Here’s some Sunday geekery for you in the form of my iPad 2 unboxing video and images. You can find more photos on the Maccast Flickr page or on the Facebook Page.

I have an update to bring you on yesterday’s post about a tent showing up outside the temporary location of the Knox Street Apple Store in Dallas, Texas. Thanks to some guest reporting by David Collins we have been able to confirm that the guy inside the tent is Justin Wagoner. Justin has made a bit of a name for himself online by being first in line for several Apple launches.

The one big question we had was “Why”? Justin simply said he was on spring break and it would be an adventure. He told us he expected lines to start forming sometime Wednesday and that he set up camp around 9:30 AM Sunday morning (3/6/2011). Another reason we’re guessing Justin is in line for this event is that he doesn’t own an original iPad. Last year when it was released he said he saw the iPad as a luxury accessory, so we asked him about his change of heart for this launch. Justin mentioned that the iPad was an unknown quantity and there just weren’t that many apps specifically designed for it. The iPad’s growing popularity, actually using one at the Apple Store on Knox Street, and the now over 65,000 apps seem to have changed his mind. Justin can now see a real case for the utility of an iPad. Despite his launch day enthusiasm for some Apple products, Justin is a bit more reserved for others. He did not buy the first generation iPhone until a few months after its release.

This will be the 4th iOS product launch event where Justin has been first in line. Whatever his motivation for sure it ends up grabbing attention. For past events Justin has received news coverage from local Dallas news affiliates, CNN, Yahoo!, and others. He also has a web site set up at ijustinofficial.com and is posting updates on twitter, @iJustinOfficial

Special thanks to David Collins for the photos and helping with coverage for this piece

It’s over 4 days before Apple will begin selling the iPad 2 (sales start at 5:00 PM PST this Friday). Apparently hasn’t stopped someone (see picture above) form getting in line early, real early. Maccast listener David sent me this snapshot of a tent apparently already outside a temporary Apple Store location in Texas. The Knox Street Apple store is closed for renovations, so they have set-up shop around the corner on McKinney, Avenue. We don’t know for sure yet, but it’s a good guess that guy inside the tent is famous Apple line sitter Justin Wagoner. Justin if you remember got a lot of press for being first in line for the iPhone 4 days before it went on sale. There have been rumors that initial shipments of iPad 2′s might be lower than Apple had wanted due to supply constraints, but I doubt you’d need to line up now to get one. My guess is Justin just really likes the attention and we’re happy to give him some.

Update: Updated with photo credit and new image

Photo: David Collins

My second generation Apple TV arrived this morning. I hope to talk about the experience more on the next episode, but in the meantime here’s an unboxing video and some images. You can find more photos on the Maccast Flickr page.

Apple opened it’s latest (and largest) flagship Apple retail store at Covent Garden in London this past Saturday. Maccast listener and London Mac User Group (LMUG) member Steve (@clothheadhq) was there and put together this video montage.

Update: Added HD (720p) version below for comparison.

Above is a sample movie I created 100% on the new iPhone 4. I used the iPhone 4′s built in front and rear facing cameras to capture stills and video. I used Apple’s new iMovie for iPhone App to edit and assemble the clips and add the transitions, titles, and audio. Finally the video was exported to the Camera Roll and uploaded directly to YouTube via the device. The whole project took about 2 hours or so to complete and was actually quite simple to put together. As you can see the final results are pretty good, but there is room for improvement. First. I don’t have steady hands and I think a tripod or something to stabilize the phone as I shot the video would have been a great help. As for the audio, I used the built-in “theme” track. In the app there was no indication of the length of the track. When enabled it simply created a green “tack line” under my video timeline and the line extended the full length of my video project. I naturally assumed it was long enough or would loop to cover my whole project. When previewing in edit mode in the app it even played the audio throughout the project. It was only after export that I discovered the track simply faded out at the end, around a minute or so in. There is no option to loop the track and you can only have one such “background” track per project. You can however also include the recorded audio from each clip over the background audio if you choose and it will even auto-duck the background track. Finally, the video exported to the Camera Roll on the iPhone is output at 720p (1280 x 720). Unfortunately, uploading to YouTube directly from the iPhone only yields a maximum resolution of 568 x 320. I assume this is why the YouTube above maxes out at 360p. Even so I think that all of this can be done on a phone. Just so you can get a comparison, I do plan to upload a 720p version polished up in iMovie on my Mac so you can see what the iPhone is fully capable of. Stay tuned.

Here is the 720p version as promised. It is still exactly the same version produced and exported entirely on the iPhone. The only change is a new music track I added in iMovie on the Mac since the iPhone version couldn’t be looped.

But what’s an iStore?

It looks very much like a typical smaller Apple Retail Store you might see in a US mall, but it obviously wasn’t an “Apple Store”. I’m pretty sure iStore is a local chain or brand, but behind it is a program run by Apple called the Apple Premium Reseller program. These are local resellers authorized by Apple to sell Apple products and accessories. You’ll find Apple Premium Resellers in many countries like South Africa, UK, Germany, etc. They are retail locations staffed by Apple experts and offer many services similar to ones you would find in an Apple operated retail store. Services  like seminars, events, business solutions, and educational pricing.

Checkout the email being sent out this morning to pre-order customers:

Dear Apple Store Customer,

You recently received a Shipment Notification email from Apple advising you that your iPhone has shipped.

This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd. Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.

In the event that you will not be available to accept delivery on June 23rd, it may be more convenient to use our pre-sign delivery option by visiting our Order Status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

Sincerely,

The Apple Store Team

So I guess that date was correct. What is not clear at this point is why Apple bumped up the date. A logical guess is that there are concerns over the volume of activations and they may be trying to spread the load between at home deliveries and in-store pick-up which will still take place on the 24th.

I’m glad that many of you will be getting your new iPhones a day early, but I do have to mention this will likely create some outcry from those who weren’t able to get their pre-orders through Apple and AT&T’s systems. Either way I expect Thursday and (now) Wednesday will be both exciting and frustrating for Apple fans.

Thanks to listener Bob for the tip off

It’s seems to be a magnetic switch that activating to put the Macbook Pro to sleep when the lid is closed. If you take a paper clip and place it about 1/3 of the way down the right edge of the Macbook Pro screen it will stick to it. There are also a bunch of magnets along the top edge of the screen, but those appear to be there just to hold the Macbook Pro lid shut when it’s closed.

The sleep switch also seems to be magnetic and about the same distance down along the right edge of the Macbook Pro top case just behind the right speaker grill. It does appear to be a little further in, more toward the keyboard so I assume it gets pulled out to the edge when you close the lid activating the switch. Now the key to triggering it with the iPad is to place the back of the iPad, specifically the area just under the iPad speaker holes, over that section of the Macbook Pro. Viola! The Macbook Pro should go to sleep. I believe it’s the magnets in the iPad speakers that act like the magnets in the Macbook Pro lid and cause the Macbook Pro to think you shut just the lid effectively putting it to sleep. No mystery, no magical forces, just science.

Maccast listener Connor really deserves the credit for discovering this quirk. He emailed me about 3 weeks ago to say he was seeing this behaviour when he got an iPhone 3GS near that part of a 15″ Macbook Pro. At the time I couldn’t repeat the behaviour, but I was able to confirm this with my 15″ Macbook Pro and my 32GB Wi-Fi iPad.

When I ran the same video after installing the “Gala” build of Flash I saw a significant drop in CPU usage. The CPU load hovered between 30 and 40%, roughly about a 50 to 60% decrease in load. I also didn’t have my fans kick in.

With “Gala”, you can tell when the Flash hardware decoding has kicked in by the appearance of a small white square in the corner of the video. Adobe says that in addition to improved playback of H.264 video the hardware enhanced version of Flash should also result in improved battery life. Might be welcome benefit for long Hulu video watching sessions when away from a power outlet.

To be fair I also switch YouTube over to the HTML 5 beta and tested the same video at 720p. Again in my very non-scientific benchmark test I noted that Safari’s CPU load went up to about 20% with the video playing.

Unboxing images
You can also checkout my unboxing images on Flickr

Unboxing images
You can also checkout my unboxing images on Flickr

Update:
The observant folks over on 9 to 5 Mac just noticed something in the release notes PDF for this beta:

2.3 You cannot make Audio/Video calls on some network configurations.

Interesting to note, but likely not a huge cause for concern. The section goes on to explain that you may need to open up some router ports to make the audio and video connections work properly. Details can be found here. Another significant point from the release notes is this beta version is for personal accounts only. You will need to have an account registered with or an ID on the Windows Live Network. Corporate users with an Office Communications Server won’t be able to use the Microsoft Messenger for Mac 8 Beta.

See full images on Flickr

As promised. Here are the images of myself and Jeff Gamet before and after shaving for Movember. In case you missed it, during the month of November (aka. Movember) I grew a mustache to help in an international effort to raise money and awareness for the fight against prostate cancer. This year globally the effort raise more than 30 million dollars. In the US we raised almost 3 million and the US money will be split between The Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG foundation.

For our part, the Maccast community raised almost $600 ($589.97). And Jeff really helped push things forward by agreeing, on this episode of the iPhone Alley Podcast, to shave off his signature mustache and goatee if we raised at least $250.00. As you can see from the above images, we obliterated that goal. So thank you Jeff and thank you Mac Geeks.

a helpful listener sent me a reply with this handy Terminal command to enable it.

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse MouseMomentumScroll -bool true

After entering the command above into the Termial and hitting enter, simply turn Bluetooth off and then back on to update the setting. After that scroll away with full momentum in Leopard.

To change things back issue the same command, but rplacing the last word ‘true’ with ‘false’ and turn off and back on Bluetooth again.

Some sample video comparing the video quality of the new 5th generation iPod nano against the iPhone 3GS and the Flip Mino.

Can’t view the Flash? View them on Flickr

I accidentally shot this in portrait mode on the iPhone, so apologies for the strange aspect ratio.

Me a few other of the Mac geeks got together on Saturday and hung out while I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Turned out to be both fun and educational. hope to do more stuff like this on the Maccast in the future. Thanks to all who stopped by live and for those who couldn’t make it, enjoy the video.

Also seen in the screenshot is the little envelope icon. This button allows you to share current podcast with a friend via an iTunes Link. This does not work on podcasts not featured in the iTunes store, so if you’re subscribed to an RSS feed you are unable to share.

The feature most important to me for daily use isn’t MMS, but the ability to quickly see the remaining battery life. My way around this was a little app called Free Memory, which has the auxiliary feature of telling you the battery life percentage. The app is still worth keeping around if you own an original iPhone or an iPhone 3G and for the ability to free some memory on your device. For iPhone 3GS owners, you now have a nice little option to show the battery life in the top tray of the iPhone.

To access the battery life option, head over to your settings button on the iPhone home screen. From there tap General, then tap Usage, and there will be a slider button on the top. This option is turned off by default and hidden in a screen most people never make there way into.

iPhone OS 3.0 has been great to me so far, but my big excitement is over the speed of the new 3GS which I was reluctant to pick up at first. A full review of my 16 GB 3GS White will be coming up soon. In the meantime, what features of the iPhone 3.0 update have proved useful to you?

Updated: Added text to help clarify that the battery percentage feature is an iPhone 3GS only feature. Thanks to the astute folks in the comments for pointing this out.

To activate the Voice Control feature:
Press and hold the Home button on your iPhone or press and hold the center button on the iPhone headset. After a second or two the Voice Control interface should appear and you’ll hear a beep indicating it is ready for your command.

Voice commands you can use:

• Call a contact: Say “call” or “dial” plus the name of a person in your contacts to call that person. If they have multiple numbers the iPhone will prompt you for which number, i.e. “Home” or “mobile”.
• Dial a number: Say “call” or “dial” and then the number
• If you make a mistake: You can say “wrong,” “not that one,” “not that,” “no,” or “nope.”
• Play music: Say “play” or “play music.”
• Pause music: Say “pause”
  or “pause music.”
• Change songs: Say “next song” or
  “previous song.”
• Play an album, artist, or playlist: Say “play,” then say “album,” “artist,” or “playlist” and the name.
• To enable shuffle: Say “shuffle.”
• Get current track info: Say “what’s playing,” “what song is this,” “who sings this song,” or “who is this song by.”
• Use Genius: Say “Genius,” “play more like this,” or “play more songs like this.”
• Cancel Voice Control: Say “cancel.”

That’s it. I have to say the Voice Commands work pretty well right out of the box (at least with my “average” anglo saxon US voice). About my only complaints are that you have to constantly go in and out of Voice Command mode using the hold button technique described above and that the default voice is a bit tricky to understand at times. No OS X “Alex” here. That said it’s nice to have voice control on the iPhone (finally) and I look forward to get getting better in future updates.

If you are looking to squeeze some data redundancy into you Mac Mini case this post is worth a look. Interestingly you could probably also run a RAID-0 (scary RAID) if you wanted to squeeze in some extra internal storage. That might make a nice upgrade for your Mac Mini Home Theater.

So could you use a MagStay Uni? Would you like to get one free? If you are one of the first 10 Maccast listeners to use the coupon code, maccastfreemagstay on the Thoughtout.biz site you can get a free MagStay Uni (you just need to pay for shipping and handling). You can checkout the product, watch the demo videos, and make your purchase by clicking here.

For a long time now I have been a fan of the “Joy of Tech” comic produced by Nitrozac and Snaggy. As a matter of fact I have had a link to their comic on this blog since it’s inception. They do awesome work and are great contributors to Apple pop culture. You may also recognize their work in the TWiT podcast album art.

The past couple years, just prior to Macworld, the “Joy of Tech” has put out a Macworld celebrity sightings checklist. You can see this years edition here. Last year I began hoping that my Mac celebrity status might rise enough to someday earn a spot on their list. When the comic posted this year I carefully inspected the faces and was very happy to see friends and colleagues like Veronica, Leo, Andy, Chuck, Don, and others all prominently displayed. But alas I didn’t seem to join the ranks this year. Then I noticed a small grouping in the lower corner. There was Jonny, Woz, Sinbad, Derrick, Walt, and could it be? For a brief moment my heart swept and my ego swelled. Was that me? Should I fire up Twitterific and tweet it to the world?

Needless to say… no tweet went out. After that brief moment the euphoria wore off and I came to my senses. It was Robert Scoble. But hey, it’s not all bad. I apparently have a passing resemblance to famous tech blogger Robert Scoble. Plus, if anyone asks if it IS me, I figure I don’t have to go out of my way to deny it. Right?

A Mac OS X Leopard visual display bug in the Dock triggered by hiding the Dock while using Spaces. Credit to listener Fred for alerting me to this bug.

Now Audioengine is back with the Audioengine W2s. Specifically designed for iPods, this time the “sender” unit connects directly to the dock connector and can draw power directly from it’s host. That means you are free to roam around the house controlling the music directly from the device. If you have multiple speakers in different rooms you can get extra AW2 receivers and “hop” from one room to the next. The only downsides to “hopping” at the moment seem to be that you can only send to one receiver at a time and I don’t see a way on the Audioengine site to just buy more receivers. At USD$169.00 for the transmitter and receiver pair it’s not a bad deal, but setting up extra rooms might get pricey. Still, Audioengine claims the system offers CD quality skip free wireless audio and based on my past experiences I am apt to believe them. Hopefully I will be able to get a review unit and when I do expect a full hands on review. Until then if you need to send audio from an iPod to a speaker system without the hassle of wires, the AW2s are certainly worth a look.

Video from the opening of Apple’s first German Apple store in Munich. Thanks to listener Gregor for providing the video.

What is Movember?

Every year 1 in 6 men in the United States will develop prostate cancer and every year in the U.S. 28,000 men will die from the disease. The sad thing is that if detected early 90% of prostate cancer is curable. All it takes for early detection and all that requires is a simple exam.

So, during Movember (the month formerly known as November) I have growing a Moustache to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation and their fight against prostate cancer. The money raised is donated directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation and will be used to fund high-impact research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

How to Donate

To donate to my Macstache you can either click this button and donate online now using your credit card or PayPal account

Or, write a check payable to the ‘Prostate Cancer Foundation’, referencing my Registration Number 1695001 and mailing it to:

Prostate Cancer Foundation
Attn: Movember
1250 Fourth St
Santa Monica, CA, 90401

All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Thanks for your support,

Adam.

A quick video unboxing the new iPod nano.

Jonathan Coulton “Code Monkey” at New Media Expo 2008 (Live)
from Adam Christianson on Vimeo.

As promised here is the video of Jonathan Coulton (jonathancoulton.com) performing Code Monkey during the Coverville 500 event in Las Vegas, Nevada during the 2008 New Media Expo.

Clip used with permission from Jonathan Coulton and Brian Ibbott

Those of you who are old enough will maybe remember the 80′s hit Jenny by Tommy Tutone. The song repeated over and over again 8675309, the supposed phone number of a fictitious girl named Jenny. Back then the song drove anyone across the nation with that phone number nuts as they were overwhelmed by annoying random phone calls.

Today, most movies, TV shows, songs, commercials, etc. use a “555″ number to avoid this type of issue. So imagine how strange it was for me last night when I saw one of Apple’s latest iPhone 3G ads prominently featuring what looked like a legitimate phone number. In the new Work Friendly ad for the iPhone 3G there is a point when they display a contact entry for Scott Frankel and right there in the middle of the screen is an actual (408) phone number. Two actually, because there is also a bad edit in the middle where the screen magically changes mid-shot and adds a second “office” number. After my initial shock wore off I began to wonder. Why would Apple use a “real” number in an iPhone ad? Was this simply a mistake by the ad agency? A clever marketing campaign? I could see by the zip code it was a Cupertino number, so was this a secret hotline into Apple’s headquarters? Well, any Mac geek can probably guess what I did next. Of course. I grabbed my own iPhone and started dialing.

The first number, Scott’s “mobile”, simply had a call failure each time I tried it. The second “work” number went straight into a generic voicemail box. Now, I didn’t leave a message, but I have to wonder what would happen if you did. What is the point of all this? Is there a point? In the back of my mind I was kind of hoping this was a great viral marking scheme and the start of some cool iPhone/Apple treasure hunt like the kind of campaigns the folks over at Mac Heist have crafted in the past. But alas, it doesn’t appear to be so. Seems like a missed opportunity. Truth is, it’s probably just a prank on some poor unsuspecting intern who works at Apple. This guy is now wondering why he gets like 3,000 voice mails a day and why the folks in marketing snicker at him as he shuffles out of his cubicle each day to go have lunch. Maybe he should give Jenny a call and see if she’s available to join him?

I am not sure how long this has been around in Firefox, but at least in the latest version of Firefox 3 beta for Mac I stumbled cross this trick. This morning while working on other things I accidentally dropped a folder from the Finder into a Firefox window I had in the background. Imagine my surprise when I saw what you see in the image above. Firefox displayed the contents of the folder in a file browser like structure. I could navigate up and down the directory tree and there was even an option to turn on and off viewing of invisible files. I did notice that it won’t allow you to navigate to the root of your hard drive, but files that can be viewed normally in a browser (like image files or Quicktime movies) will show up right inside Firefox. They have also done a very nice job with the user interface. It sorta reminds me of .Mac.

Now normally this shouldn’t be surprising considering that many browsers can view file systems on remote servers (if the feature is turned on and allowed in the server configuration), but this works locally. I also know that Internet Explorer on Windows has been able to do this trick for years, but this is on a Mac. The trick also does not work in Safari, at least not in the current version of Safari running under OS 10.5.2.

About a month or so ago I was contacted by the local NBC affiliate here in San Diego to get my thoughts on a story they were working on based on a report they had received from their Washington DC office. The story was about a woman that someone from the DC station knew who’s 2nd gen iPod Nano exploded and caught fire while charging. The basic spin they wanted on the story was that iPods were potentially unsafe and could catch fire. Trouble is, neither I nor any other expert they could track down would play along. In the end they ended up doing a broader piece on dangers of lithium ion batteries. Maybe not 100% accurate, but there have been some recalls and (despite the sensational promos and story headline) the story did a fairly decent job explaining that in normal use these batteries are relatively safe and it’s only when the batteries are improperly handled that there could be some issues. I was interviewed on camera for over 20 minutes and ended up with just a quick sound byte at about 3:11 in. You can see the whole segment in the Quicktime video above (click the image to play). They did get a nice shot of the modded Apple logo on my G4 iBook.

It looks like Google has darkened it’s homepage in honor of Earth Hour. “On Saturday, March 29, 2008, Earth Hour invites people around the world to turn off their lights for one hour – from 8:00pm to 9:00pm in their local time zone.”

The Earth Hour event was created by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 2007 and was designed to raise awareness and support for fighting the effects of global climate change. I personally was not aware of the event until the Twitter from Scoble and I think it’s great to see Google supporting the cause. I personally will be sitting in the dark tonight from 8:00 to 9:00PM. Care to join me?

Join us on iChat/AIM in the room: maccast.

To access it using iChat:
1) Launch iChat
2) Go to: File–>Go to Chat… and enter “maccast” as the chat name.

or Click this link to join now (AOL Instant Messenger or iChat account required)

Apple updated it’s web site this morning announcing updates to both the Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Both models has been updated with faster processors and larger hard drives. The Macbook Pros will now be available in models with processors running at up to 2.6GHz with 6MB of shared L2 cache and come with storage options up to 300GB. Most Macbook Pro models now will come standard with 2GB of RAM and use NVIDIA graphics processors with up to 512MB of video memory. The biggest news for the new Pro models however is they will come standard with the new Macbook Air style Multi-Touch track pad allowing them to use gestures just like their slimmer cousin.

The new Macbooks will offer processors ranging from 2.1 GHz and 2.4 GHz. The two white models now come in 2.1GHz or 2.4 GHZ versions with 120GB or 160GB hard drives. The black Macbook is offered up with a 2.4GB processor and a whopping 250GB hard drive. The 2.4GHz model also ships with 2GB of RAM and the Macbooks are upgradable to 4GB of RAM.

Available immediately, the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models start at just $1,099 and $1,999, respectively. Additional details and tech specs are available at Apple.com.

In the scene Mr. Incredible gets a secret message delivered in the form a ultra-thin tablet-style computer which he slips out of a manila style envelope. Take a look at the two images below (thanks Robert for the caps) and you’ll see what I mean.

Click To Play

As promised here is the video version of the Skullcandy interview I did at Macworld. Special thanks goes to Victor Cajiao from the Typical Mac User podcast for shooting this and editing it together.

Apple today announced that the entire line of Mac Pros will now come standard with two 4 core Intel Xeon Processors. That’s a total of 8 cores starting at USD$2,799.00. One hell of a lot of power. The baseline system now specs out with Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors, 2GB memory (800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC), ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics with 256MB memory, a 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive, and a 16x double-layer SuperDrive. Build to order options will allow you to take the processors up to 3.2GHz and bump the graphics card to a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT or a 1.5GB Quadro FX 5600.

Now this announcement is cool and all, but the real interesting thing here is the timing. Apple typically does these quiet bumps during Macworld. This announcement has come a week early which in my mind says one of two things (maybe both). One, they wanted to get an announcement out this week and steal a little press from CES or two, Macworld is going to be HUGE in 2008. I can’t wait for next week.

I thought the website would be terribly ugly, full of ads, and html from the 1990s, but the website is clean, and a little bit ajaxy. It is only spoiled by a few ads here and there. My next reservation would be platform restrictions. I have 9 computers, none of them windows, so that would pose a problem. You can imagine the look on my face when I clicked on a link, and it just worked! How novel! I searched and a lot of my favorite TV shows were there. So far so good, then it came time to watch an episode.

I had many preconceptions about the viewing experience including, but not limited to: the ads, the quality, and the loading time. I found the ads, while somewhat annoying were fine. And the best part about them is that you can see exactly where the ad is in the general time line of the show. There are 2 ads per 30 minute show, not including preroll ads. Each ad is 60 seconds long and is ignorable. The quality isn’t bad either, while it isn’t HD (yet),it is far better than anything that I have seen on YouTube. And yes, the loading time is nice and fast.

Now it is time to tackle the naysayers. And while I have negated almost all of their complaints, I left out one. The issue about downloading. This is a non-issue for me. Whenever I bought a TV show on iTunes, I would watch it once or twice, then I would never watch it again. I would start to notice how much space it was it was taking up on my iPhone/iPod/MacBook/PowerBook’s HD. I wanted to delete it, but then I would feel bad that I wasted money, and besides what if I wanted to watch it again? Now I can rest safely knowing that the content is on Hulu’s servers.
I was never a TV fan. When I was a baby, I would rather read than watch TV. Even now, I don’t have a TV let alone cable. And because of all the mentioned reasons, Hulu is perfect for me.

Crossblogged from my website: http://freecasts.net

Thanks to all the listeners who alerted me to this wonderful new Holiday get a Mac ad posted on Apple’s site. The spot features a Rankin-esque Mac and PC along with Santa in a great spot from Apple. Happy Holidays!

Check it out

This is where GarageSale (http://iwascoding.com/GarageSale) comes in. If you have stuff that just has to go, and you like to use eBay, then this is the app you want to use. GarageSale is an all in one eBay selling app that takes you from the setting up your sale to feedback and completion. To give you an idea, I sold an item for this review and I am going to give you the play by play.

Setting up the application is really simple. Just give GarageSale your eBay information as it is an approved eBay application and needs to be linked, plus you can also link your PayPal information. Now you’re set!

I wanted to sell a video game, so I opened up GarageSale and chose one of the 124 listing designs, and they look fantastic. I chose “Spotlight”, which has a coverflow feel to it. GarageSale will host up to ten free images for my auctions, so I decided that route. You can also put an image up on Flickr or other service. The next part is where I placed the description of the item which will be displayed in the template that I chose. The software asked me for a listing price, category, sub-category, payment details, shipping costs, enhancements offered through eBay which cost extra(but they’re there), auction duration, and more. Finally, the best part, is to click the start auction button. The program gives you the listing fee before going to the next step which is nice, because who wants to pay $3.00 for a $0.50 item. Click again and it’s up and running.

Now say you have more items to sell, well just go ahead and create more. I set up an additional four auctions, and I track them in GarageSale. I never have to go to eBay again (unless I’m bargain hunting). You can track EVERYTHING in GarageSale. When you open it up just click the auction tabs, your items will be listed and have a little sticky as to what the bids are at, plus they’ll show you who is watching the item (those are potential buyers). Plus you can see the eBay listing within the program.

So I sold my game, YAY! Now I open up GarageSale and I open the auction that has ended. I want to get paid right? I enter the invoice portion of the screen and here it gives me some e-mail templates to use to send an invoice for the item. It uses Apple Mail automatically or any other mail app that you want and you mail it off. I wait for payment confirmation within the program, which then gives me the mailing address in the program, then I can leave feedback. Did I mention that I did this all within the program? So the sale is complete, both parties are happy and I did the whole thing within the comfort of GarageSale.

There are some really slick features that are once again for the power seller, but nonetheless neat. Here are a couple:
Built in Scheduler – Schedule when you want your auctions to start.
eBay Store Support – GarageSale will upload to your eBay store.
iPhoto Integration – You can pull images from iPhoto directly within GarageSale.

This is a great application for the power seller, but not really for the occasional one as the license costs US/EURO $29.99.

All in all this is a neat app that makes the auction selling experience a little less excruciating. I really liked it, and recommend it to anyone who has a lot of stuff to sell and wants to manage it.