shownotes_20110828

Opening
  Opening Music
    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
    Mandaandthemarbles.com
Sponsor
  Freshbooks
    Working for yourself can be fun and rewarding, but requires wearing a lot, if not all, the hats.
    Invoicing is not one of my favorite parts of the job.
      Time tracking.
      Setting up clients
      Generating the invoice and sending it.
      Following up on payment
      Making it look professional
    With Freshbooks you can:
      Quickly and easily create and send professional looking invoices using their design tool and send invoices via email.
      Clients can download the invoice and pay using a credit card right on-line, so you get paid faster.
      There's even an iPhone app so you can do your invoicing on the go.
    Freshbooks has all that covered and makes it easy, plus it's free.
      Just sign up and you can manage invoices for up to 3 clients, if you need more they have affordable plans starting at $19.95
      And if you enter 'Maccast' in the “How did you hear about us?” section when you sign up, you might get cake. Each week they will give a free birthday cake to one person who signs up from the Maccast.
    Free easy invoicing and possibly free cake, why aren't you signing up now?
News
  Steve steps down as CEO
    Wednesday Steve notified the Board of Directors and the Apple community.
      "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come."
    Steve has been elected Chairman of the board and plans to continue an active role at Apple
    Tim Cook has assumed the active role as CEO
      Steve Jobs recommended him and he has been serving as acting CEO since January when Steve went on indefinite medical leave
      Cook has served as acting CEO several other times in the past
    How and if or when Apple will change
      Short term I think there will be very little impact
      The executive team at Apple is strong, hand picked by Steve, and been in place for a long time
      Corporate culture at Apple is as stronger than most companies
        John Gruber, "Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.”
      Apple has lots of black box projects and long lead cycles.
        OS X on Intel was in works for years before they released
        iPad was in development before 2007
    In a 60-minutes interview Steve said
      "My model for business is the Beatles. They were 4 guys who kept each others negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other… …and the total was greater than the sum of the parts".
      Guess Cook is Lenon and Mansfield is the 5th Beatle?
  10.7.1 and iMac Graphic FW Update 3.0
    Apple release 10.7.1 update NOW on Mac App store
      For some reason Apple pushed it via Software Update first
      If you had installed it, it will be marked "Installed" in the app store
      Otherwise, upgrade away.
    iMac Graphic FW Update 3.0
      Some Lion iMac users had reported issues after upgrading
      The main complaint was systems locking up with playing video or on waking from sleep.
      This should fix the issue
  More iPhone 5 details swirl
    Reportedly leaked logic board designs surfaced
    Shows space for a rectangular shaped processor like the A5 on the iPad 2.
    Board also loos similar to the CDMA iPhone 4, but with a SIM slot added.
    Many believe the new iPhone 5 will be a "world" phone support both CDMA and GSM in a single chip.
      Some recent rumors have eluded to LTE G4 chips, but I don't think so.
    The leaked photo also had a N94 label, which has surfaced as an iPhone 5 designation in rumors from other sources.
    Rumor of iPhone 5 on T-mobile. Also Sprint although their employees were reportedly told not to talk about it. ;)
    Also rumors of a white iPod touch part surfacing?
  iPad 3? This Later, not sooner
    Many are hoping for an iPad 3 this fall (don't hold your breath).
    I would have bet on an February/March announcement and March/April launch
    At least one analyst, Kevin Krewell of The Linley Group , thinks it will be June 2012 at the earliest
    Assuming Apple wants the 3rd edition of the Wonder Tablet to have a A6 processor and why wouldn't they
      4 cores
      3D transistors similar to Intel’s Ivy Bridge technology
      Manufacturer in Taiwan called Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Samsung does the A5)
      Using "next generation" 28-nanometer technology for better battery life and power consumption.
    They claim it won't be ready until June. They had reportedly started trial production in August.
    Could give Apple more time to get a healthy supply chain of HD iPad displays ready too.
    Apple is not beholden to any release cycle and there isn't much pressure from the competition.
    The once certainty. They won;t release it until it's ready and meets their requirements. Apple doesn't rush to market for any reason.
  iTunes TV rentals permanently expired
    I believe 9to5 first noticed that Apple support pages for iTunes TV rentals went missing
    Then D All things Digital confirmed with an Apple rep that they have killed off the feature
    Apple says they weren't that popular and now that you can re-download purchases via iCloud they feel people will want to purchase, not rent. (I feel like we've heard this before).
    Apple TV 2 needed rentals because there was no storage options.
    So now it $1.99 to buy SD and $2.99 for HD (US Pricing).
      A TUAW piece points out that it should be $0.99 to buy HD (the former rental price). I agree.
      That would bring most seasons in parity with the $25.00 DVD and BlueRay box sets. Although you can't get first run at that price.
      Shifting prices and options at a whim is frustrating and confusing for consumers.
        John Martellaro mention to me, what if you just cancelled Dish thinking you'd use Apple Tv and rentals? The cost just doubled for you.
    Rumors of Apple doing a TV Subscription service? i'm not sure "subscription" is in their vocabulary.
    The word streaming IS though. And right now you can stream the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album "I'm With You" for free in iTunes. It's release date is August 30th.
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    I often get asked the same question or need to make the same recommendations over and over.
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    Has Dropbox syncing and there is TextExpander Touch for iOS (integrated in over 120 apps)
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Feedback, Comments and Commentary
  Follow-up on saving OS X window arrangements
    Steve wrote in to tell me about Moom from Many Tricks
      Amazing utility that will let you fully control and adjust size and placement of your windows across apps and across screens
      Use mouse controls or keyboard shortcuts to adjust window sizes and positions.
      Hover over the green "+" "stoplight" icon in the menubar give you drop down controls.
        click to adjust to half screen size vertically or horizontally
        click and drag or option+click to do quarter screen sizes.
        So you can quickly build split screen and quarter screen views of your documents and applications
      It can provide a grid to match window sizes to.
        Click and drag the window size on a grid in the drop down. Provides an overlay so you can see how it will size the window.
      You can create custom layouts and save layout with hot keys to rebuild then the next time your working.
      $5.00 on the Mac App store.
    George also wrote in to say you could use AppleScript and even sent a sample
      Basically his script finds the frontmost application window and adjusts its coordinates and size in pixels

        set front_app to (path to frontmost application as Unicode text)

        tell application front_app
        activate
        set bounds of window 1 to {0, 0, 960, 540}
        end tell

      A copy of the script can be downloaded here:
  Scanning in OS X Lion (and earlier)
    Why the frick does this have to be so hard?
    Dan was pointing out some of the new scanning features in Preview in Lion
      Ability to scan multiple pages into a single PDF
      you can scan multiple areas of an image in a single set up.
    Requires TWAIN supported scanner.
      TWAIN is a standard software protocol and applications programming interface (API) that regulates communication between software applications and imaging devices such as scanners and digital cameras.
      Not an official acronym; however, it is widely known as "Technology Without An Interesting Name." (Wikipedia)
    Apparently scanner manufacturer don't like standards or don;t want us to use our devices once they stop support it. How else will they get us to buy new scanners?
    Then I remembered the SANE project and TWAIN SANE
      If you did a Lion upgrade and had it install it might be working, kind of.
      If you need to re-install it's tricky because the installers from from the TWAIN SANE site don't support Lion
      You could recompile from source, but I found someone who already had (Bob Rost)
        Not the install process is pretty manual and be careful to go folder by folder so you don't overwrite anything critical.
    Even after getting it all working it did seem to be very reliable for me
      Had a hard time getting Image Capture or preview to see my CanonScan 670u (LiDE 20)
      Once it did scans were sometimes scrambled
    Using Snac, seemed to help, but I need more testing
    If you don't mind spending some money save yourself a lot of trouble and get VueScan
      Support for 1100 scanners in OS X
      $39.95 for the basic edition
      Not the prettiest UI on the planet, but functional and works.
      Doesn't add TWAIN support outside the app, so can't use built-in OS X stuff.
  You got to Move it, move it.
    Dan also pointed out that now in OS X Lion's Finder we can "move" files and folders with the Copy command.
    Now in addition to Copy+Paste. If you hold the option key the 'Paste Item' option becomes 'Move Item here'.
    This works across volumes also.
    Means no longer having to copy and then go back to delete the originals if you wanted to move them.
    Can also now move within a volume using the copy and move command keys. Command+C on the source files and then Command+Option+V to move to the destination.
  AT&T contracted iPad plans?
    Play comment from Dave
    I wasn't even aware of this. Have others had this happen to them?
    AT&T's site seemed to promote the standard "postpaid" $15.00/mo (250MB) and $25.00/mo (2GB) plans.
  iOS files systems can be tricky
    Rene point out some struggles with using his Mac, Dropbox, and iOS to manage files in apps
      The problem is that the iOS apps I use put everything in one folder or let you pick an existing folder to save in, but not let you create subfolders.
      He tried some tricks. Creating subfolders and then using an app like Good Reader to navigate those folders. then use "Open with" to send that to the app he wants to work with. Trouble is on save you cant target the subfolder.
    The problem is that Apps control how they leverage the cloud APIs and file save options
      Dropbox can have folders and I have some apps that allow me to navigate and save to folders, but generally the do a save local, then sync model. Or FTP style uploader.
      iCould Documents in the Cloud will take that kind of sync approach.
  How Apple with disrupt TV
    Rumors of Apple working on a subscription TV service have begun to resurface.
    Mike Elgan, makes a case in a Computerworld piece
      Apple focuses on broken content experiences and fixes them
      Music industry with expensive "album" only CDs, bad mobile hardware with bad interfaces. Apple: iTunes and iPod
      Mobile content. Clunky phones, awkward interfaces, expensive data plans. Apple: iPhone and App Store
      Internet media consumption at home. At desktop, on awkward bulky laptop in the living room. Apple: iPad, iBooks, Air Play, Apple TV.
    Now he think Apple will do the same for TV, but use a subscription service to do it.
    I like his premise, but I think he's got the execution wrong.
    Apple is about fixing the experience right? Here is my theory.
      People want on demand, mobile, reasonable price, limited or no ads.
      The 3rd part is the trickiest
    What Apple has
      Access to the content
      Best mobile and living room delivery systems
      Streaming and cloud storage capabilities
    What they need:
      Access to more and better content
      More reasonable pricing models
    How they could do it:
      I think people want to buy "shows", not network packages.
        They have the Library to do it.
        Similar to letting you buy single tracks, not whole albums.
        Season pass is kind of it, but too expensive
        Why not sell season "show packages". 5, 10, 20, etc. You select the shows you want for a season and you get a bundle price deal. you still buy the content.
    Another idea would be leverage iAds.
      Make all show for free, but with iAds inserted. Think like Hulu.
      Via an iApp style purchase you could be asked at the start if you want to watch with or without ads. If you pay $0.99 you get the episode without ads.
      Apple would work a rev share with the content producers or studios for the content.
    I'm obviously just spitballing ideas here, but for sure there is a lot Apple could do to improve the digital TV experience for consumers.
Closing
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