Apparently, the Leopard update looks like a final update, with no new features, just an overall polishing.

While Snow Leopard server now features a more powerful Podcast Producer software that can work with multiple cameras to produce Picture in Picture podcasts (might be VERY useful for things like Stanfords iPhone programming worshop). Podcast producer looks like it’s on it’s way to being a very strong contender for title of best way to publish podcasts, and with everybody from your granny to NPR producing podcasts nowadays, that’d be a nice position for Apple.

The Snow Leopard client update adds dock and expose features that make things nicer.

Hooray for Snow Leopards forthcoming and quick arrival, expected in September, Intel Macs only though!

Here’s links to Amazon, you save $$$$, I make $! thank you!

• iLife ’09 ($79)
• iLife ’09 Family Pack ($99)
• iWork ’09 ($74.50, save $4.50)
• iWork ’09 Family Pack ($90, save $9)
• Mac Box Set ($149, save $20)
• Mac Box Set Family Pack ($199, save $30)

Google Quick Search Box

First Impressions:

The Good: Slick, Looks Good, Activates quickly through Double tap of the Command Key.

The Bad: Not as Quick as Spotlight. Isn’t recognizing my Google Account and Therfore not finding my Google Docs results. Spotlight searches my entire local machine (and Network with Leopard Server) inside metadata and actual files, and, with the help of Precipitate it also searches my Google Docs.

Bottom Line, Google Quick Search is a quick entry point ot web based results, very like their Mobile App, but, to get to the search box in safari, all you gotta do is Press (Command+Option+F) and if you want to beef up that search boxes capabilities, just install the excellent ‘inquisitor‘

Some Major Points:

Using the most recent version of released Apple Software is always a good idea for keeping your Mac secure. (Related: Always always do a backup of your system before updating)

Turning Auto Login off on your Desktops is a very good idea.

Turning Auto Login off on your laptops is essential.

Turning on “Ask for Password after computer goes to sleep or screensaveer” on your desktop or laptop is a really really good idea.

Turning Passcode lock on your iPhone/iPod is a very good idea.

Storing sensitive notes is best done inside the Secure Keychain, as opposed to your documents folder, stickies or any other clearly visilble location.

To learn more, follow this blog, or schedule some time with us!

Phil Schiller, one of Apple’s senior Vice Presidents and one of Steve’s main men gave a presentation that excited the Mac faithful, has me reaching for my wallet and should get you excited too.

Here are some of the key annoucements made.

- iTunes Music will now be DRM free

- iTunes music tracks will have three price points, 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29

- iTunes music will be purchasable over 3G networks

- iWork has been revamped.

- iLife has been revamped

- iWork has an online component called iWork.com that allows you to store and share your documents online.

- Keynote got an iPhone remote application that’ll really make giving presentations simple and amazing.

- Pages got a fullscreen mode, that blocks out everything (a la Writeroom) and lets you focus.

- Numbers got some really slick updates, some technical (like linking spreadsheets to pages and keynote files so the presentation stays current) and some flashy (like great looking graphs)

- Garageband, iPhoto and iMovie saw the most updates in the iLife update, though iWeb etc are all new too (meaning probably lots of themes)

- All the iLife iWork Apps got tons of new templates.

- Garageband now can show you “Learn to play lessons” from Sting, Norah Jones and more that teach you how to play piano or guitar and more, i beileve these cost $4.95 each, which sounds pretty reasonable since my local neighbourhood guy is $45 per hour for guitar lessons.

- iPhoto has a wealth of new feature, Facial Recognition means your photos can now be sorted by faces as well as the older “Event”, “Date” and “Keyword” methods. Face recognition is simple, easy and well implemented and also interacts with FaceBooks facial recognition system, meaning all the work you did up there will sync with your iPhoto library.

- iPhoto has Flickr integration and FaceBook integration.

- iPhoto gained Location awareness in iLife 09 too, it can sort your photos by the location they were taken in, giving you latitude and longtitude, showing you a map, and allowing you to give that place a name, like “Yosemite” or “Safari”

- iMovie got a bunch of user interface upgrades added as well as great location based features, allowin you to implement cool Indian Jones style segues to your vacation videos

- iMovie got engineering advances like Jitter removal, useful for video shot from a moving automobile, and tons of new transitions, as well as timeline and project building advancements.

- iLife 09 and iWork 09 require Leopard, and to make this whole package of fun and sharing tools easy and affordable, Apple is bundling Leopard with iWork and iLfe into a “Mac Box Set” for $169

- iLife ’09 will retail for $79 or $99 for a Five Pack family edition

- iWork ’09 will also retail for $79 or $99 for a Five Pack family edition

- Mac OS X Leopard still retails for $129

- The Mac Box Set saves you $120, almost the price of the Leopard itself, making it a no brainer.

- To use Leopard on your computer, you’ll need a 1ghz processor, 512mb Ram, and a good 12gb of hard drive space available.

- All this new stuff comes as standard on a new Mac (apart from iWork which is a $49 extra)

If you’d like to know more about the new Apple software released or, like to know how to maximize the use of your current Mac setup, please contact Brendan at 415-871-9683, I’ll be happy to show you some of the great features that can make your Mac even more useful for you, if you can imagine what you want your Mac to do, I can show you how to do it!

http://www.suntimes.com/business/1362825,ihnatko-steve-jobs-apple-health-010509.article#

Run summarize on it, and you get this:

If his health ever takes the sort of turn that will affect his ability to run Apple in any way, we’ll know about it.   Because shareholders get very persnickety when a publicly-traded company withholds that kind of information.   The government isn’t a big fan, either.   If Jobs were seriously ill and Apple didn’t disclose it, both of these entities would react in ways far, far more annoying to Apple than simply posting to a blog that they heard Steve had been wrapped in foil and put into suspended animation in a secret chamber underneath the Fifth Avenue Apple store.

Please take your time in running this update, make a full backup of your files, read the details of the update, download the update and run the update when you have time to leave your Mac to do it’s update.

Here’s Apple’s official release notes:

What’s new in this update?

• Improves reliability of Address Book syncing with iPhone and other devices and applications.

• Improves the reliability of AirPort connections, including improvements when roaming in large wireless networks with an Intel-based Mac.

• Improves reliability of synchronizing files on a portable home directory.
• Fixes an issue in Mac OS X 10.5.4 and 10.5.5 in which managed users may not see printers that use the Generic PPD.
• Client computers that use UUID-based ByHost preferences now respect managed Screen Saver settings.

• Addresses an issue that could cause an encryption alert to appear in the chat window.
• Setting your iChat status to “invisible” via AppleScript no longer logs you out of iChat.
• Resolves an issue in which pasting text from a Microsoft Office document could insert an image rather than text.

• Includes general improvements to gaming performance.
  
• Includes graphics improvements for iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture, and iTunes.
• Includes fixes for possible graphics distortion issues with certain ATI graphics cards.
  

• Includes overall performance and reliability fixes.
• Improves Connection Doctor accuracy.
• Fixes an issue that could cause messages identified as junk to remain in the inbox.
• Fixes an issue that could cause Mail to append a character to the file extension of an attachment.
• Addresses an issue that could prevent Mail from quitting.
• Improves reliability when printing PDF attachments.

• Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.

• Improves Apple File Service performance, especially when using a home directory hosted on an AFP server.Important: If you are using Mac OS X 10.5.6 (client) to connect to a Mac OS X Server 10.4-based server, it is strongly recommended that you update the server to Mac OS X Server version 10.4.11.
• Improves the performance and reliability of TCP connections.
• Improves reliability and performance for AT&T 3G cards.
• Updates the ssh Terminal command for compatibility with more ssh servers.

• Improves printing for the Adobe CS3 application suite.
• Improves printing for USB-based Brother and Canon printers.

• Addresses an issue in which a parentally-controlled account could be unable to access the iTunes Store.
• Includes general fixes for time limits.
• Resolves an issue that prevented adding allowed websites from Safari via drag and drop.

• Fixes issues that could cause Time Machine to state the backup volume could not be found.
• Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.

• Improves compatibility with web proxy servers.
  
  

• Includes Mac OS X security improvements. See this website for more information.
• Addresses inaccuracies with Calculator when the Mac OS X language is set to German or Swiss German.
• Improves the performance and reliability of Chess.
• Improves DVD Player performance and reliability.
• Performance improvements for iCal are included.
• Fixes an issue when running the New iCal Events Automator action as an applet.
• Adds a Trackpad System Preference pane for portable Macs.
• Improves compatibility with smart cards such as the U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card.
• Updates time zone data and Daylight Saving Time rules for several countries.

The Bundle sells for $50 and includes:

• Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac: Run Windows on your Mac without rebooting and save on Windows machine!
• MacScan: Detects, isolates and removes spyware from your Mac. Feel safe!
• PasswordWallet: Stores ALL your passwords in one secure place! Save time and keep your private data safe!
• Macintosh Explorer: The easiest-to-use and most convenient Mac file browser. Make it easy!
• Macaroni: Macaroni is a tool which handles regular maintenance for Mac OS X. You could do this yourself, but don’t you have more interesting things to do?
• Drive-In: Create disc images, search info and comfortably browse your DVD library on your Mac!
• PageSender: Go paperless by faxing or emailing anything you can print. Save on paper, ink, fax machines and TIME!
• Default Folder X: Save your files effortlessly and open your folders instantly-makes Mac OS X’s Open and Save dialogs work as quickly as you do.
• docXConverter 3.1 Premium: Received Office 2007 or Appleworks files you cannot open? Never again with this conversion tool.

http://www.crmgroupusa.com/crm_emails/parallels/GreenComputing09292008/webGreen9Apps.html

The Bundle sells for $50 and includes:

• Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac: Run Windows on your Mac without rebooting and save on Windows machine!
• MacScan: Detects, isolates and removes spyware from your Mac. Feel safe!
• PasswordWallet: Stores ALL your passwords in one secure place! Save time and keep your private data safe!
• Macintosh Explorer: The easiest-to-use and most convenient Mac file browser. Make it easy!
• Macaroni: Macaroni is a tool which handles regular maintenance for Mac OS X. You could do this yourself, but don’t you have more interesting things to do?
• Drive-In: Create disc images, search info and comfortably browse your DVD library on your Mac!
• PageSender: Go paperless by faxing or emailing anything you can print. Save on paper, ink, fax machines and TIME!
• Default Folder X: Save your files effortlessly and open your folders instantly-makes Mac OS X’s Open and Save dialogs work as quickly as you do.
• docXConverter 3.1 Premium: Received Office 2007 or Appleworks files you cannot open? Never again with this conversion tool.

http://www.crmgroupusa.com/crm_emails/parallels/GreenComputing09292008/webGreen9Apps.html

Get Caffeine, a tiny Mac only program that puts an icon in your menu bar, before you click play on the big lebowski, tap this and it’ll keep your Mac awake for you, no visits to the system pref pane for you!

Chris has mentioned you set him up at home where he can use virtualdesktop to log into work? Can you send me the instructions for this or alink to the download? Ideally I can do this with our imac so I do notneed to bring my lap top home.

  You’ll need VPN access to your work network, once you have that you need to make that connection, if it’s a simple VPN connection, then the built in VPN functions of the Mac can get you connected, if it’s more complex or secured, you’ll need “VPN Tracker”($119), available from: http://www.equinux.com/us/products/vpntracker/Once you can get connected to the office, you open and execute “Remote Desktop Connection”($Free) from Microsoft, available here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspxThe VPN settings for your company should be easy to get from your Tech Department, putting those into the Mac or VPN Tracker may be difficult, but after that, setting up “Remote Desktop Connection” is pretty straightforward.Don’t hesitate to ask more about this, I build VPN solutions often for clients, for both large and small companies,

“Precipitate Shines Mac Spotlight into Google’s Cloud”Stuart Morgan of Google has released a free Mac OS X preference pane called Precipitate that enables Spotlight and Google Desktop to search documents stored in your Google Docs account, along with your Google Bookmarks. 

 Try it out here: http://code.google.com/p/precipitate/

“The 20-year death grip that Microsoft has held on the core of computing is finally weakening—pried loose with just two fingers. With one finger you press “Control” and with the other you press “right arrow.” Instantly you switch from a Macintosh operating system (OS) to a Microsoft Windows OS. Then, with another two-finger press, you switch back again. So as you edit family pictures, you might use Mac’s iPhoto. And when you want to access your corporate e-mail, you can switch back instantly to Microsoft Exchange.This easy toggling on an Apple computer, enabled by a feature called Spaces, was but an interesting side note to last fall’s upgrade of the Mac OS. But coupled with other recent developments, the stars are aligning in a very intriguing pattern. Apple’s (AAPL) recent release of a tool kit for programmers to write applications for the iPhone will be followed by the June launch of iPhone 2.0, a software upgrade geared toward business users.” 

Read more here: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080410_206881.htm 

Dear Brendan,
for a long time now I have had no alarm clock, mostly because there is
scant room for one next to my bed. So I have been relying on Elsa to wake
me and she’s pretty consistent. She assaults me regularly between 530 and
six o’clock in the morning. She has no respect for weekends.

But I was wondering now that I have a handy dandy spanking new shiny iMac
if it might have its own alarm clock. If it did, that would be fortunate
for it would force me to get out of bed to turn it off! Of course I’ve
been known to go back to bed anyway in such events.

Here’s the Answer:
Indeed, I’ve often wished for a good alarm clock on the Macintosh, I’ve had good results with this free application called Alarm Clock Pro, it’s available from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/alarmclockpro.htm, and is free except for donation requests.

If for any reason your Mac is going to sleep or turning off at night, you may configure it to wake up by itself(about five minutes before the alarm is due, perhaps)by going into the energy saver system preferences (to do this, type “energy saver” into spotlight).

One can tell the computer to wake up at a certain time every day, once this is done, the computer will be on and the Alarm Clock Pro can do it’s work, hope this is helpful!

 Initially, gigabit Ethernet was deployed in high-capacity backbone network links (for instance, on a high-capacity campus network). In 2000, Apple’s Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 were the first mass produced personal computers featuring the 1000BASE-T connection.^[1] It quickly became a built-in feature in many other computers.

But Apple innovated again when they shipped the Power Mac G5 in June 2003 with Dual Gigabit Ethernet Ports, praise reigned on the Power Mac for this:

 The Power Mac G5 supports up to 16GB of 533-MHz DDR2 SDRAM and now includes two Gigabit Ethernet ports. Multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports are well suited for users who plan to utilize their Power Mac in an Xsan environment — that’s Apple’s storage-area network technology for high-performance computing. 

But, what can these dual ports do for us in our day to day computing? Well, simply put, your Power Mac can connect to your Router through both of these ports simultaneously and instantly double your network bandwidth.Many operating systems including Unix, Linux and Windows XP require intelligent configuring on the part of the user or the “System Administrator”, on the Mac, however, It Just Works.This trick will work for you even on your laptop, where a windows laptop would become confused with a WiFi connection as well as a Wired Gigabit connection, the MacBook will happily use both network connections simultaneously to get the most efficiency from your home router. Remember, the greatest home routers are the Apple Airport line of routers available from the Apple Store, Amazon or AuburnCom, your San Francisco Mac Evangelist!  

Listen to it over on http://www.twit.tv/mbw64

or lets talk about video, I evangelise the Apple TV, apple’s great product that brings your entire iTunes library to your living room, your bedroom, in fact any rooms in fact you’d like to listen to the large music library that you’ve spent so much time building, wouldn’t it be great to play all that music from the comfort of your living room couch? Call for a example of it’s usefulness.

Mac Hardware, software and Networking is all under our microscope, Apple has certified us as experts and we are so happy to bring this expertise to you.

AuburnCom is a registered San Francisco company with clients from Marin county, Sausalito, Yerba Buena island, the city of San Francisco and as far south as Daly City, we make house calls to the East Bay, and ship replacement and upgrade superdrives to faraway states including Texas and Massachusettes.

Call us on 415-871-9683, email brendan@auburncom.com or visit http://www.auburncom.com to find out more about us or how we can make things better and easier for you.

Obviously, to use this, you’re going to have to have a mac with at least Tiger, and a copy of VisualHub.Let’s say you’ve got your iPhone, your mac with Tiger, and a copy of VisualHub.

First, you need to be able to script VisualHub. To do that, you’re going to have to download this special script dictionary.Next you’re going to install this script library. To do so you need to…

To learn more, call or email Brendan at AuburnCom 415-871-9683 for expert Mac advice and tutorials.   

OS X began the use of using it’s development code names as marketing tools with verion 10.2 (Jaguar), prior editions were marketed as Version 10 and Version 10.1 while engineers and developers referred to these versions by their project or code names, Version 10 was code named internally as Cheetah and Version 10.1 was known internally as Puma.
We know from Wikipedia entries that Apple’s marketing team decided to use the code name Jaguar after huge buzzprior to the release of 10.2. 10.3 was then marketed as Panther and 10.4 as Tiger. By now, people have heard that the impending version of 10.5 is known as Leopard, in fact, Leopard is a much more familiar name for the upcoming release.
A client today suggested we may see Ocelot as the name for the Leopard’s successor, an eduacated guess and a most interesing name for the next iteration of OS X, the truth however, may be more mundane, Trademark filings show Apple has trademarks already on two neat names, Lynx and Cougar.

With all of that cleared up, we can speculate that Apple wouldn’t use sequential code names beginning with the same letter, namely L, thereby giving us the probable code name (and marketing name) of 10.6, Cougar.

The future of OS X is wide open though, viewers of the wonderful high definition nature series will have gained glimpses of some of the most impressive and elusive big cats roaming this planet, can anyone comment here on what names they expect or think we might see?

There’s lots of after parties, connections, and discounts on great Mac accessories and software to be had so run over to the website and grab your four day pass for just $25!

Via TUAW

I am happy to report that registration for Macworld 2008, happening in San Francisco January 14 through the 19th, 2008, is open.
If you register before October 5th you can get a free Exhibit pass (using Priority Code: 08-E-VF01) or special rates for the higher end passes (which allow you into the various classes and labs offered at the Conference).

I’ve tried all kinds of tricks to reduce the email load:
- I archive any mailing list that I don’t really need in my inbox.
- I try to check email fewer times during the day.
- I write replies to emails, then save them as drafts for a while before replying, so I don’t get stuck in a cycle of replying, getting a response, and quickly emailing again.

This week (with a little prodding from a friend), I realized that it’s still not working. I’m barely keeping my head above water, email-wise. I need a different approach. I can see a couple options:

1. Go “lossy.” Let a few emails drop on the floor. I’m already doing this from time to time, like when someone emails out of the blue asking for an interview or something that would take too long.
2. For emails from outside Google, shard the workload and ask for help.

Gizmodo called for an iPhone boycott “for the foreseeable future” as a righteous protest against AT&T, a brand it associates with “Microsoft-style anti-competitive maneuvers and anti-privacy efforts á la RIAA.”  

Interestingly, Gizmodo offered no opinions last fall about boycotting the Zune to protest genuine“Microsoft anti-competitive maneuvers,” or the Zune’s actual connection with the RIAA with its over the top DRM, self destructing media, and the Universal “music theft tax”Microsoft bundled into its price. Why not? 

To continue reading (it’s worthwhile), click here

Here’s the bottom line: Mac Software updates are important and you MUST do these as soon as possible after they are released by Apple as they contain many security fixes as well as system enhancements but remember this rule:

Every single time you install an update to Mac OS X whether it be an iTunes update, a QuickTime update, an update for daylight saving time, a security update, an Airport update, or an actual Mac OS X update, you can be hit by this bug. In order to prevent yourself from being smacked in the face by this bug, follow this simple rule: When “Optimize System Performance” appears during the update process do not touch your computer and definitely do not launch any applications. Just back away from your computer box as if it were a swarm of bees. Yes, it does mean that if you install the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update, you may get hit by the bug.