shownotes_20090224

Opening
  Opening Music
    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
    Mandaandthemarbles.com
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News
  Three new Apple Stores planed for Europe
    Wired's Cult of Mac Blog has news of new Apple stores planned for 3 European cities in 2009.
    Apple will pick one of two possible locations in Paris France. The Carrousel du Louvre mall or a location near the Garnier operahouse.
    Stores are also planned for Milan, Italy and Hamburg, Germany.
    Apple also expanded it's iPhone presence in the Middle East
      The iPhone went on sale in Saudi Arabia
      The carrier Mobily said they activated 25,000 subscribers in the opening day
      This is despite a high price and lack of Arabic language support, which is expected in about 3 months according to a Mobility spokesman
    Not to be left out the US will get a new Boston area store. Dedham, just southwest of Boston in the Legacy Place mall. Should open in the fall according to ifoAppleStore.
  Are Intel's Core i7s destined for Macs?
    Electronista says a post from Fudzilla claims Intel is prepping a Core i7-based equivalent to its new Core 2 Quad S chips
    The chip would be ideal for all in one PCs and compact desktop since it would have a thermal peak power consumption of 65W
    Based on Intel's Lynnfield designs the new chips would be lower performance versions of the Core i7 which eliminates the traditional frontside bus using an integrated memory controller and a point-to-point interface instead.
    The piece says the new baby i7s should hit the street sometime in early 2010
    Core i7 dispute might be what's holding up new iMacs
      According to AppleInsider via a Mac NN report
      They say Apple has been waiting on the new CPUs from Intel which is why they weren't updated in the Fall or at Macworld
      Now legal wrangling between Intel and Nvidia over chipsets may be causing further delays.
      The i7s have integrated memory controllers and Intel claims NVIDIA doesn't have the licensing rights to make compatible chipsets for the new processor.
      If NVIDIA loses it could be bad for Apple who is using NVIDIA controllers in it's new models.
  Continued security warnings for Macs
    A student from Italy presenting at the Black Hat conference in Washington DC has claimed to have discovered a security vulnerability in Mac OS X according to Mac NN
    Vincenzo Iozzo says that by sifting through the Mach-O file format he has discovered a flaw in the way Macs Macs allocate memory that could compromise the Mac by allowing malicious code execution.
    Apple has tried to prevent this type of attack in the OS by randomizing the location of certain variables, but Iozzo says the method is not really random.
    The fix would require a low level rewrite of the OS, but it is unclear if a fix would be part of Snow Leopard.
    There are other vulnerabilities would have to be exploited to even execute Iozzo's hack and those can be easily patched.
    Adobe has issued a security alert for Acrobat Reader and Professional
    An potential exploit exists in versions 7, 8, and 9 of Acrobat, Acrobat Pro, and Acrobat Pro Extended, and versions 7, 8, and 9 of Adobe Reader.
    Can crash the system and allow an attacker to take control of an exploited system
      Switch to Preview, Get Info... Open With->Preview. Change all.
      Un-check "Display PDF in browser using:" in Acrobat's or Reader's preferences
    Fix for version 9 is expected on March 11th with older versions coming later.
    Not to be left out of the party, Microsoft said it's looking into a potential security flaw in Excel that impacts the Mac
      Discovered by Symantec in Japan, opening an infected file could allow for remote code execution, but the hack only effects the older Excel .xls format, not the newer .xlsx format.
    Microsoft plands to issue an update as soon as they finish their investigation.
  And then there were 2. Displays that is.
    Apple quietly stopped selling their 20" LCD Cinema Display
    Now they have just the new 24" LED Cinema display and the 30" LCD
    Thought that Apple will soon kill off the 30" as well. Moving to all new displays with Mini display port connectors and LED backlights
    Apple may be waiting for new Mac models, like the Mini, iMac and Mac Pros that support the new display connector standard.
  Leaked Mac Mini photos and video
    MacNN and other rumors sites were cross-posting all over themselves with supposed leaked images of a new Mac mini design.
    The case itself looked more or less the same, but on the back shows a Mini-DVI connector, Mini Display Port Connector, power, ethernet, Firewire 800, security slot, optical/analog audio in and out, and 5 USB ports.
    Suspicious to me is the FW800 and dual display connectors (maybe because a pre-production model?).
  $99 iPhones at Best Buy, sort of.
    If you were a Reward Zone member before Feb 21st.
    Standard members get $50 off new iPhone 3Gs with service contract. Premier Silver members get $100 off.
    Offer good now through Feb 28th.
  Apple release Safari 4 Beta
    Apple release a public beta of Safari 4 for both Mac and Windows
      It is Beta
      It will replace the core of Web kit and Safari 3, but there is an uninstaller.
    Highlight Features
      Top Sites, your most visited sites in an original Apple TV esque curved screen grid view
      Cover Flow view of history and bookmarks, cuz Apple's gonna milk that purchase for all it's worth.
      Full History Search, or as I like to call it the Spousal Porn Excavation, Extraction, and Discovery (SPEED) tool
      Tabs on Top, Awesome. Really opens up main viewing window. Some don;t like the change
      Nitro Engine, Javascript on rocket fuel
      Windows Native Look and Feel, for both XP and Vista.
    My first impressions
      Fast, fast, fast
      Like the tabs on top
      Cover flow images for history and images for Tops sites loaded slow.
    Some complaints that Apple copied features
      From the Maccast forum
        The tab on top copied from Google Chrome
        The Top Sites feature copied from Opera's Speed Dial
        The incremental search copied from Firefox
        The new Javascript engine is to response to Chrome and the new Firefox 3.1
    Others might not like the Ui updates, but there are already Terminal preference hacks to "fix" things and I'm sure GUI hacks are on the way.
    Safari 4 download is available on Apple's site
    Macintosh Requirements

      Any Mac running Security Update 2009-001 and Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 or Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11
      Mac with an Intel processor or a Power PC G5, G4, or G3 processor and built-in FireWire

      256MB of RAM
      Top Sites and Cover Flow on Mac OS X Tiger require a Quartz-Extreme compatible video card
  Happy Birthday Steve
    Steve Jobs turns 54.
Feedback, Comments and Commentary
  Printer preset tip, setting custom default
    Play tip from Ulrik
  Macworld 2009: Microvision
    Play interview with Microvision
    Microvision ShowWX Pico Projector
  "Find out how" to use the Mac
    Via TUAW, there is a complete list of text and video tutorials from Apple on how to do stuff on your new Mac
      Topics include, Mac Basics, Photos, Movies, Web, Music, iWork, & MobileMe
      Sections are further divided by app versions, like iLife '08, iLife '09, iPhoto '08,'09, Aperture, iTunes, etc.
      Tons of videos in each section.
  Still using Appleworks under Leopard
    Play comment from Dave
    Couldn't find an Appleworks Quicklook plug-in
    Can use Maclink Plus version 16 to convert Appleworks and Clariswork files to RTF or Microsoft formats that you can open in Pages.
  Review: iLife '09
    Dave is also not loving iLife '09. Play review.
    Try to address some of his complaints.
  LCD monitor fonts and resolutions
    Play clip from Mike about setting up his external monitor resolution.
    Make sure you are driving the LCD at native (default) resolution.
    Check and/or adjust the "Font smoothing style:" setting in the 'Appearance' System Preferences.
      Automatic, Standard (CRT), Light, Medium (LCD), Strong
    Checkout my 12/11/2008 show on the reasons for the difference in Mac vs. Windows font rendering.
Closing
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  Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
    maccast@gmail.com
    281-622-4269 or 281-Mac-I-Am-9
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    MacCast Forum
  "Head First" by Better with Ed
    From Jony a Maccast lstener and member of this band out of SFO
    Link to MySpace page
  EOL: Dancing with Woz
    In case you somehow missed it, Woz will be one of the contestants on this seasons Dancing with the Stars here in the US.