Apple's stock options backdating black eye healed? Maybe.

Apple and several members of it's current and former management team have agreed to pay a total of about $14 million dollars to settle close to 20 derivative lawsuits brought against them over allegations of stock options backdating. Derivative lawsuits are those filed by shareholders on behalf of the corporation.

According to AppleInsider, $7.3 million will cover attorney fees and $300,000 will go to plaintiffs in the federal actions with $1.2 million in attorney fees and $50,000 going to plaintiffs in state actions.

As part of the settlement officials denied the backdating, which supposedly occurred between 1997 to 2002. In fact an internal Apple investigation cleared all current officers and cast suspicion on former chief financial officer Fred Anderson and former general counsel Nancy Heinen. Both of whom settled with the SEC and paid fines.

So it's finally over... or is it? The settlement does have preliminary approval, but will not receive final approval until October 31st.

Plus, mere days after this news, MacUser reported that the Boston Retirement Board is leveling a lawsuit against Apple, Steve Jobs, Nancy Heinen, Fred Anderson, and six other current and former board members for breach of corporate duties.

Oh well, 19 down, a few sassy Beantown seniors left to go.

Strong rumors of new Macbooks soon

So since we saw no new Macbooks or Macbook Pros at last weeks Nano-chromatic Let's Rock event the rumor just lingers on.

Enter lots of new speculation and even some new fakety fake fake German spy picks and the hordes are in a frenzy.

The new expected arrival date seems to be late October, with some Twits even saying we might see aluminum clad goodness as early as this week.

I tend to favor the mid to late October arrival, since as listener Robert points out after doing some Mac Tracker investigation, the iBooks and Macbooks have a history of release in the October/November time frame, with a few Spring releases, but with Apple favoring it's Pro laptops for Winter or Spring releases.

So what will we see?

A greener Macbook, mercury-free, arsenic-free, brominated flame retardant-free, PVC-free, and any other free that will make Greenpeace happy

Likely that, "highly recycleable", and highly sexy aluminum redesigned slimmer and curvy-er case.

Possibly a black front bezel to match the current line-up of iMacs.

larger, glass multi-touch trackpad.

Updated Intel processors and integrated graphics chips

Aggressively lower pricing? Possibly in the sub-$1,000 range, but how low can you go Apple?

Secrets found inside 2nd gen Touch

MacFixit has done it's disassembles of the new iPods (Nano and Touch) and made some interesting finds in the Touch

Has a Broadcom BCM4325 chip which according the Broadcom site, supports 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 + enhanced data rate (EDR), and FM receiver.

Apple is likely using the chip for the proprietary Nike+ protocol which runs in the low power 2.4 GHz band.

They also noticed a 5th wire for the headphone jack (prior version had 4), which indicates the new Touch could support mics inline with the headphones, like the Nano does. Apple did not officially announce that support for the Touch.

VOIP and audio recording apps.

iPhone 2.1 seems to be delivering

Apple released the software last Friday and most early reports seem good.

3G coverage in areas where didn't work before, better battery life, faster syncing and backup, faster App installs. 3G data speeds also seem to be improved.

Genius playlists

Podcasts show half dots when partially played and video podcasts will play in portrait mode, but not TV or movies.

Can pause app downloads, click the icon as it's loading.

Speaker volume is slightly improved. Triple click headphone clicker to go to previous track.

Security fixes including ones for the mDNSResponder to prevent DNS poisoning and a fix for the Passcode bypass exploit.

IPhone Dev team has released jailbreak tools for the iPhone 2.1 update and the iPod touch 2.1 update, but not the new 2G iPod Touch

OS 10.5.5 Update

It's a 136MB download and has 33 fixes and improvements for things like Mail.app, iCal, Disk and Directory Utility.

Also contains security fixes which are found in the separate Security Update 2008-006 for those who run Tiger or earlier or who don't want to update to 10.5.5.

Security Update 2008-006 is out for Tiger users and addresses issues with fonts, Directory Services, the Finder, graphics, and more.

Apple claims more home notebook share

MacNN had some interesting facts from a report by MetaFacts

Apple now ranks forth in market share for home notebook PCs

21 percent used their Macs in public places, compared to just 12 percent of Windows PC users. Of course, who would want to be seen using a Wintel in public?

The public use may actually have a lot to do with who uses a Mac and what for. The survey found for work Macs are used more by teachers, artists/designers/performers, management, clerical, and consultants and people tend to use Mac for web content creation, graphics, and personal activities.

Artists, freelancers, consultant are probably more apt to be working at the cornier coffee shop then say an accountant might be.

A DisplaySearch report covered by Electronista seems to also indicate Apple's notebook share is sharply on the rise

According to the reports Apple's US notebook market share rose from 6.6% last year to 10.6% this year. Giving it the biggest market share increase of any manufacturer in the top five and confirming Apple's 4th place position in the market.

Bill and Jerry break up the Act

Microsoft has killed the new Jerry Seinfeld Bill Gates ads after just 2 "episodes". There are rumors of a 3rd spot, but it will likely not see the light of day.

The air 3 new segments (available on YouTube) that use a John Hodgeman look-a-like Microsoft employee to kick off the ads aimed at demystifying Apple's ad generated PC stereotype.

At least one of the segments kicks off with the sudo Hodgeman saying, “Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”

Then is then a montage of quick cuts to famous and non-famous people from all walks of like saying they are a PC.

The obvious angle is to illustrate that many varied types of people use PC and for many varied things. Hmm with more then 90% market share can I say, duh?

Many sites have pointed out that they miss the "PC" stereotype in the Apple ads. Hodgeman is really Windows, so Apple has stereotype the OS experience not the user.

That said I like the new ads and at least this time the end with the Windows logo, the word "Windows", and the new slogan "Windows, not walls". Interestingly, not call out of Vista, just Windows.

After the ads started airing some noted that metadata in the press images for the spots on Microsoft's web site showed that they were created using Macs running Adobe Creative Suite 3. This is much ado-about-nothing. Although after the reports started showing up Microsoft did wipe the metadata.

Quicktime exploit and iPhone Trojan found

MacNN reports that Symantec researcher Aaron Adams said they noticed a particular parameter in QuickTime that was not designed to handle strings over a certain length and that could be used as an exploit. They were said to be investigating, but...

TUAW, had a piece claiming that a hack had posted code for the actual exploit after he ha notified Apple and they refused to fix it. As noted by the Symantec researchers the malicious code exploits a flaw in QuickTime that causes a crash when a unusually-long parameter is passed along with a movie file.

Often if an exploit can cause a crash hackers can then use that event to inject malicious code. The TUAW article notes that Leopard has technology in place that makes that injection more difficult, but that old OS's like Tiger and Leopard could be vulnerable to this type of attack.

Meanwhile over on the iPhone front, Windows users beware of Penguins and other such nefarious foul. At least when looking for iPhone games. Spam emails and posts have been touting a iPhone game with the attachment Penguin.Panic.zip. It's actually a Windows trojan and can mess up your box.

Mac or PC it's always a good practice to not download, open, or run software from sources you are uncertain of. Also avoid clicking on URL and hyperlinks without first checking the path, so you know where you are going.

Apple recalls iPhone 3G wall adapters

Apple issued the voluntary recall of those cool "ultra-compact" USB iPhone wall adapters after discovering that in some isolated cases the prongs could become dislodged from the adapter remaining in the wall socket.

Only the wall adapter is effected. Not the cable or iPhone itself. Also older adapters from 1st gen iPhones are not part of the recall.

Owners of the adapter are advised to stop using it immediately and contact Apple for a replacement.

Apple has set up page on their site with details on how to get your adapter replaced.

apple.com/exchangeprogram

Customize Address Book fields

Carl wanted to know if there was a way to control the default fields and label that appear when adding entries to the Address book.

Can be done by tweaking the template

In the Preferences under the 'Template' tab or under 'Card-->Add Field-->Edit Template...'

In the drop down you can add the fields you want to appear on your template. Grayed out fields are ones that are already added. Click the red "minus" icon next to a field to remove it from the template.

To add multiple fields, like phone numbers, you can click the green "plus" icons.

Click on the label to see label choices for that filed. Your selection will be the default for that field, but you can always change it when adding a new record.

Select "custom" to set up a custom label.

Once you have it how you like it, close the preferences window and from now on those will be the fields and labels when adding new records to the Address Book.

Backing up your Keychain to the cloud

Felicia wanted to know how to backup her Keychain files to the cloud.

What is the keychain? System wide place where all your 'saved' passwords are stored.

If you have a Mobile Me account it is an option in the 'Sync' tab. Just check the box and your good next time you sync. Added benefit of syncing between multiple Macs

If you want to do it manually then you will find the files in your ~/Library/Keychains/ folder

Run Keychain First Aid (Applications-->Utilities-->Keychain Access) to verify and repair any issues first. You'll find Keychain First Aid under the Key Chain Access application menu.

In the Finder go to the ~/Library/Keychains/ folder.

Option-dragging each file to a desired location, or option drag the whole folder to make a copy. Do not remove the originals.

Bonus tip, reveal saved passwords

Need to know the user password for the account who's keychain you are trying to access.

Launch Keychain Access and select the entry you want the password for.

Click the Get Info button at the bottom of the window or choose 'File-->Get Info...' from the menu.

In the 'Attributes' tab of the window that pops-up click the 'Show password' checkbox.

When prompted enter the keychain (user account) password and click 'Allow'. Now you should see the password for that item in clear text.

Cycle through application windows

Play audio from Mark

The keyboard shortcut is Command+` (accent). This will cycle through the open windows within an app

Another option would be to use Exposé. F10 is the default key to see all open windows in a single app. You can use the arrow keys to move between the windows and hit 'Return', 'Enter' or the Spacebar' to place focus on that window.

Use the 3rd party tool Witch. Let's you see all open windows grouped by app and quickly move between then. Witch can also select and operate on (close) minimized windows.

manytricks.com

Use iTunes outside your own country? Apple's watching.

I read about this, but Michael also noticed the new change in Apple's iTunes terms of service

TERMS OF SALE

U.S. SALES ONLY
Purchases or rentals (as applicable) from the iTunes Store are available to you only in the United States and are not available in any other location. You agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes Store from outside of the available territory. Apple may use technologies to verify such compliance.

iPod Touch Review

Play review of new iPod Touch by Tom

suddendeath.org

Does new iPhone software reduce GSM noise?

Dean pointed this out and that got me thinking. I believe I have noticed less interference since the update.

iTunes 8 extra features

In the options tab of the get info dialog or music you can now set the media type to Audiobook or music

In the Video tab you can now enter an episode description.

Maintaining your Mac

Play comment from Mark

Give my thoughts

Repair permissions

Disk Uilities, Drive Genius, Disk Warrior, Tech Tool Pro.

System utilities, Cocktail, Onxy, AppleJack

Defragging, the classic debate.