MacCast 01.20.2009 - Show #252
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Media/Links
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Opening
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Opening Music
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Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
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Mandaandthemarbles.com
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Sponsor
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Circus Ponies
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Notebook
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Get organized and ready for tax season
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Lists of expenses, donations, etc.
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Organize your milage
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Add in PDFs, images, etc.
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Free 30-day trial.
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News
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Jobs, his health, and Apple
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I wish Steve Jobs and his family the best. Health and family should always be number 1 priorities.
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The topic cannot be avoided, but I can keep to the facts.
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In an email to employees Jobs stated, "In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June."
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I believe Steve until proven otherwise. From now on I am not going to speculate on or report on rumors surrounding Steve's health.
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Tim Cook, Chief Operating Officer at Apple will be steeping in to assume Steve's day to day duties and Steve will continue to be "involved in major decisions" during his leave.
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Steve has already stated that he is dealing with nutritional problem and I think taking a leave and reducing stress can only be good for his recovery.
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Woz pointed out also that it's often during down time that the mind clears and great ideas often emerge. He also pointed out that tech product lead cycles are very long 12-18 months so any current projects are already underway and likely Steve's presence or absence wouldn't have much impact on changing those projects.
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Apple has talented teams and this is not the 1990's Jobs-less Apple. I think people forget that.
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2010 CES to have Apple-centric area
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According to cNET News Jason Oxman of the CEA has confirmed they will have an Apple-centric area at the next CES show.
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AppleInsider reported earlier that Apple's presence at the 2010 show was a "done deal", but Apple has not commented and their has been no confirmation.
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Seems like a smart move by CEA since a number of vendors have had to split between the two shows in the past. For sure puts pressure on IDG for the 2010 Macworld.
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Cult of Mac reports that 2009 CES attendance numbers were down 22%.
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Is an iPhone Nano still next?
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Electonista reports that Brian Marshal an analyst for AmTech still thinks the iPhone Nano will be released early this year, just maybe in China and not the US.
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Ars Technica and others commented on a report from a Chinese paper, The Economic Daily News, that claimed they expected iPhone Nano chip orders to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) with a possible Apple ship date around June.
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June would match up with WWDC where Apple has made other iPhone announcements.
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AppleInsider's sources think an iPhone refresh could be sooner. They say Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner thinks slowing iPhone sales might push Apple to do an earlier iPhone update around April or May.
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This may be to keep on track huge iPhone growth momentum. iPod Observer claims a report from Generator Research shows that Apple's global smartphone marketshare could be 40% by 2013.
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Mac Mini's and Apple TVs get new rumors
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Rumors from Electronista, AppleInsider, and ArsTechnica say Apple might use NVIDA's new ION platform to drive the next gen Mac Mini and possibly Apple TV Designs.
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The spec being thrown around are an Intel 1.6GHz, dual-core Atom 330 (not as powerful as the Core 2 Duos), and a NVIDIA 9400M chipset graphics chipset.
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The benefits are a cheaper to produce, lower power consuming, and lower heat product with much improved graphics performance.
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This 9400 chipset is capable of full 1080p HD decoding and Apple may choose to leverage Snow Leopards Open CL technology to make up for any CPU deficiencies.
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The size, performance, and low heat profile also make the platform a likely candidate for the AppleTV.
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There is a rumor circulating that Intel may not sell Atom processors to be combined with non-Intel GPU chipsets.
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Apple's Q1 financial earnings call set for Wednesday
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Apple will have is first quarter financial earnings call on Wednesday January 21st.
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We will find out how well or not Apple is doing in the down economy. iPhone 3G holiday sales, new Macbooks and Macbook Pros.
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How will Apple do?
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MacRumors has numbers from Gartner that show Apple's computer shipments only grew by 8.3% over the 4th quarter last year. Much lower than the 30-40% year over year growth they had been having.
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The same Gartner report also saw Apple's market share drop 1.5% from the prior quarter down to 8.0%.
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An IDC report showed similar quarterly numbers, but noted that Apple's yearly growth rate of 25.7%, much higher the the industry average of just 2.4%.
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Analysts expect Apple to beat their quarterly guidance
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MacNN says Kaufman Bros predicts $9.76 billion in revenue with an earnings per share of $1.35. Above Apple's guidance of $1.06.
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UBS echoes the predictions with between 9 to 10 b illion in revenue for the quarter.
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Apple details 17" Macbook Pro battery replacements
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Apple has posted an official support page with pricing and other details
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Price of the replacement battery includes installation of your new battery and environmentally responsible disposal of your depleted battery.
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Cost:
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United States $179 pre taxes
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Canada CA$219 pre taxes
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Europe €179 inc. VAT
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United Kingdom £139 inc. VAT
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Japan ¥19,800 inc. taxes
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Australia A$299 inc GST
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Time:
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Apple Retail: Same day repair with an appointment.
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Apple Mail-in: 3 - 4 business days after shipment of unit to depot.
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Warranty: Apple warrants the replacement battery against manufacturing defects for one year from the date of service
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My thoughts on the non-removable battery.
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Annoying, but if you really think about it... probably impacts a small set of users.
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Travel more than 5 hours long (plugs on many planes now) and projects in the field longer then 5-6 hours.
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Expect 3rd party battery charging devices (if Apple licenses MagSafe).
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Discount upgrades to iLife '09 for recent mac buyers
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MacNN reports that Apple will allow customers who purchased a Mac between January 6th, 2009 to March 28 to upgrade to the iLife '09 for $10 USD.
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Need to have purchased a qualifying Mac from an Apple Store or an authorized reseller and have a sales receipt or packaging slip dated within the qualifying period.
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Apple is also offering a free 30-day trial of iWork '09.
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Will Snow Leopard ditch water for stone?
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Rumors from MacNN and others claim Apple will be introducing a new unified OS UI in Snow Leopard
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Codenamed "marble" the theme will flatten the look from the current Aqua theme.
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Picking up concepts from the current versions of iPhoto and iTunes. Darker flat blue scrollbars, darker chrome elements (like in the Movies grid view).
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I think it will give the OS a more upscale clean looks that's less candy like.
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App store downloads reach half a billion.
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Apple announced that there are now over 15,000 apps on their App Store for iPhones and iPod Touches and that customers have downloaded over 500,000 apps to date.
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Apple Insider notes that those numbers would indicate that download rates had doubled from the prior month.
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Part of the reason for the rapid increase is likely purchases of new iPhones and iPods during the holiday season.
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Sponsor
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Softpress
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Freeway Express and Freeway Pro
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Create your own design and don't worry about the code. If you have worked with page layout tools then Freeway will make you feel right at home.
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If you need help getting started their are templates built-in to get you started and more available via the Softpress web site.
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Free 30-day trial
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
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Right time to buy an Apple TV?
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Apple didn't update it at Macworld and listeners as well as Robert want to know. Play Robert's voicemail.
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My thoughts.
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Reassigning keys to make switching easier
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Follow up tip from a prior show. Play suggestion from Dave
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Double Command is an Open Source kernel extension
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Warning about kernel extensions (like Mac Extensions back in the day). Last update May 2008.
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Read the release notes and be aware of potential conflicts.
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Cleaning up iTunes Metadata
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Henrik is a switcher from Denmark and recommends Tuneup Media which he used to clean up up some 17,000 tracks. The recently released a Mac version of their app.
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Equinux also released SongGenie at Macworld. Play Interview.
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Keeping Mail in sync
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Nathan's Mom recently switched and has Mobile Me. She wants to be able to save her emails from her Inbox, but still have them accessible when she is not at her Mac (from the cloud).
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IMAP built in to Mobile Me makes this possible, but Mail.app can be confusing.
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Some settings....
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In Accounts, check Mailbox Behavior tab and make sure "Store on server" checkboxes are set, for Drafts, Sent, Trash, etc. If you want access to those from the cloud.
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Pay attention to Mailboxes in Mail.app
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There are the local "On My Mac" ones and then the Cloud ones like " user@me.com" (might be below the local ones).
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When you add new "mailboxes" (folders) from the Mailbox-->New Mailbox" menu, pay attention the location.
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Good news is you can move messages from the local boxes to the cloud boxes.
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Holding the "option" key will make a copy of the message just like in the Finder. Good for local backup.
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New year, new mac? Reuse the old one.
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Time to clean out the closet, garage, or whatever of old Mac crap. Don't toss or recycle. Think reuse.
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Thought triggered by listener Dave who set up and old PowerMac G4 as a print server and added in a lightscribe DVD burner for burning disks.
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Leopard runs on PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster). 512MB RAM (at least 1GB recommended).
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If ScreenSharing built in you don't need a monitor attached (headless).
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Older iMacs make great kids or kitchen Macs.
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Older Towers make great File servers.
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Add on an elGato EyeTV hybrid to add TV capabilities.
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Ruse an old iBook or Macbook as a Media Center using 3rd party software
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Remote Buddy from IO Spirit
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Media Central from Equinux
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Home Automation, firewall, web server, you name it.
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iPhoto reports duplicate names when copying
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Play question from Shawn
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It's actually the files within the iPhoto Library file and likely has to do with the formatting on the external drives.
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For Mac only you want HFS+ Extended (journaled). FAT32 allows Mac and PC compatibility and is the default for most drives. NTFS Macs can read, but not write.
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Due to the formatting filenames are likely getting truncated resulting in duplicates
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Today's digital cameras often reset the filename numbering between card reformats
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Change the setting on the camera to not reset if you can and want to avoid duplicates.
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Also you can when using the File-->Export option from iPhoto you can choose the Filename->Sequential option
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Closing
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Podcast Marketplace
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Thanks to my sponsors
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Circus Ponies, Notebook
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Smile on my Mac, DiscLabel - Great for your holiday projects
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Softpress, Freeway Express and Freeway Pro.
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Faronics, Deep Freeze
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Audible, free audio book with Audible Listener Gold
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Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
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281-622-4269 or 281-Mac-I-Am-9
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PLEASE LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
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MacCast Forum
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The Sun Again Will Shine by Slackstring
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From the podsafe Music Network
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Artists site
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EOL: Mackbook Wheel
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From "The Onion", Apple unveils the next generation Macbook with no keyboard.
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