Who are Eric Stellwagen and Herman Chakoff? And why do they hate me?

I’ve been receiving their spam for several years now. I can only assume that at some point, they signed up for something and didn’t want to use their real e-mail addresses. Instead, they made one up–mine.

Thanks, fellas. I can never tell you how much I appreciate that.

Since then, I’ve received offers for medicines without pre$cr1ipti0ns, for discount vAcat1on$, for pr1nter ref1ll$ and for (ahem) various items that offer to enlarge body parts I don’t actually own. Personally, that is. (Speaking of which, why are there no spam ads for larger b0s0ms? Isn’t there a giant untapped market for this?)

Who’s lucky day?

A recent missive read: “Eric Stellwagen, This is your lucky day!!!!!” Well, that was certainly true, considering in whose mailbox that spam landed.

Speaking of luck, Herman seems to have way more Nigerian friends than I do. Such a popular guy! And he has to fake an e-mail? Herman, Herman, Herman. Your friends are so generous. They’ve offered to put several hundred thousand dollars into your bank account–and you can actually keep the interest accrued during that time! And you’re sending those opportunities to me? What were you thinking?

Recently, spammers seem to have discovered Yahoo and Google People Search.

Subject: Eric A Stellwagen, Watertown, Ma, 2472
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 18:33:09 -0600
X-Priority: 3
X-ELNK-AV: 0
Dear Eric A Stellwagen,
We would like to take this moment to review yourfinancial inquiry
you made regarding your property. This is the information we have
for you:
 456  Belmont St Apt 19
 Watertown Ma 2472
 6179233928  280000
 Self Employed Fixed Single Family
Eric A Stellwagen, we are very confident that we can improve on your
current situation. Come and visit us today and lets see what we can
do for you. We have a team of professionals who are standing ready to
assist you and and drastically reduce your monthly outgoings.  Give
us a minute of your time to let us show you what we can do   
Regards

Monthly outgoings? Don’t they have extra-absorbent pads for that?

It kinda makes me wonder–is this really the Eric Stellwagon
who has haunted me these many years? I suppose it’s a little late
to ask him to stop–once the spammers have an e-mail in their
nasty little hands, it’s a bit too late.

Still, you’ve got to wonder whether he’s making up other
e-mail addresses and selling them to the devil spammers.

Share your Spam horror stories…

OK, there’s a new Eudora release available. The first thing covered in the release notes is the inclusion of support for emoticons. Personally, the thought of horrible little yellow smiley faces turning up in my beautifully minimalist Monaco 9 text windows drives me up the wall, so I’ve switched off that feature straight away.

But there’s a lot of other stuff in this release. The famed Eudora search system (one of the main reasons I continue to use the application over any other mail client) has been beefed up. Although it was always fast, it seems to me faster than ever before; Qualcomm isn’t highlighting this in the release notes, that’s just my personal observation.

The thing they are talking up is the new Live Search feature. If you have a search window open, new mail that fits the search criteria will show up in it automatically. You can now create Live Searches and leave them open, and they will behave rather like the much-hyped Smart Mailboxes in the forthcoming version of Mail in OS X Tiger.

Another welcome new idea in Eudora 6.2 is the Scamwatch, which alerts users to suspicious URLs hidden inside mail messages. Even users who tell Eudora to ignore all HTML and formatting in incoming messages sometimes get presented with HTML-style links that could take them somewhere unwelcome and unexpected on the web.

Eudora’s Scamwatch at work

Just mousing over the dodgy-looking links will prompt Eudora to display the real web destination in a tooltip. Nice feature, this.

Elsewhere there’s been improvements to IMAP support, which means things work better offline and deleted messages actually go away. SSL has been beefed up, and Eudora’s Dock icon now displays the number of unread messages.

OK, so some of these features (Dock notification, emoticons) have been around in other mail clients for ages. If you use such a client, you could be forgiven for thinking “So what?” Well, Eudora has strengths of its own and although in some respects it might appear to be catching up with the competition, in others it is light years ahead.

Let’s talk mail clients

One of my favorite moments during the recent Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld SF was when John Mayer first came on stage to help demo GarageBand. Just like last year, he had to nail a few chords on the keyboard before Steve would let him play the guitar. John sang as he pounded away, “I didn’t win a Grammy for playing the keyboard.”

I can relate. In my musical moments, I much prefer the guitar too. Although unlike John Mayer, I’m lousy at it. But I’m even worse on the piano. For years I’ve shied away from the black and whites. But now, because of great software like GarageBand, I’ve reconsidered.

MIDI keyboards enable you to create tracks using any virtual instrument in GarageBand. Yes, you can tap out tunes on the software keyboard that comes with the application, but this isn’t so hot for playing chords or for other more complicated moves.

So I started looking for an affordable, stylish MIDI board, and I discovered GarageKey by the folks at DVForge. Even though it’s just a shade over 20″ long, it has 37 full-sized keys that play like a serious instrument. Plus it has octave-up and octave-down buttons to extend the range of sound without increasing its size.

One of GarageKey’s clever features include its detachable riser legs that allow you to slide your regular Mac typing keyboard beneath the MIDI unit. Perfect for the musician with limited desk space. (Or for the writer who likes to dabble in music now and then.)

The upshot is, I’ve never enjoyed playing an instrument with keys as much as I do the MIDI plugged into my Mac. Choose an instrument in GarageBand, strike a few chords, and marvel at how good it sounds… even me!

GarageKey sells for $120, but I’ve learned that a couple of them will be offered as prizes at the upcoming O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, March 14-17, in San Diego, CA. Early bird discount registration for ETech ends on Monday, Jan. 31. So, not only will you have a great time at this event (and save $$$ thanks to early bird), but who knows, you might win a GarageKey too.

Aside from all of that, what’s clear to me now is that a MIDI keyboard is to music software what a typing keyboard is to word processing. You just gotta have one.

There was a time people were vehemently concerned about Amazon.com turning any brick-and-mortar (large chain or independent) into an Amazon showroom. Armed with a cameraphone and a One-Click login, one might browse shelves and shuffle through pages at the local corner book shop, grab a snapshot of the UPC, and have items dropped on one’s doorstep at a reduced price and no shipping costs. Even a pencil and paper followed by quick hop on to the local in-store or nearby WiFi Hotspot would do. Or, to take things to the extreme, roping in location based services on your handset would allow for rather targeted offers: “You appear to be in an XYZ store; buy now from Amazon and we’ll take an additional 10% off the cover price.” Amazon had, it seemed, remixed the virtual/physical relationship between online/in-person shopping.

But as it turns out–and this should come as no real surprise–consumers tend to have two shopping modes: a) I want this for the best price and am willing to shop around b) I want it in my hands now. I tend toward a goodly mix of the two: if I’m online, I’ll shop online; if I’m in the store, I’ll pick it up there. The only real exception is if the online price is considerably different (it often isn’t, at least not enough to bother) or if I’m on the road and don’t fancy schlepping about those extra pounds of paper. So it seems Amazon hadn’t really remixed the virtual/physical so much as provide an amazing online store–not to minimize that achievement, mind you.

Now Amazon’s In-Store Pickup does indeed hit closer to the mark: order that gizmo online with one click and pick it up at your neighborhood Circuit City within minutes, hours, or at worst days. This lends itself less to tumble-dryers–something you’d want delivered and installed anyway–but does offer a reasonable mixture of price and convenience, online and immediacy. In-Store Pickup, in all practicality, is yet a proof-of-concept: the products locally-available are few and the partners far between.

In a talk I gave at an Amazon DevCon (for Amazon internal developers) last week, I brought up an idea I’ve been noodling for some time of turning the brick-and-mortar-as-Amazon-showroom idea inside out, with Amazon as virtual showroom for those with a physical presence–a virtual home for or augmentation of an existing virtual home for physical storefronts. And this is just the direction in which In-Store Pickup appeared headed, albeit not particularly speedily.

Take it a little further with an online errand list (not all that different from a wishlist, really), a dash of geolocation, and suggested route and you’ve re-remixed online and meatspace into a nice Getting Things Done package.

Instead of the great trek you find yourself in, wandering from store to store in search of this or that, Amazon will find some of your items, purchase them on your behalf, and figure out that the supermarket you visit twice weekly is just a block from your favorite bookstore which is a scant two minute drive from a toy store fully stocked with the latest Leapster must-have. Sure you could call ahead, but it’s often easier (or just seems so) to meander a city than phone trees, not to mention the number of times random employee A says that part B is “right in front of them” only to have disappeared by the time you arrive, leaving random employee B to say, “We’ve not had those in for weeks; who did you speak to?” And you’re off again. You’d also free your mind of details like where that Radio Shack is just in case you ever need to buy batteries.

An interesting side-effect (and that’s putting it lightly, particularly for the stores in question) of this re-remixing is that storefronts without a virtual presence effectively disappear from the landscape. Walmart might be in your face no matter where you turn when you’re out and about, but without a hook through your browser, it’s nowhere in sight when you’re planning your errands before leaving the house. If it’s not in Amazon, it probably doesn’t exist. You’ll be amazed how quickly you forget the very existence of stores you don’t frequent.

A9’s new Yellow Pages is truly inspired. Strap a camera and GPS to a truck and drive tens of thousands of miles through city streets snapping storefronts as they appear to passersby. Pair that with Yellow Pages listings. And–here come those network effects Amazon.com is harnessing left, right, and center–allow you, the local (or anyone in the world, for that matter), to fix off-by-one-or-one-block errors with the click of a checkbox and augment listings with your own images and metadata about the business at hand. And the Click to Call Business button is a useful touch, albeit subject to the one-off difficulties described above.

Here’s a quick recipe for Amazon Errands: Hook A9 Yellow Pages into the Amazon Marketplace, bringing those thousands of individuals and companies selling virtually through Amazon with their myriad products into real-space, mix in an In-Store Pickup button for anyone with a local shingle, and expand ever so slightly the functionality of wishlists to allow for lists of lists, some of which are local. Stir and you’re thinking global, shopping local.

OK, I think it’s finally time for me to start encrypting my mail on Mac OS X. The last time I did this was in college and I was using Sun OS (not Solaris at the time). Needless to say, I don’t remember much about that. So, I figured I’d turn to the Mac community at O’Reilly Net for pointers on the best tools to use to get my Mail mail encrypted.

What’s the best way to get encrypted?

As pre-announced by SiliconValley.com last week, Google has opened the doors on its latest Web Service, AdWords API (beta). While I’ve not had much of a chance to dig into it yet–you can be sure I’m digging in a few minutes from now–the sample code sure put a smile on my face. Let the Hacks begin!

One of the cool things coming with Mac OS X Tiger is a new dotMac kit. This new SDK allows mere mortals (like myself) to build applications that work with the .Mac services.

Mike Clark just informed me that an article he wrote for the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) website, aptly titled Using the .Mac SDK, is now available online.

In his article, Mike shows you how to use the dotMac SDK, and also tells us about the .Mac Affiliates Program. If you’re planning to build a .Mac-related application, this program gives a kick-back to developers for every new .Mac member that signs up for a .Mac account through your application.

Check it out…

The new Mac mini has media server written all over its sleek anodized aluminum case. And yes, someday I’m sure I’ll order one.

Rendezvous library sharing in iTunes enables me to control my music collection on the media server from my work laptop.

But I have another pretty good computer laying around the house, a TiBook with 802.11b built-in. Thanks to the genius of AirPort Express, I’ve put together a screamin’ streaming media center right now… using stuff I already had. I thought with everyone discussing ways to use the Mac mini, you might be thinking about building a similar setup… without the mini, that is.

This all started because I don’t like storing my entire iTunes library on my primary PowerBook. The 80GB drive on the 17″ AiBook sounds roomy until I start uploading 6-megapixel photos, DV clips, and all the goodies that come with being a media guy. So I keep about 5 gigs of music on the AiBook and store the entire library on the TiBook at home. But as you can imagine, there is an annoying disconnect with this configuration.

AirPort Express pulled the pieces together for me. I added it as a “home router” to my existing Extreme network, set up the TiBook as a wireless media server, then used iTunes’ “Shared Music” capability to control my TiBook media server from my primary laptop.

I’m using the Philips Streamium MC-i250 as my amplifier — ironically not because it has 802.11 built in (which it does, but I don’t like the implementation), but because it’s compact, has 50 watts per channel, and includes a terrific remote control. The sound is really good too, especially when I enable their patented wOOx technology, which generates bass that’s significantly lower and louder than some other audio systems.

The TiBook is perched on a Podium CoolPad with the screen dimmed to black. This way I can run it for days without it getting more than slightly warm. I never hear the fan go on. I control the TiBook via Rendezvous with the AiBook (or any other wireless Mac for that matter), and the music is streamed through AirPort Express to the Philips stereo. Right now, the AirPort Express is connected to the Philips using the standard stereo mini plug into the Express and RCA plugs into Line In on the Philips. It sounds good… really good.

I use the iTunes mini controller (click on the green button in the upper left) to adjust the volume and change tracks as needed. It’s a very flexible arrangement. No matter where I’m working with the laptop, I have complete control over my entire music library. I also use this same set up to store and access iPhoto libraries (that’s another weblog). Yes, this is a true media server.

The iTunes mini controller provides me with unobtrusive access to the streaming music.

To save you time as you work on your setup, here are a few notes from lessons I’ve learned along the way:

• Update the firmware on your AirPort Express to version 6.1.1. All of my networking frustrations were solved with this update.
• If you screw things up with the Express, as I did a couple of times, there are various ways you can reset it. Here’s a nice overview of reset options.
• If you like to use your Express as a primary base station while on the road, set up profiles for your different configurations. You can then quickly switch profiles when you move your Express to a different location.
• Make sure AirTunes is enabled in your AirPort Express configuration (under the Music tab) and Sharing is activated in iTunes preferences.

Someday I’m sure I’ll own a Mac mini. But for now, my TiBook is serving my entire music collection, plus a ton of photographs… all using hardware and software I already had. This is incredibly fun!

I was walking through the bedroom when I heard it. Click, click, click, clickety click.

I whirled around. “What was that?” I asked the husband.

Click, click, click, clickety click.

“I think it’s the TV,” he said. “It’s been acting funny.”

“Funny how?” I thought: Jay Leno funny? Robin Williams funny? Heaven forbid: Carrot-top funny?

“The picture keeps freezing.”

Click, click, click, clickety click.

I leaned over the Panasonic Showstopper/ReplayTV unit. Click, click, click, clickety click.

I was hearing Quantum Fireball Clicks of Death. There wasn’t much time left. I had to act.

I unplugged the ReplayTV, brought it into the workroom and hoped I wasn’t too late. Once the continuous clicks begin, there’s only so much life left in the drive. I needed to transfer the software over to a new drive before the Quantum sang its clicking swan song.

Fortunately, I had just scored a very cheap 60G Maxtor hard drive ($9 after rebate) over at Office Depot. I’d been using over FireWire as a backup drive but one’s husband’s basic need for TV must always come first. I pulled my old overclocked eMachines Celery 366 out of storage from the baby’s room and cracked it open so I could hook up the drives.

My first surprise involved how easy it was to open the Showstopper unit. After buying special-purpose screwdrivers when I upgraded my TiVo, it was a nice change to use a good old phillips to crack the case. Even more, the lid slid off easily without the massive struggle I remembered from the TiVo. Compared to TiVo as far as TV watching goes, ReplayTV is the Neandertal to TiVo’s Cro Magnon, but for modding? Way nicer.

Once open, I found all the typical bunny dust you’d expect in a set-top unit, but the drive itself was housed beautifully, complete with a cover and anti-vibration lining. Sure enough, it was a Quantum Fireball. I left it as Master, set my Office Depot drive to Slave and connected them to the Celery.

At this point, the husband walked in, looked around at the various open cases (FireWire enclosure, ReplayTV box, eMachine case), the disk drives lying around, the various tools, etc. He shuddered and walked back out. With upgrades, like sausage making, it’s best not to see the process.

A little googling found me the RTV Patch site over at Source Forge, with beautifully complete and easy-to-follow upgrade instructions. Quite frankly, the hardest part of the upgrade involved tracking down a working 1.44 MB floppy disk. I went through four before I found one that would boot properly.

Within minutes, the upgrade was complete. I retired the FireBall into the Drawer of Discarded Hard Drives and install the new Maxtor into the ReplayTV unit. Warning to others: don’t forget to switch the jumpers back from slave to master before re-installing. Naturally, I didn’t the first time and was pulling out my hair until I realized what had gone wrong.

The ShowStopper/ReplayTV is now working again. No clicks. No problems. I’ve reinstalled the husband in front of it. The remote control is permanently attached to his hand and a HappyTV(TM) smile is plastered on his face.

All is well that ends well.

What sort of PVR nightmares and rescues have you experienced?

If you happen to live in London, England, and if you’re a .Mac member, Apple is hosing a special .Mac Night at the Apple Store on Regent’s Street.

Last July, Apple flew me out to the Chicago Apple Store for a similar .Mac Night, and I can tell you it was a lot of fun. The house was packed of the .Mac faithful, and there was a line around the corner down Michigan Avenue.

The man of the hour tomorrow night is none other than Paul Newman (no, not that Paul Newman), editor of iCreate magazine. If you’re a Mac user, I’d highly recommend subscribing to iCreate magazine, even if you have to pay extra to get it shipped from the UK to the States. Month after month, iCreate continues to beat the pants off the US-based Mac magazines, and has been my Mac magazine of choice for almost a year now.

If you’re in London and you’re not doing anything on Tuesday night, head on down to the Apple Store at 7 p.m. for Paul’s .Mac demo. According to Apple’s site, they’ll be giving away a limited edition .Mac T-shirt, and there will be special savings in-store that night as well.

You can buy iWork now, and no doubt thousands of people are doing just that.

The important thing to remember is that iWork is not competing with Microsoft Office. Sure, there are similar features, and admittedly Keynote does compete more directly with Powerpoint.

But iWork is not an office productivity suite, nor is it intended to be. There used to be some heated arguments about this; some people said Apple was working on a word processor to compete with Word; others said such a move would annoy Microsoft, and Apple couldn’t afford to lose Office:mac.

With hindsight, we can see that both of these were simplistic views. Apple has created Pages, and it does process words, but it’s not going to compete with Word. It’s a consumer-level desktop publishing app; it’s iMovie for paper. It means ordinary people can make spectacular printed documents.

Microsoft’s Apple Business Unit has invested too much in Office:mac to give up just because Pages has come along. They certainly don’t consider it a competing app, either. It simply doesn’t offer anything like the feature set found in Word; look at the screenshots at Apple-x.net and you’ll see what I mean.

And work is well underway on a new version of Office, one that uses the new technologies in Tiger. Microsoft is quite happy to tell us that.

Got your copy of iWork installed yet?

I have not used an Apple Mac since 1989 (a Mac II). So, I’m approaching my potential purchase of a Mac Mini by trying to do some research and making sure I understand what I’m getting myself into as a Mac newbie. I figure other Linux and Microsoft Windows users are in the same newbie boat. So, here’s some articles I’ve found useful.

There seems to be a little confusion on what’s included in the $499 and $599 models. I figure the definitive information source is:

Mac Mini Specifications on Apple.com.

FYI: The Superdrive (DVD burner) is an option for both models.

Macworld has a great FAQ at…

Mac mini Frequently Asked Questions… Answered! in Macworld.

Two of the things I learned in this FAQ are that the optical drive can be noisy and that the second button on a PC mouse is natively supported by Mac OS X.

If you don’t want to grab a putty knife to crack open your new Mac Mini, Macworld’s Jason Snell does it for you (with photos) in…

Deconstructing Mini

AppleInsider’s Kasper Jade notes that the some Apple 22 inch Cinema Displays (Model M7478LL/A) are incompatible with the Mini in…

Special Report: Apple’s Mac mini in-depth

MacInTouch has a bunch of articles linked at their current top level page with information on…

Performance Comparison: eMac G4, iBook G4, iMac G5 and Mac Mini

Reader comments One interesting note here is that Apple says not to stack Mac Minis on top of each other.

iLife ‘05 Reader Notes

PC World’s Rebecca Freed offers a couple of interesting observations in…

First Look: Apple’s Mac Mini

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg offers another first look at:

With New Mac Mini, Apple Makes Switching Attractive, Affordable

Walt confirms the Macworld observation that the Mini’s optical drive can be a bit noisy.

Cringely has a purely speculative piece that is an interesting read at…

Mini Me: The New Mac Mini is All About Movies
by Robert X. Cringely.

Please add other useful Mac Mini reference links here to help “the rest of us”.

iPhoto 5 is now available, and those of you who pre-ordered iLife ‘05 should have it in your hands. I have a few tips to help make your transition a smooth one.

The entire iLife ‘05 package requires a fair amount of disk space. And if you purchased iWork also, even more will be required. But you don’t have to install the entire suite of apps at once. Digital photographers my want to start with iPhoto 5 and the new version of iDVD. Once you see the storage impact, you can add GarageBand and iMovie HD later.

During the installation process, keep an eye out for the “Customize” button. By clicking on it, you can choose the iLife apps that you initially want installed.

Back up your existing iPhoto Libraries on to an external hard drive before you launch iPhoto 5. Unless you’ve moved it, the iPhoto Library folder should reside inside your Pictures folder in your Home directory.

If you have more than one Mac, I would only upgrade one of them to iPhoto 5 initially. Live with iPhoto 5 for a while before deciding to upgrade the other machines. I’m going to keep iPhoto 4 on one of my Macs for archiving purposes, so I don’t have to “Upgrade” an old library just to view its images. At some point, I may upgrade everything to iPhoto 5 compatibility, but not this week.

Even after you upgrade to iPhoto 5, continue to use good file management backup procedures. In addition to uploading my new images into iPhoto 5, I also copy then to a separate FireWire drive and label those folders as my “Masters.” When it comes to file management, better to be safe than sorry.

If you want to learn more about how iPhoto 5 handles RAW files and QuickTime movies, see my article, A RAW Look at iPhoto 5.

Finally, have fun! This new version of iPhoto is wonderful, and I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it.

So, I’m sitting here, snarfing my tuna sandwich, taking a break from cleaning up the Server book and prepping it for production, when the doorbell rings. Ah, the wonderful sound of the FedEx lady, arriving with a package from Apple.

(Rael: Feel free to start singing your “Circle of Packages” song.)

Today’s shipment: iWork.

Initial thoughts are:

• Very small box, actually about 6×9 in size
• Includes 1 install DVD with both Pages and Keynote 2
• iWork now requires a serial number
• Also included in the box are:
• Fold-out Quick Reference cards for both Pages and Keynote 2
• User Guides for both Pages and Keynote 2 (manuals are 5.5 x 6.5 inches in size)
• Pages’ User Guide is 191 pages
• Keynote’s User Guide is 151 pages

Of course, there’s no time to play with these today, so I’ll have to wait for the weekend to get these installed.

What do you think of iWork? Have you had a chance to play with either Pages or Keynote 2? Do you think iWork can replace Microsoft Office?

Whenever someone is losing or feeling threatened, a common response is to talk trash about the opponent, often referred to as “saving face.” It is a desperate tactic meant to deflect attention from your failures, by pointing out any flaw you can find in the competition. Enter Dell and Creative. They are losing the digital music battle and find themselves having to explain their failures in the space by doing one simple act of desperation, attacking the iPod.

Let’s first take a look at a current statement by the CEO of Dell, Kevin Rollins (c|net interview):

“It’s interesting the iPod has been out for three years and it’s only this past year it’s become a raging success. Well those things that become fads rage and then they drop off. When I was growing up there was a product made by Sony called the Sony Walkman – a rage, everyone had to have one. Well you don’t hear about the Walkman anymore. I believe that one product wonders come and go. You have to have sustainable business models, sustainable strategy…[The Mac mini] might take some here and there, but Apple’s market share in the global computer business has really shrunk pretty far. Where they’ve been making success recently is not in the computer business, but in the iPod music business. So this might be an interesting new product but I’m not really believing this is going to turn the industry upside down.”

It was in 1979 that Sony proclaimed, “Remember the Walkman,” and that fad, Mr. Rollins, had a shelf life of well over 15 years. It ushered in a new age of portable music and only dissipated due to the demand for portable CD players, and now the new age of file based players. The world Walkman entered the global lexicon and was often as common a phrase as that fad, the portable facial nose waste receptacle…the kleenex.

Dell, a company that apparently doesn’t do anything based on fads, was full of bravado when they released their online music store and media player. Expecting to rule the marketplace as they did with their PC mentality that “price is everything,” they just couldn’t seem to capture any decent market share, and in a sad show of desperation, even offered iPod users the option to trade their device in towards the purchase of a new Dell DJ unit. It seems odd to me that a company so unimpressed by the success of Apple and the iPod, would go to such trouble to actually “lose” money on the deal. Consider the fact that Dell’s unit at the time sold for $100 less ($199) than the iPod ($299), and they were offering $100 rebate with your iPod trade in. So, Mr. Rollins, if you are so convinced that this is all a fad, then I suggest you explain to your shareholders why you would dedicate so many resources towards a product that you know won’t help your bottom line. Shareholders aren’t big on fads.

Mr, Rollins, it seems, is saving face. How else do you explain to the media, and your shareholders that the mighty computing behemoth is losing to a computer company whose market share is just a fraction of their global dominance?

Let’s look at another interesting statement from Kevin (same interview):

“Apple’s created a niche. If you look at the grand scheme of things, this quarter we are supposed to achieve something like $13.5 billion in revenue. Apple’s in the $2.4 billion (region), so the size and scale is not even in the same league.”

Apple, whose market share in the computing world almost doesn’t even register, returns a better margin on their products with a smaller share of the market. This proves that Dell’s strategy of “giving it away” might just be a fad and not a long term sustainable strategy. Apple users have always known they pay an upfront premium, and this mystified other computer manufacturers.

My belief has always been that when you’ve brought the PCs value down to a disposable level, that the only way to continue to sell new machines and survive such narrow margins, is through innovation. It seems that people are no longer just looking for the best deal, they are also looking for something which captures the imagination. The iPod has continued to show the world why Mac users continue to come back again and again. Dell on the other hand is going to face some serious problems once they’ve finally reached the corner they painted the computing industry into. And with China entering the computing business (through the purchase of IBM’s PC division), I think we’ll be seeing an end to Dell’s dominance in a short time.

—-

And then we have Mr. Sim Wong Hoo, CEO of Creative who said of the iPod Shuffle:

“Actually, to me it’s a big let-down: we’re expecting a good fight but they’re coming out with something that’s five generations older. It’s our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that — that’s a four-year-old product.

“So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people — it’s worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don’t have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it’s a non-starter to begin with.”

Creative who? Are they still around?

This statement reminds me of the Iraqi propaganda minister proclaiming there there were no American troops in Iraq. It’s downright amusing. Mr. Hoo, Apple doesn’t have to come out with a fight, they are winning. You have to come out with the fight, and so far you’ve failed to make any inroads into Apple’s market share since you proclaimed war on them back in November of 2004.

“I’m planning to spend some serious money — I intend to out-market everyone,”
-Sim.

That plan includes spending a whopping $100 million targeted squarely at Apple. Here’s where this falls short. Since Apple is winning the battle, they don’t have to spend a single penny to distinguish themselves against any other music player. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an Apple ad for the iPod that was anything but a cultural reference as to how cool this thing is. They are selling mountains of these units based on pure lust and word of mouth. And why this isn’t a fad is simple. People who buy iPods quickly realize that they work and they work really well. There’s no buyers remorse, as there is with many other products that are cultural fads. In this world of constant noise and crowded sidewalks, the iPod gives us the illusion of personal space. Their advertising captures that spirit. Creative’s problem is that they have to convince the world they are better than Apple, and so far they don’t really have the product or identity to do it yet.

—

Apple’s Problem

Don’t get me wrong, Apple doesn’t have this all sewn up. Apple has issues they are going to have to address at some point. I’d like to see them do this before their market share starts to decline. The simple fact that the Shuffle doesn’t work with all AAC formats, and that you actually have to re-encode your music to their format, is absurd. While Sony recently proclaimed that they made a mistake in locking consumers into their own proprietary music formats, and thus allowing the market to get away from them, Apple seems content to ignore this lesson and plod forward. And why not, their proprietary format hasn’t driven consumers away from their platform…but this is only because consumers don’t yet know how it will affect them down the road.

For example, the new Sonos digital music system is the product I would expect from Apple. Truly brilliant in execution and engineering, yet it can’t play my iTunes music store files, but I’m getting one anyway. Thus the ever present dilemma occurs…do I break Apple’s DRM simply so I can play my own music, thus potentially turning a law abiding citizen into a criminal? (For gods sake will the Supreme Court rule on this stuff (again) so we can stop these people before we get innovated out of all of our fair use rights?)

As new products and services arise, more and more people will realize that they don’t want to be locked to just one specific player or platform. I personally don’t think that the cost of music is going to be the major deciding factor over where people get their files (you can only go so low), but it will in fact be new and diverse hardware and software products that will direct this. People are going to want devices like the Sonos and will quickly decide that Apple’s hold on the music you buy from them is detrimental to your enjoyment of it. They will start looking to buy elsewhere in a very short time.

Apple needs to do two things to remain the leader in this space. First, we need to see iTunes updates and new features more often. They are few and far between. Second, Apple needs to realize that their margins on players is much better than their margin on music, so simply open up their DRM format to other companies. iTunes and the iTunes Music Store can remain the de facto source for media of all types if they simply continue to do what they do best…innovate. People bought the iPod with no thought about any proprietary format, they simply wanted one.

Take a lesson from your own play book: if you build the best experience, people will come, regardless of price. I know from my own experience that I keep coming back to Apple’s store, not because they lock me in, but because it’s design and execution are unmatched.

—

Well regardless of who eventually comes out on top in this fight for dominance, the one thing that is true in this situation is that sour grapes do make the best whine.

When I first sat down to consider the merits or otherwise of the new Mac mini, I was disappointed with the amount of included RAM. “A mere 256MB just ain’t enough,” I thought; “Steve’s shooting himself in the foot. Surely there will be lots of people trying out Mac OS X, just as he predicts, and finding it slow and unresponsive? That won’t convert them to Mac users.”

But then I read the comment by Glenn Fleishman in the post-Macworld issue of TidBITS:

Both configurations ship with just 256 MB of RAM, which is a bit of a joke to run Mac OS X effectively, though that amount is enough to play iTunes, CDs, DVDs, and handle other common home duties such as exploring the Web and checking email.

And I think, with that statement, Glenn has hit the nail on the head.

Of course 256MB is not enough — not enough for the likes of you and I, who use Mac OS X all the time and push it as hard as we can.

But it is enough for people wanting to experiment. Sure, it won’t be very snappy, but even with 256MB, people will be able to listen to some music, plug in an iPod, send some email (”Hi! I don’t have anything interesting to say! I’m just playing with my new Mac mini. This Mail program is kinda neat.”) and surf some web pages.

Nothing fancy. Just enough.

Which is the Mac mini ethos through-and-through. This is a “just enough” computer, but it is flexible enough to appeal to a lot of people. The “just enough” approach will be sufficient to let the target audience (well, the people Steve said were the target audience; perhaps Apple has other targets in mind?) experiment with OS X and see what they think. And it has the flexibility to be upgraded into something whizzy, but still very tiny, for those of us who know enough about OS X to know exactly what we want.

The one thing I think Apple should do is communicate more clearly with those people who are buying the Mac mini as a test-run.

There should be something, be it a piece of paper in the box or a clearly marked section of apple.com, that makes obvious to people that what they have purchased is a taster.

I know, and you know, that this should be blindingly obvious. But I’m afraid experience shows the general public to be blindingly stupid. Apple needs to make the Mac mini “just enough” message crystal clear, so that the people who do buy, do try, and are impressed, know that they can so something constructive to improve their Mac using experience even more. Like buy a G5, or just upgrade their Mac mini.

I can think of some people I’d buy a Mac mini for

James Sentman’s X2Web is out of beta and looking better than ever. What is X2Web, you ask? It’s simply the best way to control your home automation system over the web. It works seamlessly with XTension, which isn’t surprising given that Sentman is a co-author of the venerable automation control center. XTension was slow coming to Mac OS X, but now that it has arrived, development is blazing ahead with innovations like this.

X2Web works by adding a gateway interface to Apache, which allows the web server to gather up-to-date information from XTension, and offer browser-based control over any of the units (such as lights, for example) that you’ve authorized for remote access. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. With X2Web you can view any text file, including the XTension log, and control other applications using AppleEvents. For example, although WeatherManX doesn’t have a web interface, using the sample setup that Sentman provides you can view and refresh the WeatherManX reports at any time.

Even if you’re not interested in opening up outside access to your home, X2Web is worth investigating for your in-home use. For example, with just a little work, you could adapt it for controlling iTunes or other applications from anywhere in your AirPort-equipped house. Sweet!

What will you use X2Web to control?

Related link: https://plasmadesign.co.uk/

My resolutions for 2005 did not involve weight loss, reducing my dependence on nicotine or a drinking problem — three apparently fashionable problems I am lucky enough not to have at the moment… It did involve however a rather tricky decision: finally dress up my computer in a way I liked.

Like many Mac users, I am in love with the Mac OS X interface: it is clean, translucent in the right places and has a relatively Zen quality that makes using a computer for a long time a pleasure. Even what is often described as gratuitous eye candy by some of our PC friends actually serves a purpose by introducing a dash of fun and surprise in an otherwise dull computing routine.

As much as I love the interface, though, I was stuck in my quest for the perfect screen background. Someone staring at his screen all day like me quickly gets fed up with the beautiful but limited collection of images that comes bundled with the operating system — I must say to Apple’s credit that the images they suggest are by far better than what I have seen on other platforms.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t have gorgeous Hawaii vacation pictures to put in iPhoto and use as a desktop slideshow and do not have kids that send me pictures of their surreal, sun bathed wedding in the northern forests to look at. Therefore, I am often stuck with nice stock photography that I end up rotating quite frequently.

While browsing the internet yesterday, I remembered the backgrounds I had seen at PlasmaDesign, a site that many members of the Mac community know well. I hadn’t looked at Rob Randtoul’s backgrounds in a long time and I must say that they felt like a welcome change! Figurative enough to be enjoyed but abstract enough to not cause the too-common two-hours picture backlash — this awful moment during which you realize that you so cannot stand your choice of picture that you just end up replacing it by a solid light blue for the day.

I am still browsing the collection and looking at the pictures but I am hooked… Now, I do change my screen background every five minutes but it’s for another reason ;^) I just wish I had a 30″ cinema display to do them justice!

I know that many of us heavy computer users are often in this situation, so I thought I would share this gem I discovered with you. It is most certainly not the only site to offer backgrounds but it’s definitely the best I have seen — and trust me, I have looked around!

Until next time, dear Mac users, enjoy thinking different!

And you, what are your favorite sources of backgrounds or techniques to make an image stay fresh longer?

Apple no doubt dominates the press during Macworld, and why not…it is the reason we all come here. However, there are a number of products on the show floor that might interest you, but don’t necessarily get picked up by the mainstream press. Here’s my list of the 5 Best Mac/Non-Mac items of Macworld 2005.

Number 1 with a Bullet: Sonos Digital Music System
Although not an actual Mac-related product (platform agnostic), I was so impressed with this technology that I spent at least 30 minutes with the Vice President, Thomas S. Cullen, going over the product’s features again and again. This digital music system makes my iTunes/Airport Express look like a tinker toy. Made up of a wireless controller and a “Zone Player,” this solution can play music in any room regardless of where that music is stored. Be it your Mac or simply a LAN based hard drive, this system is the ultimate digital music lovers tool. There is no way I can do justice to this device in a short paragraph. Just go visit their site to get an idea of how cool this thing is. And by the way, as cool as it appears on their site…in person you can multiply that by a factor of 100. If you are on the fence about what to buy for your next music solution, this is it….hands down. Sonos has done what Bang and Olufsen would have done, but for thousands less.

This is a company to watch!

Webstractor
This handy little app allows you to browse the web and collect web pages that can be shared with others as documents. What truly delights me about this application is that I can also edit these pages. Remove unwanted images, text, ads, etc. Collect multiple pages or sites that you can later share with others as a pdf document.

wnex FireNEX-CAT5™ ! 100 Mbps 1394a Cat5 Repeater
Okay…get this…a Firewire to Ethernet converter. Yes that’s right…convert your Firewire device to Cat5 and send up to 100Mbps up to 100 meters. While not something you might use for high end video editing, the other possible applications of this are astounding, especially if you already have a wired network.

iApp for Filemaker Pro
While this really will only appeal to Filemaker developers and users, it is still a big deal. iApp is a middleware solution for Apache 1.3 that allows you to bring web sharing back to Filemaker 7. Even better is the fact that you can now publish your database using regular HTML. The current version (I belive is shipping next week) supports only 5 concurrent users per 1 minute interval, however, I’m told they are working on a version for Filemaker Server 7 Advanced.

One other big deal here, since they use Apple Events to talk to Filemaker Pro, you have extended control over database scripts you never had with Filemaker before.

If this app works as advertised, it will no doubt turn mere mortal Filemaker users into powerful web programmers.

Phlink
Ovolab’s Phlink phone solution just keeps getting better and better. I had one of the early versions of this device (probably assembled in a garage somewhere in Italy), and it worked well. But the software is where the product really continues to shine. Not only does this device allow you to create a caller ID based phone answering system in your home or small office, it supports caller ID over the network. This means you can see who is calling no matter which Mac you happen to be sitting in front of. Tons of features and an attention to detail…this product is continuing to mature in a great direction. Oh yeah, and it supports home automation through Perceptive Automation’s Indigo.

Honorable Mention: Mac Mini
Okay okay, I know the Mini got a bunch of press, but what amazed me was how little Steve Jobs talked about this little wonder, and how few media outlets covered one of the biggest aspects of this device. This is a hacker/third party developers dream. What Apple has done is no doubt created yet another sub-economy, similar to the iPod market. Expect to see the Mac Mini hacked into just about every possible device you could imagine. I know I’ve already got my own plans for one. I fully expect that one of the largest sales demographics for the Mini will be Linux hackers.

What are your favorites?

As a long time Linux and Microsoft Windows user, I’ve long admired but not used (since 1989) the Apple Mac user interface and the Mac-only software.
So, I was pretty excited by the rumors circulating the night before the Macworld 2005 keynote and noted it in a blog entry here
(Apple Mac Mini: Diary of a Mac wannabe).
As others have noted
(
CNET: Mac Mini a maxi deal? Depends what you want),
the actual price of a Mac Mini depends on what compatible spare add-on components you have lying around the house.
The on Thursday (Jan. 13), eMachines had a much quieter product refresh and I noticed the $499 (after a $50 mail-in rebate) T3958 and compared it to the Apple Mac Mini.
The table below gives a component price comparison.

I used the higher-end $599 Mac Mini as the comparison so that the hard drive sizes would be the same (80GB).
The Mac Mini has an edge in graphics because the eMachines uses the price saving shared video RAM implementation.
I looked for a 32MB ATI Radeon to include in the comparison but could not find such a card with 32MB RAM (64 and 128MB cards in that class were easy to find though).
The eMachines 3958 has 8-in-1 storage card reader for CompactFlash, SD card, Memory stick, etc.. I suppose I could have added $20 to the Mini price for that.

This table will differ from person to person.
For example, I have a spare USB mouse but not a spare USB keyboard lying around.
I have a Firewire DVD+-RW burner that could probably be used with the Mac Mini and avoid buying the Superdrive add-on.
But, as an Mac-fan acquaintence pointed out to me,
I should probably consider the additional $149 Applecare because the Mini probably uses proprietary components and even if it doesn’t might be tough to work on a unit that small and packed with electronics.
I’ve bought and worked on a couple of eMachines boxes.
They tend to be easy to work on to replace or add parts.

The price-wise bottom line for me, then, is that the Mac Mini costs about twice as much (after adding Applecare) as a comparable eMachines model. So, price is not going to be the deciding factor in buying a Mac Mini.
What is? After all these years, it’s still the software.
Back in the 1980s when Windows was still a DOS-afterthought, the Mac OS was smooth and cool.
The attraction, for me, is a combination of the UNIX engine underlying Mac OS X, the mature GUI interface, and the iLife application components. The question is: Is the Mac OS X and iLife worth a $200 to $500 premium over a WinTel PC?

If you are a Linux or Windows user buying a Mac Mini as your first Apple Mac even after the real higher price tag became apparent to you, what was the deciding factor in buying the Mini anyway?

Related link: https://longhand.pansophists.net/

At last! A calculator you can type into!

Longhand is a calculator for computer users. Rather than emulating the interface of good old fashioned pocket calculators, Longhand lets you type your calculations just as if you were typing in a terminal.

It can handle trigonometry and multiple bases, and best of all lets you delete and re-type calculations when you go wrong. I’m no mathematician, in fact maths was the subject I dreaded most while I was at school, but I’d imagine this sort of simplicity might be invaluable to those people — scientists, academics, managers and yes, even programmers — who need to have a mathematical mind.

It’s free! Why not give it a try?

When all the rumors started circulating earlier this year about the possibility of Apple coming out with a flash-based iPod, my usual response was “Well, of course they will; Steve said so.” Of course, that led many people to think I had a direct line to Cupertino, and I can assure you I don’t. My response was based on what Steve Jobs said last year during his keynote presentation at Macworld SF 2004.

In his keynote last year, Steve Jobs went to great length to describe the market for MP3 players. He spent a lot of time talking about the smaller drive- and flash-based MP3 players, and then introduced the iPod mini. Steve Jobs said that Apple was going to focus on the drive-based MP3 market, and that they’d go after the other side of the market later in the year. Steve told us all to keep our eyes open in the year ahead, because Apple had lots of plans on the horizon.

So, was I surprised this morning when Steve announced the iPod shuffle? Nope, not at all; I knew it was coming, and I’ve been waiting for a freakin’ year for it. And when Steve Jobs said they were available today, and that the Apple Store down the street has them in stock, a bunch of us made a bee-line down 4th Street to Market where we waited in line with hundreds of other Macworld attendees to be one of the first with an iPod shuffle.

Not only did I buy an iPod shuffle (all they had was the 512 MB model; $99 US), I bought three of them. One for me to use while biking. One for my wife to take to the gym. And one for an unnamed person who’ll be pleasantly surprised by the package I’m about to send off in the mail.

You see, I’ve been dying for the iPod shuffle (or whatever I thought it would be called). I have a Gen2 iPod (10 GB) that contains a good chunk of my music collection (and also backups of the books I edit), but I hated taking it along for bike rides. I always worried that I’d get into an accident and end up thrashing my iPod against a tree, or that it would spill out of my pack while on some muddy single-track. But I reluctantly took it along on my rides, and hoped that my accident-prone self wouldn’t break it.

Sure, I thought about buying an iPod mini numerous times over the last year, but always balked at the price-point ($249). I already had an iPod, and the mini wasn’t what I was looking for. Sure, they’re cute and all, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $250 on another iPod.

The iPod shuffle is small, lightweight, has a 12-hour battery life, and holds up to 120 songs (at least with the 512 MB model; the 1 GB model holds twice as much music, obviously), which is plenty for the type of riding I do. What’s more, I can buy an armband and strap the iPod shuffle to my arm, and that sports case to protect it against breaking should I crash, which is always a strong possibility.

While I didn’t have much of an opportunity to listen to the iPod shuffle during the day at Macworld, I’ve been listening to it now for the last four hours as I work and write blog entries. It’s a great little iPod, and I’m totally smitten. It’s all I hoped and dreamed for, and more.

What’s your opinion of the iPod shuffle? Have you purchased one? If so, what was it that motivated you to spend the cash, and what, if any, add-ons will you buy?

With Steve Jobs’ announcement of the Mac mini at Macworld San Francisco, the first thought that came to mind is: “Steve’s got his Cube back.”

Now your first reaction to that might be, “Huh?”, but when you think back to the G4 Cube, it was basically the same thing you’re seeing in the Mac mini, just with a better processor, bigger hard drive, upgraded components, and different packaging. Oh, and one helluva killer price!

There’s no denying that the Mac mini is revolutionary. Apple has proven once again that they can be innovative as hell, and the Mac mini is a (small) shining example of things done right. And sure, while I don’t have one (yet, obviously, since they won’t start shipping until January 22nd), you can bet it’s on my list of many things to get — ASAP.

While many people are looking at the Mac mini as a low-cost entry point to win over all those Windows folks who’ve purchased an iPod and have been noodling about getting a Mac, I see many more uses for it, one of which being something I’m guessing not many people outside of Apple have thought about (but I’ll get back to that in a bit).

The first, and most obvious use, for the Mac mini is as a component in a home theatre system. Since you can add an AirPort card and Bluetooth to the mini, you can stream iTunes to the Mac mini and pipe that through to your stereo system. And since you can add AirPort, you might as well use the Mac mini to share its Internet connection. And since the mini has a built-in DVD player with the Combo and SuperDrive, you can use that to play DVDs on your television. Lots of good stuff here.

Another use I have for the Mac mini is as a small, lightweight server. These things are incredibly quiet (just like the G4 Cube of yore), so if you need small-ish server for tossing up your blog or to act as a file sever between a couple Macs in your home office, here’s your baby. And the best thing is, if you know a bit of Unix, you can run the Mac mini as a headless server and just SSH into and administer the mini.

Oh, and one more thing…clusters and grids.

Yep, you heard it here. And while using the Mac mini as a cluster might sound far-fetched, think about it. While they don’t have a G5 processor, the minimum 1.25 GHz G4 is nothing to sneeze at, especially with a cost of $499. Buy another one, and you’ve got — essentially — a dual-processor system for less than $1000 if you tie them together with Xgrid. And because the Mac mini’s are so small (6.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall), you can pack a lot of these puppies in a room and build a cluster that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. (Think of the possibilities for an inexpensive graphics rendering farm based on a bunch of Mac mini’s. Would be mighty cool to see, wouldn’t it?)

And yes, I can see where the Mac mini might be an attractive answer to all those Windows users who’ve toyed with the idea of switching to the Mac, but have been riding the fence because they don’t want to toss away all their PC gear and then spend a bunch of money on all new Mac gear. Now you can buy the Mac mini and use your existing PC monitor, keyboard, and mouse along with it and essentially have the Mac you’ve been wanting. I’m not sure if there’s a KVM switch that allows you to share monitors, keyboards and mice between two PCs. If so, I can see where these will be hot items, since you could essentially switch between your Mac mini and Windows PC with a flip of a (KVM) switch.

For me, the Mac mini is more about possibilities than it is about Apple gaining market sure (which I’m sure they will). Slap me if I’m being silly, but Apple’s really hit one out of the park with the Mac mini, and it hasn’t even reached the shelves yet. And while the masses may not have embraced the G4 Cube years ago, the Mac mini is going to have a significant, positive impact on Apple’s bottom line.

What’re your thoughts about the Mac mini? Are you planning to buy one? If so, which model, and how do you plan on using it?

Before the Macworld keynote this morning some of us were talking about the sea of MP3 players that were on display at the recent CES show. I asked a reporter who had attended the event how some of those players stacked up against the iPod. He said they were fine, but they certainly weren’t as easy to use.

My theory is that it’s really iTunes that makes the iPod rise above the competition. My music library is so easy to manage — rip, mix, purchase, and upload — that I spend my time listening to music, not organizing it. In general, I think a lot of people agree with me. That’s why Apple needed to come out with iTunes for Windows. And look what happened once they did.

Little did I realize this morning that my theory would be put to the test. The just announced iPod shuffle is the model of simplicity. How can Apple get away with a Flash music player that doesn’t even have an LCD screen? The answer: iTunes. The lines of code that power the iPod shuffle are so good that the whole thing “just works.”

Apple is master at creating great software to drive hardware sales. iPhoto and Mac OS X Tiger are two solid examples. But in my view, iTunes is king. We just wrapped up the year of the iPod, and another good one has just begun. I’m tipping my hat to those great software developers that make it all work so well.

Some years ago, I was fooling around with some geek friends and we came up with the idea of a silly web site. It would be called “Macs in dresses”, and the only content would be photos of Mac computers wearing, um, dresses. We’d create the first few pictures, and rely on the Mac community to send in some more. We thought it would be fun.

Well, we ummed and ahhed and procrastinated and forgot about it, and nothing happened.

What strikes me, looking at how tiny the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle are, is that we’re probably too late. Mac stuff is getting too small to dress up now.

So what do you think of Steve’s latest keynote? This was far more exciting than last year’s, and not just because of the hype whipped up online beforehand. No matter how many true rumors of these hardware and software products were leaked in advance, seeing them for the first time brings home to all of us - Mac devotee or PC-using iPod-owner - the continuing dedication to innovation at Apple.

All these products, no matter how much you thought you knew about them in advance (which, in any case, turns out to be precious little) are smart and ingenious new ideas. All of them look absolutely fantastic, but then we all knew that they would.

Let’s take a look at a few details.

Mac mini

It’s a Cube, sliced in half. Except it’s much more than that. The super-cheap, well-specced Mac mini is Apple’s attempt to pull in more customers. Those who’ve bought an iPod to plug into a Windows PC, and those who’ve lusted after Mac hardware but been unable to justify the cost.

The Mac mini lets you plug in your choice of keyboard, mouse and monitor. It’s got at least 40GB of disk space, a Combo or Superdrive, and a G4 processor. Yet it’s not much bigger than my backup external hard disk.

But is it user-upgradable? The iMac G5 is famously easy to open up and tinker with, that is one of its greatest strengths. But the tiny enclosure of the Mac mini might be trickier to fiddle around with. A note at the very bottom of the specs page says “Memory upgrade must be performed by an Apple Authorized Service provider,” but that might just be a warranty breakage thang.

I hope the Mac mini is a success, and if I were in the market for a new desktop computer I’d be very tempted to buy one. I wonder, though, if it will pull in a lot of newcomers to the Mac platform.

I say that because there are still a lot of people — more than you might imagine — who see the monitor as the computer. Rather than seeing this as a bargain, they might see it as a waste. “I want to buy a computer that comes with everything I need,” those people might say. I believe this computer will have more appeal to the geekier side of the spectrum, to the people with the knowledge and experience to provide the extras they need, than it will to newbies.

iWork

I’m really excited about iWork, mainly because words are my thing and the new word processor, Pages, looks very interesting indeed.

I say “word processor”, but if Pages is anything like its description, it offers far more than just processing words. It also appears to offer a lot of features related to layout and page design. Yeah, good old-fashioned desktop publishing.

It can import Word, Rich Text Format, and old AppleWorks documents. It exports Word, Rich Text, HTML, plain text, and of course PDF. To be honest, this is not a great deal more than any of us would expect, at least those of us who have been using OS X for a while and are accustomed to apps like TextEdit. But I see iWork as another tool for tempting PC owners over the Mac platform. Apple makes a lot of the fact that iWork will, um, iwork happily with files created in Word and moved over from Windows computers. This is one of the commonest complaints of people presented with the option of switching: “But none of my files will work on the Mac!” Of course I know they will, and you know they will, but there remains a lot of work to be done to change that common perception among the majority.

iWork is a step along that path.

The multitude of templates included with it is important not just for its variety and scope, but because they actually look great. There are plenty of templates included with a certain other popular word processing application, and in my opinion they lack the kind of snazzy design associated with, well, most Apple hardware. These new templates are fresh, professional, modern. The kind of thing you’d want other people to see. I can’t wait to try them out.

From a UI perspective, Pages follows Keynote by having an Inspector panel for controlling aspects of formatting and presentation. This is interesting because it’s quite different from Microsoft’s everything-on-the-toolbar approach in Word and pretty much every other application. The Inspector approach is all about simplicity and minimalism; open the Inspector when you need to make changes to something. But when you just want to type, close it, get on with the work; worry less about the controls, fixate on the content.

Keynote 2, Pages’ companion within iWork, offers some nice new stuff. New themes will be welcomed, as well the save-as-self-running-slideshow option, allowing people to send presentations to others. Crucial to the success of many new features in Keynote 2 and in Pages is the integration with iLife. A widget called the iLife Media Browser lets users hunt around their collection of multimedia for stuff to include in documents and presentations.

Notice how the iLife and iWork icons (iCons? hmmm) have been designed to flow together. Apple certainly wants us to see these two bundles as complimentary. Since iLife comes free with a new Mac, we can expect lots of encouragement for new Mac owners to buy iWork too, in order to make their iXistance complete.

iPod shuffle

Aw, what can I say about this? I want one. Well, duh.

There were widespread leaks and predictions and one or two red herrings, but the flash-based, screenless iPod is now a reality and personally, I think it’s great idea.

Apple has cut out the superfluous extras that make other flash players expensive, and concentrated on the essentials of a minimalist listening experience. People want to just listen to music, and it’s become clear that millions of iPod and iTunes owners love the new random-shuffle way of exploring their music collections.

What’s more, the whole point of mobile music is that you are usually doing something else while listening. Who wants a screen to have to interact with? For the bare necessities of taking some music with you all the time, the iPod shuffle offers everything people need. And it lasts for hours. And you can save other files on it. And hang it round your neck. I think it’s cooler than the iPod. Even schoolkids can save up their pocket money to buy one. This tiny gadget is going to sell in truckloads.

So what didn’t we get?

1. No iHome. Sure, those pictures were fakes - the spelling made that clear - but the idea caught a few imaginations. *Looks wistfully upwards*. Hmmm, Apple owning the living room. Wouldn’t that be nice?
2. No Macs in dresses. But then, no-one, not even Think Secret, expected those.

So what’s your take? Mac mini, good or bad? iPod shuffle, great or insanely great?

Related link: https://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/index.shtml

This announcement by BareBones might be somewhat eclipsed by all the new Apple stuff, but I think it’s important and potentially invaluable to a lot of Mac users.

As of now, TextWrangler has been updated to version 2.0, with a bunch of fantastic new features that have only appeared before in BBEdit 8.0.

And it’s now free.

Yes, you read that right. You can now grab a copy of TextWrangler for nothing.

So is this a return to the old BBEdit/BBEdit Lite days of old?

Well, not quite, although you could be forgiven for thinking that way. I had a lengthy telephone conversation with BareBones CEO Rich Siegel some weeks ago, and made a passing comment about how BBEdit Lite was renamed TextWrangler. Rich jumped in to correct me.

TextWrangler was a whole new application, he said. The code in TW was all new; it simply couldn’t be described as BBEdit Lite with a new wrapping.

And just take a look at it now; version 2 includes the documents drawer, the shebang menu item, more syntax coloring, SFTP support, and the ability to run Text Factories.

It might be more useful to note what TextWrangler doesn’t do. It can’t create Text Factories; you still need to have a copy of BBEdit to do that. There’s no Markup menu item in TextWrangler, which means none of the HTML tools found in BBEdit. Also, you can’t preview HTML documents within TextWrangler. Only BBEdit supports Perforce SCM, CVS, Shell worksheets, and File Groups.

Just as BBEdit Lite did before, TextWrangler now offers a subset of the features found in BBEdit.

That subset, however, is still a very powerful and useful text editor. One could argue that the things offered by BBEdit, such as HTML and CSS tools and support for version control systems, emphasize its suitability as a coding and markup environment. TextWrangler, however, is there for other kinds of text editing.

One thing I find curious is that BareBones does not appear to be shouting the “free” aspect of this release from the rooftops. The official web page has a big TextWrangler logo, but the fact that the software is free isn’t mentioned until half-way down, in normal, unhighlighted text. C’mon guys, this is something to celebrate! Shout about it a little!

What about the folks who shelled out $49 for TextWrangler while it was a commercial app? BareBones cares about them, too. It’s sending every one of them a $49 credit voucher, for use on any BareBones product.

BareBones addresses these and several other salient comments in a very pithy FAQ, interesting for existing users and newcomers alike.

So I’ll end this post with a quick word to those newcomers, to all the people who might be tempted to buy a Mac mini to match their iPod, and make the switch from Windows. To you guys, I say download TextWrangler. You have nothing to lose, even if you can’t see a need for having a text editor installed. And when the day comes for you to hack some code for the first time, or zap some gremlins from a huge formatted file someone sent you by email, or write that novel that’s been lurking in your brain for years, you’ll be pleased it’s there.

Has BareBones done the right thing?

MWSF SteveNote

After a bit of a fiasco with my media pass this morning to get into Steve Jobs’
keynote here at Macworld San Francisco, I’m finally sitting here in the big
media room, upstairs, waiting for The Man to take the stage. The background
music mainly consists of tracks from the various iPod commercials, including
U2’s Vertigo and Green Day’s I Faught the Law. The last track
before Steve took the stage was Let’s Get It Started, by the Black-Eyed
Peas.

Looks like Steve’s about ready to take the stage, so what follows here are the
notes — mostly unedited — I’ve taken during the Keynote. Sure, you’ll find
some of this elsewhere, but along with the usual bullet points, you’ll also get
my thoughts on some of the announcements. Hope you enjoy.

Lights dim, and Steve takes the stage…

Steve notes that this is the first Macworld where we’re using HD projection, and then gets right down to business.

Apple Retail

• 101 Apple Retail Stores around the world
• Hosting over 1 million visitors per week (that’s 20 Macworld’s per week)
• Latest store to open is in London (owned by the Crown), located on Regents Street next to Oxford Circus
• Opened around Thanksgiving
• Second highest revenue out of the stores

iMac

• Launched the new iMac in September 2004; “The world’s most beautiful
  desktop computer”
• Comes in two sizes, 17- and 20-inch
• Received some of the best reviews, including from Walt Mossberg from
  The Wall Street Journal, and Mike Wendland, from the Detroit Free Press
• Joel Santo Domingo from PC magazine gave it a 5 out of 5 star rating
• New iMac in its first quarter became the most popular Mac that Apple
  makes

Mac OS X

• The world’s most advanced operating system
• The most successful OS release in Apple’s history
• Over 12,000 native applications
• Completed the transition to Mac OS X with 14 million users
• Next release is Mac OS X Tiger
• On schedule to ship in the first half of this year
• 200 new features in Tiger
• #1 Unix in the world
• 64-bit processing
• An even better Windows client
• Includes CoreImage
• .Mac syncing
• Safari RSS viewing right within Safari’s browser window
• Automator
• Steve:
• “But we don’t have time to cover all those today; Steve picked a few he wanted to cover.”

Spotlight

• Built into the core of the system
• Allows you to find anything on your system, almost instantly
• Click on the Spotlight icon in the upper-right corner of the menu bar
• Two wannabe search tools (from Google and Microsoft) don’t compare with Spotlight
• Spotlight is “Far nicer and simpler user interface”
• Spotlight instantly updates when things change; you don’t have to wait 10 minutes for a search to take place
• Spotlight is integrated right into the applications, and Apple’s developers can build it into their own apps, including Microsoft.
• Steve gives a demo of Spotlight
• Spotlight can find words you search on inside PDF files (the example was
  a search for the word “Bryce”, which brought up a map of Bryce Canyon.
• And then Tiger crashed; Steve says “And that’s why we have backup
  systems here”
• Switched over to the Finder…
• Added Smart Folders to the Finder so you could define custom searches
  using Spotlight
• Spotlight views in the Finder

Steve switched to System Preferences to show off how Spotlight is used to do keyword searches through the preference panels

• Showed how to search for “album art”, which is a new screensaver option
  that you can apply in the Desktop & Screen Saver preference panel

Mail

• Major upgrade to Mail in Tiger
• You can search across all your mailboxes in Mail, instantly, since Spotlight was built into Mail
• Showed off how Mail handles Mail attachments
• If you get an email that contains a lot of images as an attachment, you’ll
  find buttons that help you choose what to do with them, including a
  “Slideshow” button, which when pressed displays the images as a
  slideshow. What’s more, the slideshow has a bunch of different controls
  that let you control what happens onscreen during the slideshow,
  including selecting an image and saving it to your iPhoto Library.

QuickTime 7

• The most major update to QuickTime in the last decade
• Over 330 million downloads, plus 10’s of millions of copies distributed elsewhere
• What’s new: Live resizing, full 24-channel surround sound, MPEG-4
  compliance, Full HD playback, and H.264, which is a new compression
  codec that’s been adopted by Blul-ray and HD DVD
• Onscreen controls (similar to the slideshow option for Mail)
• Steve showed off how the movies scale
• Compatible with cell phones

Dashboard

• New icon that sort of looks like a car’s dashboard gauges
• A place for widgets to live, so you can get in, get the info you want, and
  then get out
• Showed off some of the new Widgets that will be added to Tiger, including
  a dictionary, Yellow Pages, unit conversion, Stickies, flight tracker, language
  translation, stock ticker (Steve noted “Wow, we’re down today. Well, we’ve
  got a little ways to go with the keynote.), as well as a weather Widget (so
  much for WeatherPop).
• When demoing the Weather Widget, Steve showed off all the different
  weather icons for rain, sun, wind, etc.
• Steve: “I think it’s pretty darn cool, and I think you’re really going to like Dashboard.”

iChat

• Extended audio conferencing for up to 10 simultaneous people
• Added the first multi-person video conferencing, with up to 4 people
• Uses QuickTime’s H.264 codec for crystal clear
• Demoed an iChat video conference with Scott Forrestall, Phil Schiller, and
  Danika (from Paris)
• Notice the reflections on the “desktop” as you’re conferencing with more
  than one person.

Steve: “Mac OS X Tiger is a pretty amazing release. Sorry we don’t have time to show you more. On track to release Tiger in the first half of the year.”

Next topic…HD…High-Definition Video

• Final Cut Pro HD is the most popular
• Introducing Final Cut Express HD
• Powerful HDV and DV editing
• Livetype for animating titling
• Soundtrack for custom music
• Integrated with Motion
• Priced at $299; available in February
• Only a $99 upgrade from the current version of FCE

iLife

• Leading the digital media revolution
• Showed box of iLife 04
• Annoucned iLife 05; a completely new box
• Major upgrades to iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, and iTunes

iPhoto

• Better organizing and searching
• Supports more formats
• Far more powerful image editing
• Advanced slideshows
• All new books and book design
• Even easier to use
• Even simpler to use before
• Added folders so you could have folders to organize your photos
• New search field so you can search for images
• New calendar view (similar to iCal’s calendar view)
• New formats: Supports MPEG-4 movies (store, play, and categorize), and also supports RAW for high-end digital cameras.
• Photo editing is very simple, but added a fiew things. There’s a scrolling
  image view along the top, and there’s an Editing Dashboard that pops up
  on top of iPhoto, giving you greater control over your images. Works with
  JPEG and RAW photos
• Advanced Slideshows, lets you adjust timing between images, etc.
• Whole new way to make books; demo:
• Picture of photos taken on a lake
• Showed how you can play a movie file from within iPhoto
• Clicked on an Adjust button to bring up the Editing Dashboard
• Showed how to do some color correction
• Straighten images by aligning them to a grid
• Demoed a slideshow and some of the new transitions between the images
• New “Make Book” button lets you select from different kinds of photo
  books, you can either lay it out manually or let iPhoto layout the book for
  you automatically. New mosaic effect breaks up an image so it looks like
  a series of smaller images
• You can edit an image by going back to iPhoto and then have those edits
  show up automatically in the Photo Book.
• Buy Book button lets you automatically purchase the book from iPhoto
• You can also buy individual prints for $0.19 each
• Hardcover is 11 x 8.5
• Adding a Softcover book 11 x 8.5, and an 8×6 as well as 3.5 x 2.6
• All a minimum of 20 pages
• $29.99 for hardcover, $19.99 for softcover, $9.99 for 8×6,

iMovie

• Dramatically faster
• Non-destructive trimming
• More transitions and effects
• MPEG-4 video
• Magic iMovie, where you can plug your camcorder in, type in a title, etc.,
  and then automatically pull in your video and build your movie for you
• The biggest new feature is iMovie now edits high-definition video
  (HDV) 720p
• Steve demos the new iMovie…
• Showed a wedding video that mixed still images and video, and there
  appeared to be a slow-mo feature applied to one of the video segments
• Showed off the new Sony HDV camcorder (sells for “just” $3499).
• Brought out Kunitake Ando, the president of Sony to talk about Apple’s
  relationship with Sony
• While Mr. Ando was talking, Steve sat off to the side, shooting an HDV
  movie with Sony’s new camera

iDVD

• Steve: “And there’s a new iDVD, too.”
• 15 amazing new themes with animated drop zones
• OneStep DVD creation
• Supports all formats
• Demo:
• Showed one of the new themes
• Dropped in a video into the view of images scrolling across the top
• New slideshow feature pops images to the front while others are grayed
  out in the background
• Showed off a Baby Mobile theme that rotates video and images within
  what looks like a mobile you’d hang over your baby’s crib

GarageBand

• Reminded everyone of the GarageBand Jam Packs
• Introduced a 4th Jam Pack, named Symphony Orchestra
• Up to 8-track recording
• Realtime music notation
• Pitch and timeing fixing
• Recorded tracks now as flexible as software instruments and loops
• You can create your own loops
• New Vocal Transformer
• John Mayer came back to Macworld again this year to help demo the new GarageBand:
• First demoed the Music Notation stuff, which added the notes in real-time as John Mayer played the piano (then he sung: “I didn’t win any Grammies for playing the piano.”)
• You can adjust the notes in the Notation view in realtime
• Demo’d multi-track recording feature (4 tracks)
• Two vocal tracks and two guitar tracks
• Played back the recording, then disabled different tracks along the way
• Steve quit GarageBand, but didn’t save the recording (Why not? This
  would sell like hotcakes on iTMS.)

Steve went on to talk about how the iLife apps work together. Then showed
the new box and announced the new price, $79. Goes on sale on January
22nd. Is free on all new Macs.

Steve: “Now on to the next big thing…”

iWork

• Building the successor to AppleWorks
• AppleWorks was written before Mac OS X was released
• And long before iLife ever existed
• Keynote 2, Cinema-quallity presentations for everybody
• 10 new Apple-designed themes
• animated text
• powerful animated build
• presenter display
• interactive display
• kiosk display
• Presentor display offers a timer
• New themes: Hard Cover (good for photos), Watercolor, Scrapbook
• Keynote 2 is compatible with PowerPoint, Flash, and PDF output

Pages

• Word processing with an incredible sense of style
• Use it for whatever documents you’d want to create
• Includes advanced typography, multiple columsn, paragraph styles, etc.
• Includes 40 Apple-designed templates
• Each template includes a bunch of different page styles you can choose
  from
• Brought out Phil Schiller to give the demo of Pages…
• The first thing Pages does is ask you which template you’d like to start
  with, much like Keynote
• Selected the Family Newsletter template. The page has Greeked text, not
  just a bunch of empty space that you have to think about. To change the
  stuff in the template, open the Media Browser to select text, photos, etc.,
  and then just drag and drop files into the template. Very spiffy.
• Pages is going to beat the pants off other page layout applications,
  especially Microsoft Word, and, maybe with time
• Compatible with AppleWorks, PDF, and Microsoft Word
• Priced at $79, and available January 22nd.

Bubble-quote displayed on screen with the following:

“Why doesn’t Applee offer a stripped-down Mac that’s more affordable?”

Mac mini

• A new member of the Mac family
• Rael says: “If they get Mini Me to come out, I’m going to throw up”.
• Includes a DVD player, DVI and VGA output
• Ethernet
• USB 2
• Showed a size comparison with the iPod mini. This thing looks about as
  small as my LaCie d2 drive
• BYODKM: Bring your own display, keyboard and mouse
• You can connect it to a 20-inch Cinema display, or to any
  industry-standard keyboard and mouse
• FireWire port, headphone chack, two USB 2 ports
• Comes with Mac OS X Panther and the new iLife ‘05
• Two models:
• $499: 1.25 GHz G4, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB drive, ComboDrive
• $599: 1.42 GHz G4, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB drive, SuperDrive
• The cheapest computer Apple’s ever offered
• Showed the box
• Available January 22nd
• Steve then carried out the box, which looked about the size of a
  small purse.

Steve: “So, what’s next?”

Update on iTunes

• The most popular online music store
• iTunes has sold more than 230 million songs to date
• 1.25 million songs per day are sold
• That’s at a rate of nearly 1/2 a billion sales per year
• iTunes market share is at 70 percent
• iTMS now in 15 countries; 70 percent of the global market
• iTunes pre-paid music card, sold over 1 million since Thanksgiving
• iTunes Essentials: One more thing introduced today is a new way for users to discover new music.

iPod

• The world’s best digital music player
• iPod and iPod mini
• 733,000 iPods sold during the holiday quarter in 2003
• Last quarter, holiday 2004, Apple sold 4.5 million (!) iPods!
• 500 percent year-over-year growth
• Steve showed a chart showing iPod’s sales growth.
• 8.2 million iPods sold in 2004
• 10 millionth iPod was made on Dec. 16, 2004 (Steve showed it)
• Amazon’s Top 5 consumer electronic products, three were Apple’s (20 GB
  iPod, silver iPod mini, and the iTunes pre-paid music card).
• A few new things to announce…
• Cars: iTunes -> iPod -> Cars…
• Last year announced an adapter for your iPod with BMW
• Next-gen adapter to come
• New dealers: Mercedes, Nissan, Volvo, and Scion (no Honda? What about the Big 4?)
• Also be be offered by Alfa Romeo and Ferrari
• Mercedes has brought two cars here to the Macworld showfloor so you
  can test them out. (SLK roadster, and the hot, new CLS)

Other new thing…

• Cell phones…
• Placed an iTunes client on Motorola’s cell phone
• Available Spring 2005
• Rael notes that there’s very little crowd reaction to the cellphone thingy

One more thing…

• Steve: “Let’s go back in time to a year ago at Macworld.”
• iPod mini was released
• Jan 2005, iPod’s market share has doubled to 65 percent, and the flash

market share has been cut to 29 percent, and other is 6 percent.

• The iPod mini worked
• What’s next? We want to go after the remaining market of flash-based
  players.
• Nobody has any significant market share, and the products are pretty much the same. They all have attributes: Powered by AAA batteries, very small display, tortured user interface, no click wheel, etc.
• Steve: “We don’t want to make another one of these. We want to create something that’s really great.”
• Steve: “We had to come up with a new, original idea. To make a product that was way better than the others.”
• iPod users discovered “Shuffle” for randomly playing their music
• Introducing the “iPod shuffle”. It’s really tiny. Headphones plug in the top,
  and it’s smaller than a pack of gum. Weighs about the same as four
  quarters (less than an ounce).
• Very simple set of controls (play/pause, previous/next song, volume up/
  down, and there’s an LCD indicator (similar to the colored dot on the
  AirPort Express) to show you what’s happening.
• Pop the cap off the bottom and you get a USB 2 connector.
• 12-hour battery life
• Used with Macs and PCs
• Includes a click-on lanyard so you can put this around your neck
• Showed a picture of various models with one, including one on an arm band
• Something new for iPod shuffle is “Autofill”, so it picks songs and
  automatically builds a playlist that fits on your iPod shuffle. (Very nice!)
• And you can use your iPod shuffle to use as a USB storage device. (Make
  adjustments in iTunes’ preferences.)
• Similar MP3 players from the competition only hold 256 MB of music
• iPod shuffle has two models:
• 512 MB, 120 songs, $99

Steve: “We’re really serious about this”

• 1 GB, 240 songs, $149
• Showed the box
• Shipping today!
• Accessorize…you’ll surely find some accessories to add to your iPod shuffle.
• Apple produced an armband, a Dock, a sports case, a battery extender.
  All $29 each, and will roll out in the next four weeks.

Steve showed the new TV ad, which should start running in a week or so.

Steve asked the crowd to thank everyone from Apple who’s worked on these
fantastic products.

Steve: “The other thing I’d like to do, is thank the families and spouses of all
the people who work for Apple. Without your support, we wouldn’t be able to do the things we do. So I want to thank you for all your support.”

John Mayer is up for two more Grammies, one of which is “Daughters”. John is
coming back on-stage to perform the song for the crowd…

Well, that wraps up my MWSF 2005 keynote coverage….

Share your thoughts on the keynote….

Hookay; well, one thing a lot you will be happy about is that many of the rumors we were reading in the last week or so are true.

iWork does exist; it will replace AppleWorks (hooray!) and was developed by the same team that created Keynote. It will include Keynote 2, and a word processor called Pages. Price will be $79.

Pages sports the same swish-but-simple interface we’ve seen in Keynote, includes a bunch of elegant templates for all sorts of documents, reflow-text-around-objects, and reflow-text-as-columns.

iLife 2005 brings new versions of almost everything, including a better iPhoto that integrates with Mail, allowing you to export pictures that arrive in your inbox straight into an iPhoto album. There’s new themes in iDVD, and eight-track vocal recording in GarageBand (wow, I am *so* going to enjoy playing around with that). As before, iLife is free with new Macs or can be purchased for $79.

Mac mini

What’s at the back of a Mac mini

The headless Mac so many people were hoping for appears as the Mac mini. Features include: CD-RW/DVD-ROM optical drive, FireWire port, DVI, VGA ports, headphone jack, 1.25GHz+40GB+G4 model priced $499, or a 1.42GHz+80GB+G4 model at $599.

iPod shuffle

Do not eat iPod shuffle

The new Flash iPod is officially called iPod Shuffle. It will connect to PCs and Macs. I don’t need to tell you everything now - I’ll let Apple do that.

All I can say is: wow

Related link: https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?home&NewsID=10570

At last there’s something resembling news, as opposed to rumor, from the floors at Macworld Expo. According to Macworld UK a poster showing the new Flash iPod was briefly exposed when it shouldn’t have been.

It revealed a tiny, white, four-button device that will store and play 240 songs, either in a set order or at random. Inside is thought to be 1GB of flash memory.

We’ll update with more as and when we get it…

The excitement kinda builds, doesn’t it?

Like everyone else I read the
Think Secret $499 Mac rumor article
and looked at the
grainy underexposed iHome photos with a combination of hope and skepticism.

The last time I used an Apple Mac box regularly was in 1989 when I had a Mac II in my office.
I’ve been a Linux and Microsoft Windows based geek since then.
However, my interest in the Mac was piqued when a friend who worked for Apple at the time dropped by and showed me the Aqua interface shortly before its release.
At the O’Reilly Open Source 2002 Convention, I noticed all the iBooks and Powerbooks around me and decided I really wanted to play with a Mac.
But, I just couldn’t justify the $1,500+ entry fee for something that wasn’t a part of my core work in the office or the home.

Still, the iLife components
(especially
GarageBand) and Xcode
looked really interesting.
If the rumor of a $499 Apple iHome desktop is true,
I suspect I’m not the only Linux/Windows geek who will decide that this new entry fee level is, as Goldilocks said, just right.
Now, I’m not planning on dumping my Fedora, Debian, and Windows XP boxes anytime soon.
The Mac OS X iHome box will have to make peace with the other platforms.
But, I’m looking forward to being able to play with the iLife components and maybe dust off my MIDI keyboards to play with GarageBand.

I’ve got a desk space, spare external DVD+-RW with Firewire drive, and Mac books all picked out.
Now, to wait and see if this thing is really announced on Tuesday (Jan. 11) and learn when it will actually be available to mere mortals like me.

Calling other Linux and Windows geeks. Are you ready to test the Mac OS X waters too?

If there’s an area in your house that’s prone to flooding, such as a basement entryway or the corner behind the washing machine, it’s something that can constantly nag at your mind. If it’s happened once, it seems that you can never quite trust that it won’t happen again, particularly if the circumstances that trigger it are varied or infrequent. In fact, given the recent weather here in California, I’m betting that there are several of you out there who are nervously checking for encroaching moisture, puddles, or (heaven forbid) streams right this very moment.

Rather than fret, put your hacking skills to work and whip up a tool that will notify you when water is detected, so you can rest comfortably or worry about more trivial matters (whichever is your inclination). For Smart Home Hacks, Dr. Edward Cheung contributed Hack #44: Detect Flooding. It’s a clever technique for converting a smoke detector into an inexpensive, yet very effective, moisture alarm. In the book I suggested that you could substitute an X10 PowerFlash module for the modified smoke detector and have your computer notify you instead of the blaring siren.

Ray Tracy took this idea and implemented it using Perl, David Shaw’s Xtend, and Daniel Suthers’ heyu. Xtend and heyu are open source X10 automation utilities that allow you to receive and send, respectively, X10 commands.

The script, in its entirety below, watches for an On command for the X10 address I5. If it sees one, that’s the PowerFlash in action, and you know that you’ve got a water problem to deal with. When that occurs, an On command is sent to the Chime module at address I3.

#!/usr/bin/perl
###########################################################################
##                FLOOD WATCH SCRIPT
##
##   Bare wires in contact with flood area attached to
##   Powerflash module set to unit 5 is the water sensor.
##   Bell module set to unit 3 serves as audio alarm.
##
##   I use housecode I for my system change yours accordingly
##   Change bell (3) or detector unit (5) as desired
##
##   This routine sounds the bell at thirty second intervals
##   while the sensor is in contact with water.
##
###########################################################################
while(1) {
   @info = `heyu info`;
   @s = split(/ /,$info[5]);
   for ($x = 16; $x >= 1; $x--) { $unit[17-$x] = substr($s[6],$x,1); }
   if ($unit[5] eq "1") {
     system("heyu turn I3 on");
     # uncomment next two lines to have stats printed
     #for ($i=1; $i<=16; $i++) { print "$unit[$i]";
     #print " - UNIT 5 --> $unit[5]n";
   }
   sleep 30;
}
exit 0;

Ray suggests that the sleep time at least 10 seconds to make sure you’re not overwhelming your X10 system with commands, but in reality you’re probably going to want a longer delay so you don’t overwhelm your ears with the chime. The module will keep ringing as long as the water is present, so you’re sure not to forget to deal with the problem.

You might also consider adding a routine that sends an email to your cell phone when the PowerFlash is triggered, just in case you’re not home to hear the bell. If you decide to tackle this, please get in touch.

What else should this hack do?

Related link: https://danschimpf.blogspot.com/

It’s a shame to see that some people have had an extremely negative response to Dan Schimpf’s decision to make the latest release of MacJournal a commerical application.

The pre-release version 2.7 has been re-numbered 3.0 and will cost $30 for new customers. Anyone upgrading from an older version of the app need only send an email to get a discount code, and pay just $15. For the time being, if you really don’t want to pay any money, you can still download version 2.6 from Dan’s home page.

Schimpf’s supporters (and I count myself as one of them) say they have been happy, but very surprised, that MacJournal has remained a free application for as long as it has. Some detractors have criticized him for choosing to partner with Mariner Software as a commercial publisher of the software. An unhelpful minority have resorted to petty name-calling and petulant displays of public sulking.

Personally, I think that even the full price of $30 is excellent value for an app that does so much (including, in case you’ve never tried it out, Blogger and LiveJournal posting, WikiLinks, nested journals, full screen mode, a myriad of export and backup options, and a built-in taco). I hope that Dan’s arrangement with Mariner Software gives him the support (financial and otherwise) he needs to keep developing what is for me, an essential piece of OS X software.

Switching from free to commercial is going to cause problems for any developer; do you have any similar stories?

Related link: https://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/

I’ve used OmniOutliner for a while. I tried out the 1.x version and decided to buy it when 2.0 came out. I’ve used it for everything from outlining articles to making grocery shopping lists. So, I was definitely interested in the new version, especially after seeing a few screenshots of it.

The biggest change in OmniOutliner 3 is the ability to add attachments to your outlines. They’ve really gone all out on this feature; allowing you to attach files, e-mail addresses and URLs (typing them in turns them into an object), images and videos. You can even record audio that is embedded in the document straight from Outliner*. It gives you inline QuickTime controls that are accessed from a disclosure triangle and a link arrow that will open the recording in QuickTime.

They’ve also implemented styles. You can work with named styles* that you apply to words, rows, columns, or the whole document. They’ve also created something they call auto-styles. Basically, OmniOutliner observes the individual types of styling you’ve applied to different portions of your document and creates a new style based off of it and then applies it to all future occurrences. For instance, if you decide to make all of your second level rows “Blueberry” Hoefler Text Italic, OmniOutliner will recognize this and make the change to the style.

The first thing people will notice though, is that notes can now be displayed in line or optionally displayed in a separate pane as in earlier versions.

The latest version of OmniOutliner now provides support for custom export options. This is enabled by use of XSLT*. There is also a new option to export as a Word document*, although this is actually an HTML document (with a .doc extension) using the Microsoft Office and Word XML namespaces.

Printing has acquired a lot of great new features. These are the types of things that I seldom wished for in version 2.x, but now that I have them I wonder why they weren’t always there. My favorite is the ability to filter what is printed on whether or not the row’s box is checked.

There are a whole lot of other new features that I haven’t covered. This is a genuine whole number upgrade and you’re going to love all of the new features that Omni has sown in. I highly encourage anyone that uses an outliner or anyone that makes lists on occasion to check out what is new in OmniOutliner 3.0. Power users and developers will want to check out the Professional edition.

I do wish that the new utility drawer would open on whatever side of the window has room as Mail’s does. Currently it’s a minor annoyance to have it always open on the left – at least it moves the window for you. The one real problem I encountered was a regression from the previous version – 3.0 took around 75 times as long to open the same OPML file as 2.2.6 did. Assuming that is fixed, OmniOutliner 3 is an improvement in every way.

* These features are only available in the Professional edition.

What do you think of the new version?

Amid the speculation, rumor-spreading, rumor-controlling and rumor-squishing prior to next week’s big MacWorld thing, it’s nice to have a bit of solid, exciting news for Man fans.

Motorola says it will soon be offering the world a phone that plays music, talks to iTunes, and offers an iPod-like interface for navigating through it all.

Yep, an iPodPhone. Well, pretty much.

It’s a phone. It works quite a lot like an iPod. You can, you know, carry your music around with you. Sounds kinda neat.

Amid all the feverish chatter about headless Macs and fantastic new word processors, the best thing about this little update is fact that, somewhat eclipsed as it is by all the MacWorld madness, it’s a genuine bit of innovation. And with the support and backing it gets from Apple, it will be an attractive purchase for computer owners who have purchased songs from the iTunes Music Store.

Notice I said “computer owners” there. There’s still a lot of details lacking, so we haven’t yet been told if it will be Mac only, or work with Windows PCs as well. After all, iTunes works on Windows too.

The upshot of which seems to me to put quite a hole in the case brought by Thomas Slattery against Apple this week. Slattery contends that Apple broke antitrust laws by tying its Digital Rights Management system (called FairPlay) to the iPod. By forcing him to buy an iPod to carry his music around, the company was “denying consumer choice”.

Well, not any more. Mr Slattery may well want to keep an eye open for Motorola’s new device, and perhaps some other iTMS-compatible gadgets that might pop into the limelight in the next 12 months or so. He might find he has more choice than he previously thought.

One of the great things about being out of the loop is that it’s safe. I can say anything I want because I know nothing. Yes, I am under many NDAs with Apple, but it’s about stuff so boring that you wouldn’t care if I told you, which I wouldn’t do anyway. So it’s harmless to share with you what I think is going to happen at Macworld SF 2005.

First, Steve will announce changes to the iApps. Why do I say that? Well, it’s been forever since we’ve seen much activity outside of iTunes. In fact, it’s been one year. And the previous announcements were one year before that. Do you see a pattern here? So I boldly predict that we will see updates to some existing iApps, plus a few new ones. And a word processor is not out of the question.

Now let’s go to the living room. Microsoft is already there (ick!). So is HP (not ick, but not Apple either). Our friends in Cupertino have developed strong digital audio tools, decent photography stuff, and very good video apps. QuickTime is absolutely amazing. Plus they have the best OS and wireless connectivity in the biz. Put it all in a box with a big ass hard drive, add a remote control, and plug it into an HDTV — or maybe a Cinema Display…

Also, something is going to happen with the iPod. I’d love to see a new and improved version of iPod photo. A flash iPod could be fun. A Bluetooth or WiFi iPod? Hmmm. Probably not, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

Finally, Steve will announce something that’s totally off my radar. I know this will happen for two reasons. First, he’s on the inside and I’m not. Second, it always happens, no matter how smart I think I am.

See you in San Francisco. If you see me there, please say hi.

I’m primarily a Mac user and have been since I first laid hands on back in 1984. That said, I’ve used every edition of the Windows operating system from the v 1.x (it ran from floppy, meaning you had to switch floppies when you wanted to use the calculator) to XP SP2. Warts and all, it’s always had some interesting features–not enough to drive me from the Mac, although there was that time around Mac OS 8.x, but that’s another story.

One of the most bizarre “features” I stumbled across after installing Windows XP SP 2 on the hand-hewn media PC I built over the holidays was the greeting it extends when first logging into your pristine PC:

“Your computer might be at risk.”

No “Welcome to your Windows desktop, we hope you enjoy your stay”; just the offer of a tour and an ominous warning about your just-built computer’s risky future.

To it’s credit, it doesn’t just warn you the one time. Each and every login (and sometimes in between) goes a little something like this:

Good morning, and welcome to Windows XP. You have 4 unread mail messages, 1 program running, and … while I’m on the subject … your computer might be at risk.

I mentioned this to friends and family and was utterly dumfounded by the downright accepting nature of their responses: “Oh, they just have to say that, don’t they,” “Just click the X and it goes away,” “I just dropped mine off at my IT department and took care of it,” “Yeah, it’s saying you need to buy virus protection software; I got StopS**tHappening Deluxe.

Surely my operating system maker shouldn’t be warning me there may well be potentially harmful holes in my desktop. Shouldn’t they use any means at their disposal to plug these leaks?

Yesterday’s announcements by Microsoft that they’ll be providing free virus-removal and anti-spyware software and will be getting into the anti-virus business, while most likely seen by the general public as a reasonable move, spawned one response that particularly caught my eye. In a WSJ article, “Parsing Microsoft’s Move
Into The Antivirus Market”, A.G. Edwards & Sons analyst Kevin Buttigieg responds: “I think one of Microsoft’s challenges is the fact that customers would be purchasing a Microsoft antivirus product in order to remedy a vulnerability in their Microsoft software. It’s sort of like taking your car to the dealer for service.”

This reflects a thought I’d had on responsible amelioration upon first encountering the “risk” pop-up. While including anti-virus software as part of Windows XP might be seen in a bad light given Microsoft’s tenuous bundling position, offering a 100% off coupon for up to $x (where x is some reasonable approximation of the cost of industry-approved anti-virus software) would go a long way toward both protecting end-users and avoiding any “fox guarding the henhouse” issues.

And selection, purchase, discount, installation, and protection should all be part of product activation upon first Internet connection. We’ve all heard the (potentially exaggerated) tales of being infected on the way to buying protection. Suggesting protection at your convenience, when you decide it might just be worth $29.99 unfortunately means a morning-after approach for most newbies.

It occurs that the police slogan “to serve and protect” should, when it comes to software, be turned around: first protect, then serve.

Digital photography has so much going for it right now.

I’m hooked on direct printing from cameras to portable dye sub printers, which actually makes printing fun again! Kodak has just announced a wireless EasyShare camera that lets you transfer pictures and video via WiFi. That’s cool. And the new Photoshop Elements 3 is a fabulous image editor for less than $90.

With all of these wonders, you’d think that digital photographers would be dancing in the streets. But we’re not. Because we still don’t have the one thing that many of us want.

I want a device about the size of an iPod that I can insert my digital camera memory card in to, transfer the pictures, then put the card back in the camera and reuse it. It would be nice if I could review the pictures I’ve uploaded on a small screen, but not necessary. I should be able to recharge it with the same charger I use for my camera. It should have USB2 or FireWire connectivity to my computer. Everything should work fast. And I want this device to cost less than $250. That’s right, I want reliable, portable storage for my images on the road, that I can connect to my PowerBook when I get home.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like my PowerBook, but when I’m on vacation I don’t want to take it with me. That’s not really “getting away from it all.” I want to take my cell phone, digital camera, and this new storage device — that’s it. There’s this thing called “human interaction” that I hear is really fun. I figure if I leave the laptop at home I can try it.

I’ve had many disappointments while waiting for my savior. Epson produces the lovely P-2000, which would be perfect if it were half the size and half the price. Kodak just announced the EasyShare Picture Viewer for $150. I got very excited about this until I realized you had to hook it up to your computer to transfer the images. What the heck?

Apple provided the same disappointment with the iPod photo. Guys, listen to me. We don’t need another device to show snapshots of the kids. I can do that with my Sony Ericsson T637. What I want to do is empty my memory card on the road and keep shooting. I’ll get to the computer when I return home. (And don’t talk to me about the Belkin adapter for the iPod because I could run home and transfer my pictures directly to the computer, then run back, before the Belkin was finished doing its thing.)

I thought this year’s CES show would finally provide me with the device I’ve been waiting for. But apparently not. If it exists, and I’ve missed it, will you post a talkback? Otherwise, I’m asking those in the imaging industry to please give photographers what they really want. Just for once, let us leave the computer at home.

Related link: https://ccmixter.org/

The Creative Commons just launched CC Mixter, a site dedicated to CC-licensed songs “where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.” The launch is accompanied by a contest in association with The Wired CD.

I was doing some post-New-Year browsing on the infonets and hey, look what I found:

Scale to Email — an Applescript that scales down images dropped on it, and sticks them on the end of a new message in Apple Mail, all ready for emailing to froonds and fimilies. (There are some other scripts available from the site; readers who speak German, or are interested enough to run the page through the Babelfish will no doubt discover more interesting stuff.)

FinderPal — a palette of useful Finder-related controls. When I first saw this I was somewhat dubious - after all, what are keyboard shortcuts and the Finder toolbar for? But having looked at the available features in detail, I can see how this might come in useful. And it is, as its creator is at pains to point out, very cheap.

Personal Aide — a tool for linking files together in projects. Say you have an existing, working way of organizing your stuff on your hard disk. But a project comes along that demands you organize files in a different way, and you don’t want to break your tried-and-tested system, or spend hours maintaining aliases. Personal Aide can help you create a list of files, no matter how they’re arranged in the Finder. A bit like an iTunes playlist. Musicians: look at the Perfect Pitch app on the same page. Play a note at it, and it’ll tell you what note it is. Ooooooh.

Juristudents — a note-taker, outliner and semi-database tool for law students. Niche, but sometimes that can be a good thing.

Goombah — a curious little app that takes your iTunes database, shares it around with some other folks, and delivers back to you a list of suggested songs you might like. The idea sounds great; the desolate emptiness of the site’s “blogs” section suggests it has yet to achieve critical mass.

You’ve probably found something even more fun. Do tell the rest of us about it.

There’s been an interesting rash of stories about software recently. Consider the superb Audion story, which delighted Audion users of old and intruiged newcomers too.

Everything about Cabel Sasser’s article — the tone of voice, the feeling that the reader was being allowed to sneak in on some long-held secrets, and the delightful little asides and offshoot stories — was a treat. It was one of those things you couldn’t resist telling your friends about, as evidenced by the considerable amount of linkage the page got from bloggers everywhere.

But there have been some other interesting software stories recently. Another much-linked tale was that behind Graphing Calculator, which entertained and astounded in equal measure with its telling of unlikely-sounding, downright bizarre events at Apple Computing Inc during the 1980s and 90s.

Some software stories are emerging as weblogs. Developers have started to use the blog instead of a dry old list of version releases, and in many cases it works much better.

Take Dan Schimpf, creator of MacJournal. His blog is essential reading for all users of the software, and has been well used by Schimpf as a means of communicating directly with them, and answering feature requests or bug reports.

(Aside: you’ll notice on the blog the announcement that MacJournal is to go commercial as of the next release, officially version 3.0. It will be released as a Mariner Software product, but Dan will still be the guy who develops and maintains the code.)

Another of my favorites is Ben Goodger’s Inside Firefox blog, an entertaining and informative read for users of Firefox on any platform.

I hope more developers will start telling the stories behind their apps; it’s interesting for anyone who uses the app, and can really help them understand little details. If a developer has posted some comments about a certain bug, and their efforts to squash it, the user knows they don’t have to report it. They can watch the bug-squashing process in action. Just as some film makers are using weblogs to chart progress of their blockbusters, software makers can do the same for applications. Existing users feel as though they are part of the process; prospective users have something useful to read, something more interesting and entertaining than a dull old readme.txt file.

Seen any more good software stories? Got one of your own to tell?