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

I’m not usually one to toot my own horn, but this is just too cool not to share with you. A Maccast.com staff member just alerted me that the Maccast has earned a spot on the iTunes Music Store Best Podcasts of 2007 list. We were picked in the “Classic” category and, as we have discussed on the show before, in Apple language that means we’re the old guys on the block. I deliberately used the word “we’re” in the title of this post because this is an honor for you as much as me. This show exists because of the community that supports it and it is your continued participation, contributions, and feedback that make it great. Thank you. This is a great gift on the eve of the 3rd birthday of this show. There are a bunch of other great podcasts on the list. New comers and old. You can check them all out on iTunes now. BTW, Apple has also selected many of the “bests” in other areas including Music, TV, Audiobooks, etc. Hit the main page of the iTunes store to peruse all the best iTunes stuff of 2007. Thank you for another great year. I am looking forward to 2008.

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MC20071209.mp3 [31.8MB 01:09:20 64kbps]

A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 209. French iPhones are scarce. Subnotebook rumors continue to heat up. iWork gets 16%, not bad. Overall Mac share may be up as well. QuickTime hole exploited. Studios squeeze Apple for more video dollars. Apple’s new NYC store opens. Jobs inducted into California Hall of fame. iPhone coming to Alaska. ‘Tis the season for Sharing. My Backup strategy under Leopard. Putting Widgets on the desktop. Manage iPhoto and iTunes remotely. Time Machine drive filling up fast. Change your login desktop. Great deals for the Holidays. Reading of “Twas The Night Before Macmas”.

New music, Carol of the Bells by Admiral Twin (iTunes)

Special thanks to our sponsor:

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Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! — Lost in Space (1965)

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Hey Mac Geeks, just a quick note to update you on when to expect the next show. A new Maccast is in the works and on the way, but I picked up a nasty flu bug near the end of the week and it took me out for a couple days. The good news is that after a couple days of getting good amounts of sleep (something rare for me), a lot of DayQuil, and drinking plenty fluids I am feeling much better. I will be up and around for the Loop in the morning and I hope to have the next episode of the Maccast on your feeds before the end of the day on Sunday.

I know, who would have thunk it, but when I was cruising Apples online store, there it was. Plus it was $20 cheaper than the retail versions for the consoles at $79.99.

Guitar Hero is a REALLY great game, and you can now jam comfortably in front of your Mac.

Here are the specs for those who wish to jam:

In the box

* Guitar Hero 3 software
* Guitar Hero X-Plorer wireless guitar controller
* Guitar strap

System Requirements

* Mac OS X v10.4.10 or v10.5 or later
* 2GHz or faster Intel Core Duo processor (2.33GHz recommended); does not support PowerPC processors
* 1GB RAM (2GB recommended)
* 6.1GB free hard-disk space (5.1GB + 1GB swap file)
* Video card: ATI Radeon X1600 or nVidia GeForce 7300
* Video memory (VRAM): 128MB (256MB recommended)
* DVD-ROM drive
* Macintosh mouse and keyboard

As you can see it’s a bit processor and RAM reliant. If you have the power then rock on!

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A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 208. Apple’s expanding retail empire. More security chinks in Leopard armor. Apple acknowledges MacBook drive failures. Orange brings iPhone to France. AT&T exec says 3G iPhone in 2008. Malcor hack is a Hoax. I finally got Back to My Mac working! Applications to “tinker” with OS X. Finding QuickTime for Windows from a Mac. Syncing notes from the iPhone, sort of. Putting the hierarchy back in the Leopard Dock. Stop iPhone from launching iPhoto. Accessing menubar items, file menus, and Dock from keyboard. Fixing QuickLook folder deficiency. Decorate your Dashboard for the Holidays.

New music, Cool Collected Calm by One:Day:Life [iTunes]

Special thanks to our sponsors:

Circus Ponies – Free 30-day Trial of Notebook
The Gadget Locker – Save up to 20% on select items.

Your French relatives are bathing in the toilet. — Just Visiting (2001)

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Like many people you have stuff that you:
A: Want to get rid of and
B: You don’t want to give it away for free.

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!

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Shopping at TheGadgetLocker.com just got better! Cyber Monday(s) are here! Now, through the end of the year, every time you make a purchase at TheGadgetLocker.com on a Monday, you can get 10% off your order. Just enter the coupon code ‘cybermonday’ when you’re checking out, and you’ll automatically get 10% off your total purchase. Starting today (Nov. 26th) and lasting through the entire holiday season (up to and including Dec. 31st) take advantage of this great promotion to save you money when buying your favorite iPod and Mac accessories.

TheGadgetLocker.com founder and president, Joe Ryan, says, “We want to thank and recognize our loyal customers by providing them with great prices and deals throughout the holiday season, and not just on a single day.”

TheGadgetLocker.com guarantees delivery by Dec 24th for anything purchased by Monday, Dec 17th, provided that the item is in stock. This makes Christmas shopping easy!

For more information and to take advantage of this holiday sale, visit TheGadgetLocker.com.

In OS X we have the Keychain and Autofill features to make managing usernames and passwords very simple. Agile Web Solutions saw the room for improvement however, thus the creation of 1Password. It is easy to dismiss 1Password as an alternative to keychain and autofill, but doing so would not be taking note of the full power of the application. 

I tried the program on recommendation of a friend and at first found it nothing more than a “neat” app, but after making use of all its features I don’t see why they aren’t built into OS X already. If you do online banking, bill paying, or have any sensitive information stored on the web you’ll quickly see why 1Password is an essential component to the operating system.  

The problem with passwords is that they really should be complex, but we often are willing trade off security for something easy to remember. It doesn’t get any easier when you have more than one account on a website. 1Password not only remembers your existing passwords, but has an amazing GUI for creating insanely secure passwords. You can access all of these with a single master password.

  .Mac, iPhone, and Palm syncing allows you to bring these passwords with you easily wherever you go. And the security features include prevention from phishing scams and keyloggers. Even if these features may not at first look appealing to you, a use of the demo will almost surely sell you on it. Check out 1Password here, and don’t forget to watch the excellent Video Introduction.Available for $29.95 USD at 

1Passwd.com

I have heard a number of people express the opinion recently that Apple has changed the way that it announces products. This comes from the fact that Apple recently pre-announced two products, months in advance before you could even order them. The two products were the AppleTV and the iPhone. This has set the expectation for a number of people that they might learn about the next iPod or the next iMac in a similar pre-release fashion. This post is intended to discourage that expectation.

Let’s back up a bit and look at what this from Apple’s point of view. In general when Apple, or some other hardware company, releases a new product they are going through a product transition. So when they announce a new iPod they are trying to maximize how much money they make. A product transition has some risks for the company.

If they announce a product too soon and the product sounds very good then people may choose to stop buying the current product and wait for the new product. This is called the Osborne Effect after Osborne Computer Corporation which pre-announced a series of new products in 1983. The company went out of business shortly there after and the most common story has been that their sales dried up when they announced these new machines. (Whether this actually caused Osborne to go out of business is not universally accepted in retrospect, no one seems to argue that this was helpful to the company).

If a company still has old units in its warehouse when it ships the new product, these products will have to be sold for less money (or perhaps not sold at all). But, if the company guesses wrong how many of the old product it will sell in this transition and runs out of units in the warehouse then it may lose sales to a competitor. Combine this with a slip in the new product and you get the kind of scenario that can keep executives awake at night.

So why did Apple decide to pre-announce not one, but two products last year? The main reason would seem to be that they were not going through a product transition. They did not have a TV box when they pre-announced the AppleTV nor a cell phone when they pre-announced the iPhone. Why does this make a difference? The big difference here is that customers may in fact not buy some product that they were planning on buying and wait for the Apple product, but in this case it was not an Apple product. So with the iPhone, for example, what Apple wanted was for people to decide not to by that new BlackBerry, Blackjack, Razr, etc but to wait for the iPhone. What Apple did was create F.U.D. (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) about their competitor’s products. They did not need people to pre-order the iPhone so much as they wanted them to at least wonder whether they should wait and see. FUD is a very useful marketing tool. If you don’t have something sell, marketeers are trying to at least get you to wait before buying a competing product. Their hope, which worked in the case of the iPhone, is that if you wait long enough they will have a product you will want to buy.

So, will Apple pre-announce the next iMac. That is unlikely. But if they get into yet another consumer product business then it is very likely that they would pre-release that product.