MacCast 08.09.2011 - Show #361
Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
* Mandaandthemarbles.com
V Sponsor
V Faronics
* Deep Freeze
* Keep your pristine new system clean
V Once you've rebuilt that system, you freeze it will Deep Freeze and changes made "in session" aren't permanent
* You define "Thaw Spaces", areas to retain persistent user data. This can be user folders, partitions, or entire volumes including externals.
* As an administrator you can easily boot into a "Thawed state" to install new apps, utilities, or software updates.
* You can also schedule Thawed sessions to get software updates.
V Great for "trying" software. Install in a frozen state and no need to worry about what crevices or corners in the System it's putting stuff.
* If you decide not to keep the app, reboot and anything it installed is wiped away
* If you want to keep it, reboot into a Thawed state and reinstall the app.
* Already Lion compatible, so they really support Mac users and the product. Also cross platform and supports virtualization like Parallels and VMWare Fusion.
V News
V More touchy feely Magic Mouse
* Cult of Mac had a rumor followed by a correction.
* Originally they said Apple would discontinue the Magic Mouse in favor of the Magic Trackpad
* Rumors of Apple wanting to kill the mouse have been flying since Lion was announced with advanced trackpad gestures.
* Later the site revised the info from their source saying the Magic Mouse is getting a new model number indicating it may get an update
* 9 to 5 reported a counter saying, "the part number for the Magic Mouse is not discontinued".
V Assumption is that the Magic Mouse part duex would get better support for Lions new gestures
* Not sure how that would work since many of those gestures require 3 finger swipes something difficult to accomplish on a mouse.
* I have trouble with some of the 2 finger gestures on my Magic Mouse as it is.
V Apple offers new EDU iMac
* 9to5 Mac noted a TIL article that cropped up over the weekend.
V Details a new iMac being offered to Educational customers for $999.00
* 21.5-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution, a 3.1GHz dual-core i3 Intel processor, 2GB RAM expandable to 8GB, a 250GB hard drive, and an AMD Radeon HD 6750M video card with 256MB of RAM.
V The low end consumer version of the iMac is currently $1,199.00
* 21.5-inch, 2.5GHz quad-core i5 Intel chip, 4GB RAM, a 500GB hard drive and an AMD Radeon HD 6750M video card with 512MB of RAM.
* The new Mac is likely good news for schools on a budget, but frankly the entry level consumer iMac offers much more bang for the buck if you ask me.
V iTunes Streaming movies, not so fast
* Apple recently added the ability to re-download and watch TV shows along with music over the iTunes Cloud.
* Apple TV 2 owners can now also stream those purchased TV shows to their sets.
* Many think Apple will bring similar services to movies in a rumored "iTunes Replay" service
V CNet talked to one movie industry insider who thinks that feature may not show up any time soon
* Issue is the deals with the studios
* "HBO window" give exclusive online streaming rights to HBO for 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros movie content.
* Apple therefore has reportedly only reached deals with 2 out 6 of the major studios. Negotiations could take a while.
* It's stories like these that make me believe that companies like Apple in Netfilx would like to cut the studio middlemen out all together and provide a way for content producers, creators and owners to go direct to their digital distribution channels with new content and shows.
V New iOS 5 Beta released to developers
V 9to5 has noted Nuance powered speech-to-text features
* Adds a mic icon next to the spacebar
* Tap and talk to enable the feature
* Currently not supported on the iPad. Not clear if it requires an active internet connection.
* Not sure where 9to5 is getting their intell, but MacRumors says despite the screenshot of the interface (which does exist in beta 5) the feature is hidden and even when activated is non-functional.
V Apple prepping the iCloud
* Developers can now transition their Mobile Me account's to iCloud using the me.com/move URL
* The dashboard widget sync, dock item sync, keychains, signatures, mail account rules, mail smart boxes, and mail preferences services will no longer be available.
* Can continue to use their MobileMe Gallery, iDisk, and iWeb publishing until June 30, 2012.
V Ars Technica notes that developers with current active Mobile Me accounts are also having the 20GB of Mobile Me storage migrated to iCloud (giving them 25GB total) for the first year.
* The paid Mobile Me accounts are also set up to auto-renew to a 20GB: $40/yr. starting on June 30, 2012
* Downgrading the account to the free 5GB plan is possible. Not clear that if you do so before June 30th, 2012 if you'll get any kind of prorated refund.
* The iCloud service will offer 5GB of free storage for documents, backups contacts and calendars. You will be able to purchase more storage. 10GB: $20/yr., 20GB: $40/yr., and $100 for 50GB: $100/yr.
V Apple official Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
* Apple released a utility for OS X Lion that will let you create recover disks on externals and USB drives
V To create an external Lion Recovery
* Download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant application.
* Insert an external drive, launch the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions.
* When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility.
* To access Lion Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.
* In order to create an external Lion Recovery using the Lion Recovery Assistant, the Mac must have an existing Recovery HD.
* Can download it from here:
V 9to5 had reported (based on an internal Apple memo) that in some cases (Lion's built-in recovery tools fail) Applecare reps are authorized to ship out Lion recovery USB drives.
* MacNN claims what is actually referenced in that document is not a USB stick, but different recovery tool available only to AppleCare workers
* Lion USB sticks are supposed to go on sale this month for USD $69 in Apple stores. online pre-orders haven;t shipped yet.
* Apple stopped including the sticks with Macbook Air and Mac Minis with Lion pre-installed because of the recovery partition.
V Crazy iDevice Smuggling operation busted
* Smugglers in China used a pulley system to move bags of iDevices from Hong Kong into mainland China.
* They shot a line across the river from a Skyscraper in Shenzhen to a rural house in Hong Kong
* Police arrested six people and confiscated more than 50 iPhones and iPads worth 300,000 ($46,600).
V Sponsor
V Gazelle
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* Answer some quick questions about your items condition and get an offer.
* If you take the offer they cover shipping and in some cases will provide a box.
* After they verify the condition you get paid via check, PayPal, Walmart Prepaid Visa, or Amazon.com gift card. Or you can donate to one of over 100 charities.
* For items without value they even offer a recycling service working with eSteward certified domestic recycler CloudBlue.
* It's quick and easy and your can clear out that stuff your not using and get paid.
V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V iLife not all included
* New Macbook Airs and Minis with Lion pre-installed without optical drives apparently don't come with iDVD or iWeb
* Also no install disks of any kind
* Checked with Victor and John Martellaro and they confirmed.
* Looks like the App Store may get updated when you register your Mac with your Apple Id unlocking the iLife Apps and allowing you to re-download in case you had to wipe and install the OS
V Feedback on OS X "Consumerfication"
V From Marty:
* "Wanted to offer a quick response to your podcast this week and to your rant about the "consumerfication" of the O/S. I agree with most of what you said, but you've always been one of those classic app-for-everything kind of users. You have a zillion one-hit wonders that do only one thing... improving on some element of the GUI or O/S that you've found to be deficient in some way. There's always that mac feature that doesn't quite seem to cut it. All that glitters is not golden and people always want to improve on what Cupertino hands them.

While there are certainly people out there who take their macs out of the box and use them AS-IS for years, you're not one of those people and most of the maccast users, I suspect, are in the same boat. Apple can hide buttons, isolate system files and dumb down the experience but there will always be people for whom that approach just won't work. It's the nature of innovation, and of Mac users in general, to seek out a better way. And they'll always fight a process that tries to give them less flexibility in their computer systems. I applaud the resignation approach you've started to follow... the letting go thing, but I give you two or three weeks on that, before you're off the wagon."
V Living with Lion
V I'm noticed some annoying quirks that ate bugging me, but nothing show stopping
* 1) Keyboard shortcut assignments get lost with no way to get them back. Example F8 assigned to Launchpad
* 2) Safari tabs in full screen lose their "close" buttons on hover. Have to click one and then click back to get it to appear.
V 3) General Desktops/Spaces bugs
* a) New instances of Safari go to Desktop instead of to the Desktop with full screened Safari
* b) Wake from sleep and fullscreen app is not taking up full screen.
* c) My Finder windows disappeared and then I found them in the Dashboard. Have no idea how that happened.
* 4) I swear auto-save is messing up my typing. Usually after a pause I start to type and there is a delay (beach ball). Then the first character or two I typed is missing, the rest of the word types out and then the first characters suddenly show up at the end of the word.
* 5) Eyedropper curstor bug. In any app that lets me sample colors (Acorn, Photoshop, DigitalColor Meter) when I sample the color my cusrsor disappears. Drag to the top of the screen and click the menubar to get it back.
V Some general beach balls that I don't think I should be seeing given my new system and clean install.
* Possible that 4GB is just not enough to be running multiple apps and desktops
* Safari's sandbox mode is also being pointed to as a suspect
V Lion screen goes black on wake from sleep
* This is being reported by a number of users, mostly with 2010 Macbook Pros, but also some iMacs
* Most common seems to be video going black after wake from sleep
* Some have also reported scrambled video after trying to play video content, not sure if the two issues are related.
* Theory is that it's somehow related to the auto video card switching and the Nvidia 330M GPU.
* Workarounds are to turn off CPU sleep and display sleep in Energy Saver (I wouldn't recommend that) or turn off Automatic Graphics Switching. Both would have an impact on battery.
V Play question from Ben about Quicktime export
* I noticed that a bunch of older videos I have have the share options greyed out.
V Also they want to open up by default in Quicktime 7 which I installed.
* Installed from my Snow Leopard DVD before upgrading.
* Don't forget to have your old Quicktime Pro key handy.
V In my case I wonder about the "Endianness"
* The files with the greyed out options showed up in the Quicktime info window as being "Big endian".
V From Wikipedia:
* "the term endian or endianness refers to the ordering of individually addressable sub-components within the representation of a larger data item as stored in external memory"
* "Endianness is important as a low-level attribute of a particular data format."
* OS X on PPC was Big Endian, Intel should have been little endian.
V Others have reported odd Quicktime issues after upgrading
* no playback of some files, only audio, or only video playback
* "A required codec isn't available." error message.
* Additional codecs installed under Snow Leopard using tools like Perian, DivX, 3ivx, Flip4Mac may be the issue
* Check for Lion compatibility and re-install.
V Play question from Randy about changed backup strategy.
V Details about Versions and Auto-save
V Auto-Save
* Lion saves during pauses in your work and, if you work continuously, it will save after 5 minutes.
V Lock–You can lock a document at any time to prevent inadvertent changes. Two weeks after the last edit, OS X Lion automatically locks.
* You can set the interval for OS X Lion to automatically lock your documents by clicking the "Options…" button in the Time Machine System Preferences then choose what interval you want from the "Lock documents" pop-up menu. 1day, 1week, 2weeks, 1 month, 1 year
V Versions
* Lion automatically creates a new version of a document each time you open it and every hour while you’re working on it.
* You can manually create a version of your saved document at any time by choosing File > Save a Version or press Command-S (⌘-S).
* Saves only the information that has changed since the last version
V The versions are saved in a hidden directory off the root of your boot drive called ".DocumentRevisions-V100"
* The folder will be created per HFS+ formatted volume and revisions for files on that volume will be stored there.
* Revisions do not seem to get copied with a document.
* If you save or work on a file on a non-HFS+ formatted volume the versions get saved in the root ".DocumentRevisions-V100" folder, but then are removed after you quite the app. Only the last version is saved to the non-HFS+ formatted disk.
* SuperDuper does seem to back up the hidden Versions directory, but you need to have Super Duper clone external drives also if you want to preserve their versions.
V Oh, were you using that?
* Matt Neuberg over at TidBits noticed something interesting.
V Try this:
* 1) Open TextEdit in Lion
* 2) Also open Activity monitor and sort by process name so you can see TextEdit running.
* 3) Close any open document windows, but don't quit the app. The TextEdit menu in the menubar confirms that App is still running. Should also still see it in Activity monitor
* 4) Now navigate away from TextEdit and watch what happens. You may need to open up some other apps to get the system resources being used up.
* If it all worked TextEdit will quit all on it's own, yet still might remain as a running process in the Activity monitor. You can command+tab back to it though.
* You may think this is a bug, but it's not. It's a feature in Lion called "Automatic termination".
V John Siracusa explains it all in his massive Lion review
* "Lion will quit your running applications behind your back if it decides it needs the resources, and if you don’t appear to be using them. The heuristic for determining whether an application is “in use” is very conservative: it must not be the active application, it must have no visible, non-minimized windows — and, of course, it must explicitly support Automatic Termination."
V It also turns out that an app CAN automatically terminate even if it has open windows given some additional conditions
* It has to support auto-termination, must support auto-save, and be document based. And also support Resume
V Filtering rows in Numbers
* Adam had a Numbers document and wanted to be able to search for matches on one column and then update the data in another column for just those matching elements
* Using search offers a Find and replace, but that will happen on the column you search
V The answer was in the 'Reorganize' pane.
* With the table selected access from the toolbar or 'Table'-->'Show Reorganize Panel'
* Use the 'Show rows that match the follow:' option
V Add filter criteria and it will adjust the table view to just those rows.
* You need to enter a criteria and press enter for it to activate.
* Make sure the checkbox is checked
* Now you can edit as if it were a table of just that data
* When your done you can leave the parameters set and just uncheck the option to toggle or reset the filter completely using the 'reset' button
* The filter will stick and not be obvious that it is on if you just close the pane, so don;t forget to clear it especially if you plan to share the document.
V One ID to rule them all
* Play comment from Dave about Apple IDs
V The ID system is kind of a mess
* Many people have different IDs
* Also different IDs for family members
V Now your purchases are tied to an ID and to share apps and media you have to use the same ID (or at least authorize with it).
* Sharing your purchase history may or may not be something you want to do.
* Embarrassing app, movie, or TV show purchases show up for all to see.
* Couldn't find a way to clear or suppress specific purchases from the history.
V Lion and iOS 5 integrate the ID even further.
* Apple ID is part of your account settings and some things, like Apple Mail, Address Book, etc can get set up using that ID.
V FaceTime and iMessage have a hint of one possible way this could be handled
* Those apps allow you to use the Apple ID as a login, but then associate other email addresses with that ID
* Could do something similar to "group" Apple IDs?
* For sure an issue Apple is going to have to address.
V Narrower fullscreen Safari
* Listener Dan pointed out this cool Safari trick in Lion
* If you have a page that is set to be fluid in full screen mode it could get wide, especially on a 17" or 30" display.
* Place your cursor near the edge of the screen and you'll see it turn into a re-size double arrow cursor icon.
* Now you can scale in the width, but retain the full screen mode display. Has the grey "canvas" Lion background.
* It's tab specific, so you can have some tabs narrow and others wide.
* Could be good for cropping out large garish colored backgrounds on fixed width sites also.
V Closing
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