Three things are lost with a computer’s theft: hardware, data, and privacy. I’ll let others deal with the emotional aspects of loss, and instead focus on the practical ones.

The loss of the hardware is, in many ways, the least of your problems. Sure, it’s money out the door, but as my mom once told me, you can always make more money. That said, I do encourage you to make sure your computer is insured. Many homeowner insurance policies do not cover computers that are used primarily for work, or those that are stolen offsite (like from a car). Be sure to check your policies carefully.

I would also recommend installing tracking software on your computer. Of the various options on the market, I picked MacTrak by GadgetTrak for my replacement computer based on several factors: I really liked the company’s owner, who I met at his Macworld booth; I don’t like the idea of a third-party company being the mediator between me and the tracking data (as other companies do); and I like the relatively simple and straightforward approach the software takes.

If my new laptop is stolen, I log into the GadgetTrak Web site and report it missing. The next time my computer pings their server, it sees the status and starts occasionally taking pictures (with the built-in iSight camera) and reporting its location (based on whatever WiFi address the thief is using). Those photos and data go directly to me, and it’s up to me to give that information to law enforcement.

There are a number of other products and companies that can track your Mac including LoJack and Undercover. While both programs have some interesting features (Undercover in particular does some things I’d like to see incorporated into a future version of MacTrak, such as taking screen shots as the thief works and simulating a hardware failure to force the thief into bringing the machine in for repair), evaluating them should be saved for another article.

So tracking helps protect against the loss of hardware, but what about the loss of data? This was my biggest concern at first, considering I kept everything on my laptop and was not that conscientious about backing it up. Lucky for me I had two things in my favor. First, I had been using SuperDuper about once a month to back up the whole laptop to an external hard drive. It’s easy, cheap, and painless to back up a complete copy of a computer, or make incremental backups regularly.

Second, I had installed a copy of CrashPlan a year or so earlier. CrashPlan is one of several programs on the market that sits in the background and backs up your hard drive to either an external drive, another computer (on your local network or one connected to the internet) that has the software, or to a central location (see “CrashPlan: Backups Revisited,” 2007-02-26). I chose to store my data at CrashPlan's bank vault in Minneapolis for about $5 per month.

About two hours before my laptop was stolen, I had stopped in at Glenn Fleishman's and Jeff Carlson’s office to say hi and check my email. While there, CrashPlan quietly backed up a few more files without me even knowing it. Thanks to those few minutes of being online, I was later able to recover about 95 percent of my data. The only significant data I lost was the previous month’s worth of photos in iPhoto (which I had for some reason instructed CrashPlan to ignore).

Some of you may be asking, “But what about Time Machine?” Well, to be honest, it didn’t work for me at first, and after 5 minutes of troubleshooting I got tired of it and gave up. For those still curious as to how CrashPlan sizes up to Time Machine, you can find a comparison of the two options on CrashPlan’s Web site.

My next overwhelming sense of loss (and that which stays with me to this day) was the loss of privacy. I did use a program called KeePass to protect my passwords and some other private information (I now use 1Password, which offers far more features, such as autofill in login screens). But what about my Quicken files? Or photos of my family? Contracts and other business documents? Suddenly all of that was in someone else’s hands.

After about 5 days, I logged into the CrashPlan Central server and saw that all the files it was backing up had been deleted from my laptop. Or at least, it simply couldn’t find them anymore. That was a small relief, but ultimately I don’t really know what happened to the data, which leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

So here’s how I’m doing it differently on my new laptop. First, in the Security pane of System Preferences, I turned on the checkboxes labeled “Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver” and “Disable automatic login.”

Next, I created a new Guest Account in System Preferences. In the guest account, I set up Parental Controls so a user can’t really do much beyond log in, use iLife, surf the Web, and so on. More importantly, behind the scenes, I have granted GadgetTrak to run quietly. The idea is that a thief, not being able to log into my account, will find that they can log into the Guest account, which will enable me to capture their whereabouts. It may be a long shot, but it’s better than nothing.

On top of that, I have used Firmware Password Utility to lock my firmware, stopping anyone from reformatting the hard drive, launching from an external disk, or even starting the laptop up as an external Firewire drive. (For more information, see Apple’s support article about setting up a firmware password.) I’m sure someone will soon tell me that it’s surmountable, but so far it seems pretty dang secure.

I’ve implemented two other security options on my new computer. First, before leaving for a recent overseas trip, I dug out an old Kensington cable lock that I bought about a decade ago but never got around to using. Being able to lock my laptop to a table gives me a little extra peace of mind.

Second, here at home, I also have two fireproof media safes for backup DVDs and CDs. Note that I said “media safes” - regular safes may be fireproof for paper, but electronic media will melt in them. I had to get two because the space inside is tiny (the majority of the safe is concrete or some other heavy and thick material).

There are still plenty of other security options I could choose to take advantage of. For example, I know Mac OS X has FileVault, but the fact that it has to encrypt and unencrypt the entire Home folder (including gigabytes of photos and videos) puts me off.

Ultimately, I feel that the measures I’ve taken are relatively inexpensive, easy to implement, and leave me with a comfortable sense of security. Sure, the NSA could crack it, and yes, a meteor could still do some serious damage, but if some jerk steals my computer again I won’t hyperventilate or panic. It’ll be okay.

[David Blatner is arguably the world’s most-recognized authority on Adobe InDesign and the co-host of the site InDesign Secrets.]

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Who on earth can memorize 75 keyboard shortcuts? How is anyone supposed to deal with this? And of course, things change radically each time I switch from one application to another. (Some applications have literally hundreds of keyboard shortcuts!) As a result, I find myself resorting to menus much more than to keyboard shortcuts; and even then, I'm frequently confused when I do try a keyboard shortcut and some utterly unexpected, surprising thing happens (typically because I got it wrong, and some Service or global shortcut responded).

Okay, now the good news: Ergonis Software's KeyCue 4.4 now knows about most of these keyboard shortcuts. You remember KeyCue, right? I reviewed it when it first came out ("Ergonis's KeyCue Offers Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet", 2004-06-04). KeyCue lets me specify a modifier-key combination which, when held down for a while, causes a reminder list of currently available keyboard shortcuts to appear, without my having to hunt through any menus; and of course then I can proceed to choose one. Not only do I rapidly acquire a muscle-memory for those keyboard shortcuts I use most, but also I learn about keyboard shortcuts I probably wouldn't even have discovered otherwise.

In that original review, I wrote: "What I really want is a cheat sheet that lets me see and choose from all of an application's menu items, whether or not they have shortcuts, and I'd also like a cheat sheet showing all the global hot keys that various applications have installed." Ergonis has now responded to the second wish on that list. KeyCue 4.4 knows about at least some global hotkeys. I say "some" because it is easy to find global hotkeys of which KeyCue knows nothing. For example, on my machine, Control-Option-Command-T toggles KeyClick on and off, and Control-Option-Command-W summons the Witch window list; but KeyCue's cheat sheet doesn't list those. Still, the improvement in this version, together with the previous version which introduced user customization of the modifier key-combination that activates the KeyCue window, is palpable and very welcome.

A single-machine KeyCue license is 19.99 Euros. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 ("Tiger") or later, and there's a 1.1MB trial download.

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PDFpen 4.1 and PDFpenPro 4.1 from SmileOnMyMac are the latest versions of the PDF editing utilities. Both version updates feature a number of undisclosed bug fixes and add support for Sparkle - the open source Mac OS X framework designed to simplify distributing software updates. ($49.95/$99.95, free updates, 13 MB/13.2 MB)

Mini DisplayPort to VGA Firmware Update from Apple addresses longstanding performance and compatibility issues with the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter on Mini DisplayPort-enabled Macs. The problems addressed include intermittent screen flickering and, in some cases, no video output appearing at all. More information regarding the update and steps to install it is available from Apple's Web site. (Free update, 11.4 MB)

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AirPort Problem -- The recent AirPort firmware update has caused problems for some readers, and the AirPort Express blinking lights continue to cause confusion. (7 messages)

Locating original files in iTunes automatically -- Has iTunes lost track of many songs whose files haven't moved? SuperSync may be the solution. (2 messages)

In Search of iTunes 8.1 -- Readers report problems with the latest update to iTunes. (5 messages)

Windows to Mac software failures? Companies that have tried to port Windows applications to the Mac have had a mixed bag of success. (52 messages)

AirTunes stutter with AirPort Express 802.11n optical out -- Playing music via AirTunes is problematic for some readers using the latest version of iTunes. (2 messages)

iPhone 3.0 and Cut/Copy/Paste -- Readers compare the just-announced copy-and-paste functionality on the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 update with the implementation on the Newton. (15 messages)

WeatherCal Inserts Updating Forecasts into iCal -- Readers take Bare Bones Software's latest offering for a spin and discuss alternatives. (11 messages)

SpamSieve -- Isn't it great when the developer of software you use is also a contributor to TidBITS Talk? A reader gets help with his spam filtering software, straight from the source. (3 messages)

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I liked Retrospect because it worked hard to ensure that every byte of a backup was copied and verified, logging everything clearly so you could tell exactly what was going on. Many years ago, Craig Isaacs, then the vice president of sales and marketing for Dantz Development, told me a story about a large company that complained to Dantz because Retrospect had started reporting verification errors in backing up. When Dantz investigated, it turned out that the company had upgraded a Cisco router to new firmware, and that there was a bug in the new firmware that would silently drop one out of every million packets transferred through the router (when this story happened, a million packets was a rather larger number than it would be today). The problem went unnoticed until Retrospect started reporting the errors. Even a single bit lost during copying of a file could cause irretrievable corruption, and I always appreciated the fact that Retrospect wouldn't allow that to happen to my data.

When Dantz Development was bought by EMC, the Mac version of Retrospect languished, receiving only minimal development for some years. Cracks in Retrospect's architecture started to show during the evolution of Mac OS X, and crashes in the main Retrospect application and odd behavior in the Retrospect Clients used for network backups became commonplace. Luckily, about a year ago, EMC reformed the Macintosh development team, even luring some of the ex-Dantz people back, and Retrospect 8 has been in active development ever since. Now, at long last, EMC has released Retrospect 8, a complete rewrite that will hopefully return Retrospect to its former grandeur. Let's look at what's new in Retrospect 8, but do note that this is not a review, merely an overview of what EMC says is there with some comparison to what was previously available in Retrospect 6.1.

Architecture and Interface -- Retrospect 8 introduces a new tripartite architecture: a Retrospect engine that handles all the actual backup work on a backup server Mac, a Retrospect console application that provides the user interface, and a Retrospect Client application installed on client computers. The goal is to enable a network administrator to use the Retrospect console application to control one or more Retrospect engines, wherever they may be located on an organization's network.

The Retrospect console application offers a completely new interface designed from the ground up and using native Mac OS X interface elements. This should make it easier for users unfamiliar with Retrospect to get started, a criticism often leveled at the previous versions.

Other interface improvements include custom reports that automatically update with current information and better email notification of successful events, failed events, and media requests. New assistants walk users through setting up immediate and scheduled operations, and a redesigned rules interface makes it easier to select specific files.

Performance -- One of the major problems faced by the previous versions of Retrospect was that only a single task could execute at once, meaning that an initial backup of a new Mac or a slow backup over the Internet would block regular backups of other machines. Plus, if you were in the middle of a backup, you couldn't restore a file without first stopping the backup.

Retrospect 8 eliminates those bottlenecks. It can now perform up to eight backup, copy, and restore operations simultaneously, depending on the amount of RAM available and your edition license (it's available only for Retrospect Single Server and Multi Server, not Retrospect Desktop - more on the editions shortly).

Retrospect 8 also supports multiple processors and multiple cores, and features improved throughput to storage devices, which should result in significantly faster performance on Intel-based Macs and modern backup media.

New Backup Capabilities -- When previous versions of Retrospect were designed, hard disks were relatively small, and tape was the preferred backup media for even small office networks. Now that hard disks provide by far the best cost per gigabyte, Retrospect 8 has significantly improved its support for backups to hard disk. A new Disk Media set lets you combine multiple volumes - including direct and network-attached disks, removable cartridge drives, and even flash media - into a single logical destination for backups.

In the other direction, you can also specify the amount of space on a disk that can be used by a Disk Media set, and Retrospect 8 can perform "disk grooming," which deletes older versions of files to make room for new ones. You set how many older versions to save. This is highly welcome, since in previous versions, the only way to keep using a disk after it filled up was to delete its contents and start over.

Also new in Retrospect 8 are staged backups, which let you stage backups first to fast hard drives and later copy them to other disks or tapes for archival or offsite backups. Whether with normal or staged backups, Retrospect copies only files that don't already exist on the destination.

Retrospect has always been able to verify files by re-reading files and performing a byte-for-byte verification pass. But that's slow and increases network traffic, so Retrospect 8 offers a new media verification option that calculates MD5 checksums during backup and uses them to verify that the data written matches the checksum without having to re-read the source data.

Retrospect 8 now offers five different levels of security for your backed-up data, starting with a simple password with no encryption and moving through increasingly strong encryption: SimpleCrypt, DES, AES-128, and AES-256. The stronger the encryption, the slower your backups will be.

For larger installations relying on tape drives, Retrospect 8 can now read and track tape barcodes for members of Tape Media sets, has faster media slot scanning, and can schedule tape drive cleaning automatically. It also supports more storage devices than previous versions, and an add-on makes it possible to write to two tape drives simultaneously.

Finally, although Retrospect's basic approach of using a dumb client to send data to a smart server application hasn't changed, Retrospect 8 now offers Wake-on-LAN support for Mac clients (but not yet Windows clients), so the Retrospect engine can wake up sleeping Macs right before a backup is scheduled to start. Other improvements include support for multiple network interfaces, advanced preferences to adjust network timeout values, and automatic client login.

What's Missing -- As much as these features are welcome, it's clear that EMC has more coming, even in the very near term. Notable among Retrospect 8's known limitations is lack of PowerPC support for the Retrospect engine and console applications. EMC promises this for an April 2009 release, and it will be extremely welcome, since many companies and organizations prefer to use a somewhat older Mac as a backup server. Even I can't do more than test Retrospect 8 until it works with PowerPC-based Macs, since my backup server is a Power Mac G5.

For those upgrading from previous versions of Retrospect, there's essentially no connection between the two - Retrospect 8 does not import your previous configuration or read the contents of older backup sets. As such, you'll need to set everything up from scratch and keep your old installation of Retrospect available for restoration needs. Be sure to disable the older version's backup operations so there's no conflict for a particular Retrospect Client. Although the capability to read old backup sets is in the works, I find that it's often a good idea to set things up from scratch anyway, as a way of eliminating historical oddities.

Also missing is support for backing up to a file stored on an FTP server, which some people used as a way to move backups offsite. Although EMC is promising this for a future update, I'd rather see them put some effort into the kind of offsite backup that CrashPlan enables. Then again, CrashPlan can do what it does only by comparing versions of files and transferring just the bits that have changed, which radically reduces the amount of data transferred. Since Retrospect continues to copy entire files on each execution, it would need to transfer far more data.

Complete documentation isn't yet available for Retrospect 8, presumably because EMC didn't wish to hold up the release of a functional program while the manual was being completed.

Finally, Retrospect Clients running on Mac OS X 10.2.8 and Mac OS 9 are not currently supported, although EMC is looking into what would be necessary to support these older systems.

Editions and Upgrades -- Because Retrospect is used by organizations ranging from the single user with multiple Macs all the way up to massive companies, there are a number of different licensing options that also vary based on whether you're buying new or upgrading older versions.

• Retrospect Desktop 3 User: This edition is designed for individual users and small offices, and comes with three licenses for Retrospect Client. It costs $129 new, or $249 with one year of support and maintenance. Owners of Retrospect Express 4.3 or Retrospect Desktop 4.3 and later can upgrade for $59, or pay $179 for the upgrade and a year of support and maintenance.
• Retrospect Single Server: This edition is designed for small to midsize organizations with a single backup server. With 20 licenses for Retrospect Client, it costs $479, or $609 with a year of support and maintenance. A version with unlimited clients and a year of support costs $809. Upgrades from Retrospect Workgroup 4.3 or later cost $279 for 20 clients; adding a year of support increases the price to $409. An unlimited client upgrade costs $539.
• Retrospect Multi Server: This edition is designed for larger organizations that need more than one server running Retrospect and an unlimited number of clients. It costs $1,669 and includes a year of support and maintenance. Upgrades from Retrospect Workgroup 4.3 or Retrospect Server 4.3 and later cost $939.
• Retrospect Client: Licenses for additional Retrospect Clients are available at $39 for a 1-pack, $149 for a 5-pack, and $299 for a 10-pack. You can upgrade a previous 1-user client for $19, a 5-user client pack for $69, and a 10-user client pack for $119.

Let the Testing Begin -- Although I'm heartened by the fact that some of the original Dantz people are working on Retrospect 8, the complete rewrite means that I won't have the same level of comfort with Retrospect 8 as I had with previous versions until I've used it successfully for some time in real world scenarios. Our backup expert, Joe Kissell, will also be putting Retrospect 8 through its paces for coverage in "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups," so we will be reporting on our experiences in the future.

But that caution aside, it's great to have Retrospect 8 back in the Mac market, and the added competition can only encourage programs like Time Machine, CrashPlan, and others to continue to differentiate themselves and improve further.

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Mixing Older, Newer AirPort WDS Networks -- Ted Landau went through a lot of Option key pressing to figure out how to integrate a new simultaneous dual-band AirPort Extreme Base Station with his older mix of 802.11n (rectangular) and 802.11g (saucer) AirPort base stations. He explains how at MacFixIt. (Posted 2009-03-20)

HD Movies Now Available through iTunes -- Apple is now offering high-definition movies for purchase (but not rent) via iTunes. Previously, only the Apple TV provided the means to watch rented (with no option to purchase) HD movies. HD commands a $5 premium over standard-definition purchases, with a little over a dozen titles currently available. (Link goes to the iTunes Store.) (Posted 2009-03-19)

AT&T to Offer Contract-Free iPhone -- According to The Boy Genius Report, AT&T will start offering the iPhone for sale without a contract, starting 26-Mar-09. The commitment-free 8 GB and 16 GB models will retail for $599 and $699 (that's $400 more than the subsidized price!), and will be available only to existing customers who wish to add a line, purchase a gift, or upgrade (presumably from a different AT&T phone). (Posted 2009-03-19)

Apple Updates AirPort Design Guide -- Apple has revised its guide for planning and building Wi-Fi networks, formerly called "Designing AirPort Networks." The new guide, "Apple AirPort Networks," is a fairly in-depth effort at explaining with step-by-step instructions how to configure Apple base stations for various kinds of networks and tasks. (Posted 2009-03-18)

Cables: The Bane of Technological Existence -- An elegant graphical recounting of illustrator Christoph Niemann's "can't-live-with-them, can't-live-without-them" relationship with cables, in the New York Times. For anyone who wishes to differ, we have a box of SCSI cables for you. (Posted 2009-03-18)

iPhones Causing Courtroom Chaos -- Jurors researching and sharing trial information via the iPhone and other mobile devices is proving to be a serious and widespread problem for many courts. Several major cases have had to declare mistrials after jurors were discovered to be posting trial information via Twitter and Facebook, and looking up trial-related information via Google. While jurors breaking rules via the Internet is nothing new, the widespread adoption of devices like the iPhone has made it far easier and more common. (Posted 2009-03-17)

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Frequent-flyer programs have generally switched to an expiration-without-activity policy, like United's, a change that's sweeping across not just loyalty rewards but all services in which something free is offered as an incentive. Companies realize that some people simply aren't worth the disk space needed for their accounts and information.

It turns out that it may be more valuable to shed less-profitable or no-revenue customers than to keep them on the books, instead focusing on those who pay recurring fees. Free is for loyal customers (who generate income in other ways), not for the casual user.

Chris Anderson, Wired's editor-in-chief and the author of the upcoming "Free!", wrote eloquently more than a year ago about why free makes sense for businesses - but also when it does not. Free - as a business model - typically makes sense when a company can obtain value from users in other incremental ways, from advertising to premium upgrades to subscription fees.

Kodak Gallery (originally called Ofoto and later Kodak EasyShare Gallery) has become the latest firm to tie strings to a previously free service. The online photo-sharing and print-ordering service sets no limits on the size of photos uploaded (it notes that 10 MB is the highest size beyond which improved print detail won't be seen), nor on what you store. (Sadly, the service also dropped its film processing service that combined photo finishing and digital scanning.)

In the past, Kodak would store photos indefinitely at no charge. Now, Kodak has imposed the equivalent of a yearly service fee made through a purchase. Storage is free for 90 days after creation of an account. For accounts with less than 2 GB of stored photos, you must spend at least $4.99 over 12 months; for more than 2 GB, spend $19.99.

In regard to this policy, Kodak is out in front among well-known photo sites. Shutterfly says it has never deleted a photo, offers unlimited storage, and allows unlimited upload size per photo (though it recommends 10 MB as the biggest file, too). In contrast, Flickr's free mode is quite limited: 100 MB in uploads per month, with only the most recent 200 shown, and resolution restrictions. But Flickr (owned by Yahoo) doesn't delete photos; a Pro upgrade makes an entire library available again. Kodak and Shutterfly have no paid option for consumers; Flickr charges $24.95 per year for unlimited uploads and storage (up to 20 MB per photo).

This is another good reason to keep a set of all images and documents you create on your own hard drive and to back them up regularly. If you have photos stored only on a photo-sharing service or a document stored only on Google Docs, you're tempting fate.

It's inevitable that we'll see more of this sort of behavior. Despite storage, processing power, and bandwidth becoming ever less expensive, having a million customers who spend nothing isn't as valuable as 50,000 who spend regularly. As Web advertising dollars have shrunk from click fatigue and the declining economy, focusing on the most loyal users may help companies shed overhead while increasing the average revenue per user. A million ad impressions sold at $10 per thousand views ($10,000) doesn't add up as fast or come as easily as 1,000 subscribers at $10 per month.

We're seeing this trend emerge from many directions, where free services with the assumption of ad revenue aren't sufficient. Newspapers and magazines, for instance, are increasingly interested in charging for access, especially to a greater array of content and customized services, after more than a decade of mostly giving everything away.

For instance, the Hearst newspaper chain recently stopped the presses on the 136-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer's print edition in favor of an online-only newsgathering and aggregation operation with a fraction of the reporting staff. Hearst is considering a move to a subscription service for the P-I and other newspapers. Hearst is still trying to figure out, however, precisely what it can offer that people will pay for. Likewise, cable operator Cablevision bought New York Newsday last year and is considering forgoing page views in favor of recurring subscriber revenue.

This doesn't mean that the Internet will suddenly see the doors of professionally produced big media sites slammed shut, nor will every hosting service kick out their least-profitable customers. But it's a change in the wind that's worth sniffing.

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While Apple provided no details on how or why corruption might occur in disk images that Time Machine writes to a Time Capsule internal or external drive, this update is designed to avoid problems that led to such corruption. If that sounds overly circumspect, well, we are talking about Apple here, but I was assured that a small number of edge cases like mine should now be resolved. (Note that Apple still officially supports only external drives connected to a Time Capsule for Time Machine backups, not drives connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station.)

One piece of advice if you've had problems in the past: Back up any existing Time Machine disk images to an external disk using the Archive feature in Disk Utility, erase them from the drive, and start fresh with new Time Machine backups.

In some cases, mounting the Time Capsule volume via AFP, launching Disk Utility, dragging the corrupted disk image into the program, and then using the Disk First Aid > Repair Disk feature may correct errors, although it could take many hours for a large backup disk. I recommend the fresh start approach for most people, though.

Time Machine works as an incremental backup system, writing all files on a selected system to a disk image in a first pass, and then creating only copies of files that have changed each hour while Time Machine is active.

But Time Machine also creates what's effectively a snapshot of a hard drive for each backup, which necessitates making vast numbers of hard links, which reference any unchanged files. This can be difficult to do reliably over a network and may have been part of the trouble with corruption occurring over time.

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At the two-mile mark, the drizzle turned to rain. We figured it wouldn't get worse, so we kept on. At mile three, our halfway point, the skies opened. Within minutes, our shoes were soaked through and our sweats had become noticeably heavier. Our typical constant chatter had come to a halt. We were running on a heavily trafficked back road with no shoulder, so we focused entirely on avoiding both puddles and cars. It was a true loop, so the fastest way back was to finish the course. By the fourth mile, I remember my sweatpants sinking lower and lower, as the sheer weight of the water began to literally drag them down. My socks and shoes had devolved into unified spongeballs.

We slogged our way back to the locker room, and were able to joke about the experience for weeks to come, but I had no idea that it would become an unforgettable episode, a lifelong cautionary tale. It had been - and remains - the worst training run I've ever taken. Worse than running in 26 degrees below, one winter Wisconsin morning. Worse than a foot of unplowed snow (that was actually kinda fun). In the 30 years since, even as Gore-Tex and spandex have made bad-weather running much more comfortable, the only kind of weather that can genuinely alter my workout routine is cold rain. I hate it, hate it, hate it.

Meanwhile, over the past six or seven years, I've become reliant on my iPod as a training partner. Music and the measurement capabilities of the Nike+iPod system eventually evolved from valued companion to necessity. Some days the first five "American Idiot" tracks get me through a quick workout I never really wanted to do. Other days, the prospect of listening to an entire Beatles album uninterrupted inspires me to set off on a longer run.

Cold rain, my old nemesis, attacked me again about a year ago. I was about two miles away from home and running with an iPod nano protected with a silicon skin. But that thin covering was no match for the heavy, windswept sheets that arrived suddenly and continued until I reached home. My iPod had stopped playing near the end of the run, and although I hoped it would dry out and recover, it never did.

This past weekend in North Carolina we've received an uninterrupted drenching of cold rain. Between the caution with which I now treat an iPod in the wet weather, and my own reluctance to run in these conditions, I've had every excuse to stay home and give my legs a rest.

But, about three months ago, I ordered a hard plastic case for my new iPod touch. And for some reason, the online store I bought it from offered an iFrogz iBagz for only an extra buck or two (it normally retails for $11.99). The iBagz is a thick plastic pouch with plenty of space for an iPhone or iPod touch. But it's not just a glorified baggie. Running through a seal in the pouch is a headphone connector; on the inside is the male end, which plugs perfectly into my iPod's headphone jack. On the outside is the female end, which seals solidly with my Koss SportaPro headphones.

Thanks to this connector, I can completely seal my iPod inside the waterproof and transparent iBagz. Near the top of the iBagz, there are three Ziploc-style seals that close with a reassuring snap sound. The top of the bag then folds down, three times, after which you secure the enclosure with a strip of Velcro.

This may sound like a clunky, heavy, and perhaps overly complex solution, but here's the thing: it's not. It's easy to see your iPod after it's sealed in the bag, and almost equally easy to access all of the iPod's controls, both on the exterior and on the touch screen.

After a few short light-rain trial runs with the iBagz, from which I emerged with a perfectly dry iPod, I began to have real trust in it. Yesterday, after two days and two runs that I delayed and cut short because of cold rain (I used the iBagz both times and it performed flawlessly), I decided to give the iBagz its toughest test yet: an hour of running on a muddy trail in a constant downpour.

I wanted to run, but I was unenthused, to put it mildly. So I promised myself to take it long, slow, and relaxing - no pressure. I put on the Beatles' compilation album "Love," and I ran. There was no way around some of the puddles, which resembled nascent fishing ponds, and my socks and shoes were soaked through within 15 minutes. While my water-resistant gear made the hour-long outing immensely more comfortable than my unforgettable sweatsuit slog of decades past, it couldn't prevent me from becoming mud-splattered and drenched by the midway point.

But the Beatles - protected, without any worry on my end, by the iBagz - kept me keeping on. There was a stretch in my run when I had a chance to cut it short. I was passing by my car, which I had driven to the trail. I was faced with about two miles to finish the run I had planned, or two minutes to be ensconced in complete warmth and dryness. And then "Help" kicked in - the symbolism didn't escape me.

Neither did the great dependability and utility of the iBagz. After my soggy struggle, as I plugged my iPod in to sync, I put the plastic pouch next to my iBook and promised myself that I would write about it. "An ode to a plastic bag," I thought. Silly, in a way, but it's helped me through some tough workouts, and if you like to exercise while listening to your iPod, and have avoided doing so because of rain, I highly recommend you try it. Even if you aren't a runner, the iBagz would be worthwhile for anyone who spends enough time outside to risk a soaking, perhaps at a summer festival or while walking home from work. The iBagz may be one of the simplest iPod accessories I own, but it's also the one I treasure most.

[Jeff Merron is a freelance writer and editor. He lives in North Carolina.]

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WeatherCal's interface is minimal, letting users create calendars for multiple locations by clicking the plus (+) button. You can find locations by name, ZIP code, and airport code, but WeatherCal automatically creates a default location by reading the location from the entry you've designated as "My Card" in Address Book. You can edit each location's name as desired, and deselecting a location's checkbox removes its events from your calendar without deleting the calendar itself. Removing a calendar entirely is merely a matter of selecting it and clicking the minus (-) button.

Once configured, WeatherCal creates a normal iCal calendar for each location, displaying the current conditions for the current day and a simplified forecast for the next five days. (Bare Bones tells me that sometimes the weather feeds provide more than five days of forecasts for U.S. locations, and sometimes less than that for international locations.) As with all other iCal calendars, you can set the color of the calendar by selecting it in iCal, pressing Command-I, and choosing a new color from the pop-up menu.

Double-click one of WeatherCal's events and you'll see a URL that will load the Weather Underground Web page for that location, making additional information a mere three clicks and an application change away.

The calendars are rolling, meaning that you'll only ever see events for the current day and the next five days; WeatherCal tidies up after itself so you don't have past weather conditions cluttering your calendar.

Being normal iCal calendars, they'll also sync to your iPhone or iPod, and will display with any iCal-savvy utilities like Second Gear's Today, which provides an at-a-glance view of your events and tasks in iCal.

And well, that's it. WeatherCal is a one-trick pony, but it's a clever trick, and a useful one to boot. With it, you can easily tell, when making plans for next weekend, if the weather is likely to be amenable for a picnic. And if the drivers in your area freak out with a little rain or snow, knowing the forecast when making plans for a meeting across town next week could save you from an unpleasant traffic jam. Or, if you're planning a trip to Macworld Expo next year, adding San Francisco to your calendar ahead of time will give you a sense of how to pack.

Obviously, there are a ton of ways to find weather information on the Internet these days, but context is king, and having weather information in your face while you're making plans is, in my mind, worth 10 bucks. WeatherCal requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later, and is a 2.6 MB download.

I'm a minor weather geek, to the point where I regularly check out the Ithaca Climate Page on the Web and buy the Ithaca Weather Calendar each year for its updated almanac information. From that standpoint, I can see a few features Bare Bones could implement for WeatherCal 2.0. iCal events have a Notes field that would be perfect for textual forecast information, for instance. (Bare Bones said that parsing that information in a reliable fashion is non-trivial.) Plus, since WeatherCal knows current conditions, it could optionally create another calendar in iCal with the high and low temperature for each day, enabling users to go back to see what the weather was like in the past. Nevertheless, these are trivial suggestions - WeatherCal seems fully baked as it stands, and I look forward to using it throughout the upcoming seasons.

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The software will be available this summer and will be free for iPhone users, while iPod touch users will pay $9.95 for the upgrade. Apple made a beta available to all those enrolled in the iPhone developer program following its morning announcement.

iPhone Stats -- With sales of 13.7 million iPhones in 2008, Apple exceeded its goal of 10 million unit sales. That makes for a total of 30 million iPhone OS devices sold to date, comprising 17 million iPhones and 13 million iPod touches.

This is the first time Apple has broken out the iPod touch numbers, which were previously only a matter of speculation. This news should be reassuring to developers, as they can count on a much larger universe of potential buyers. Applications that work best or only over Wi-Fi also clearly have a significant audience.

The App Store has been doing well too, and Apple says that it now contains more than 25,000 apps (the number after subtracting flashlight, calculator, and Twitter apps wasn't mentioned). Even more impressive, 800 million apps have been downloaded in the 8 months that the App Store has been open, though the company didn't enumerate the difference between paid and free apps.

On the developer side, there are now 50,000 members in the paid developer program, and the iPhone SDK has been downloaded over 800,000 times. Apple claimed that 60 percent of iPhone developers are new to Apple platforms. Apple also made a point of noting that the App Store is a meritocracy, serving big and small developers alike. Although Apple has been improving the App Store of late (see "App Store Reviews Now Distinguish Versions," 2009-03-12), many developers still feel as though it's impossible to stand out among so many applications. According to Apple, 96 percent of apps submitted are approved, and 98 percent of those are approved within 7 days or less.

App Store Changes -- One frustration among iPhone developers has been the rigidity of application sales models. For example, publishers have asked for the ability to offer subscriptions. Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iPhone software, gave as an example a game that comes with 10 levels, with the option to purchase additional levels separately. He continued, "Today we're supporting all of these additional business models."

In-App purchasing will enable renewable subscriptions, the purchase of individual items (such as books in a bookstore or new levels of a game), and other add-ons within programs distributed via the App Store. iTunes will be used to handle the transaction, and Apple will offer the same split on sales: 70 percent of fees collected for In-App sales will go to the developer.

However, only paid apps can charge for add-ons: a developer won't be able to offer a free application and then charge for additional content (which means we're likely to see even more $0.99 apps, but the developers will have a greater opportunity to recoup development costs). Several demos during the event showcased the capability to add extras, such as a $0.99 rocket launcher for the first-person shooter game LiveFire.

Bluetooth and Bonjour -- The iPhone 3.0 software adds 1,000 APIs, the hooks that enable third-party software developers to tie into functions in the operating system.

The new iPhone 3.0 software will add peer-to-peer connectivity, using automatic discovery via Bonjour and Bluetooth to find nearby devices and services. This will allow for networked games, among other uses. No pairing is required, which can be an irritating process in Bluetooth.

Peer-to-peer networking should also allow software that can exchange files and enable forms of chat and whiteboard collaboration. (SubEthaEdit for iPhone, anyone?) Although you almost certainly won't be able to transfer music files across a peer-to-peer connection, Apple said that music streaming would be possible.

Programmers will also be able to talk directly to devices connected to the iPhone dock connector, which will allow a host of additional accessories that go beyond the passive audio-output and charging options available today. Apple offered the example of a blood-pressure cuff that could send live data through a network connection, or customized equalizer controls for attached speakers.

Stereo Bluetooth support will allow the use of Bluetooth headphones. This missing feature was rather peculiar, because the software, connection, and processing components were already present in the iPhone 3G. Apple may have felt that battery usage wasn't tuned enough for the option until now. The original iPhone won't gain this feature, unfortunately, presumably due to lacking necessary hardware bits.

Unfolding Maps -- Maps, one of the most popular built-in apps, has been made more ecumenical, with developers now offered hooks that allow them to embed maps directly within their own apps. All the standard map features will be available, such as pinch, zoom, and location data, but developers will have to provide their own map data, and won't be able to access the Google-derived Maps app. However, Google offers a variety of licensing models for its map data, and we suspect Google will provide an App Store developer offering.

Developers can also tap into reverse geocoding, which allows an address to be derived from a point on a map, useful for navigating strange cities or figuring out what address you're at when lost, as well as tagging photos with more specific information than a set of coordinates and a city name.

Forstall also said that developers will be able to use location data for turn-by-turn directions. Turn-by-turn data, according to those who develop GPS hardware, requires a refresh of at least one new set of location information per second, which the iPhone with GPS should be capable of. Look for iPhone navigation apps from GPS companies like Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan.

Push Me, Pull You -- Months after Apple's initial promise, push notification capability will finally be available to developers. With push notifications, programs can capture specific events and display them much in the way the iPhone's built-in apps display SMS messages and updates to the Contacts and Calendar apps.

Forstall said that Apple had to redesign its entire push architecture to achieve the miserly use of battery life that the company desired. As originally explained a year ago, push notifications require a developer to send messages through an Apple server that then manages their distribution to individual iPhones. Push requires customization for nearly each carrier Apple works with, and that work is currently underway, Forstall said.

Apple has not yet mentioned whether it plans to charge developers for blocks of push messages, which would appropriately pair the technology with subscription services or high-value applications.

Other APIs -- Additional APIs will give developers access to the built-in proximity sensor that Apple uses to dim the iPhone display when it's used against one's face for calling, access to the iPod library, firewall tunneling for streaming audio and video (corporations are going to love this), data detectors that identify embedded data in Web pages, and voice-over-IP features.

Apple has also added an email "sheet," which will enable developers to have their software send email without quitting the active application and launching the built-in Mail program.

User Improvements -- At last! Apple finally brings 1984 technology to the iPhone with the addition of copy and paste. The feature works through a sequence of taps and drags and will work across all applications with a global clipboard. Or rather, it becomes available for developers to add; initial comments from some developers indicate that doing so may not be trivial in all situations. When asked in a Q&A session following the announcement why copy and paste took so long, Apple said it was hard to combine simplicity, security, and cross-application support.

Double-tapping a word brings up a pop-up menu with commands for Cut, Copy, and Paste, while draggable icons let you make changes in the selected text. Tapping twice in an empty area brings up a menu with commands for Select, Select All, and Paste. Shaking the device triggers an undo prompt.

Content can be selected and copied in any enabled text area, as well as from Web pages. Copy and paste also apparently extends to images in the Photos application. You can select multiple images in a new mode, and then copy and paste them into the Mail program.

The iPhone 3.0 software will also collect all kinds of messages into a new Messages app, including SMS text messages and new supported MMS messages (Multimedia Messaging Service), MMS enables certain forms of attachments to be sent over the iPhone's cellular connection. Apple will use MMS to allow business card information, location data, and other data to be transferred and stored. MMS is typically pricey, and may be irrelevant for some users given Apple's rich email support.

Turning the iPhone on its side makes Safari switch to landscape mode now, but in the iPhone 3.0 software, other Apple apps such as Mail and Notes will also gain support for landscape mode. It will be especially helpful in those two, since the wide landscape keyboard is easier to type on than the portrait keyboard.

A new Voice Memos app will let you record notes to yourself using the built-in microphone or an external mic. Several third-party applications previously added this feature to the iPhone with varying levels of sophistication.

Search capabilities have been added to a number of applications, including Contacts, Mail (where it can search message headers, but not message bodies), Calendar, iPod, and Notes. But Apple has gone further, adding a Spotlight app that can search across all supported apps, something that becomes more necessary as the number of apps on an iPhone increases.

The new software adds what Apple described as "auto-login" for Wi-Fi hotspots, which would appear to replace the functionality in programs like Easy Wi-Fi from Devicescape. It's unclear whether Apple has licensed and incorporated such software or if it has its own approach, nor is it clear what the interface settings for such logins will look like.

Finally, although it was mentioned only in the Q&A session at the end, tethering will apparently be supported in the iPhone 3.0 software. That will allow a MacBook, for instance, to access the Internet using an iPhone's cell data connection.

Still Missing -- Despite the significantly increased support for Bluetooth, when questioned about the necessary Bluetooth "human interface device" profile, which generically supports wireless keyboards, mice, and other pointing devices, Apple said there was nothing to announce. This lack has been a point of contention for many iPhone and iPod touch users who would like to rely on the diminutive device while traveling, but who need to be able to type for real, not with the clumsy virtual keyboard. It's especially galling because the necessary Bluetooth profile is built into Mac OS X; if the iPhone is a complete "OS X," the profile is there and turned off.

Although push notifications will undoubtedly be welcome, Apple is implementing them instead of allowing apps to run in the background, claiming that tests with an instant messaging app running in the background on BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices reduced standby time by 80 percent. In contrast, using push notifications reduced standby time by only 23 percent. Plus, Apple claimed that background processes could hurt overall performance. And while these criticisms are all true, it's always a little depressing to see Apple basically say, "It's too hard." instead of coming up with an innovative solution to a problem that push notification won't fully address.

On the App Store side, although Apple made a point of discussing all sorts of great new business models that will be available, no mention was made of the desire on the part of developers to be able to offer free demo versions that expire after a certain number of uses or a particular time period. We can only hope that this was merely an oversight during the presentation and that the support actually is included given Scott Forstall's claim that Apple is supporting "all these additional business models."

Support for Adobe's Flash technology is still missing, and in the Q&A session at the end, Apple merely said that there were no announcements about Flash, but that there were plenty of alternative methods of distributing video that don't require Flash. Many analysts and developers have described Flash's heavy processor use as being a battery drain, and Apple has attempted to bar uses that would dramatically shorten typical battery life.

Coming Soon -- When will we be able to play with all this good stuff? The developer beta of the iPhone 3.0 software is available now, so all developers in the beta program can get started right away.

The rest of us will have to wait for the iPhone 3.0 software to ship "this summer," which means June, July, or August. It's seldom wise to assume the earliest possible date that counts as "summer."

The update will be free for all iPhone owners, including people who bought the original iPhone, but once again, it will cost $9.95 for the iPod touch. The original iPhone, although it can run the iPhone 3.0 software, won't be able to take advantage of all its features due to hardware limitations. We'll see just how significant those limitations are when it ships, and if it's incentive for owners of the original iPhone to upgrade. Of course, by then, it's possible Apple will have another revision of the iPhone hardware out as well.

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So the latest addition to Alltop is one that will help users rely on the site's category lists as a source from which to pick a manageable number of sites to track. Once you create your own MyAlltop account and log in, you can click a plus (+) link next to each site listed in Alltop to add it to your own MyAlltop page. Apart from the added capability to arrange the news feeds in whatever order you desire, your MyAlltop page works just like any other Alltop page, showing the five latest headlines and a snippet in a pop-up window when you mouse over a headline. Clicking a headline opens the page in a new tab or window. And, as a nice touch, you can share MyAlltop pages, so you can see what your friends are reading right now - see my MyAlltop page for an example.

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1. Search for text in multiple files. BBEdit can do "batch" file text searches; in particular, you can designate a folder and tell BBEdit to search inside all text files within that folder, at any depth. This arises especially when I'm programming. I remember that I've used a particular function before, but I can't remember where. All my code is in just a few folders, so BBEdit can search it all for me, very quickly. It totally beats Spotlight, which only indexes individual words, can't do "regular expression" searches, and (on Tiger) doesn't even index code files.
2. Change text file encoding. I receive a text file containing non-ASCII characters, but it's in Windows encoding. This means that most Mac OS X applications, which default to opening text files as UTF-8 or MacRoman, can't interpret the file correctly. With BBEdit, I can open the file, switch it to Unicode encoding (and fix the line endings), and save it again.
3. Edit invisible or privileged text files. Mac OS X is Unix, and Unix is chock full of configuration files. When you want to change one, it can be a big pain, because the file is invisible or hidden in a package or a folder whose contents the Finder doesn't display, or because the file is protected by special privileges and can only be edited by the superuser. For example, let's say I want to change the Leopard Help Viewer to be a normal application (so that I can switch to it and away from it using Command-Tab). Instead of issuing a bunch of tricky Terminal commands, I use BBEdit's Open Hidden command to open the relevant file and edit it directly; BBEdit asks for my password when I open the file, and maintains the correct ownership and privileges when I save it.
4. Edit remote files. I maintain several Web sites. Let's say I want to tweak a file at one of these sites. I could download the file, edit it, and upload it again; but BBEdit lets me do this so transparently that it looks like I'm editing the file in place, remotely, within its Web site. I can use BBEdit's Open from FTP Server command, or I can enlist the aid of another of my favorite utilities, Interarchy. Either way, the file opens for editing in BBEdit, and when I save, the changes are automatically propagated right up to the remote file on the Web.
5. Compare text files. I maintain various text files cooperatively: that is, I edit them, but someone else gets to edit them too. (This has mostly to do with code that I maintain together with some other programmer; but TidBITS articles also work this way.) So, in one of these text files, what did the other person change since the last time I edited it? BBEdit has a wonderful Find Differences command that displays both versions of the file and a list of places where they differ.
6. Use remote version control. Text files that I work on are often maintained on a remote computer that serves them through a version control system such as CVS or SVN. BBEdit has CVS and SVN menus that permit me to work with these systems. For example, TidBITS articles live in a remote Articles folder, so I choose Update Working Copy from BBEdit's SVN menu and presto, my copy of the Articles folder is updated to match it. Also, this feature is integrated with the previous one. Perhaps I want to compare versions of a file, before and after someone else edited it, to see what changes were made. To do so, I don't need physical copies of the file; BBEdit puts up a Compare Revisions dialog that lets me select versions from the remote version control server, and then it downloads them transparently and presents its text file comparison interface.
7. Compare entire folders. This is an even more powerful take on file comparison. I maintain the online documentation for several applications. The documentation is effectively a Web site, a folder full of interlinked HTML and CSS files. I send this off to the application developers, and they make changes and send it back to me. What changes did they make? To find out, I point BBEdit at my version of the folder and at the version of the folder that the developers just sent back to me, and use the Find Differences command. BBEdit tells me whether one folder has files that the other lacks, and also tells me which files are in both but differ; in the latter case, the interface becomes the "compare text files" interface and I can easily see exactly what was changed.
8. Check HTML validity. I maintain several Web sites as well as online documentation that takes the form of a Web site (did I mention this already?). I generate such a Web site, either editing by hand or using some cool Web site generation tool, and now I want to make sure the HTML is valid. BBEdit's Markup menu has a Check Document Syntax command that lets me validate a single file, and a Check Folder Syntax command that lets me validate all the files in a site folder.
9. Wrangle individual characters. From the massive world of entire Web sites, let's jump down to the miniature world of individual characters. BBEdit provides a number of utilities that assist me when things go mysteriously wrong with characters. For example, as a programmer, I copy some sample code from a Web page, paste it into a text file, try to run it, and it fails with a weird error message. The code looks right, but something seems to be wrong with the text. BBEdit helps me find out what's up. For example, its Hex Dump command lets me examine the file not as text but as numeric codes; sometimes this reveals that the file contains "null" characters, zero bytes that are completely invisible and undetectable in a text editor, but which wreck the code's ability to execute, or shows that it has the wrong kind of end-of-line characters. Or, BBEdit's Show Invisibles command can reveal the presence of incorrect whitespace characters, such as a non-breaking space (Option-Space). Or, I can select an individual character and use BBEdit's ASCII Table palette window to ask, "Just what character is this?" Also helpful when reformatting text copied from some other source is BBEdit's Convert to ASCII command.
10. Rewrap lines. Finally, from the sublime to the mundane. Line wrapping: how boring is that? But it comes up a lot. Email often has hard-wrapped lines, so if you want to paste an email message into a word processing context, you need to turn those into true paragraphs. Just the other way round, sometimes I want to paste email-style "quoted text" into a text field in my browser (when posting to an online forum, for example), so I need to take continuous text, break it up into shorter lines, and put a "greater than" sign in front of each line. BBEdit has simple commands that make all of those things a snap.

There are undoubtedly other ways to do any or all of these things; all I'm reporting here is that I've noticed myself reaching for BBEdit to do them, even though, as I say, BBEdit isn't my choice for editing text. At $125, BBEdit is pricey for just these tasks, and I'm not recommending a purchase for these reasons alone. But if you do have it, some of these uses might not have occurred to you. Finally, note that BBEdit's freeware little brother, TextWrangler, gives you almost all the the same abilities. It can't do #6 (it has no version control interface), but you can use its text file comparison interface as an SVN external "diff" helper. It also can't do #8 (it has no Markup menu), but there are other perfectly acceptable validators (such as Robert Crews's freeware Validator).

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Front Row 2.1.7 from Apple is an update to the media center software featured on all Macs and Apple TV. The update provides compatibility with the recently released iTunes 8.1, and is available via Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads page. (Free update, 12.6 MB)

NTFS for Mac OS X 7.0 from Paragon Software is an update to the software that provides Mac users read/write access to files stored on NTFS-formatted volumes, such as those used by Boot Camp (optional with Windows XP; mandatory with Windows Vista). The latest version gives Boot Camp users transparent access to their Mac volumes formatted using HFS/HFS+, provides an alternative means of restarting in Windows, and offers enhanced NTFS performance and reliability under Mac OS X. ($39.95, 2.9 MB)

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Hands on with a Dual Network AirPort Extreme Base Station -- Apple's wireless gear has the capability to prioritize types of incoming data, but the feature isn't implemented. (4 messages)

iPhone apps -- A reader can't view search results in iTunes for the App Store. (3 messages)

Memory stick problem -- A driver bug is likely to blame for a crash when copying large files to a memory stick. (2 messages)

Recycling Floppies -- What's the best way to dispose of old unused floppy disks, and the cases they're stored in? (3 messages)

3rd Generation iPod shuffle Shrinks, Gets Mouthy -- Readers discuss the new controller-embedded headphones that come with the iPod shuffle, and whether other headphones can be used instead (namely, ones that don't fall out of your ears when running). (8 messages)

MailForge vs. Eudora -- With MailForge apparently nearing release status, how will it compare to the venerable Eudora? (5 messages)

Macs for elderly neighbors -- What Macs are good models to recommend to elderly neighbors who haven't used computers in years? (6 messages)

Mac Pro Pricing -- Readers look at the pricing of various configuration options for the new Mac Pro. (2 messages)

Spam -- After a spammer penetrated the TidBITS defenses (curses!), the question of what to do about unsolicited email is raised again. (15 messages)

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Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter Causing Problems? -- Michael Tsai, the Macintosh developer behind such utilities as SpamSieve and DropDMG, discusses on his blog his problems in getting a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter to work properly with his 15-inch MacBook Pro. According to Tsai, the $99 adapter, released back in December 2008, creates various screen distortions and Apple, while acknowledging the issue, has yet to provide a solution. (Posted 2009-03-09)

Security Glitch in Google Docs -- A number of users recently received notice from Google that some of their Google Documents had been accidentally shared with collaborators who had previously lacked access. The security glitch, apparently affecting .05 percent of all Google Docs, underscores the concerns some have with cloud-based computing, though others have noted that documents stored on stolen laptops have also been implicated in significant security and privacy breaches. (Posted 2009-03-09)

Doug Talks iMacs and Safari 4 on Tech Night Owl Live -- Making his maiden voyage into the world of Internet radio, Doug McLean spoke with Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl Live (in the second third of the 05-Mar-09 show) about the refreshed iMac line, the recently updated Safari browser, and what his Apple dream machine would look like. (Posted 2009-03-09)

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Here are the steps you must follow to take advantage of Autofill in iTunes 8.1:

1. Connect your iPod to your computer.
2. In the iTunes source list (that's the sidebar on the left), click the icon of your iPod.
3. At the top of the main iTunes pane, click the Summary tab.
4. Near the bottom of the Summary info pane, enable the "Manually manage music and videos" checkbox.



5. Return to the source list, click the triangle to the left of your iPod to reveal its contents, and then click the Music icon below it.

And there you have it: at the bottom of the iTunes window, a new pane appears with an Autofill button, a Settings button, and a menu from which you can choose a source for the Autofill operation.

Easy as pi - if you calculate pi on an abacus (which you may have found yourself with the inexplicable urge to do last Saturday, National Pi Day). Seriously, while the Autofill feature is most welcome, the method by which you access it is serpentine. Here are some things Apple should consider if they want to improve the user experience:

• Don't require five steps to get access to an "ease of use" feature; that's four more steps than is necessary.
• Don't make the user click through three screens of iTunes Help to get to the Autofill instructions.
• Don't require the user to set something to "manual" in order to access an "auto" feature.
• Don't make the user click a Settings button just to see the feature's current settings: there's plenty of room in the Autofill pane to display them.
• Don't make the feature's settings ambiguous. For example, does "Replace all items when Autofilling" also mean photos will be replaced? What about TV shows? Podcasts?

Why do I get the feeling that this pie is not completely baked? Hopefully, Apple will take some of my advice and make it easier to access this otherwise handy feature.

[Being the author of "Take Control of Syncing Data in Leopard," Michael E. Cohen cares very deeply about all topics related to synchronization.]

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Until now, the iPhone App Store lacked a way for reviewers to distinguish between which version of an app they were reviewing. Thus, developers were continually punished for previous bugs or mistakes, even after correcting them in subsequent versions. With the updated review policy, customers are presented with two different sets of user reviews: Reviews for the Current Version, and Reviews for All Versions.

Presumably, once an app is updated, the reviews and ratings for the formerly current version will be integrated into the reviews and ratings for all versions. That will likely make it impossible to compare the new version with the immediately preceding version. While that might have been handy in some cases, it's mostly irrelevant, since you can only purchase the latest version anyway.

The change has been generally well-received by iPhone developers. Shane Crawford of Alta Vida, developer of the Babelingo translation app, said, "I think that the changes linking a review to an app version as well as a date are long overdue. Those are great changes." However, Crawford was less certain about the way the App Store obscures the average star rating for previous versions.

David Sinclair of Dejal Systems, developer of the SmileDial visual dialing app, called the change "a most welcome enhancement," and went on to say, "Often, reviews mention deficiencies that are addressed in subsequent versions, but without a version number (and to a lesser extent, a date), potential customers have no real way of knowing if that comment is still relevant."

Another small update to the App Store is the capability to sort reviews by Most Helpful, Most Favorable, Most Critical, and Most Recent. This brings the App Store into line with other online stores such as Amazon.com, which give customers greater control when sifting through reviews. Amazon still has an edge here, enabling customers to view the Most Helpful Favorable and Most Helpful Critical reviews in a side-by-side comparison. Apple might think about extending this same functionality to the App Store.

Shane Crawford also suggested that Apple consider removing the prompt to review an app when the user deletes it, since that's a point at which most users are thinking negatively. Adam Talcott of Atomic Powered, developer of the Napkin Genius sketching app, echoed this sentiment, saying, "What I'd really like to see Apple focus on is making it easier for users to rate applications they like and not just those they delete."

Since the review-on-removal prompt surveys a biased population, Apple should work on ways to prevent the data from being skewed in this manner. One solution would be simply to remove the prompt, but a more constructive approach might involve creating a time- or activation-based request-for-review prompt for those continuing to use an app over the long term. Either way, it's an issue on developers' minds - and one which Apple should find a way of addressing.

This isn't the first time Apple has taken steps to improve the App Store's review process and policy. In September 2008, Apple began requiring that App Store reviewers had actually downloaded the application they sought to evaluate, in an attempt to prevent trash talk reviews (see "Apple Changes App Store Customer Review Policy," 2008-10-07). Apple took another major step towards cleaning up the review sections when it removed all of the remaining non-customer reviews a few weeks ago, effectively lowering review counts for most apps, but also often resulting in higher average ratings.

As we've noted recently (see "High App Spending Points to iPhone Lock-in," 2009-03-06), it truly is in Apple's best interest to improve the health of the App Store, and implicit in that is ensuring that the review process reflects consumer opinion as clearly as possible. The decision to distinguish between reviews of different versions is thus a smart move in the right direction.

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iTunes DJ -- iTunes 8.1 renames the longstanding Party Shuffle feature to iTunes DJ, and makes the feature more social by allowing anyone on your Wi-Fi network with an iPhone or iPod touch and Apple's Remote app to request songs or vote on other requested songs. iPhone and iPod touch users must update to Remote 1.2 to be able to access a shared iTunes DJ, but at that point, they can see the entire iTunes DJ source list on the host Mac and vote for favorite songs. A single vote is enough to move a song to the top of the playlist, but if multiple people are voting, songs with more votes float to the top. You can't vote against a song.

Within iTunes, the iTunes DJ feature gains its own set of preferences that enable you to send a welcome message, turn voting on or off, or require that users enter a password to gain access.

As much as iTunes DJ is a wildly cool feature that will undoubtedly be popular in clubs and at big parties, assuming whoever is in charge of the music is willing to let guests participate, it's unlikely to be particularly useful outside of large gatherings. That said, some people have suggested that iTunes DJ and the Remote app turn iTunes into a personal jukebox as well; I guess I don't have time to interact with my music that specifically.

Other Improvements -- Apple claims iTunes 8.1 is faster when handling tasks such as loading large libraries, navigating the iTunes Store, and syncing devices. Apple hasn't said how much speedier these tasks will be, just that they are noticeably improved. We haven't noticed significant improvements, and accessing different parts of the iTunes Store still feels a lot slower than loading Web pages in Safari.

iTunes now automatically converts music from CDs as "iTunes Plus" files - meaning AAC format at 256 Kbps - which are higher quality than the previously standard files encoded at 128 Kbps.

Parental controls have been extended to control iTunes U and the iTunes Store separately, so teenagers of older iTunes users can sit in on lectures in iTunes U without being allowed to sneak off to the iTunes Store to listen to whatever racket those kids consider music these days.

Perhaps most significantly, the Autofill feature, previously available only for the iPod shuffle, is now available for all iPods. You can control whether or not Autofill replaces all items on each sync, if it chooses items randomly, and if it prefers higher rated songs. A slider enables you to reserve space for disk use - otherwise Autofill automatically selects the amount of music that will fit on the destination iPod so you don't have to play a guessing game. From what we can tell in initial use, Autofill appears to honor podcast settings, which is good, and overall Autofill looks as though it will be extremely welcome for those of us who have more music than fits on our iPods. However, enabling Autofill isn't obvious; see "In Search of iTunes 8.1's Autofill," 2009-03-13.

Oddly, the Genius sidebar, introduced in iTunes 8.0 as a way for iTunes to recommend new songs, was supposed to have been extended to include television and movie recommendations - it was mentioned in the release notes and Apple had even updated the iTunes Web pages to discuss it. Alas, the feature was apparently pulled at the last minute, since Genius in iTunes 8.1 still says, "Genius sidebar only works with music. Select a song in your library to see related music." Perhaps we'll be seeing iTunes 8.1.1 soon.

iTunes 8.1 requires Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later, and works all the way back to Macs with PowerPC G3 processors. It's a 63.4 MB download and is available via Software Update or from Apple's Web site.

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Apple's announcement of the 3rd generation iPod shuffle contains echoes of that ridiculous skit, with the updated iPod shuffle measuring half the size of the previous iPod shuffle design. Apple says the new shuffle is now smaller than a AA battery. The drop in size is coupled with a fourfold increase in storage capacity, to 4 GB, or, as Apple touts, up to 1,000 songs (depending on song length and encoding rate of course).

Lost Buttons -- The reduced form factor has led to the relocation of the player controls from the casing to the earbud cord. The cord - similar to the one that ships with the iPod touch - has three buttons enabling users to play/pause, increase/reduce volume, skip to the next/previous track, fast-forward/reverse, get song information, and change the playlist. The only button now located on the case is the power/play-mode slider.

The click-patterns for skipping to tracks, or fast-forwarding and reversing aren't intuitive, and while they're listed in the documentation, many people probably won't bother to read through that. Here are the important ones: Double-click for next track, triple-click for previous track, double-click-and-hold for fast-forward, and finally, triple-click and hold for rewind.

Users who prefer third-party headphones are already bemoaning the change for the limits they anticipate it will place on their headphone options. However, Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod and iPhone product marketing, has said Apple has been working with accessory makers to ensure there are various compatible headphone options, especially sports-oriented ones. More importantly, he told the Telegraph, "There will also be adapter cables available, so you can use your existing headphones with the new shuffle too."

Additionally, if you use your own headphones, the iPod shuffle will start playing when you plug them in, and stop playing when you unplug them. As might be expected, you won't be able to adjust the volume, skip tracks, or pause playback.

Speak to Me -- Another major addition to the iPod shuffle is VoiceOver, a feature that enables your iPod to audibly announce the name of the song, artist, or playlist you've selected. Like the earbud buttons, VoiceOver helps Apple justify reducing the player size beyond even the previous minuscule size.

While this functionality is impressive, it should be noted that the iPod isn't actually performing the text-to-speech operation. Instead, iTunes is synthesizing the speech, while the iPod is just mixing the song and announcement audio. (This is how the fourth-generation iPod nano provides spoken-word menus for those with vision difficulties.)

The Guided Tour video, available from Apple's iPod shuffle page, gives a nice sense of how VoiceOver actually works. Holding down on the center button of the earbud controls prompts VoiceOver to say the song and artist information, without interrupting playback. Continuing to hold down on that button tells VoiceOver to list your playlists, enabling you to choose a new playlist by clicking the center button when the one you want is named.

Apple claims VoiceOver will automatically recognize which language you speak (presumably deducing this from your iTunes information), though should you want to change the language you can do so via iTunes. Currently the feature supports 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

Perhaps it will be a long time before any iPod has enough processing power for this, but we'd like to see the voice-based interface taken one step further, granting the user control through speaking into a microphone mounted on the earbud wires, much like the iPhone's earbuds. It would need to recognize only a very small set of commands - play, pause, next, previous, etc. - and would be a welcome option for people listening to iPods while exercising or performing tasks that occupy their hands. But anyone caught talking to an iPod in a crowded airport could be glared at for extreme boorishness.

Although choosy users may be temporarily upset about the inability to use their favorite headphones, many people will undoubtedly love the new iPod shuffle's reduced size, earbud-based player controls, expanded storage space, support for playlists, and VoiceOver support. Overall, this is a welcome and forward-looking update to the least expensive iPod model.

The iPod shuffle comes in either black or silver anodized aluminum and has a built-in stainless steel clip. Apple claims a 10 hour battery life. It requires iTunes 8.1, which was released the day of the announcement.

The 3rd generation iPod shuffle retails for $79 and is available now. The 2nd generation iPod shuffle, which comes in five colors and offers 1 GB of storage, remains available for $49, although there's no telling how long Apple's supplies will hold out.

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