MacCast 04.08.2009 - Show #262
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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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Faronics
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Deep Freeze
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Reboot-to-restore technology
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Global or user-specific ThawSpaces
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Protect virtual and dual-boot environments
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Create customized installation packages with Deep Freeze Assistant that can be deployed and controlled via Apple Remote Desktop
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Perfect for IT departments, educational institutions, internet Cafés, and hospitality
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Free trails available.
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News
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Apple releases 2nd iPhone 3.0 Beta
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Last Tuesday Apple seeded iPhone OS beta 2 build 7A259 to developers
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Developers can now start to use and test the push notification service.
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Apple is telling Developers still to not use the MMS or tethering features
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MacCore Blog reports that the features are enabled without hacking
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Appears to be a carrier restriction and not a technical one.
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Jailbreak may already have happened according to ArsTechnica
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QuickPWN.com has posted a jailbreak for the iPhone 3.0 beta 2 firmware
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The iPhone Dev team has decided not to issue jailbreaks durning the beta period.
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MacNN reports the new developer NDA explicitly disallows jailbreaking, assisting in jailbreaking, and developing and distributing jailbreak apps.
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Snow Leopard closer to being on the prowl
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Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10A314 has been released to developers
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ArsTechnica says Apple has told developer to focus on building and testing 64-bit support for kernel extensions.
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Snow Leopard can run 32-bit apps in the 64-bit kernel, but ktexts need to be same as the core OS
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64-bit apps can't use 32-bit plug-ins or bundles (system preference panes) so developers will need to update their software.
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Reportedly many parts of the OS are more stable including the new QuickTime X.
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AppleInsider predicts a Snow Leopard release about 2 months after WWDC which is scheduled for June 8-12th at Moscone West in San Francisco.
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Insider also says the next update to 10.5 Leopard, codenamed "Juno" is nearing completion and should ship sometime this month.
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Shuffles shake up some sales
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iLounge and others are reporting on NPD Group numbers that show Shuffle sales up 51% in the first week after their launch.
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Even better the next week those numbers climbed another 10%
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Looking at the same week year over year overall iPod sales saw a decline of about 38% according to the same report. The drop seems to be in line with an overall decline in the market. For the same period MP3 player sales saw a 37% drop.
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It's important to note NPDs numbers only look at US retail sales and not Apple online. Still Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes expects about a 14% drop in total iPods sales for the quarter.
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XServe's go Nehalem
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One 2.26GHz or two 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz, or 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series “Nehalem” processors
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3GB RAM standard with support for up to 24GB RAM
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3 hot-swap drive bays. 160GB SATA drive standard, up to 3 TB of storage. Support for 15,000-rpm SAS drives or SSD option.
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2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 expansion slots. 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 2 FW 800 ports, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 RS-232 port.
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NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and Mini DisplayPort
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Mac OS X Server v10.5 Unlimited-Client Edition
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Priced starting at US$2,999 for the 2.26GHz Quad, or $3,599.00 for the 2.26GHz dual-Quad (8-core)
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AT&T TOS blocks Sling, then doesn't
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Unclear if it was an error with unfortunate timing or reaction to negative press.
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AT&T made a change to it's NDA around the same time the Sling Player for iPhone app was announced.
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"...downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, customer initiated redirection of television or other video or audio signals via any technology from a fixed location to a mobile device, web broadcasting, and/or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices is prohibited."
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AT&T later retracted the section claiming the update was made "in error".
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Rumors paint next gen iPhone picture
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OmniVision has received orders from Apple for 3.2-megapixel CMOS sensors (via Electronista)
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The Santa Clara company has also been rumored to be delivering 5-megapixel sensors for another Apple device due out later this year.
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3.2's likely for iPhone. 5's for tablet, netbook, or iMacs/Displays.
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10" netbook is the rumored form factor due out late this year
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AppleInsider and Electronista say AT&T is busy updating it's network by the end of May to support an estimated 10x increase in traffic coming due to new iPhones and video streaming.
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This is the rumored 7.2Mbps HSPA upgrade which has happened or is under way.
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The latest is that AT&T is adding cellular network routers from Juniper Networks.
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German iPhone site claims to have uncovered image resources that hint at video editing, scrubbing and clip functions in the next version of the iPhone's firmware.
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Engadget Mobile had already uncovered an "Publish Video" option within the MobileMe settings the iPhone 3.0 beta.
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Mac Rumors claims to have screenshots of a video interface similar to the iMovie slider switch to turn on video capture in the Photo app. Enabled by editing the config to fool iPhone 3.0 into thinking a video camera is present.
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Mac Rumors also claims to have uncovered evidence of an "auto-focus camera," "magnetometer (digital compass)," and "Voice Control."
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Broadcom Wi-Fi chip drivers suggesting 802.11n wi-fi support. Broadcom’s BCM4329 chips also has support for FM reception and transmission.
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According to AppleInsider analysts from Barclay's Capital say Apple has doubled iPhone production in anticipation of high demand in June
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Other analysts including Ben Reitzes are support the 2 iPhone theory. A high end Pro with 32Gb storage, video features and a low end model with less storage, no video, and possibly no wi-fi.
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HD Rentals now in iTunes with 8.1.1
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Apple release iTunes 8.1.1 update which now allows for rentals of HD movies. Prior to the update HD was available for purchase, but not rent in iTunes. HD rentals have been available to Apple TV for some time.
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Your selection might still be greater if you are willing to take SD. Apple added over 300 new SD rentals in the past week (via Ars Technica).
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iTunes goes all DRM free and variable
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As expected on Tuesday April 7th Apple moved to an all DRM-free iTunes store and added in variable pricing. Tracks now are sold for $1.29, $0.99, or $0.69.
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Several sites including iLounge noted that launch day showed a lot of fluctuation in prices throughout the day with many top 100 tracks bouncing between $1.29 and $0.99 (possibly server caching?).
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There were also reports that some tracks previously in the store completely disappeared. Possibly due to the labels not offing those track to Apple DRM free? Some of the same tracks do appear DRM free and cheaper on other services like Amazon MP3.
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Variable pricing may be the labels way of keeping Apple in check. They can force iTunes to have a $1.29 price while offering the same tracks cheaper on other services.
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Electronista did notice that on Tuesday prices also went up on Amazon MP3 ($1.29) and Walmart.com ($1.24) for similar top 100% tracks. Those services also saw some tracks lowered in price just like on iTunes.
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Apple has said the changes are part of an industry wide push by the labels to increase digital music download pricing.
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2008 numbers released from NPD group show Apple's iTunes store with a 87% share of the US music download market, with Amazon having 16%.
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Mac Rumors also announced that the iTunes store country list has significantly increased.
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Sponsor
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RCP Tones
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Great sounding DRM free ringtones for your iPhone or other mobile phone.
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I typically hate ringtones, but these are regular rings, tones, and beeps that sound normal, not annoying.
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Louder than the standard tones, which is great for the often muted tone of the iPhone speaker
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Get on iTunes or Amazon (search for "rcp 1.0"), but if you get them direct you can choose M4R format for iPhone or MP3 (Blackberry, Treo, Windows Mobile). Better value and no converting.
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50 ringtones for $4.99. No DRM, no subscription, no surprises.
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Griffin chose Rcptones to design the factory ringtones for the Smarttalk Bluetooth Headset.
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
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Follow-up on Macbook cracked case repairs
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Lots of confirmation that Apple is repairing top cases in Macbooks that have cracked near the palm rest
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I got confirmation from Geniuses who say it's a know issue and Apple will repair it. Replace the lower topcase, a $10 part and 20 minute repair in store.
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Will do the repair even out of warranty.
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Oliver had his and his fathers fixed. The folks at hs store said the issue is the magnets in the lid and the raised ridges in the top case repeatedly being pulled down by magnetic force to the lower case.
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He and say adding something to soften the blow like tape, or rubber or cork drawer bumpers can help.
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Play comment from Matt
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The myth of the 4 times in and replace rule.
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If you don't ask or don't try then you'll never know.
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Polite persistence will often get you far.
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More Appleworks discussions
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Tom pointed out that Bento site that to import an Appleworks database into Bento 2 you have to export it to a text format first. The site is a bit misleading.
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"Now you can do more with the AppleWorks information you already have
on your Mac by bringing your databases and spreadsheets into Bento
with a few clicks." In the next sentence it says, "Simply export your AppleWorks data into a text file and then import into Bento".
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Good news is, as Andre points out, Appleworks will still run if you have a copy of the OS X version. May be on the original system restore disks from some model Macs.
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Filemaker vs. MySQL? No, they actually have a partnership.
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SQL Resource kit. Using ODBC standards.
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My opinions on Applecare for the iPhone
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Kevin wanted to know if Applecare for the iPhone/iPod touch was worth it at $69.00 bucks for 1 more year.
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I am a big fan of Applecare for the Mac. iPhones and iPods ($59.00) are a tougher call.
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Most Applecare will cost you 20-25% of the cost of the product you are buying and add 2 year. iPhone is about 34% and adds just 1 year.
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Most iPhone and iPod damage is user damage which isn't covered.
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Most people get a new phone at the end of their cell phone contract in 2 years.
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Migrating data to a new Mac from backups
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From cloned or Time Machine backups
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Which is better if I have both?
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Should I use Migration Assistant or some other method?
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How to manage Time Machine history
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Play comment from rafael
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Migrating from PowerPC to Intel, some apps might not work. Need to make sure you have updated Universal Binary or Intel native versions
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Matching Memory
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Don't need to match brands, but should match ECC and non-ECC, buffered and non-buffered.
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Newer Macs that support dual-channel memory will also gain some advantages by installing in matched pairs. 2 x 1GB or 2 x 2GB, etc. New Mac Pros go in 3GB increments.
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Leopard USB Disk formatting mystery
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Rick says he was unable to format a new external USB hard drive using Disk Utility and says it's a known bug in Leopard
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This iLounge article confirms his theory and says it's been a known issue since 2006
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The strange thing is I have used Disk Utility to format drives under Leopard. I know there is an issue with drives that have a PC Master boot record. You can't just use the "erase" option to format them. You need to use the Partition tab and rebuild the partition map to a Mac compatible format. GUID for Intel Macs or Apple Partition Map for PPC. Choose it under the "Options..." in the partition tab.
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Rick said he tried that and it didn't work for him, so maybe this is a bug with specific drives or cases that have specific USB hardware controllers?
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Using iTunes codes to bypass region control
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Walt from Canada has a way to get Skype for iPhone from the US app store
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Use an iTunes gift card code or free code from a US promotion (Starbucks) to set up a US account without a credit card required.
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In iTunes, scroll to the "My Store" option and select the country you want an account in and have a code for.
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Make sure your signed out of any existing account by looking in the upper left of the iTunes store window. If you see an email address, click it and then click the logout button.
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Click the "Redeem" link and enter your code. Then create a new account and click "none" on the screen when you are asked to enter your credit card details. You will need another email address, like a gmail.
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Now you can shop that store, and authorize any content purchased under that account. This includes App Store downloads like Skype.
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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
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RCP Tones
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Faronics, Deep Freeze
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Thoughtout.biz
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CocoaTech, Path Finder 5
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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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"Shadow of Me" by Mr. Jason
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From listener Jaakko in Japan
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The albums, "Man with a Cut-Out Shadow" and "East End" are available in iTunes
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Artists site
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EOL: A softer cuddly Steve
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The folks at PodBrix are showing Mac fans a softer Steve by offering up a limited edition Plush Jobs doll you can own.
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