Target takes aim at Disney download plans

On November 1, the company ordered all of its stores to to pull down in-store signage that promotes Disney products, according to Jim Hill Media.

Target is upset over the pricing Apple gets for the iTunes store. New releases like Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest. USD$12.99 vs. $14.99 at Target.

It's only $14.99 at Target because of iTunes!

In response Disney was threatening not to ship any re-orders of Cars and not ship Pirates.

The two are said to be in negotiations and have both calmed down a bit. It appears they will play nice at least through the holidays.

I say, what are we 5?

Apple files Interchangeable interface patents

"Mechanical overlay," filed on May 12, 2005, describes using mechanical overlays on a touch sensing devices like laptops, trackpads, tablet computers, PDAs and cell phones.

Mechanical Overlay patent

"Active enclosure for computing device," filed on July 12, 2006, describes a computing device with replaceable covers. Each cover serves a specific purpose and turns the computer into a device like a PDA, GPS, gaming system, or iPod.

New iPod Shuffle commercial debuts

In case you missed it, it is up on Apple's web site.

New Shuffle Ad

Shows different torsos clipping on the shuffle to different morphing outfits. Music is a track called Who’s Gonna Sing? by French band the Prototypes. Has a new wave kinda feel.

Apple may use scorching MacBooks to their advantage

Reports that Apple is in talks with a company called Eneco who claims to have a technology to convert heat into energy.

They have the "Thermal Chip" which bounces free electrons of hot metal against cold metal and then captures the resulting energy.

They claim the technology can produce as much as five times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery, plus they can provide cooling at the same time by receiving direct electricity.

There are no contracts in place so don't expect products anytime soon, but if it works it could solve 2 big issues with high performing notebooks.

French group exposes Safari OS X security hole

The French Security Incident Response Team (FrSIRT) has detailed an exploit in Safari that they claim "could be exploited by remote attackers to crash a vulnerable browser or take complete control of an affected system"

This flaw is due to a memory corruption error in "com.apple.AppleDiskImageController" when handling corrupted DMG image structures.

The flaw Apple Mac OS X version 10.4.8 and earlier and there is currently no patch

For now disable the "opening safe files after downloading" option in the preferences will keep you protected.

Labeling this as "critical" is a bit much. You should only be opening DMGs or running installers from trusted sources.

UK Piccadilly Visitors can get free iTunes

Apple and Coke have joined forces in the UK and have an interactive Billboard that will give Piccadilly Circus visitors free iTunes.

Between now and December 3rd, the Coca-Cola billboard will periodically flash a keyword; texting that keyword to 85100 from a UK-based mobile phone may return an iTunes UK song code for 3 to 1,000 songs.

In case you missed it this offer is only valid for the UK iTunes Store.

Apple rumor roundup

iPhone

Taiwan's Hon Hai has received a 12 million unit contract for the rumored iPhone.

Would be released the first half of next year.

Possibly released unlocked and carrier free (good idea)

Include a 2MP camera.

Portal Play may be tapped for the iPhones processor according to EE Times

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu, says there may be a second "Smart" iPhone that would offer iChat integration

15" MacBooks

Hon Hai has also reported won a contract to produce 15" 'MacBooks' for delivery in January.

It is not really clear if this is an all new MacBook Model or if they will simply be producing 15" MacBook Pros.

AMD Apple notebooks

DigiTimes (notoriously bad at predicting rumors) bases the report on an increased demand by Taiwanese component makers for certain capacitors that they say are intended for use in an AMD-based Apple notebook.

A while back AMD's CEO did claim Apple would eventually come to them for chips as well as Intel.

Blu-ray added to Macs in February and announced at MacWorld. This just seems obvious right? Support for blu-ray and HD-DVD is rumored for Leopard, so does that mean it will be updated in Tiger or do we get Leopard early too?

KLM and Air France deny iPods on a plane

KLM and Air France deny that they’re part of the agreement.

Hack to enable Front Row on MacPro

Link to Macosxhints.com

Hack Front Row on Mac Pro

According to the post, Front Row is installed and configured on a MacPro, but the Apple+Esc key is disabled and there is no remote so you can't launch it.

The application file is in /System -> Library -> CoreServices, and it is even an option to install on the Restore DVD.

Double-clicking on the app just creates two entries in the Console log: Bootstrap not privileged and No Remote Present.

Front Row does not launch because it checks to see if the Apple IR remote is present. So the solution is to fool the system into thinking there is an IR remote...

The gist of the hack is to activate the HIDRemoteControl value (make it true) in the PLIST file for whatever mouse you are using.

RF Remotes for Mac Pro

Griffin AirClick

KeySpan RF Remote for Front Row

RF Remote for Front Row

Other tips for silencing your Mac at startup

On some PowerPC Mac you can hold the "mute" (F3) key down when you power on your Mac. Seems to not work for Intel Macs.

Mute your Mac before you shut it down. Can use the keyboard key (F3), but just need to remember to do it.

New features in iTunes 7 you might have missed

Listener Bob (our iPod nano show 100 recipient) pointed out this cool article over at MacWorld that covers some iTunes 7 "hidden" features.

iTunes 7 Secrets

So beyond the new Album and CoverFlow views we all know about, here are some things I missed.

Clicking on the Album column now cycles among three options: Album (in which albums are sorted alphabetically by album title), Album By Artist (in which albums are grouped by artist and then listed alphabetically), and Album By Year (in which albums are grouped by artist and then listed chronologically).

Skip Count view option keeps track of how many times you’ve skipped to the next track within the first 19 seconds of a song. The Last Skipped view option shows you the last time you skipped a track. These can be used to create a Smart Playlist of frequently skipped tracks, useful for weeding out unpopular tracks.

Clicking the grey text that says XXMB of XXXMB XX minutes remaining in the new Download manager, will give you the download speed in kb/sec.

Hold the option key down when launching iTunes and you can select or create new iTunes libraries. Maybe keep your movies on a different volume from your tunes?

Convert a SmartPlaylist to a regular playlist by dragging and dropping it on the "Playlist" heading in the Source list.

More tips in the MacWorld article by Chris Breen.

Viewing Mail attachment sizes

Listener David had this question, when you add any JPEGs as attachments (drag and drop in window), you get a little bar at the bottom with options to optimize the images. It also displays the total size of all attachments. How can you get that value displayed when the message doesn't have a JPEG in it?

For some documents it does display the size for each file attached, but not the total.

Save it as a draft and then enable the "size" column.

Any other ideas?

Outlook Calendar Syncing not working in iTunes 7

Listener Juile reports that since upgrading to iTunes 7.0.2 her Outlook Calendar no longer syncs to her iPod.

She is not alone, others on this thread report similar issues

Broken iPod Outlook Cal sync

Some on the thread report getting it fixed by adding the "iPod Service" application to the list of excepted application in the Windows XP Firewall. I would say also add iTunes itself.

Resurrect a dead iPod Shuffle, maybe?

Listener Joe told me about his dead iPod Shuffle.

It had a dreaded 1418 error. See the website devoted to the issue.

Shuffle 1418 Hell

This site seems to think it is a epidemic issue and Apple need to fix it, but they also link to a potential fix.

Apple has the iPod Shuffle Reset Utility.

Can fix many issues where the Shuffle is not operational or won't transfer data, etc.

This fixed the 1418 errors on 2 of Joe's Shuffles.

Can see this error on other iPods. Upgrade to 7.0.2 and make sure your iPod software is up to date. Run the last "stand alone" iPod updater, prior to iTunes 7.o and then use iTunes 7 to update again.