Listen to today’s show here! 
MC20060726.mp3 [27.0mb 00:59:01 64kbps]
A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 151. Apple releases Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. New iTunes Music store content from Warner Bros., Metalica and Beach Boys. eBooks on the next iPod. Apple patent for rumored “none touch” technology. FinalCut Pro backup tip. Follow up using bare drives with connection adapters. My thoughts on buying a new Mac. When to buy and how do you choose the right Mac. Getting better battery life from your Mac notebook. Network attached storage for OS X. What to do if iWeb options are completely grayed out on your new Mac. Reminder to support your OS X software developers. Getting your preferred MacCast feed back.
New music, Why? by Reel
We’ve got a piper down, I repeat, the piper is DOWN! — So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
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Hi Adam, Is there anything behind the “I made a cake for you” image in the first couple seconds of the enchanced Maccast. Thanks.
Adam,
Thanks for including our track ‘Why?’ on today’s MacCast. It is very appreciated.
Keep up the great work, and thanks again!
reel
Alex,
Of course. :D The key is figuring out what.
Is it the half birthday of the maccast? That would explain the three candles hmmm….
Hi Adam,
The cake and podcast was delicios!
Jason
*Delicious :)
About Mac-compatible multi-drive NAS. Check out the Infrant ReadyNAS NV. Looks like great Mac support. Even a dashboard widget monitor.
I was going to suggest the ReadyNAS NV myself. It sounds like a great piece of hardware. Check out the review from PC Magazine.
I’m really glad you commened about this in the podcast. I think it’s very important. Many people drastically reduce the usefulness and life of their batteries by not doing it.
I do it every couple of months.
See this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
While Apple doesn’t say so in the manuals, the MacBook-variant of calibrating the battery is quite useful for the iBook, too. I was able to return to a significantly higher capacity using the long way on my iBook.
To the tip of buying MacOS X Server for an Old-Mac-FileServer, I don’t think you need it if you are a little bit in to samba config files. See /etc/smb.conf
Hey there Adam!
Love the show!
I just bought a new mac mini (80 gig) along with the new mighty mouse and the new wireless keyboard yesterday from the apple store here in Costa Mesa…The mighty mouse is pretty cool for me, however, the only issue I have had is in getting used to using a mouse again because I am so used to the track-pad on my g4 laptop!
The wireless keyboard ROCKS!!! It is really convenient while typing large documents and or working on a blog etc with the keyboard on my lap while leaning back! Very nice!
Both the mouse and keyboard are battery operated (which apple so kindly provided good batteries for!). I will let you know how long the batteries last in both devices…it does look like when you put the computer to sleep, so do the mouse and keyboard…
Once again, love the show!!!
Hope this helps!
Steve
Costa Mesa, California
Quick thing about the enhanced MacCast. The files come as m4b which prevents me from changing the “Skip when Shuffling” flag in the file options. I have to manually change the file to m4a so I can deselect the flag so that it will sync with my Shuffle using Autofill.
Any particular reason for using m4b instead of m4a? I don’t know of any other podcasts using m4b.
Enclosures are not necessary for “cooling” of a hard drive as was the example you used for not leaving a bare drive hooked up for long term storage.
In fact, a drive outside a case or enclosure is less likely to overheat than one inside an enclosure or computer case.
Also, the only reason to keep a drive in an enclosure/case vs. outside in the wild is because most users tend to drop things (coke, cofee, etc.) that tend to cause electronics to fail. Static is also a concern as is movement of the drive while the heads are writing data.
However, with care, a drive exposed outside your case is not a problem. There are many rail kits that can be had for just this purpose.
Your case/external enclosure exist solely to provide easy connection to your computer/power supply while protecting the drive from human error.
Otherwise, kept dry, still, and clear from ESD, a hard drive in the wild is not a bad thing.
Todd,
I manually change it to .m4b for people with 3G and older iPods. For them if it is .m4a the iPod won’t “bookmark” or remember their place if the stop in the middle and return to listening later. Since you are using a Shuffle, why not try the MP3 edition of the show? http://feeds.feedburner.com/maccast
Hi Adam,
Just listened to your 7/20 podcast while taking my morning walk (through Heather Farms by the way). Again it was very informative. Thanks for the great info you provide. Now I have to get to the 7/26 podcast on my Sunday walk!
Thanks!
Norm
Hi Adam,
Regarding a Mac-compatible NAS, I have been using a Thecus N2100 for the past few months. It is a 2-drive enclosure with gigabit ethernet and a built-in iTunes server. It was my perfect price/performance sweet spot for a home media server in a mixed Mac-PC environment. It runs about $350 without drives. I have mine set up with 2 x 250 GB WD2500KS drives in RAID-1. I think it fills the void between the 1-drive systems (Buffalo) and the 4-drive systems (Infrant).
Tom’s Hardware just recently reviewed NAS options. As always, I love your MacCast!
Tony
In response to the wireless mighty mouse and why it wasn’t released right a way. My feeling is that Apple was releasing something brand new. New touch and sensing technology. If support got a bunch of calls that the mouse wasn’t responding to your actions. If it was wireless/BT then it would have been a lot more difficult to troubleshoot. With it being wired, they could deturmine the problem is the hardware or software and not worry about connectivity.
Just my two cents.
Hi Adam,
7/26 podcast was informative as usual. Al Gore “inventing the internet”?
Sincerely,
Norm
Maybe the eBooks are a precursor to a new iPod design, that includes none touch page turning. or some other new feature to be seen next week.
Thanks for the battery info, it makes such a difference. I know someone who didn’t calibrate his iBook battery in the first week and he has been sorry since. Reading the booklet that comes with new tech can provide such useful details like that.
Great edition, but I don’t understand why you gave the Mighty Mouse such a hard time; I find the Mighty Mouse the best mouse on the market.
The design is intelligent and attractive, laser+bluetooth= precision and portability, it has four buttons, 360 scroll ball. I have never had the problem with the primary and secondary buttons, unlike you, where I don’t know if I right-clicked or left-clicked. I did think the side-button(s) were awkward when I first used them, but I have learned to wrap my hand around the mouse differently to easily access the buttons. I use it all the time to exposé on-the-fly using my thumb and my ring finger to squeeze the buttons. The mouse is also exceptional when it comes to Photoshop, Illustrator, and surfing the web.
I’m looking forward to buying a new Bluetooth Mighty Mouse for my MacBook Pro when the time comes.
So get your Mighty Mouse out of your drawer and give it a second chance, you may come to enjoy it. ;)
By the way is the “I made a cake for you” picture because you reached 150 shows?
eBooks – While I’m not sure whether an iPod will make a good eBook reader, I can tell you that reading a fiction novel is very enjoyable as an eBook. Words are words, and if the book is good, you quickly forget that you are reading on a hand held device.
I had my doubts when I started reading eBooks on my PDA (a Palm based PDA), and so did my wife. Now we are reluctant to buy a paperback just because of all the advantages we loose.
The eBook reader can hold hundreds of books. So you can carry with you lots of reading material. Very useful when going on vacation or traveling.
Reading in bed does not disturb your significant other as the reader has its own backlight. If you fall asleep while reading, the reader turns itself off and remembers where you were in the book.
The eBook reader can fit in a pocket (much more easily than a paperback), so when waiting for the Dentist, or while the spouse is shoe shopping, you can read.
An eBook reader can search for passages in the entire book. So if you decide you need to go back and find that section where they explained something, you can easily search for it.
Now a book with lots of pictures, drawings, charts, tables, etc… may not be a good eBook.
As for power, reading text does not require a lot of disk access (the most power hungry part of an iPod). Chances are an iPod could access the disk once an hour or even less considering all the buffering it has for playing music. That is a huge saving in power.
Yes you need the backlight on, but in doors or at night you can dim the screen.
What the iPod would need to be a good eBook reader is an easy button, rocker, scroll wheel (jog dial to use the Sony term) that allows you to turn pages without having to move your hands.
If you want to really give eBooks a good test, and not just speculate, then if you have a PDA or smart phone, then find a good book you would buy in paperback. Find it as an eBook (Fictionwise.com, eReader.com, Baen.com, MobiPocket.com, or just a Google search for eBooks). Load the eBook reader software on your PDA or smart phone, then start reading the book. If you get to the end and still think an eBook is a lousy way to read a book, then at least you have given it a real test.
Bob Harris
Hi adam,
just a quick though on having an ebook reader in my iPod…
Personally, i’d never read a book on a screen like the ipod’s, neither would i on my SE k800i phone, or my old palm III, or even on my 23″ studio display for that matter. Maybe I would on the ePaper you mentioned, i don’t know yet… didn’t see it yet!
But, iPod is a computer after all… would it be very far fetched if Apple included it’s voice synthesis software in the iPods? Now, if an eBook would actually be read out aloud by software, i might think different of having them on my iPod ;-)
keep up the good, cheers, Ger