals and labs.

Man & Machine had been in an existing lawsuit over the term, but Apple is now being sued because CBS licensed the name to Apple for use for it's mouse.

The Man & Machine Mighty Mouse was released in 2004, one year before Apple's mouse.

Correction OSX server pricing

I said USD$499 unlimited. It is actually USD$999.00. $499 is the 10 client price.

Correction: TimeMachine Restore

I misunderstood this feature and you actually can restore from TimeMachine.

Got many comments like Randy's. Play comment.

Another backup recommendation from JB

Synk Backup from Decimus

decimus.net

Has some nice features like the ability to archive replaced data, so when it backs up you can have it archive the versions of files that are replaced or removed. Kinda like Time Machine.

Also Zero Scan for fast incremental backups. Zero Scan is always running, watches and logs changes so when the scheduled backup runs it already know which files it needs to update. Doesn't work if you have other computers that can change files on the machine running Zero Scan.

Follow-up: Entourage to iPhone Sync

PocketMac GoBetween for Entourage

Allows a little more control than Entourage's built-in sync services

Can do multiple calendars.

Also syncs to iPods, PDAs, and other Smartphones.

Back-up data before doing the first sync in case you don't have the settings quite right.

Also web based solutions like Plaxo.

www.plaxo.com

Play comment from Mark

Connecting your Mac to a TV

Listener Derreck bought a MonoPrice DVI to component video adapter for his Macbook Pro and it is not working.

www.oneminutetip.com

The issue is the hardware needed to converter the DVI digital signal to an analog one. The adapter only adapts the connector, but won't provide any conversion of the signal.

If you have a newer Intel Mac and a TV that supports VGA, DVI, or HDMI you can just get the appropriate cable.

Or, get one of Apple's DVI, Mini-DVI, or VGA to Video converters. Which one depends on the kind of Mac you have.

Otherwise you need a converter box (external hardware) to convert the digital signal to analog. A VGA to component box was all I could find and runs about USD$125.

Mac changes name on wake from sleep.

Justin was having an issue where his Mac would change it's network name when he woke it from sleep.

A pop-up would come up saying that the computer name was already in use on the network and it would add a number on to the end of the name.

"This Computer's local hostname "****computer.local" is already in use on this network. The name has been changed to "****-2.local" automatically.

One report I read claims it is because the hostname is being set by DHCP

Turns out unchecking the the "Wake for Ethernet network administrator access" box under the "Energy Saver" options in System Preferences fixed it.

How to print out Safari Bookmarks

Rick wanted a way to print out a list of his bookmarks including the bookmark name and the URL.

Export in Safari just results in an HTML file that displays in the browser with bookmark names as hyperlinks.

Safari to HTML

I found an app called Safari to HTML that takes your Safari Bookmarks and exports them to HTML, but allows you to use simple HTML templates to control the design and output.

Need to know a little CSS and HTML, but simple wildcards to insert bookmark names and URLS.

The app also offers option to control the output like

You can then open the HTML output in Safari and print.

I know there are several bookmark managers out there, but does anyone know of one that can print out hard copies. Bonus points for an app that will generate them in a booklet or hipster PDA format.

A little Apple history lesson

Play audio file sent from Ben

Well that "quote" is actually the lyrics to a Bob Dylan song called "The Times They are a Changing'". Jobs is well know to be a huge Dylan fan and Bob Dylan actually shows up quite often in Apple lore including an appearance in the famous "Think Different" ad campaign.

That specific audio clip is from the intro to the 1984 Apple shareholders meeting when Steve Jobs introduced the Mac, or rather it introduced itself, to the world.

Play audio highlights from Macworld CD

Can get all kinds of great stories and Apple history from the Andy Hertzfeld book "Revolution in the Valley" and on his website Folklore.org.

folklore.org

There is also a podcast of the stories from Folklore.org called Mac Folklore Radio, but I don't know if it is still being produced. The archives are there though.

macfolkloreradio.com

Using the Mac to do a Blog

Play comment from Graeme

Use a service like.. Blogger, Vox, Typepad, Wordpress.com

Quick and easy to set up

Limited design and control.

Use Mac software like iWeb or Rapidweaver and a hosting service like .Mac, GoDaddy, included Cable or DSL hosting. Upload via FTP (integrated in some apps).

Rapidweaver has a plug-in you can buy called RapidBlog that works with Blogger

No database, can edit off line and sync, etc.

May not be as feature rich.

Can update with add-ons

Roll your own

Use software like Wordpress that you install yourself

Lot's of control. Can fully customize to suit your needs.

More technical to set up, helpful to know HTML, PHP, and MySQL

Some hosting providers offer web based tools to install and set up.

Quicklook stole your shortcut

Brent used to hit the spacebar when navigating in the Finder to quickly jump the selection to the top item in the column or window, but now in Leopard he gets Quicklook

Was hoping to be able to re-map the Quicklook hotkey which I couldn't find.

Typing Shift+Space will select the top element in the current window or column in Leopard.