shownotes_20100110

Opening
  Opening Music
    Music is "Say Anything" by Manda and the Marbles
    Band's MySpace page
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News
  Apple acquires mobile ad company for $275 million
    Apple purchase of Quattro Wireless after supposedly losing out to Google on acquiring Ad Mob (they paid $750 million)
      Ad Mod was the largest Mobile Ad network, but the Google price was almost 17 times the value of Ad Mob's sales.
    Ars Technical alludes that Apple and Google are in a territory fight.
      Apple acquired Lala after Google announced a partnership with the service.
    Former CEO of Quattro Wireless, Andy Miller, has been named vice president of Mobile Advertising at Apple.
    Apple supposedly wants to be getting some of the revenue on ad supported mobile apps that will run on it's platforms including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and likely the upcoming Mac tablet.
    I still worry about Apple fragmentation of focus. They have already had a hard enough time managing App submissions and developers.
  iPhone a touch more accurate than others
    With latest touchscreen smartphone the quality of the screen is often measured in sharpness, contrast, brightness, etc. But what about touchiness?
    Electronista has report of a comparison study of the latest smartphones done by MOTO Development Group
      The tested the iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Droid, and Google Nexus One
      In light finger and medium finger pressure test the iPhone tracked the most accurately
      Other had a wobbly or stair step tracing effect
    In the study the iPhone is credited as having a small sensor size, a high sampling rate and intelligent-enough processing to determine where the finger is actually moving giving it a leg (or finger) up on the competition.
    May not seem important, but for art apps, games, and handwriting (like kanji) it might be an advantage.
  Latest tablet rumors
    Aluminum enclosure
      Taiwanese manufacturer, AVY Precision Technology Inc., will begin making the cases in February. Shipping in 2nd quarter.
    PA Semi designed chip, not an Intel Atom
    SDK and tablet "simulator" for developers announced at January event.
    US 3G coverage by Verizon according to Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall.
    Multitouch version of iWork
      A very small citation in a much larger NY Times piece
      Apple designer says they spent a couple years working on it.
      Electronista mentions multitouch trackpad support?
  Latest iPhone 4G rumors
    New 5MP camera with 1080p HD video support. CMOS sensors from Omnivision that Apple supposedly will get a ton of in 2010.
    LED Flash. Possibly a Philips' supplied LUXEON LED. LED Flash could also be used a continuous light source for video
    Improved graphics from the new Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX545 graphics processor core
      Open GL 3.2, support for the OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API and for OpenCL.
      Apple is an investor in Imagination Technologies
    Multitasking
      Why would Apple allow it now?
      Source say a PA Semi designed ARM Cortex A9 processor
      lower power and high performance keeping drain to a minimum and allowing multiple apps with less slowdown.
    Verizon via the Qualcomm chip.
      The source Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, says it's a CDMA-olny chip?
  New concept Apple Store in Palo Alto
    Read on Ars Technica
    Rumor based on design-concepts submitted to the Palo Alto's Architectural Review Board.
    You will be in the Apple Store before your enter the store
      An entire glass front designed to blur the distinction between inside and outside.
      Trees inside the store.
    Designed by the same architecture firm that designed the glass cube structure in NYC.
    Feels all a bit Zen like and appropriate for Apple.
    One way to deal with Microsoft cloning of the Apple retail experience.
  Has Apple finally won over Greenpeace?
    The group gave Apple a 4-star rating in a recent environmental survey of computer companies
    Apple moved up to number 5 in the survey from 9 last time
    Don't get excited
      Apple score only went tom 4.9 to 5.1
      Samsung, Sharp, and Sony all fell in the rankings.
    Apple has been working hard to make sure we are more aware of it's greening efforts
      Eliminating harmful chemicals from it's products
      Recycling programs for old equipment. 10% off an iPod at Apple Retail Stores
      less packaging, may have caused some issues with the 27" iMacs?
    Apple Environmental website
  Small Bonjour update
    Bonjour Update 2010-001
    If you don't own an Apple TV you likely won't care. Address problems with "Apple TV and iTunes connectivity.
  iTunes 30 second previews get webified
    Apple recently updated the "interstitial" page you hit when clicking an iTunes link on the web
    Now they have added the ability to hear 30 second track previews in a browser.
      Macworld says you need to have iTunes installed, but my guess is it's Quicktime actually.
    Some are saying this feature is the first fruits of Apple's recent acquisition of streaming music service Lala.com
      Not likely because LaLa used Flash.
    Feature has been a bit dodgy for me. Need click twice.
  Mac OS X 10.6.3 update goes into wider testing
    MacNN says Apple has entered large-scale testing of Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.3
    Build 10D522, supposedly has 221 code fixes impacting 92 system components, including Mail, MobileMe, iCal and QuickTime X.
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
  Time Machine backup isn't all that?
    Play comment from Nathan
    I hope it was clear that I was saying if you don't do any backup at all and your running Leopard or Snow Leopard you should at least use Time Machine. Some back-up is better than none.
    I would never rely on a single back-up and for irreplaceable items like photo, not even just 2. I have 3 and 4.
    Personal experience means a lot and if your burned by back-up once you will likely bash it.
      Time Machine is "set it and forget it", but you really can't "forget it" since it is an HD
      HDs fail and have useful working lives of 3-5 years or so. They CAN last a lot longer of course, but manufactures have 1 to 5 year warranties for a reason. "There are only two kinds of hard drives: those that have failed and those that are going to fail" - Ken Colburn, President of Data Doctors Computer Services
    Carbon Copy Cloner is awesome and free. I like Super Duper.
    I also burn DVDs, 2 sets. One on-site and one off.
    I use some limited cloud storage in the form of my iDisk and Dropbox
      Mozy, Carbonite, Backblaze, JungleDisk (Amazon S3)
  Magic Mouse Update
    Stephen Baker from NPD group reported to AppleInsider that Magic Mouse sales for November were huge. Apple's share of mice sales doubled during that period and Apple's Magic mouse account for 10% of US mouse sales. Microsoft and Logitech lead, but Apple only sells one model.
      New product spike.
    Comments on Magic Mouse after using it as my primary mouse for several months.
      Love the feel, momentum scrolling, got used to the 2 finger side swipe gestures.
      Still wish it supported more gestures out-of-the box
    Magic Prefs
      too easy to get "false" click
      Zooming didn't work at all
      Did have a cool "Apple Stem" hotspot
    Mouse Wizard
      Had to be too exact in your location.
  OS X for Non-Intel Macs
    Paul had a Leopard install DVD that refused to work on an iMac G5 he was attempting to upgrade
    The Apple retail store had no copies to replace his, nor could you buy a new copy.
    This is a bit annoying considering the longevity of most Macs
      What if you acquire a used Mac Power PC today and want to upgrade
      Apple went all Intel in August 2006
      Leopard was released in October of 2007 and Snow Leopard was out in August 2009 and is Intel only.
  More info in Get Info…
    I was looking at the Get Info… window for the show notes file, Omni Outliner, when I saw the collapsed 'More Info…' option. Expanding it offered a bunch of interesting, but debatably useful, additional file specific info.
      Named Styles, Column count, Item count, Item depth.
    Decided to start looking at other files
      Garageband
        Type of project (Podcast), Duration, Tempo, Time Signature, Created with version
      AIFF
        Album, Genre, Duration, Audio channels Total bit rate
      JPEG
        Dimensions, color space, alpha channel
    Not all documents had 'More info…' Looks like something that needs to be enabled or implemented by developers.
  Explaining the different "types" of memory in OS X
    A listener was having a look at the activity monitors memory usage and wondering about the different types of memory there.
    4 states of your physical RAM, Wired, Active, Inactive, and Free.
    Wired memory
      In use by the OS. Can't be borrowed by another app.
    Active memory
      Memory in use by applications
        Because apps may also use "virtual memory" it may not account for all the RAM apps are using
        One app can "borrow" another apps active memory, but the app it borrowed from needs to write the state of it's RAM out to virtual memory (page-out).
    Inactive memory
      Memory from a recently quit application. It will remain in RAM unless another application needs it. The advantage is if it's still there and you relaunch the original app it can reclaim this RAM much more quickly.
    Free memory
      This memory is not being used.
    One more type... Virtual Memory, represented by "VM Size". Basically equal to the amount of free space on your HD since VM uses your hard drive as RAM
      Slow
      "Page ins/outs" refers to the number of times Mac OS X has moved information between RAM and disk space. If you are doing a lot of page outs, then it may be time for more RAM or to run less apps concurrently.
      A "page" is memory in uniform units of a minimum size (usually 4K). Page-in is anytime a memory unit is moved "swapped" into RAM (say when a application is lunched and loads into RAM), page out is when RAM is "swapped" out to disk.
      Note the numbers in activity monitor are for page-ins and outs since the Mac was last restarted so high numbers don't indicate a need for RAM. The Page-ins number should be significantly higher than the page-outs, if not you may need more RAM.
      A better test is to run 'top' from the terminal
        Launch Terminal, located in the Applications > Utilities folder.
        At the prompt, type top and press Return.
        Examine the output generated by top.
        In the VM: line (6 lines down) note the page-ins and page-outs in the last or VM (virtual memory) line. Specifically the number in the (), these indicate the number of page-ins or page-outs performed in the last one second. If that number when you are running typical applications — especially page-outs — is consistently in the range of 25 to 50 or more, then the system is thrashing and it may be time for more RAM
        Type Control+C in the terminal to exit the 'top' program
  Your $0.99 addiction may be costing you big
    Saw this over on TUAW. App Store Expense Monitor
    Scan you iTunes Mobile Applications directory and checks against the App Store to report on how much you've spent on apps.
    Works with multiple accounts, can export to CSV.
    I've spent almost $190.00 to date. Scary.
    My most expensive app purchase... Omnifocus at $19.99.
  Quick Quickview Tip
    From Scott
    When viewing an image using Quicklook you can Zoom in and out of the image by holding the Option key and using your scrollwheel
    Works in window and full screen quicklook.
    Access full screen quicklook by clicking the link at the bottom, or use Option+Spacebar to activate Quicklook in full screen mode.
Closing
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  "Dare To Dream" by Adam Ilami
    Artist's website
    Podsafe music from MusicAlley
  EOL: Jobs the Front (cover) Man
    TUAW had a link to a site that features cover images from a ton of Magazines featuring Steve Jobs