MacCast 05.11.2009 - Show #266
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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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Save on IT costs or just the home hassle.
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Set up the mac and take a snapshot of that configuration, "freeze it". Now when system reboots it restores to that state.
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Global or user-specific ThawSpace capability for retaining data.
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Free trials available
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News
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Rumors of Apple buying Twitter
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The story ended before it began.
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Twitter is not for sale and there is nothing there that Apple could really want, except maybe some cloud expertise, but that's not worth $700 million.
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Apple did do a cool business profile of Twitter and their use of Macs on Apple's site
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Mac browsers hold April share
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Ars Technica looked at the April Net Applications data and noted that despite slumping unit sales in the latest earnings call Apple more or less held it's browser share.
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The browser data showed Safari with a 8.21% share of the browser market down just a bit from 8.23% in March
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When looking at OS, OS X was also down at 9.73% vs. 9.77% in the prior month. iPhone OS however gain 0.1% moving from 0.60% in March to 0.70% in April.
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Globally Apple is doing better than in the states
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Macworld UK has 1st quarter 2009 numbers from Gartner showing Macs with a 6.6% year over year growth resulting in a 4.8% marketshare.
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That puts them in the UK top 5 for unit sales.
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Blackberry squeezes out iPhone in US sales
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Electronista has numbers from the latest NPD group survey that shows the Blackberry is still tops when it comes to US smartphones
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The BlackBerry Curve 8300 series was the top selling phone in the 1st quarter of '09. iPhone 3G came in second place.
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The Blackberry Storm (3rd), BlackBerry Perl (4th), and G1 (5th).
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So far this year RIM has shipped about twice as many handsets as Apple. 7.8 million juicy juice handsets vs. 3.8 million iPhone 3Gs.
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Apple tops in quality and satisfaction
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Even if browser shares are down and another fruit is leading in sales, Apple is still tops when it comes to quality and satisfaction.
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Apple's iPhone topped the list of J.D. Power’s 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study. (iLounge)
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The iphone lead in the ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design categories, but suffered a bit in the battery category.
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Still overall Apple scored a 791 out of 1000. Besting LG (772) and Samsung (759)
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The New Your Times says Apple swept the competition in the latest Consumer Reports laptop computer-ratings issue
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Judged on performance, ergonomics, versatility, display, speakers, battery life and weight.
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Apple had the top spot in every category. 13", 14-16", and 17" category.
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Apple and Google may be getting too close
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The Mac Observer reports that the Federal Trade Commission has taken a look at Apple's Board of Director roster and thinks they smell something fishy.
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At issue is the fact that two Google Board of Director's members, Eric Schmidt and Arthur Levison, also both server on Apple's Board.
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The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 prohibits members of competing companies from serving on each other's boards
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There is no doubt that Apple and Google have competing products
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iPhone vs. G1
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Safari vs. Chrome
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Mobile Me vs. Goggle Cloud apps.
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If the FTC decides things aren't kosher then Schmidt and Levison may need to resign from Apple's board.
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Apple may help with in contract iPhone replacements
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According to iLounge, Mac NN and others Apple is now offering a lower cost replacement for phones that suffer at the hands of their owners.
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Can now get a refurbished or new replacement iPhone for USD $199, according to Apple's Out of Warranty FAQ.
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Covers things like damage from liquids or cracked screens where device is still functional.
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Damage not covered includes:
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catastrophic damage, such as the device separating into multiple pieces.
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inoperability caused by unauthorized modifications
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Rumors of App Store Approval changes
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With parental controls in 3.0 OS more apps might be able to get approval. Some developers reported getting rejection letters suggesting they could resubmit without modifications after the 3.0 update
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Already approved apps my have issues if they don't work in 3.0
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Apple is now only reviewing apps using the 3.0 software (sign we are getting close to release?).
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Apple sent letters to developers letting them know that if their apps don't run under 3.0 they could be pulled from the app store.
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Most apps should run without modification under 3.0. Some however don't and developers are felling the Apple pressure.
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Sponsor
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Audible
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Free 14-day trial of Audible Listener Gold
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Over 60,000 titles to choose from
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I am using it a lot to "re-read" books. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, The Chronicles of Narnia
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
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Sharing Automator tips and tricks
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Play comment from Bob
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Set up a section on the Maccast forum, you can share and link to Automator workflows to share
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On line resources
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Automator World
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Automator Actions Downloads on Apple.com
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Disclaimer about downloading programs. Community is somewhat self policing.
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Mac screen sharing
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Jack has pointed out something interesting to consider if you enable and use Screen Sharing
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In the System Preferences-->Sharing you can set this feature up in Leopard.
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Need to have Back to My Mac, DynDNS, fixed IP to make this work via the Internet. Also may need to open ports on your firewalls and routers.
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TCP: 5900 - 5902, (3389 for connecting to Windows machines)
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UDP: 4500 (for Back to My Mac users)
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If you use a user account and share a screen of a user who is logged in as an Admin you now have admin access
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Not too big a deal because:
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You need to have an account on the remote system. Would likely need direct access to the machine to set this up.
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Machine has to be on and logged into an admin account
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You still need to authenticate to perform most operations even as an admin.
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Securing the connection
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In the Sharing-->Screen Sharing preferences
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Don't need to always have it on.
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"Allow access for: Only these users:"
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Under "Computer Settings..." you can check the option for "Anyone may request permission to control screen".
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Easier way to share is to use iChat
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Has a "Share my screen with..." and "Ask to share screen..." option
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Don't need to know the users IP address.
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May still need the ports open though.
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Alternatives
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VNC, Go to my PC, Log Me In
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Review: Kensington Hands-Free Visor Car Kit
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Pros
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Battery charger and 2 batteries for up to 20 hours of talk time
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3 "presets"
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Auto-off sensor
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Pair with up to 3 phones with a swap button
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Cons
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Speakerphone so even with the noise cancellation it still sounds distant.
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Cabin noise is still an issue
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Mic and volume controls on one edge, so can't use car visor without repositioning the device.
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About the same price as a nice BT headset USD $119.00
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Kensington Hands-Free Visor Car Kit
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Bluetooth issues with new Mac Pro
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Michael was having his Bluetooth mouse and keyboard lose signal and pointed to this thread.
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Issue is reportedly effecting a number of new Macs from the Mini's to the iMacs. Seems to be desktop Macs and I didn't see reports of issues with notebooks.
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I'm not a fan of Bluetooth for mice and keyboards for this reason. It just seems flaky.
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AppleInsider said back in April that 10.5.7 may contain a fix.
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Control your Mac with your head
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Eyetwig iTracker
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Allows you to control your Mac cursor using the iSight and head movement
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Menu item with hotkey to turn on tracking.
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pause to activate click
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I had to tweak the sensitivity settings and it took some getting used to, but after a minute or two it was working
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Demo on their site works for 10 minutes
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Have built a framework for other developers to be able to use in their apps. Free for Open Source and free apps. Contact the company for use in a commercial app.
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One iTunes + multiple Macs = pain
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Sal moved his iTunes Music to a NAS, but noticed that when he pointed his other Macs to the location they didn't see the Podcasts, movies, etc.
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It's all about the Library File. That's the metadata key.
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The trouble is it's easy to move the music files location, but much more tricky to have all iTunes use one set of Library files
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To quote Steve Jobs... Sharing one complete iTunes Library with multiple machines on the same network is a "bag of hurt".
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Some things you can try
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Move the entire iTunes folder to a central volume making sure the "ignore permissions" option is checked.
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Maintain multiple local copies of your music (one on each machine), but use a syncing tool like ChronoSync, TuneRanger, or SuperSync to keep them sync'd up.
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My advice is don't bother and use built-in sharing for streaming music from one iTunes to another. Won't work for movies or video. :(
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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
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Smile on my Mac
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Faronics, Deep Freeze
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Audible
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CocoaTech, Path Finder 5
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Winners of Things Packs
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To make it more fair I just randomly selected from all submitted entries.
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Edward Lynn & Christopher Linton
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Some of my favorite "to-dos"
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Leave a message on Michael Dell's answering machine with a recommendation to shut Dell down and give the money back to the shareholders. (note: this time, try not to laugh before hanging up.)
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Iron black turtleneck and jeans while saying, "One more thing" into the mirror
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Re-park the car from the disabled parking space
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Have 'fridge restocked with bottled water
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Give Lauren from the Microsoft ad a free 17" MacBook Pro
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In a friendly but firm way, tell Cook to get his name off of my office door
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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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"All We Need is Love" by Michael Rossback
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From the Podsafe Music Network
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Artist's site
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Buy on iTunes
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EOL: The Many Typefaces of Jobs
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Designer Dylan Roscover created an awesome portrait of Steve Jobs using various typefaces and the text from the “here's to the crazy ones” TV ad campaign (via Cult of Mac)
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