Apple is under pressure from European consumer groups to open up the iTunes music store digital rights management (DRM), Papa Steve turns it back on the music companies, 2 and a half of which are owned by European companies, and says that if it wasn't for the music companies Apple would have gladly sold un-DRM'd music. Interesting read if any of this is interesting to you.
I think Apple sensed that I was about to dump my cell phone and move to having just 1 cell in the house instead of 2 - so they announced their version of a cell phone. It won't be available until June/07 and then only in the States with Cingular so who knows when/if Rogers will carry it up here, but it looks very, very nice. Full details here.. $499US for 4GB model, $599 for 8GB version - on a 2 year contract with Cingular.
A video of the keynote presentation will be available here later today.
Apparently it's widget week here on mennoboy. Anyway, that little picture implies that my new MacBook Pro is somewhere in the city on a truck anxiously waiting to get to it's new home - aka my desk at work.
I don't think I've done this for the new Mac Pros - where I torture myself by seeing what the most expensive Mac you can build for yourself given unlimited funds. I'm watching some Apple Sales Training videos on the Mac Pro so while they talk, I'm pricing out my dream machine.
It's about $6,000 cheaper than the last G5 wishlist I had done. The memory they are using is FB-DIMM w/ECC (error correction) so it's more expensive but better memory than the Powermac G5's used, and maxes out at 16GB of RAM. You can now get up to 2 terrabytes of storage (2,000GB) inside the machine. Crazy stuff. There's also two 30" cinema displays along with the $1,800 NVidia Quadro FX graphics card. I wouldn't really want/need this kind of video hardware, but it's fun to dream.
Visit this page to watch live as Steve Jobs announces new Apple product and lets you know how you can direct deposit your life savings into his bank account!
Update! The link below is incorrect (or outdated) - visit this site to check your battery.
Since I know I've either directly or indirectly sold a bunch of people iBooks/Powerbooks, you might want to take note of this and check it out:
Apple has issued a recall on select batteries that were in 12" iBook G4, 12" Powerbook G4 and 15" Powerbook G4 model laptops. To find out if your battery is affected and for instructions on how to get a replacement battery, please visit this website.There was also a previous battery recall on select MacBook Pro models - more info available here.
Apple is hiring a campus rep for the Univ. of Saskatchewan - if you're interested or know someone who is, send them my way. Part time, should be a student, great Apple perks and decent money.
Send me an email if you're interested.
It's that time of year again. If you've been planning on buying a Mac, now's the time as you get a mail in rebate for $205CDN if you buy it with an iPod. Keep the iPod for yourself, give it as a gift to your favorite blogger
If you're a UofS student/staff/faculty (or know someone who is) you can go here and order it.
Update: Even better, watch it in quicktime/HD on Apple's site along with the other new ads.
Inside joke here with Mark and I, but I actually laughed out loud (you know, lol) when I saw this.
From iLounge.com:
...the newspaper’s report reveals that an iPod plant in Longhua houses 200,000 workers, who work 15-hour days for $50 per month. The workers reportedly live in dormitories that house 100 people each, and that outside visitors are not permitted. The Mail reports that the iPod nano is made in a five-story factory that is secured by police officers. The article also says that workers at an iPod shuffle factory in Shanghai are housed outside the plant, and earn $100 per month—but that they must pay for their housing and food, “which takes up half their salaries.”
Not all that surprising really. The iPod is this decade's shoe. A single iPod shuffle (512MB) sells for $90CDN so that basically pays off a worker's salary for a month. I'm guessing each worker makes quite a few shuffles a day. Sad.
Monolingual is a freeware app that allows you to free up some space in OS X by removing languages you don't use. Just be careful that you don't remove languages that you might actually use because the only way to get them back is to reinstall the operating system.
I managed to free up just over 2GB of space.
Instructions and downloads here.
System Requirements:
Mac OS X v10.3.9 Panther or Mac OS X v10.4.6 Tiger
One of the following products:
Curious, as I was, as to how to use iWeb with multiple Macs? The .Mac blog has the answer:
A number of .Mac members have written in, asking if it’s possible to publish their iWeb sites from more than one Mac. It is, and it takes just a few simple steps. There are three things you’ll need: iWeb 1.1 installed on every Mac from which you plan to publish, some type of external storage to which you always have access (a folder on your iDisk, for example), and a basic knowledge of how to navigate the Finder.When you create a website with iWeb, all your work is saved in a single file called domain.sites (it might appear simply as “domain” on your computer, but it’s the same file). By default, iWeb stores the file in the iWeb folder located inside the Application Support folder in your Library (Users/username/Library/Application Support/iWeb/domain.sites).
All you need to do is quit iWeb (if it’s open), locate the domain.sites file, and move it to wherever you’re going to use it. Then double-click the file in its new location. iWeb will launch, and you’re done. From then on, iWeb will automatically save your work in the new location, and you’ll be able to publish your site from any Mac that has access to it. Who knows, it could be the start of your global web publishing empire.
Curious, as I was, as to how to use iWeb with multiple Macs? The .Mac blog has the answer:
A number of .Mac members have written in, asking if it’s possible to publish their iWeb sites from more than one Mac. It is, and it takes just a few simple steps. There are three things you’ll need: iWeb 1.1 installed on every Mac from which you plan to publish, some type of external storage to which you always have access (a folder on your iDisk, for example), and a basic knowledge of how to navigate the Finder.When you create a website with iWeb, all your work is saved in a single file called domain.sites (it might appear simply as “domain” on your computer, but it’s the same file). By default, iWeb stores the file in the iWeb folder located inside the Application Support folder in your Library (Users/username/Library/Application Support/iWeb/domain.sites).
All you need to do is quit iWeb (if it’s open), locate the domain.sites file, and move it to wherever you’re going to use it. Then double-click the file in its new location. iWeb will launch, and you’re done. From then on, iWeb will automatically save your work in the new location, and you’ll be able to publish your site from any Mac that has access to it. Who knows, it could be the start of your global web publishing empire.
iWeb works great if you're a .Mac subscriber, but most people I know aren't and want to be able to publish their sites wherever they want, not just on Apple's server. Sandvox is a piece of software that works just as easily as iWeb only it allows you to publish your sites to any FTP, SFTP, or WebDAV site.
At this point the templates they provide aren't customizable but it is something they are going to be adding. Go sign up for the beta and give it a try while it's free.
"Available as a download beginning today, Boot Camp allows users with a Microsoft Windows XP installation disc to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac®, and once installation is complete, users can restart their computer to run either Mac OS® X or Windows XP. Boot Camp will be a feature in “Leopard,” Apple’s next major release of Mac OS X, that will be previewed at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in August."
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp
System Requirements
Boot Camp requires an Intel-based Mac with a USB keyboard and mouse, or a built-in keyboard and TrackPad; Mac OS X version 10.4.6 or later; the latest firmware update; at least 10GB of free space on the startup disk; a blank recordable CD or DVD; and single-disc version of Windows XP Home Edition or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later
You should see a new update for Mac OS X (10.4.6) available in your Software Update (found under the 'Apple' along the top menu bar of OS X) today. As usual, read the deets before upgrading in case something may change that you don't want to. This particular update includes some important iSync info that you'll want to check out if you sync your Mac up with a phone/PDA.
Steve Jobs sound board - make your own keynote.
There's a invite-only Apple event going down in Cupertino this morning/afternoon that's crashing Apple related sites all over the net as the Apple fanatics try and catch a glimpse of what's to come from the big 'A' today:
So far: (recapped from ilounge.com)
New Mac mini:
iPod Hi-Fi:
That's it. No new iBooks unfortunately. But the Mac minis should be pretty sweet.
What could have been so beautiful.
Every so often I like to tortue myself and see what the top end, money's no object, throw caution to the wind type of computer Apple costs. Sort of a Apple wishlist if they had that type of thing. I could've saved around $9,000 by going with 8GB of RAM instead of 16GB, but it's a wishlist - you don't have to have common sense. It went up from the last time I did it, but I think it's just because I didn't include a fibre card previously. You gotta have your fibre!
Realistically I'd be waiting until the Intel PowerMacs (MacTower Pro? UberMac?) come out later this year along wtih the required updates to Final Cut Studio/etc. But then realistically I won't be buying this anytime soon either way. :)
Apple has a list of various card games available for OS X. Most are 30 day trial versions but you can pick up a decent game for around $20.
Apple is counting down to 1 billion songs sold on their music store. The grand prize (the person who buys the billionth song) is an iMac, ten 60GB iPods and $10,000US Music gift card. Also, Apple will create a full-ride scholarship in your name to a world-renowned music school.
Pretty cool. Maybe once it gets close I'll just start buying box sets of music. It's a lot like gambling - hoping the song you buy is the billionth one.
$10,000US is a lot of music. I suppose you can also buy TV shows (in the US, not Canada yet) but still, that's a lot of "stuff" to buy.
Update: The contest is over. I knew I should've bought an album last night!
Kinda funny - in a lame, uber-geek kind of way.
Photodesktop allows you to arrange and display pictures on your desktop, independant of your background.
Disney finally gets their Pixar - with Steve Jobs sitting on the Disney board of directors and Apple he's got his hands in just about every area of entertainment.
iLife 06 arrived today and so I'm quickly running through the new stuff. Most of it is related to podcasting, photocasting (Apple's new made up word for something most people didn't think they wanted) or videocasting.
Apple is getting blasted pretty hard by a lot of techie folks who're claiming (and rightly so) that Apple's new iWeb program isn't following a lot of the standards for web design and RSS feeds. It's a bit like stepping back to using Frontpage on Windows, only it looks a lot better - but still crappy under the hood if you care about the code you put on the web. Except Frontpage never made it this easy to put your photos/videos/podcasts on a website and tell your friends about it. Hopefully Apple cleans things up a bit - keep in mind this is only the v1.0 release of the program. Most of the other iApps are on their 4th - 6th release. It's web page creation for your parents. Or for those of us who don't care, we just want to be able to put a movie on a website and send it to your family.
Here's my iWeb site. I'll be playing around s'more with it once I get around to creating a podcast. My momma always told me I had a face for radio.
Microsoft apparently is discontinuing development of Windows Media Player for OS X. In it's place they are offering a free download of flip4mac which actually allows you to view Windows media files in Quicktime or in a browser window.
Hopefully it'll help improve the poor perfomance of Windows Media files when played back on a Mac.
Whole bunch of big Apple updates today:
Google also did a little Mac update today - they've officially released Google Earth for OS X. There was a beta version floating around the net for awhile, but now you can get your earth viewing for real.
With less than a week to go before another big Macworld keynote by Steve Jobs, here's a little behind the scenes look at what goes into preparing for these events.
This is a Mac only tip, though I'm sure there's something out there for Windows like this. MacOSaiX makes a mosiac using images from either your iPhoto library or a Google image search. Depending on the size/complexity of the photo you're trying to create, it might take awhile.
Use at your own risk: how to install Front Row on your mac.
iTunes Music store opens in Australia. It is now safe to move to Australia.
Now who wants to loan me $23 grand?
Clicky clicky. There's probably a quicker way but this spells it out pretty easily.
Now all I'm missing is the iPod. :)
Serious Apple nerds watch Steve Jobs present the new products and get blanketed by his reality distortion field.
For the rest of you, new video iPods, new iMacs with integrated iSight camera and a new version of iTunes with the ability to buy videos for your new video iPod.
If you're connected to the UofS in some way, my store has some great deals on the now disco'd iMacs.
Need a quick 'n easy (and free) image editor for OS X? Give Imagewell a try. It's not Photoshop, but it does do a lot of stuff that most people think they need to buy Photoshop for.
So Apple has a big event planned for Oct 12th (next week) and lots of rumors are floating around as to what's going to happen - video iPod, video enabled Airport Express, or upgraded Powerbook/Powermacs.
I'll believe a video iPod when I see it. Not that I don't think they'll come out with one, but why do it so soon after releasing the iPod nano that's been getting tons of press and publicity for Apple? But then a big media event like this doesn't really make much sense for a simple speed bump to the Power line. We'll have to wait and see what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve (or in his pocket) next Wednesday.
So you got a new iPod nano but are bummed about the 4GB of storage that _only_ allows you 1,000 songs: upgrade that nano to a 200GB drive. It won't quite fit in your pocket anymore and your battery life will drop to nothing, but at least you can carry around 150,000 songs with you.
Five Weeks of Free loops for Garageband, Logic, etc. Each week, a new set of loops are availabe here.
Apple finally came around and released a two button mouse. It's way too easy to make fun of this based on the fact that it took them 3+ years to get on the two button bandwagon. I haven't heard a single argument that really makes any sense as to why they stuck with the one button version for so long.
Educational pricing is at $58 which is a bit steep for a mouse - but because it's Apple I'm sure it will sell just fine. It's got some sort of built in speaker to account for the fact that there's no actual buttons to press - so when you click there's an audible 'click' sound that it makes.
Someone said this to me on the phone in response to how long something was going to take:
Lord love a duck!
Well, I hope He does. Probably many ducks. All of them in fact. But not pigeons. Pigeons are of the devil.
It's been too nice out to post anything of interest on here. Lots of BBQing, biking, beach volleyball. Pretty much anything that starts with a 'B' works.
The wind this morning was brutal biking in to work - I felt like I was peddling in molasses. There are two things that suck in Saskatchewan in summer... wind and mosquitos. The wind helps get rid of mosquitos, but if we didn't have the mosquitos we wouldn't need the wind.
Someone is going to win a whole bunch of iPods and songs if they happen to be the 500 millionth iTunes music store customer.
I think this will be my last post on this (for now anyway) and it comes from this blog and it is what I found most interesting about the big announcement as well:
The most impressive part of the announcement (for me anyway) was that the long-fabled Marklar turned out to be true. This was the code name for a secret workshop in the basement of Cupertino where shadowy developers maintained x86 builds of OS X just in case Apple ever needed to throw the switch.Now, think about that for a moment -- to use (an admittedly cliche) car analogy, this was the equivalent of an auto maker producing alternate versions of their engines, keeping them tuned, bug free and optimized, and locking them away in storage. Or from a web developer's perspective, producing two, complete, functioning versions of a web site, and only using one online.
But we're talking about a full blown operating system here, and all the internal applications produced for it. Microsoft can't seem to get a single version of Longhorn out the door for one platform, while Apple has released multiple versions of OS X for two platforms? That's not just incredible, it's stunning. I can only imagine how vindicated and proud Apple's x86 team must feel.
Well, maybe it's not quite that dramatic - but Apple has announced that they will be using Intel based CPU chips in the future - by June, 2006 and fully switched over by 2007. Nothing really that earth shattering to the average user, or even most power users. Apple has been running a version of OS X on Intel CPUs for 5 years now so it's not a recent idea. Obviously some code will have to be rewritten/recompiled but the whole keynote today was run on a Intel based Mac so obviously they're pretty ready for this. They also switched platforms once before when OS 9 came out so it's something they've done in the past.
The main reason for the switch is simply that IBM hasn't been able to deliver on processors in both speed (GHz/Mhz) and quantity as well as putting their G5 chips in laptops. It'll be interesting to see how performance is using Intel based CPUs and how it will affect the whole Mac vs. PC argument now that they're running on the same platform.
Out of nowhere - reports that Apple is switching to Intel chips as soon as Monday.
This has been a recurring rumor for years now and while this time around it seems to have a bit more meat to it, I still think it's just Apple's way of playing hardball with IBM to work harder at getting faster processsors out there. (Apple's G5 chip is made by IBM, most of their G4 chips found in portables and the Mac mini are made by Motorola) I'm sure Steve Jobs is tired of trying to defend the whole GHz myth.
Most rumor sites are pointing to bumped up iPod shuffles (2 or 4GB versions) and that's about it. Either way, it should be an interesting WWDC on Monday.
This is what video conferencing looks like in Tiger. I especially like the reflections of each person to make it look like you're all sitting around a shiny conference table.
If you're using the iPhoto flickr export plugin, there's new version out that fixes a few bugs.
I don't know why I didn't see this sooner, but apparently you can record directly off of some of Shaw's new digital cable terminals right to your computer with a simple firewire cable. No need for an expensive tuner capture card. This site lists how to do it for Macs but I'm sure something similair could be worked out for PC users out there.
I heard about this from a Unix guy on campus who bought an iBook to try out 'The Mac Side' and seems to be enjoying it:
[quote]
I connected my Shaw Digital STB to my Mac iBook. I then downloaded Firewire SDK 19 from apple.com. Voila, I can now record TV onto the mac. Works great. It captures the TV into mpeg-2 Transport files (.m2t) A program called VLC is used to play these files on the mac. You can record and play High Def. They say that it only works for Digital channels - but they were using the previous Shaw PVR - Motorola 6208. I have the newest one - Motorola 6412 -and it appears to transmit analog channels down the FireWire just fine.
My space consumption estimates on the Mac side:
Digital SD - 1.5 GB /hour
Analog SD - 3.0 GB /hour
Digital HD - 9.0 GB /hour
Now I am looking for a way to convert the .m2t files for DVD burning.
[end quote]
command-control-D
Invoke Tiger's dictionary in any Cocoa app by hovering over the word with this key combination. So handy. Visit site
For those that don't know, 'Command' is also known as the 'Apple Key' on your keyboard. A Cocoa app is, as far as I understand it, something that has been designed for OS X. If you're a new mac user, then most of your apps should be 'cocoa'ized.
H.264 encoding explained/reviewed.
H.264 is a codec that is used to "wrap" your video/audio content in to compress it. It scales really well from cell phone content all the way up to HD (high definition) content.
For any OS X users out there feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff in iLife '05, I'd recommend this book:
Arstechnica.com has a great guide for people who've made the switch from a Windows or Linux machine to their new Mac mini.
Apple always puts on a good show, but be warned - the Apple Reality Distortion Field will be in full effect. You'll come away from it wanting to buy a Mac.
iLife '05 Seminar Registration and Details - Click Here.
Audio Production Ecosystem Seminar Registration and Details - Click Here.
Think Napster has finally got Apple's iTunes Music Store beat? Think again.
Got too many iPod shuffles on hand? Why not make a iPod shuffle RAID?
...the more they stay the same.
Steve Jobs introducing the original Macintosh 21 years ago.
Update: The stream of the keynote is available now. Click here to avoid having to read my summary.
Steve Jobs is giving the big 'reality distortion field' speech right now, but Apple decided to not stream it live from the stage so you'll have to wait until tonight to get your fill.
There's lots of sites doing text updates. Here's what's gone down so far:
... and still no iTunes Music store available to Canada.
Very nice promo for Apple on Survivor tonight. They used a Powerbook with an iSight to connect the 'survivor's to their loved ones back home. The video quality looked a little too good to be true since they were connecting via satellite - and it turned out to be so as they had their loved ones hidden on the island. So maybe it was just a good advertisement for Airport wireless and the iSight. Either way, it looked cool for Apple. I've tried the iSight and it works as good as advertised.
So they announced a new U2 iPod. (You can catch the quicktime stream of the event here) I wouldn't kick it out of bed for eating crackers, but I wouldn't go and spend an extra $110 above the cost of the regular 20GB iPod to get it either. I am, however, scheming up a way to get the new 60GB iPod Photo. That has potential to get some serious use. And with the S-Video/RCA output on it, I'm sure they'll be adding video out on it eventually. I don't care about watching it on the little 2" screen, but it'd be sweet to be able to take a movie I'm working on, dump it on the iPod and just take that to a meeting and show it on a TV or projector.
Is there any mennogals out there that want to join Jenn as we set up a mennogal/mennoladies/something? Mennogirl.com is apparently taken? The cost goes down as more people join! :)
Notice anything missing?
If you're the Mac'in kind, Office 2004 for Mac has a service pack available for download. Easiest way is to just use the MS Office Autoupdater.
If you're off work or killing time between classes today, check out the Apple tent set up in the Bowl on campus. The usual propaganda but they brought one of their schweet new displays that everyone's drooling about.
Plus all the free Apple pens, notebooks, flashlights, etc that you can handle.
Little bit of mac humor that hits the nail on the head:
Since I know most (none?) of you would frequent the mac blog, here's a cool little app for OS X for designing/drawing/editing at the pixel level: Pixen2.
Get your order in now for the pink ones - they're going fast!
Yeah, I guess I'd take a pair... if someone was giving them to me.
A bunch of fresh versions of some of the programs I use the most on my mac:
And if you like getting pulled into the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, check out the streaming video of Stevie announcing new displays and demoing Tiger, the next version of the Mac OS expected out sometime in 2005.
From a recent MacSlash thread:
It kind of makes my head hurt, but I'm installing WinXP on my Powerbook via Virtual PC. Click the picture for a bigger version.
This isn't really anything new, but it is new to me.
BTW, before anyone starts getting all uppity remember that it's a SATIRE site.
Just want to save this link: KeyShowX:Control Keynote/Powerpoint presentations over a network.
I was just ichattin with Mark and am thinking I gotta use this more often. It's just as convinient as the phone and with wireless internet it's like a cordless. The problem is I have no real reason to use it - it's just a cool technology. That's pretty much enough reason for me. I'm seriously tempted by the horribly overpriced ($189?!?! C'mon Apple!) and more useless to me isight webcamera just because of how well it works. I know in the latest version of MSN M$ made some improvements on the video component, but it still doesn't work as well as iChat with an iSight.
I think we need to convince Sue's sis and bro-in-law who live in Australia to get themselves a mac with an isight. heh heh.. Friggin Apple. It's like a cult.
With the announcment of Airport Express and the iTunes Music Store Canada expected on June 15th it's shaping up to be a good Apple month.
The Apple World Wide Developer Conference is also up at the end of the month, where new Powermac G5's and possibly an iMac G5 are expected. Both are out of my price range and out of my "need" range, but it's still cool to drool.
Just a quick list of some Mac games I'd been eyeing up and wanted to save the list here since Amazon is so rotten at sorting their gaming section:
Quite possibly very creepy, very funny but at the same time an apt description of the whole Windows vs Apple debate (debacle?) that goes on. I've included the original article in it's entirety just in case it disappears but it came from this site's entry.
" I have bought more software for my Mac than I ever did for my Windows PCs, most of it shareware. Is it really that much higher quality? Or am I buying her presents?"
The Mac Blog has moved to being a joint effort with coworkers and is now located here. It's just a bookmark blog for neat Apple related stuff we come across while we work. Very geeky.
The Lydia's open mic gig went pretty good last night. We had our drummer drop out at the last minute but Mark (Marc?) stepped in and covered well on congos and the full kit for Desire. I find it really hard to do much dynamically on accoustic so it felt like our set just was a mash of songs blending together. I really should have gotten a better accoustic guitar a long time ago but my techie interests always get in the way of the funds being there. Maybe a nice Simon and Patrick. Hmmmmm...
I think I have a performance inhibitor in my brain. Whenever I go on stage I'm sure it looks like I'm pissed to be there and not having a good time at all. The opposite is actually true. I'm having a great time, loving the music but I just don't know what to do with myself. I get lost in playing the guitar and forget to move... and so I end up like a statue. Which is fine if you're the only one doing it in a band... but we all tend to do that so we look like a band of robots sometimes.
Ah but we're just getting started. Give it time I guess. Once we make the jump to stadium rock we'll get the stage dives, guitar solos on my knees and flaming guitars going hard core.
Any fellow iTunes users out there (Apple or Windows) might want to go grab the 4.5 update to iTunes they released this morning.
Now if only the iTunes music store would hit Canada I could empty my bank account into music like I want to.
I'm thinking of selling our eMac and putting the money towards an iBook for Sue - anyone interested? I haven't totally decided to sell it but there's some good prices going for them on eBay so it's got me interested.
This is what you could buy right now if you were looking at a new eMac:
Mine is the 1Ghz model with more RAM (640MB) but less hard drive (a 60GB). We bought it August 2003 so it still has 4 months of warranty on it. I could throw on an extra 2 years of warranty for $200. iLife '04 (Garageband) is on it, as is Panther. I think we may even still have the original box.
Even if you're not interested in buying it, if I listed it on ebay is $1000 a fair price?
o as I'm doing a bunch of Apple training here at work, I'm realizing once again how much I'd really like a Mac - if we could afford one.
Powermac G4 933 - $3,169
17" Apple Studio Display - $1,199
Sony DCRTRV740 Video Camera - $1,099
Final Cut Pro - $449
DVD Studio Pro - $819
Firewire Cable - $12
All for only $6,747 ($7,624 w/taxes)
You can even throw in an extra $1500 for a DigiDesign Digi001 and be setup for video and audio production.
Well, all I can really do is put it on my Christmas list I guess. :)
(note: all prices are education pricing only and are available at The Campus Computer Store. :) )
