Bluetooth iPods without a new model?

A Pioneer Electronics spokesman claims that Apple will soon be introducing a Bluetooth iPod adapter.

They said Apple is readying the new add-on which will work with their new DEH car stereo head units.

The device would also work with other Bluetooth audio devices like speakers and headphones.

This rumor is obviously not new and last year Motorola also claimed Apple was getting ready release an iPod Bluetooth adapter. Wonder what's taking so long?

A device commonly known as an "iPod"

Passengers on a flight from Chicago to Ottawa got quite a scare when a "suspicious" package was found in the aircraft bathroom

The plane landed safely and was taken to a remote area of the runway. Passenger were lead off and questions while officials investigated the package while bomb sniffing does and disposal teams stood at the ready.

After some tense moments it was announced the device was, "an electronic device commonly known as an iPod." Whew.

My question is for the aircraft employee who found the "device", How do you not know what an iPod is?

Three new Apple "Get a Mac" Ads posted

The ads aired during the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday

Cover MagSafe, iPhoto Books and Spyware

Available for viewing on Apple's Get a Mac site

Apple, "Get a Mac"

Apple has also created a new silhouette iPod/iTunes ad with Bob Dylan wearing an iPod while performing a song from his new album, Modern Times.

Intel shipping "Merom" Core 2 Duo chips

Intel announced that system based on the Core 2 Duo "Merom" mobile processors are now shipping

There are few if any systems that appear to be "immediately" available, although many like Dell, Alienware and Toshiba announced the availability of new systems.

The Meroms, like the desktop "Conroe", consume less power and run cooler than the current line of Core Duo processors.

Many are hoping Apple will update their MacBook and MacBook Pros to feature the new chips.

Tests by ExtremeTech show gains of up to 40 percent in some applications over Core Duo processors, despite having only a 9% advantage in clock speed

Recently a buyer for a co-location facility said he was denied a bulk order of Mac Minis until after Labor Day, the last time he was denied a bulk order from Apple was days before the release of the Intel Mac Mini.

Greenpeace gives Apple low marks for environmental responsibility

Greenpeace has released an environmental report card for technology companies, detailing the use of toxic chemicals, recycling, and quality of take-back programs

Apple received a score of 2.7 out of 10.

Apple did poorly for its its lack of PVC-free and/or BFR-free models in it's product line and for its lack of publicly available precautionary steps, chemical management use, and lack of a timeline for PVC fade out.

Apple did receive a "partially good" rating for its overall amount recycled products.

Nokia, Dell, HP, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung were the only companies to score above 5 and Apple, Sony, LGE, Panasonic, Toshiba, Fujitsu-Siemens, Acer, Motorola, and Lenovo all failed.

Apple opens new Canadian Retail Store

The Apple Store Sherway Gardens will open in Toronto, Ontario, Canada this Saturday, September 2, 2006 at 9:30 AM.

They will give away T-shirts to the first 1,0000 customers

The store features a Studio where you can get help with your digital media projects.

Apple in-store workshops (free)

Listener Ellie recommends Apple Pro Care

Apple ProCare

USD $99.00/yr.

1 hour of one-on-one training per/week, yearly tune up (clean keyboard), Transfer of all data to new Mac, Next in line, first on the bench” service on all in-store repairs. Schedule appointments at the Genius Bar up to 7 days in advance.

VIsta may run on new Boot Camp

Windows Vista Pre-RC1 build (5536)

Vista Pre-RC1(5536)

At least one site is reporting that the new Vista Pre-RC1 build (5536) works now on Intel Macs without hacking.

Vista on BootCamp

The site claims the installation procedure is the same as with Windows XP SP2.

Apple drops price of ATI X1900

Apple has lowered the BTO price of the ATI X1900XT Mac edition from $350 to $250. The ATI X1900XT has not been released yet and increases ship time to 3-4 weeks.

Apple adds Google CEO to it's Board of Directors

Dr. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, was elected to Apple’s board of directors at their meeting Tuesday.

Just days ago Google started selling a Google branded iPod wrap for the 5th Gen iPod on their Google Store

Google iPod Wrap

The 64-bit question

2 factors, the amount of data the CPU can process in a single clock cycle and amount of memory the processor can access and handle.

Over simplifying things:

The bit rating determines the largest numerical number that processor can handle (2 to the power of the bit rating). 32-bit is 2^32 or roughly 4.3 billion and 64-bit is 2^64 or roughly 18.4 quintillion. So huge deal when dealing the large mathematical equations

32-bit processors can handle and address up to 4GB of RAM. 64-bit enables the memory limit to be raised to a 16 exabyte capacity. Most current systems, Mac Pro, included set a more reasonable artificial limit on this.

But beyond the 64-bit processor you also need 64-bit OS and apps. Tiger added 64-bit support for command line apps, but was not available to Cocoa apps.

Leopard changes that. The problem is while most apps will gain some benefit from 64-bit the increases for many apps may not be that great and it will require a fair amount of work for developers. Some apps may even be a little slower going from 32- to 64-bits because of inflated code, which means less of it fits in the processor’s L1 and L2 caches.

64-bit requires developer to re-write their code and every library, framework, and plug-in their programs use will have to be modified and recompiled. Plus 64-bit apps will only work on G5 Macs or Macs with Core 2 processors. G3, G4 and Intel Core Macs are out.

So who benefits?

Applications that require huge amounts of memory (more than 4GB) or apps that need random access within data sets larger than 2GB.

Applications that deal with large math calculations and large data bases. Math, science, research.

Video encoding, 3-D rendering, gaming (?)

Dashboard widget hacking

Listener James points out a couple ways for putting Widgets on the desktop.

Activate widget developer mode. There are many ways to do this:

Use a terminal command line, "defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES". Basically editing the plist, requires login and logout to relaunch Dashboard.

Use a application like TinkerTool

TinkerTool

Amnesty Widget Browser

Resources for widget development

Apple Widget Development overview

Widget Devleopment Overview

MacDevCenter, "Lets build a Dashboard Widget"

Lets build a Dashboard Widget

Dashboardwidgets.com

www.dashboardwidgets.com

Troubleshooting help from the Console Log

Utilities-->Applications-->Console

Click the Logs icon in the toolbar to see the list of logs.

console.log, system.log and the CrashReporter logs under ~/Library/Logs I find most useful.

Can use the search filter with keywords like "crash" or exception", can also cut and paste parts into Google to search for possible causes

These can be a big help to developers in troubleshooting conflicts or bugs.

Parallels not yet working on the Mac Pro

Quick comment about thread on Parallels forum

Parallels not on Mac Pro yet

Causes kernel panics. They are working on a fix.

Not well advertised on Parallels site, it appears in small copy on the product page.

Easy way to Share Video Podcasts

Listener Ricardo wanted a way to create a DVD from his video Podcasts

Use iDVD 6. Click on the Media tab, choose itunes and select your video library. Drag in your video podcasts. Need to be in H.264 or MPEG-4 format. .MOV won't work, but you can convert them in iTunes (convert for iPod) or with Quicktime Pro.

Quality will depend a lot on the original file, but should be comparable to what you see when you connect your video iPod to your TV.

Depending on your iDVD setting you should be able to get 1-2 hours per DVD.

Lyrics for older iPods

Listener Thomas points out that older iPod don't have support for lyrics, but if they support notes (iPods that have a dock connector) you can get the "iPod Lyrics to Notes" scripts from Doug's Scripts.

iPod Lyrics to Notes

It will save the notes in Album/Artists folders in a Lyrics folder in your iPod Notes. Each "lyric" note will also have a link to play the song on your iPod.