Apple first fiscal quarter 2007 results

First fiscal 2007 quarter which ended December 30, 2006

Record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion.

International sales accounted for 42 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 1,606,000 Macintosh computers and 21,066,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 28 percent growth in Macs and 50 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

Apple opened 5 new retail stores during the quarter for a total of 170 stores worldwide. Retail stores posted revenue of $1.1 billion for the quarter.

Jobs not out of stock options woods yet.

The SEC has questioned Jobs recently in their on-going investigation

Apple internally cleared Jobs, but the government may still conclude other wise.

The debate rages on among analysts, but seems to come down to a question of did Jobs recommend to others that they select favorable grant dates.

Apple charges 2 bucks if you want 802.11n

With Apple TV and new Airport base stations Apple has begun supporting the pre-802.11n spec.

All Core 2 Duo and Intel Xeon-based Macs except the 17-inch 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo iMac, have N cards that are currently disabled.

Apple will provide software when the Airports ship to enable the N capabilities, but you will need to pay $1.99 to get it.

Apple spokeswoman Lynn Fox say Apple needs to do it to, "comply with generally accepted accounting principles (GAPP) for revenue recognition".

A former chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission says there is no such GAPP requirement.

The issue seems to be that Apple already sold the technology in many Macs, but in essence did not "charge" for it, which Apple claims would require a restatement of revenue.

Norway says iTunes DRM is illegal

The Consumer Ombudsman in Norway has rules that Apple's Fairplay DRM technology violates Norwegian law.

The issue is the closed system. Apple has three options:

License Fairplay to other manufacturers.

Co-develop an open standard with other companies

Abandon DRM in Norway

I bet they take option 4: stop selling iTunes music in Norway.

Was a rumor last week out of the UK that Apple is planning on licensing Fairplay to 3rd party "Made for iPod" manufacturers and also make protected AAC files will be stream-able via USB.

France and German consumer groups are said to be looking into trying to push similar action from their governments.

For my money Apple has the LEAST restrictive DRM of anyone, plus there is the analog hole. Can you get a Zune and Zune Marketplace in Norway yet?

Apple Security update 2007-001

First one of the new year.

Addresses a buffer overflow vulnerability in QuickTime 7.1.3 that is triggered by exploiting a flaw in QuickTime's handling of RTSP URLs.

I believe this was one of the exploits featured on the Month of Apple Bugs site

Apple Store loses 42 iPod Nanos to thieves

Forget stupid criminal, what about stupid store merchandisers

Here is the scene

Place 42 2nd Gen iPod Nanos valued at over USD $8,000 in a 2-foot-by-2-foot plexiglas display case.

Put said display case 10 feet from the front door of the 29th Street Mall Apple Store in Boulder, Colorado.

Don't record the serial numbers of any of those iPods and don't bolt or wire down the 30 pound display case.

Open for business and go about your busy day at the store with employees and geniuses overwhelmed by customers

Pretend to act shocked and amazed when you call the police later in the day when you notice the case has mysteriously departed the premises.

One word... DUH.

Apple planning a Super Bowl event?

Speculation that Apple is planning a special event to happen in or during their Super Bowl commercial February 4th.

Most rumors point to some sort of Beatles announcement

Beatles are due to launch a completely re-mastered catalog

Launch may start with the release of the "LOVE" album on Valentine's Day.

Rumor of Beatles branded full screen, touch screen video iPod.

Best upgrade? More Memory.

I think 1GB is the absolute minimum for any Mac these days. More is always better.

If you can't afford more memory..

Run less applications concurrently

Turn off menu items and 3rd party background apps

Clean up your hard drive. Th5 mythical 5% rule. I say at least 5GB of free space is good.

Restart more often.

More than 2GB of RAM in a Core Duo?

Play question from Raphael

While I have read reports that you can put 2 x @GB chips in a MacBook Core 2 Duo and it supposedly works. The config is unsupported by Apple. Officially the limit on ALL MacBooks is 2GB.

The MacBook Pros support up to 3 GB (2 x 2GB chips). You lose 1 GB due to the design of the Intel 945PM chipset. Basically once you go over 3GB of RAM you start to get RAM overlap with some critical system functions making some physical RAM non-addressable by the system.

This flaw exists in ALL current Core 2 Duo system using the Intel 945PM chipset

Cracked Macbook made new again

Play comment from Dennis

You can be firm when dealing with Apple Care reps, but always try to be polite and maintain composure. You will get no where if you are rude.

If you are not getting the results or answers you want ask to be escalated.

The pre-AppleCare checklist

Merlin Mann calls this the "rubber-chicken" procedures we all go through.

Prior to doing any of this make sure you have a good full backup.

1) Run disk utility and repair the drive and repair disk permissions. You can also run other tools like Techtool, Drive Genius, Onyx, Cocktail, etc at this point, but Apple only cares about Disk Utility.

2) Zap the PRAM and Reset the PMU/SMU/SMC.

3) Create a new user account and run under that account to verify it doesn't have the same issues.

If so, start thinking about what 3rd party software, add-ons, drives, etc you may have installed recently that may be the culprit.

4) Disconnect any 3rd party USB or Firewire devices. Leave only your mouse and keyboard attached.

5) Remove any user installed RAM.

6) Do an archive and install of OS X

7) Completely erase and install OS X

Other helpful troubleshooting tools

Activity Monitor. Can see apps and process running in the background. Also if an app or process is hogging a lot of memory.

Console. Look at System log. Click the "Logs" button at the top to see the log list on the left. Expand to see the different logs. Crash reporter logs for individual apps.

Review: Slingbox TUNER

Slingbox TUNER (USD $179.00)

Slingbox TUNER

Basic Cable connection with built-in tuner

Easy set-up

Worked fine on my home LAN.

Worked great when connecting from SF at Macworld, some manual tweaking of settings. You can see the bit-rates your are achieving and can adjust accordingly.

Singbox Finder Directory is awesome. Not worrying about dynamic IPs. Do need to open some router ports, but the install and configuration wizard helps with that. Also supports U

Even worked great on a Treo running Windows Mobile.

Software is still BETA, but I was impressed.

Great for anyone whose is displaced from home but still wants access to local TV content.