MacCast 01.26.2009 - Show #253
Media/Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
* Mandaandthemarbles.com
V Sponsor
V Smile on My Mac
* PDF Pen
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V News
V Apple Q1 results call
* Apple had a record quarter with sales of $10.17 billion, up 6% from same quarter last year.
* Profits were up 2% at $1.61 billion.
V Mac sales were up 9%. Apple sold 2.5 million Macs
* Laptops made up most of the increase (71% of the sales) with desktop sales actually falling a bit
* iPod sales were up 3% with Apple selling a record 22.7 million units in the quarter.
* iPhone sales increased 88% year over year, but units were below expectations at 4 million units in the quarter.
* Apple retail sales were up 2%, but the average revenue per store actually dropped from $8.5 million to $7 million
V Q&A offered a lot of juicy details
V Cook when asked about Jobs
* "There is an extraordinary breadth and depth and tenure among the Apple executive team. And these executives lead over 35,000 employees that I would call all “wicked smart.” And that’s in all areas of the company, from engineering, to marketing, to operations, sales, and all the rest.

And the values of our company are extremely well-entrenched. You know, we believe we’re on the face of the Earth to make great products, and that’s not changing. We’re constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollinization of our groups, which allows us to innovate in a way others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit where we’re wrong, and the courage to change.

And I think regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well. And I would just reiterate a point Peter made in his opening comment, that I strongly believe that Apple is doing the best work in its history."
* Apple TV sales were up 3 times, but still a "hobby" for Apple.
V No Apple netbook soon if you believe Cook.
* Said people are not going to be happy with the experience
* products in the space are cramped, not enough power, and generally "inferior".
* When asked about upcoming phones from competitors Cook said they welcome competition but would go after anyone who tries to infringe on Apple's IP.
V Updates for Macbook White and Quicktime
V The new Macbook update to the white $999.00 model
* NVIDIA 9400M GFX, 2GHz Core 2 Duo with 1,066MHz system bus (down from 2.1), 2GB RAM (DDR2)
* Still has Firewire!!
V Quicktime 7.6
* Better single-pass H.264 encoding quality and better playback of Motion JPEG content
* Compatibility improvements and seven security fixes
V Intel Quad price cuts spawn iMac rumors
* Intel cut prices on the Core 2 Quad Q9650 processors by 40%
* AppleInsider thinks Apple may turn to the quads to power a new line of iMacs
* The new quads are cooler running and use less power. 65W vs. 95W of the prior generation.
V Apple Insider has reports from analyst Shaw Wu that say new iMacs may be delayed for business reasons.
* Apple still deciding between new quads or higher powered dual cores with bigger cache.
* Hesitating fearing cut into Mac Pro sales.
* Snow Leopard designed for multi-core and Cook said in Q1 call that iMac is Apple's primary desktop (Pro sales slowing).
V If we do see iMacs soon, other new features might be
* LED backlight, Mini Display Port, NVIDIA graphics.
V New trojans and exploits target Mac
* If you pirate iWork '09 you may get some booty you didn't want
V MacNN and others are reporting on a bootleg iWork '09 installer circulating that contains a trojan
* OSX.Trojan.iServices.A, fake iWorkServices package that requests admin password and then installs itself as a startup item giving root access back door to potential hackers.
* As of last thursday at least 20,000 people were are believed to have downloaded the exploited version.
* MacScan is offering a free removal tool
V Intego reported Monday that OSX.Trojan.iServices.B a new variant has surfaced effecting a pirated version of Photoshop CS4
* Installs a backdoor in the /var/tmp directory, copies an executable to /usr/bin/DivX and saves the root hash password in the file /var/root/.DivX
* Get your stuff from trusted legal sources and you don't have to worry about THIS kind of attack.
V According to ArsTechnica, An student in Italy who researches malware and intrusion detection systems plans to detail an OS X exploit at the Black Hat conference next month
* The hack is a memory injection technique that could allow for arbitrary code execution.
V iLife '09 shipping Tuesday
* Product has begun shipping to some and will be on-sale Tuesday
* Apple will also be updating all retails store inventory with "drop-ins" added iLife '09 to existing Mac boxes according to AppleInsider.
* iLife Up-to-Date for users who purchased a Mac on or after January 6, 2009. Copy of iLife '09 for a $9.95 shipping and handling fee.
* Some reports that Best Buy stores were handing out early copies.
V Apple also released an update for iLife '08
* iLife Media Browser Update 2.0 - "update improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. It is recommended for all users of Aperture, iLife ’08, iWork ’08, and Mac OS X 10.5.6 Leopard or later."
* iDVD Update 7.0.3 - "improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues".
V NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009
* Addresses issues with the Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter
* Boosts HD video performance on unibody MacBook Pros with GeForce 9600M graphics card and Mac with the Mac NVIDIA's GeForce 7300 GT (1st gen Mac Pro and late 2006 24" iMac).
V Mac turns 25
* Happened on Saturday 1/24/2009
V Sponsor
V Audible
* Free audiobook download with 14-day trial
* Over 50,000 titles to choose from.
* "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs", By Alan Deutschman
V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V Listeners like 'Things' too.
* Play comment from David.
V An Apple without Jobs
* Play comment from Alan
V On 12/20 I said, "I don't put stock in that speculation" and "If Jobs health was failing the board would be notified".
* The speculation was true, but I don't choose to fuel it.
* The Board was notified, which is partly why we know what we know now.
V The Fortune piece on Cook ran November 9th, 2008 and is a great look at Cook and I think backs up a number of my thoughts on Apple without Jobs.
* Job's cannot be replaced. There is only one Steve Jobs. Jobs takes great and makes "insanely great".
* Cook will likely head up Apple as CEO when Jobs is gone, He is not a design visionary, He will keep Apple's business sound.
V It will be a group effort.
* The current executive team was built up and groomed under Jobs
* Cooks comments in the Q1 call were dead on.
* Fact is that Steve is still CEO and performing his duties
V If he is healthy in June he will be back. If not, I believe he has infused himself enough into the culture at Apple that they will do fine
* I have heard the R&D IP is very deep and could last for years to come.
* If the soul and spirit of Jobs leave the company with simply by his physical departure from the campus then Apple will likely wither and die and deserves to. Any company that would be so tied to one human being deserves to.
V $200 Unibody Macbook Pro matte screen replacement
* TechRestore will swap out your glossy for matte for $199.00
* Matching specs to the original screen including LCD backlight.
* Replace with black bezel.
* Offering 24-hour turn around, with shipping and pickup options
V Macworld 2009: Griffin Technology
V Play interview with Dave from Griffin
* AirCurve, USD $19.99
* TuneFlex AUX SmartClick, USD $79.99
* SmartTalk Bluetooth, starting at USD $99.99
* Clarifi, USD $34.99
V Bulk Address Book changes
* Douglas' wife has a number of contacts in her Address Book who all work at the same company. Recently they changed their web site domain which means their email addresses all changed domains too. How to update all the records without going one by one?
V Answer comes via Chris Breen the bouffant of all knowledge at Macworld
* 1) Launch Address Book and choosing File -> Export -> Address Book Archive. Set this aside as your backup in case things go wrong.
* 2) Create a group that contains all the addresses you want to bulk edit. You can do a search on the company name and select the results and then choose File -> New Group From Selection
* 3) Name the group, select it in the Group pane, select all the contacts in the group, and drag the contacts to the Desktop to create a single vCard (.vcf) file
* 4) Open the vCard file in Apple Text Edit and choose Edit -> Find. Now locate the data you wish to replace. Take note of the vCard formating and be sure to retain that format with your new text. i.e. addresses are like '123 Main Street;Anytown;CA;12345' Use the find and replace feature to replace all instances of the text. Save the file.
* 5) Drag the file you just saved onto Address Book’s All group entry. Address Book will ask you to confirm the import and let you know that the duplicates will be updated with the new info. Choose import and the changes will be made.
V Formatting on Mac drives
V Play comment from Nathan
* Paragon NTFS for Mac 6.0
V Other NTFS read/write solutions
* Mac FUSE and...
* MacNTFS-3G - Not perfect and not for the technically weak at heart.
* macDrive on Windows to read Mac OS X Extended drives
V Drive formatting options in OS X
* Mac OS X Extended, Journaled for most
* Journaling. When you enable journaling on a disk, a continuous record of changes to files on the disk is maintained in the journal. If your computer stops because of a power failure or some other issue, the journal is used to restore the disk to a known-good state when the server restarts.
* Case-sensitive means you can have two files in the same folder with the same name if their casing is different. File.doc and file.doc would be different. Some applications won't support it.
* MS-DOS (FAT32) - Windows compatibility.
V Force iWeb to convert text to graphic
* David has a layout that uses a non-web font. On his Mac it looks fine since he has the font loaded and Safari recognizes it. On other browsers and platforms it substitutes an alternative.
V Force iWeb to create the text as image
* Add a shadow to the text. Make it the shadow the same color as the
background and you won't see it.
* Put the text inside a shape (other than a square) and it will force
it to be an image. Set the line and fill to "none".
V To be able to tell if test in your iWeb layout will be converted to a graphic:
* Choose iWeb/Preferences.
* 2) Check the box - "Show text imaging indicator." Now a yellow badge appears on text and objects that will be converted to graphics.
V Backing up your iTunes library to DVD
* Randy uses iTunes option for backing up purchased music from iTunes to DVD and wanted to know if it just backed up the most recent purchases or all of them each time.
V Depends on the settings.
* In iTunes 8, File-->Library-->Back Up to Disc...
* Check 'Only backup items added or changed since last backup.'
* You can also choose to backup your entire library and playlists to disc. It will automatically divide up the backup as needed. Spoken programs purchased from the Audible.com website are not backed up.
* To restore... Insert the first backup disc, launch iTunes and it will ask you if you want to restore from it.
V Backing up to DVD or CD is your archival kind of backup and important in the mix
* Other items to archival backup include, iMovie and iDVD project files, iPhoto Library, purchased software that is download only (companies might go out of business, i.e. Techspansion also iWork '08 can't re-download ).
V Closing
V Podcast Marketplace
V Thanks to my sponsors
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V "Foul Mouth Blues" by Syrym
* Lead vocalist is a guy I went to high school with.
* Hard rock sound that comes straight out of the late 80s early 90s.
* Available on iTunes and CD Baby
* Artists site
V EOL: The Apple Cloud
* An image form a Moroccan Mac geek that looks awfully like the logo of our favorite fruit-branded tech company. via TUAW