MACWORLD2008 - STEVE'S KEYNOTE BREAKDOWN (Pt. 2)

Welcome back!

Ok quick writing break over. I'm trying to avoid reading other sites and their reviews of these things so to better give you my untainted thoughts. Now, on to some new information on the iPhone and what is being updated TODAY!

So, Steve Jobs provided some information on the sales of the iPhone last year. Since it's first date on sale, the iPhone has sold over 4 million units...which is about 20,000 or so a DAY. Market breakdowns for September showed that the iPhone had captured about 19% or so of the cellphone marketplace, which is nothing to sneeze at either. Now, that's just a percentage for September. I'm sure we'd all like to see what they are as of January. I'm not saying they'll be awful, but I think now that everything has mellowed out, that we'll see that number come down to a more realistic level.

On to new stuff! First up, a Software Development kit coming at the end of February. **Watches at people explode with anticipation** I can't wait to see all the goodness this can bring. Everyone's been asking about this since the iPhone's release, and now it'll finally be out there.

The first neat thing for iPhone applications is Maps with location. Now the iPhone doesn't have GPS, so in order to work this out, the folks at Google and Skyhook Wireless got together with Apple and created a network out of the 23 million Wi-Fi hotspots in the US & Canada. Maps will utilize that network of hotspots to triangulate your location with the iPhone. You don't have to be signed onto one of those hotspots either...the programming will detect them and you'll know where you are. Sweet and nice.

Now with updates coming today, you'll also be able to send SMS messages to multiple people at once. Not a high-selling point for me (I can do that on my little LG hunk-o-verizon-junk), but still I'm betting that it's useful for most folks. Webclips looks extremely useful to me (man I need an iPhone, who wants to buy me one?) as someone who reads particular things on webpages and the like. Webclips basically allows you to add a page as an icon to your desktop so you can quickly get to it. It even remembers where you zoom and pan to. That'll be great for people like me who have to check X, Y and Z each morning before doing most anything. This update also allows you to change and customize your iPhone desktop too. Move the icons around and off the screen to your heart's content...kinda like a real desktop. ("Get thee behind me stapler!")

All of the missing content from the iPod Touch (mmm...iPod Touch) that was on the iPhone when it released is now going to be standard on all iPod Touches that are sold as of today. For previous versions you can get the same software for a $20 price. Fair enough, probably should have been free, but I can understand the need for the additional $20. So that means that iPod Touch users will get Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather. Very nice. They didn't say that the Touches would get the newer cooler version of maps that has the wi-fi GPS bit...but I'm going to assume that's added in. (Now, to convince Apple that I'd be a hella good product reviewer for them...)

Ok...next up will be some discussion about iTunes!

-Mike Leader

----------------
Listening to: Fleetwood Mac - Miranda
via FoxyTunes

MACWORLD2008 - STEVE'S KEYNOTE BREAKDOWN (Pt. 1)

Wow...what a great Keynote address from Steve Jobs, eh? (I'll add in the link to the video once it's available from Apple.) I just spent the morning bouncing between the folks at MacWorld and The Mac Observer to see their transcripts of the event. There's a lot to discuss, and rather than cherry pick stuff, I'm going to tell you all about it in parts. Here in part 1, we'll talk about some of the first things discussed in the Keynote address.

(For those of you tuning in from my website at Temple of Lore, thanks for joining us! See, I have hobbies that aren't revolved around work...umm much.)

First up would be arguably the best thing I've seen for an external backup drive...well, ever. We've all got a backup drive to make sure that our precious files, pictures, home movies and music aren't lost during a crash...and these all come in various sizes, shapes, and colors. Heck, we carry a lot of them here at YourMacStore, and they're wonderful devices. However, how many come with built in wi-fi? There are a couple, yes, but looking at this one, it's only 200GB. Yup, the Time Capsule, built to help OS X Leopard users better utilize their Time Machine program to back up their computer, actually utilizes an Airport Extreme base built into the external drive case that you can wirelessly link to and backup your files. Very nice! :)

Next up is the iPhone...and see the next blogpost for more information! :)

-Mike Leader

----------------
Listening to: Johnny Cash - Delia's Gone
via FoxyTunes

MACWORLD 2008 - GETTING READY!

Welcome back true believers! We here at YourMacStore have survived the fall months and Christmas sale season to be back here in January with lots of great information for you!

This next week, our owner and CFO will be traveling to Macworld 2008 to stay on top of all that's new and cool in the coming months for Mac users like you and I. According to some of the news bits I've been able to find online, it seems that this year will be about the desktop and laptop mostly. Even with all of the iPhone hype of 2007 and the cool new iPods that came out at the end of 2007, the focus SHOULD be on the Mac desktops and laptops, don't you think?

Ok so some things we KNOW are going to show up there. Microsoft will unveil Office 2008. Wooo, another Microsoft product...I can't...be...more...exci...zzzzzzz. Seriously, there are better products out there for the Mac than MS's Office program. It's a never-have, never-will-be exciting thing for me. Kinda sad when FREE products are better than a $100+ product, eh? Also, with a convention (oooh gamer term) that has over 50,000 attendees this year, they're planning on doing training there for at least 1/10th of those folks...that's a lot of notepads. ;)

Alright...rumors...good lord, y'all love rumors. Ok let's go over some of the common ones:

"Mini-Macbook" - It's known that Apple acquired a bunch of Toshiba 13.5" screens...but what they plan on doing with them is anyone's guess. Most folks tend to think that they'll be producing

"Penryn updates" - This I feel is likely...the Macbooks could use this post haste. :)

"Movie Rentals on iTunes" - I'm still sure that this won't happen til later in the year, but they might just announce it here. Who knows? It'll be interesting for sure if it does happen. Damn...I'm gonna have to give them more $$! ;)

So the plan is for our trusty folks going to Macworld 2008 to give us updates as they get them throughout the day. We'll be posting as much as possible during that time. I'll even post some more thoughts on possibilities on Monday too.

Who else wants to see Apple go all Blu-Ray, just to really upset Microsoft? :D

[OSX News] INSTALLING LEOPARD IN YOUR TREE..ERR MAC

I’ll start off by saying that while we’re still in the process of testing odd configurations, none of this is really set in stone…

We know many folks out there have already installed the newest OS, but for those of you who are still waiting, and unsure if you can, we’ve got some information for you. After checking out many of our different systems, we did find something that was a bit odd. For those folks who’ve got their systems set up a specific way, yet meet the system requirements, Leopard will refuse to install.

So, we’ve found two of these configurations…at two processor speeds that are common out there. If you’re running 1.8 GHz with a bus speed of 100MHz or 1.4 GHz with a bus speed of 133MHz…your Apple profiler can show you what the problem is. If you haven’t, open it up. You’ll see that these two configurations cause an issue with the profiler, because it will list your clock speed at ZERO. Leopard will see this and think to itself, “Wow…not only is this computer not new, it’s apparently missing a pulse!” and then refuse to install on it.

Now this issue has only appeared on the Giga Designs CPUs that we have here, but can easily be corrected by manipulating the dipswitches on the card to change your bus speed. We’re not going to list instructions on how to do that here, but will ask you to reference your owner’s manual for the CPU upgrade and see how the configurations can be inputted. Once Leopard is installed, you can easily change the setup back to what it was prior to the install with no visible effect on Leopard (that we’ve seen).

Also, for those of you using the Giga Meter application that helps to fix this issue for you on your system…there’s an issue you need to be aware of as well. Giga Meter is an extension…so when you boot up the Leopard disc, it’s not going to be active on your system…and therefore won’t be correcting the issue that causes the Apple profiler to misread what your clock speed is.

So, based on this, it seems that Leopard is reading the clock speed as it’s judge of if it can install on a system, not the hardware specifically…and it only checks during the installation. After installing it on these systems we were able to pull the processors from them, and reinstall their older ones (a 450MHz and a 533MHz machine). Yes, Leopard is VERY slow on them, but it can be installed on them with a bit of work.

Lastly, we heard from a Japanese customer of ours the other day who told us that he managed to install Leopard on a machine under 867MHz by utilizing Target Disc Mode. To do this, you’d need a machine that meets the requirements and can then recognize the under 876MHz machine as an optical HD. I also found this note over on Cubeowner.com about it.

And I’ll say again…while we’re still in the process of testing odd configurations, none of this is really set in stone…but it is interesting, yes?


-Mike Leader
----------------
Listening to: Alan Parsons Project - Eye In The Sky
via FoxyTunes

[OSX news] LEOPARD'S SUCCESSFUL LEAP

A lot of folks don't understand that I live in two worlds. At work I use Macs exclusively...and have at different jobs for years. At home I have my gaming PC...even my old laptop is a Thinkpad (looking to be replaced as soon as I can save the money). I however am a big fan of the Apple OS. I know that in my work environment, I can count on it to get done everything I need to get done...and make life a bit easier while doing so. (That and using a windows PC at a place called "YourMacStore" would be silly. ;) ) In my opinion, Leopard helps to further ensure that Apple's desktops can be used in an office environment and do what jobs need to get done, with it's creative ways of doing them. From all of the news items I've seen, and general consensus from the sites I visit, Leopard seems to be a success just after it's release. I do know there are some minor tweaks that are needed, but I'm sure the folks at Apple will be on top of those posthaste.

When we got our copy of Leopard in on Friday morning (at 9am in fact!), we were very excited to test it out, and so began our testing. The first round of testing was to ensure to our many Cube-using customers could install it without worry...and what upgrades would do best for them. We can thoroughly recommend that our beloved Cube-fanatics (Cube-heads, Cube-lovers...what ARE they calling themselves?) upgrade their Cubes with the GigaDesigns G4 1.4GHz with the 256KB L2 Cache and 2MB L3 cache. This is normally a hard to find item...but we've got quite a bit of them at $289.95 each!

Just remember that as long as you're meeting the basic requirements of Leopard that Apple has set down, you should be fine. However, if you've been modifying your Mac, you may want to take a close look at what the other fansites out there are saying before diving it. (Some of us like to dive headfirst, and others feet-first...)

If we come across any wacky setups that we have here that may affect some of you out there, we'll make sure to let everyone know through this blog. If YOU have an issue with Leopard and your configuration, you're welcome to post information here in replies, and we'll take a look at it when we're able to. :)

Hasta La Vista!

-Mike Leader