MacCast 04.19.2009 - Show #263
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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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Smile on My Mac
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Textexpander
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Free trails available.
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News
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Apple ramping up for new iPhone
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According to unnamed supply chain sources, Mac NN, and Kaufman Bros.' Shaw Wu, Apple is in the process of building 5-6 million new iPhones.
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Mac Rumors says DigiTimes claims that Apple has already placed orders for 100 million 8 Gigabit NAND Flash chips (mostly) from Samsung Electronics.
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As Mac Observer points out this could dry up supplies for the competition.
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Also may increase prices by creating a shortage.
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Debate on 1, 2 or 3 new models. iPhone 3.0 seems to indicate 2, 1 may be the netbook.
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Tiered data plans from AT &T
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AT&T wants to extend iPhone relationship
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The Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is trying to convince Apple to extend their iPhone deal into 2011.
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Verizon executive Ivan Seidenberg says Apple may want to come to their network. They are planning to launch their 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in 2010. AT&T will deploy 4G LTE in 2011.
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Apple would have to produce a CDMA phone since the entire Verizon network wouldn't use LTE.
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Patent watch
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iPod NN reports on recently discovered Apple patent for unibody iPods.
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Apple Insider reports that a new patent for an iChat Video answering machine has surfaced.
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According to Insider a version was in early builds of Leopard, but was removed before release
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New version adds ability for caller to leave video message after a set period of time has passed without response, based on inactivity before or after a request is made, and add the concept of using a server to leave messages when iChat is offline.
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Apple billionth app countdown
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As of Sunday night they were heading toward 982 million.begin
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Prize of a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, a 32GB iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a 17-inch MacBook Pro.
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Counts for any app downloaded free or paid.
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Can enter without purchase or download
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Jobs still on the Job
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The report from the Wall Street Journal has COO Tim Cook saying that Jobs is still involved in reviewing product and production plans and has been actively involved with the Ui of the new iPhone OS.
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Of course this isn't surprising, but somehow made the news this week.
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Jobs is still said to be planning to return to Apple at the end of June.
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Apple updates
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Apple will discontinue .Mac Homepages and Groups on July 7th (via Macworld)
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Homepages you already have will stay, but you can't edit them or add any new pages
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Groups will be removed completely, but the files will be moved to a folder called "Groups Archive".
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Mobile Me Galleries, iWeb pages are still available.
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iMovie 8.0.2
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Fixes an issue with projects having a size of 0 KB. Attempting to open these projects would cause iMovie to quit unexpectedly at launch.
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Addresses a problem where full-screen mode could not be accessed on some systems.
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Aperture 2.1.3
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Improves overall stability and provides fixes for issues related to database integrity and compatibility with specific file types
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iPods sales up and Apple fairing better than most
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ArsTechnica cites latest numbers from NPD Group
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iPod sales were up 2% in early April likely helped by strong 3rd gen Shuffle sales
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Gene Munster is predicting Mac Q2 2009 sales to be down with Apple selling about 2 to 2.2 million units vs. 2.3 million over the same period one year ago.
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Apple doing better than the PC industry as a whole which is down an average of about 7.1% according to numbers from IDC
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iPhone sales down about 15 percent from Q1.
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Sell 10 million iPods in the quarter.
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Apple's US market share either rose or fell depending on who you ask
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ZDNet cites Gartner numbers that say Apple's share fell in Q1 2009 from 8% to 7.4%
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The Mac Observer cites the IDC numbers which shows it up from 7.4% to 7.6%
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$1.29 tracks not paying the piper
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Music industry may be learning more for variable pricing than they wanted to. Jobs was right all along.
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Electronista is reporting on numbers released by Billboard just days after variable pricing went into effect
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Songs in the Top 100 iTunes charts that were raised to the $1.29 price dropped an average of about 7 spots in the two days following the increase
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$0.99 songs jumped up about 4 spots
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A quick check Friday night showed 50% of the tracks in the top 100 were priced at $1.29. With 27 out of the top 50 priced at $1.29
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The piece notes that a 23.3% drop in unit sales is enough to counter any gains from increasing the price.
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Apple prices 20" iMac for Education
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Replaces the prior 17" educational iMac. Available only for schools, not teachers or individuals.
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The special configuration includes:
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1,066MHz system bus
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1GB of DDR3 RAM
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160GB SATA hard drive
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802.11n wi-fi, gigabit Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port
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Slot-loading SuperDrive
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Nvidia GeForce 9400M
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Sells for $899.00.
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I wish it had 2GB RAM standard, but otherwise looks like a good deal.
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Mac Zombie botnet rises
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Mac NN and others are reporting that the iServices trojan distributed in pirated copies of iWork '09 and Photoshop CS4 has given rise to the first Mac botnet.
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Excessive CPU usage on an idle Mac could be a sign of infection.
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SecureMac offers a removal tool.
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Safari 4 and 3.2 have a "Fraudulent Site" detection tool.
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Seems to use Google Safe Browsing API
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Can be confusing.
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Apple airs new Mac vs. PC ads
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TUAW pointed out the new US ads which started airing Sunday night
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"Biohazard Suit", "Legal Copy", "Stacks", and "Time Traveler".
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"Time Traveler" seem to be for those who may be waiting for Windows 7 to see if they'll switch.
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All 4 are on Apple's US site for viewing
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Sponsor
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Circus Ponies
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Notebook
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Free 30-day trail
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
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Error on MySQL standard in Leopard
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Gam pointed out my mistake, although it is in OS X Server
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PHP is installed, but not enabled. MySQl you can download as a binary installer from the MySQL site
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Formatting a USB drive in Leopard
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John has a trick they may get by the Leopard Disk Utility USB formatting bug.
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Tell Leopard to format it for TimeMachine which will format it.
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Then revert TimeMachine back to use your original TM drive in the preferences.
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Now Disk Utility will see and format the USB drive.
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Downloading from non-native iTunes breaks ToS
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After what I thought was simply a clever trick to allow downloading content from non-native country iTunes without the need for a credit card, turns out I unwittingly to all of you to disregard Apple's ToS.
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Luckily several listeners pointed out the error of my ways
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"Purchases or rentals (as applicable) from the iTunes Store are available to you only in the United States and are not available in any other location. You agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes Store from outside of the available territory. Apple may use technologies to verify such compliance."
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Another problem pointed out for Apps in the App store is if you have ones from another country in your account iTunes won't update ANY of your apps (pointed out by Peter).
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Hack around is to temporarily move the non-native language apps out of iTunes, check for updates, then move those apps back.
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Old iPods worth 15% off new
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After my discussion of Applecare for iPods several people pointed out that if you take your old iPod to an Apple store you can get 15% off w new one.
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Also Apple properly disposes of the old one so you can feel better about keeping the world green.
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Preventing Macbook sleep issues
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Ran across a great article by David Morgenstern on the ZDNet AppleCore blog.
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His tips for preventing wake from sleep issues
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1. Before I put the machine to sleep, I unplug anything connected, such as an Ethernet cable, hard drive or mouse.
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2. Next I use the Sleep command under the Apple Menu to put the MacBook to sleep and I wait until the screen actually goes blank before closing the lid. I don’t just close the lid.
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3. When I go to wake the MacBook, I open the machine and make sure that I don’t plug anything into the machine before I wake it.
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Some things that can wake a Mac or prevent sleep
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Hard disk access, including automated backups, iTunes playing, DVDs, etc.
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Bluetooth devices if the "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer" in Bluetooth preferences.
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Spotlight indexing
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Some PCI expansion cards
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Some apps can be designed to keep a machine awake. Closing all open apps before sleeping can prevent this. This includes menu-bar apps and background running apps.
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Online backup solutions
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BackBlaze launched this week. $5.00/mo unlimited.
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Mozy Home, $4.95/mo. Unlimited
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Carobnite, $54.95/yr. ($4.57/mo.), unlimited
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Mobile Me, iDisk, Backup 3
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Amazon S3 and JungleDisk - pay for only storage used per month + transfer fees
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Things to consider
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Security, software encrypts data prior to transfer to cloud.
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Bandwidth while syncing. Can you schedule updates
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How can I get the data back. BackBlaze offers to send physical media if needed.
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Trust. Also, will the company be around when I need my data back.
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Cloud backup is just another part of the mix.
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Restore podcasts in iTunes
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Junior had his external drive with all his iTunes content fail. It was backed up, but he wants to restore it.
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Fixing the broken links in iTunes
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Just need to put the files back in the same structure and location. If you allow iTunes to manage your Library then you can use the "File->Library->Consolidate Library..." option (under Advanced menu in older versions). The metadata should be maintained by the iTunes Library files.
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Podcasts
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Can re-download if they are still in the feed. holding the "option" key down while expanding the triangle will reveal older already listened to episodes.
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Add them to iTunes manually and then use the "Re-Add Selected Tracks as Podcast v1.2" script from "Doug's Applescripts for iTunes".
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Bonus tip, sharing podcast subscriptions
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Or in Dario's case moving a subscription list to another Mac, so you don't have to manually re-subscribe
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1) Mouse over “Podcasts” in the source menu
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2) Right-click or control-click, and choose “Export.”
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3) Choose “OPML” as the format. (OPML is a generally recognized format for sets
of subscriptions.)
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4) Copy the OPML file to the Mac or PC you want to add the list to
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5) Choose “Import” from the file menu and choose the OPML file.
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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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Fox News Gadgets & Games Appearance
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I had a chance to be on Clayton Morris' new web tech show on Fox News.
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You can view the stream on-line or subscribe in iTunes
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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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"Walk Right Over Me" by The Gathering
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Play track.
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EOL: Data is key
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LaCie has begun shipping the iamaKey USB Flash drives. These are so cool 100% metal and the same shape and size of an actual key so you can slip it on your key ring.
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