Category: Apple (page 1 of 2)

If you haven’t heard, Apple Computer has just released a PC version of there wonderful iTunes application and online music store! Its an MP3 player, ripper, streamer, and cd burning application that will run on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It’s identical in every way to the Mac version. Now is your chance to find out what using an Apple product is like without switching to the Mac. It allows for high quality ripping and a ton more than many paid mp3 applications – plus it’s FREE. It’s worth at least a look.

At work we just got in our new G5, the dual 2 Ghz model. This photo doesn’t do it justice. If you haven’t seen one close up in person, it’s hard to tell there’s a clear plastic cover over the side of the case so you can leave it like this all the time – no mods necessary (add neon to taste).

It’s under my desk for now, but it’s not my machine. I’ve got my 15″ Titanium and my trusty g4 desktop. No, the G5 will join the rest of the bread winners in the mac farm as soon as we get another cable punched down.

Yesterday Apple announced a new zero-config chat client with audio and video capabilities called iChat AV. When everyone else has been saying video conferencing – Apple is saying, call you grandkids and see them on video. It’s a super easy to set up, and it delivers a high quality video stream right through your chat client. Not a real big deal, but they’re doing it better and easier than I’ve ever seen.

iChat AV supports Apples new iSight, as well as “any firewire ready camcorder.” This got me to thinking, what if I had a Dazzle analog to firewire converter? Could I stream from whatever analog video or audio source I want? If I had a buddy in say South Carolina who wasn’t able to get the Vikings game, I could patch it through my Dazzle (that I don’t have) and stream the game down to him. I believe the answer is yes you can, but of course not without the written consent of the NFL. Too easy.

I broke down and ordered a refurbished 5 GB iPod from Apple the other day. Well it missed it’s ship date because they ran out of stock. So Apple happily canceled my order and replaced it with a 10 Gb iPod – or so I thought. Then an hour later they canceled that order and set it back to a 5 GB. Boo.

Update:[6/18/03] Now it’s delayed until July 7th. Boo hoo.
Update 2:[6/25/03] I just got my “shipped” confirmation email, and it said it was a 10GB shipped – guess I really wont know for sure until it shows up.

I installed the nightly build of Mozilla on my XP box and my Mac last night. Here is the first thing you see upon download. Which is the hard way? 304 to one XP wins as most complicated.

 
Almost all of the exact same jar files are used to create these two applications, the mac just hides them from you. If you really want to see the pile-o-files, just “right click” (yes that works on a mac) or control-click the icon and choose show package contents. Jar yourself out.

Apple has announced that the inventor of the Internet has joined it’s board of directors.

I have to remove 8 torx t8 screws from the back of my TiBook to put my airport card in. That sucks because Sears, Home Depot, Menards, Fleet Farm, and Minnesota computer don’t carry a torx bit that small, and my alan wrenches and screwdrivers don’t work either.

Tethered.

I just discovered that my dynamicly loading, java script sliding menu, cache enabled, RSS parser/reader page has the smoothest sliding efects if you use the Safari browser* on Mac OS X.

I’m not usuing it regularly yet because it’s just not as handy, or complete as the Chimera browser.

I know I’ve been all about music and macs lately, but I’ve just come across another cool product. The The iTrip sits atop the iPod and attaches to the headphone jack, and transmits the iPods signal to any FM stereo, at any frequency. It doesn’t require batteries, but draws its power directly from the iPod, and can still be charged while the iTrip plugged in – it can spin out of the way. Pre-orders are now being taken. I think it’s priced right, and is a must have for ipod owners.

All but lost in the bevy of keynote announcements was TiVo’s announcement that they will support Rendezvous for sharing music and photos from your Mac to your TV:

“TiVo’s upcoming premium service package will use Rendezvous technology to automatically discover Macs within the home network and determine which services they provide, allowing customers to listen to their shared music or view their shared photos on their TV.”

I already have the wireless network in place, so soon* I can stream audio to my stereo from my front yard (’cause that’s totally necessary).

I’m sure MH is already planning the purchase.

*by soon I mean when I actually break down and buy a TiVo – so more accurately nowhere near soon.

“Apple’s Mac OS X Adoption Soars With More Than 5 Million Users and 5,000 Native Applications” PR Newswire

“Burton and Apple Deliver the Burton Amp Jacket: World’s First Electronic Jacket with Integrated iPod Control System” PR Newswire

“Apple Unveils Keynote: Professional-Quality Presentations for Everyone” PR Newswire

“Apple Unveils Final Cut Express: Everyone Can Now Edit Video Like a Pro” PR Newswire

“Apple Delivers AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wireless Networking” PR Newswire

“Apple Introduces Its Smallest Notebook Ever” PR Newswire

“Apple Unveils World’s First 17-inch Notebook: First Notebook to Feature 802.11g Wireless Networking, FireWire 800 & Backlit Keyboard” PR Newswire

“Apple Unveils Safari: Fastest Web Browser Ever Created for the Mac” PR Newswire

“Apple Introduces iLife: Latest Versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD & iTunes Work Together Seamlessly” PR Newswire

And that’s just the keynote.

For those of you who went to Apple’s website looking under the NBA schedule section for the Timberwolves schedule to sync your calendar up to and couldn’t find it (I’m sure it was thousands of you).

The calendar file is there, but there just isn’t a link to it. Here it is: Timberwolves iCal file. You have to have a Mac and iCal to use it.

I know I’ve said this about 1,321,218 times, but my Mac just works. Say for example, I download an mp3 who’s id3 tags are in Kangi. It just works, even if I don’t know what the hell song it is.

Otto Moerbeek wrote in with this very handy tutorial on how to use Apple’s Backup utility without a .Mac account. [via MacOSRumors]

It’s legal and it works, but I’m guessing Apple will put a stop to it in it’s next release of Backup.

Ken Bereskin, a Mac OS X product manager, has a weblog chock full of Jaguar (Mac OS 10.2)tips and features you may not have known about. If you are running Jaguar or thinking about upgrading, it’s definitely worth a look.

Speaking of worth a look, it seems that Unix buffs are converting to Mac OS X in droves. I remember back at the Strictly Business show in Minneapolis in 1999, before OS X beta was out, I was in a small session with about 12 people and one happened to be none other than Jon “Mad Dog” Hall, the legendary executive director of Linux International. It seems that O’Reilly has an article every other week that touts the greatness of OS X and how many of their Unix peeps are switching to the Mac. Heck, O’Reilly’s even putting on a Mac OS X Conference. Throw in all the hoopla about open source tools and the Fink project – and there’s almost no reason to even own a *nix box.

Ok, so all the Mac heads and wireless experts have been poohooing the adoption of 802.11a as the next upgrade to the current wireless standard of 802.11b because 802.11g is backward compatible and has better speed over longer distances.

Q: Tim, seriously who cares?

A: Ozzy, shut up. From now on you can only read my posts about Ogre.

Ahem, anyway. Supplies of Apple wireless cards are dwindling according to many sources. Those same sources are predicting a 802.11g upgrade to Apple’s WiFi lineup is to blame for the low supply. But I have another, albeit related idea. This is based on no viable or alternate source, I really just dreamt this up. What if Apple has built a Airport/Bluetooth card? One that is 802.11g, and has bluetooth compatibility. That would be innovative, and Apple like. Why else would apple be writing an application like iSync (the coolest and most functional way to link your photos, contacts, instant messaging, and address book with your cell phone or PDA) when supplies of the D-Link bluetooth USB thingy are so damn hard to come by. Plus, who whants a dongle sticking out the back of their powerbook when they could have it built in?

Quote of the day from the Crazy Apple Rumor site:

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m picking hot chicks and ninjas.”

If you don’t believe that Apple is a trend setter and innovator then take a look at this, the e.Digital Odyssey 1000. Establishes Copies new standard in digital entertainment. They did at least add some features that the iPod doesn’t have, like and FM tuner and voice recording. Another feature they added was voice navigation. All I can picture is people with their headphones on, yelling commands to there player, you know what it’s like to talk to someone with headphones – or when they sing along at the top of their lungs without realizing it. Seen one of these before?

By the way, Small Dog has refurb iPods for $235, oohh I’m so close to buying one!

It seems that Apples “Switch” has spun a few parodies. Ben “big port” Brown, Ani Moller and ubergeek have made their own switch ads. If you watch any of them, watch Ben’s.

…but I’ll probably buy it anyway.

First, Apple, has been calling Quicktime 6 the bee’s knees for like a year now. I purchased the Pro version of Quicktime 5 not too long ago hoping to be able to migrate forward to Quicktime 6 with some sort of discount. Want to upgrade to Quicktime 6? Same price as if I never bought Quicktime 5. The kicker, very few upgrade features that I’ll actually use. Damn you Apple.

Second, Apple gives us the fancy iTools email and web hosting service and says you get this email address, free for life. Then, when you use it religiously and have told all of your friends to use this email address (for 3 years), they decide to charge you $100 for it, but I’m supposed to be happy they’re only charging me $50 for the first year. Bite me. They should just let the email part stay free, and you have to pay to take advantage of the rest of the features. (the extended features are easily worth the price, but come-on now I can’t abuse the free email service)

Third, they aren’t giving an upgrade discount from 10.1 to 10.2. And if you buy a Mac between now and Aug 24 they will only charge you 20 bucks to upgrade to 10.2. Only?? Bite my ass.

I’ve gotten too used to Apple giving us really cool stuff for free, I guess it’s about time we pay for some of it. And it is damn cool!

I just realized that I was running 20+ applications at the same time on my nearly 3 year old PowerBook. The best part is, they are all running like they’re the only app running, no slow downs, no crashes, they are just minding there own business in the dock. So I took a quick screenshot cause I’m a dork and want to put lame shit on this site and well, it’s Friday. How many of you windows users have ever had that much going on and not really notice the difference? Well?

“Using my PC was like being stuck in a bad relationship”

Apple has a section of their website and a promotion that is designed to push people to switch to a mac – I think it was long overdue.Dig the eyes on this guy, I’m sure he burns ants with those specs.

I really really want to geek-out about the new xserve, but my friends will make fun of me.

Update: Doc Searls was there, he’s got the first hand geek scoop. I guess I should also mention (if you read down a few posts on Docs site) you’ll discover what he discovered: that Apple has WiFi coverage in the shitters. On the net and on the plumbing at the same time. Convenient? Yes. Sanitary? Um, no.

I’m certain all of you have been dieing to know what I thought of the recently announced “late summer” upgrade to the Mac OS, Mac OS X v 10.2 – codename Jaguar. (I know you really haven’t but that’s just too bad, I’m going to tell you anyway)

Many things about Jaguar are going to be very cool, and at the very least good foundations. The bad news included within all the good is iChat. It looks ugly as sin and only works only with AIM – at least my avatar will come in handy. I though Apple would go for something along the lines of Fire, but I’m guessing someone’s pockets got lined by AOL or visa versa for Apple to pair up with them. I don’t think that people want cartoon thought bubbles to distinguish between speakers in a room. It looks fine for 2 people, but imagining 3 or 4 people is atrocious. I’m sure they will do something about it, but in the meantime – ugh.

Fortunatally, the good news for Jaguar far outweighs the bad bulky chat program. Quartz Extreme hardware acceleration is a godsend. For those of you who don’t know, this screen-drawing engine will use Open GL graphics drivers ( nVidia cards) to draw what’s on the screen rather than the G4 CPU. If you were to drag a window in the current version of OS X, the CPU hits 100% instantly (at least on my PowerBook G3/500). With Quarts Extreme the CPU can do all the tough/useful computations and the graphics card can chomp through the screen rendering – rather than sitting, waiting for you to play Quake. I’m guessing that will make the interface seem much faster.

Sherlock 3 looks a little too similar to Watson, but Watson is $30 and Sherlock comes with OS X. It gives you the ability to search movie times, flights, maps, yellow pages, and online stores from within the OS in a very user-friendly manner. I hope it works through our proxy server.

Finally I’d like to point out Inkwell. It’s the name a the new handwriting recognition software built into OS X. It requires a tablet currently, but I can see this being built into a tablet based mac. It was built from the Newton code, which was very good.

That’s all I’m going to talk about, but trust me – there is a lot lot more.

There have been 4 announced insider trades of Apple stock in the past 2 weeks. I sold my shares just before any of this was announced. Woo!

Vintage.com is hosting an auction of an Apple I. There are only an estimated 50 in existence, and it is widely recognized as the machine that started the personal computer revolution. It should go fairly high.

Search Google is a little chunk of freeware that adds a ‘Search Google’ menu item to OS X’s service menu. Select some text, shift-cmd-G, up pops the Google results. [via bbum]

Playing off the Pixar mascot Luxo, Apple releases some new quicktime shorts that were actually made by Pixar. They bring the new iMac to life.