Continuing our theme of honoring The Tour de Georgia pro cycling race that took place a few weeks ago, our fifth free iPhone wallpaper is "Spare Bikes":

I took this photo of the Kodak Gallery Cycling Team Car and spare bikes at the 2005 Tour de Georgia. This is one of my favorite photos. I use a larger portion of the original photo as the wallpaper on my MacBook Pro.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the best techniques for using an iPhone with a large iTunes library is to use Smart Playlists to automatically select tracks from your library according to logical rules. I discussed this in Use Smart Playlists for Endless Combinations of Christmas Music. I wanted to provide an update because I see a problem with this technique.

I have some Smart Playlists for rock music that I listen to sometimes when I'm running. However, I picked up some music as part of the Lance Armstrong: Run Longer workout (available from ) that's actually part of the "Alternative" genre that I want to include in these playlists.

The problem I ran into is that Alternative and Rock music go together in my mind, but they didn't end up together according to the way I had my rock-related Smart Playlists defined. The rules for my "Rock Favorites" Smart Playlist were:

• Match all of the following rules
• Genre contains Rock
• Rating is greater than ***
• Limit to 25 items selected by most played

If you want to add the Alternative genre, you can't just add a second genres rule in iTunes without changing the selection criteria to "Match any of the following rules", and then you lose the rating criteria.

The only way to choose two or more genres and include rating criteria is to exclude every other genre but the ones you want. This was discussed by Merlin Mann from 43Folders.com in 2006 in an article called "Music Only" for your iTunes playlists.

• Children's Music
• Classical
• Soundtrack
• Vocal
• Country
• Jazz
• Easy Listening
• Holiday
• Folk
• Miscellaneous

You might have to exclude more genres if your iTunes library is more diverse than mine.

I can see why Apple would design iTunes so that there is a simple one level logic to selection criteria for Smart Playlists, but the problem of how to combine music in closely related genres is made more complicated by iTunes' simplicity.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• How to Eat Healthily at Top Chain Restaurants on Lifehacker: "The food experts at Health magazine have scoured the menus at popular restaurant chains in search of the healthiest foods on the menu, rounding up several healthy menu options at otherwise unhealthy chains."

  They found reasonably healthy choices at Denny's, Ruby Tuesday, and P.F. Chang's, among others.
• AT&T Providing Free Wi-Fi Access to iPhone Users - Mac Rumors on MacRumors: "A couple of readers have reported that AT&T hotspots are now offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users. Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and presumably AT&T's 71,000 other Wi-fi hotspot locations are now offering iPhone users a custom portal to access free Wi-Fi. A special iPhone formatted page asks for your mobile phone number. Once entered, you can access the Wi-Fi access for free."

• The "missing" iPhone ringtone on TUAW: "We've all seen the iPhone ads.... None are identical, but most have something in common. Namely, that peculiar ringtone. We call it peculiar because it isn't actually included with the iPhone. Luckily, most of us have it installed on our computers already."

  The article goes on to explain how to convert the Apple Loop that comes with GarageBand (part of iLife '08) into a ringtone for your iPhone.
• In search of a GTD solution on TUAW: Brett Terpstra's take on different ways you can integrate Mac apps and utilities into a Getting Things Done system. ".... This round of solution-searching began with a post by Dennis Best titled Getting things done (simply) in Leopard. It outlined a system where iCal calendars are your contexts (or areas of responsibility), To-dos are created in Mail, Mail Notes become projects, and Smart Mailboxes were used to interesting ends. It even had a tagging system, allowing for great flexibility. This was highly appealing to me given its close integration with my primary source of tasks and information: email...."
• Interactive GTD Software Comparison Table on Priacta.com: "102 Researched GTD Software Titles and Counting. Software listed here has been verified to support Getting Things Done and related systems...." Solutions on the web, Windows, Mac, handheld, Linux, and Python are documented. I'll have to look at why they breakout Python separately.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Continuing our theme of honoring The Tour de Georgia pro cycling race that took place last week, our fourth free iPhone wallpaper is "Mavic Helmet":

I took this photo of a Mavic neutral support motorcyclists' helmet at the 2005 Tour de Georgia.

This image is part of the Operation Gadget iPhone Wallpapers Collection. I'm planning to release one iPhone wallpaper per week for a while during this Spring and Summer.

I've only ridden in one event where Mavic provided support. It was the 2004 Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride in Washington, DC. I needed support that day. I broke a pedal on my old Marin Bear Valley SE mountain bike, the only bike I owned at the time. The Mavic guys offered me a bike, but I didn't have real biking shoes at that point (to fit into clipless pedals), so I had to find someone to help me.

The incredible story of how I met Dr. Steven Sharpe at a rest area along the course, and how he took me to his home nearby and repaired my bike is one that you should read if you ever want to know what constitutes a Good Samaritan in this day and age. Dr. Sharpe and his friend Greg Millet turned an unlucky break into a miraculous finish to truly special event that did a lot of good for cancer research.

The entire story of my involvement in the 2004 Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride can be found at:

http://www.operationgadget.com/2004_tour_of_hope/

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I bought my MacBook Pro at the end of February, it was one of the first Macs shipped that didn't include the Apple Remote. This meant that I would have to buy one for $30 at the Apple Store or less if I shopped around.

Remote Buddy iPhone Interface: one of the unique features
that sets Remote Buddy apart from other Mac remote
control software.

I decided that I would start using the MacBook Pro and see if I missed the Apple Remote.

Over the past few weeks, I've thought about buying an Apple Remote but not pulled the trigger. I haven't needed to make any Keynote presentations, and I don't use iTunes locally on my Mac enough to make it worthwhile because I use my iPhone so much.

One thing I hadn't counted on was finding a Mac application that made my iPhone into a remote control for my Mac. Remote Buddy provides a framework in which remote control actions for many Mac applications can live. It supports a number of remote control devices including:

• Apple Remote
• iPhone and iPod Touch
• Griffin Airclick
• Nintendo Wii Remote

This makes Remote Buddy quite similar to Salling Clicker, a program that has existed for a long time and has many of the same features.

What makes Remote Buddy different is the mini Ajax-based web application that ships with it. You can install this app on your Mac and use it to present a remote control user interface on a non-jailbroken iPhone. This is a really cool idea if you ask me.

I'm sure that lots of people who use a MacOS X-based computer and an iPhone won't need something like Remote Buddy. However, if you are using your Mac as an automation hub, you may find Remote Buddy very useful.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal Business Technology Blog reports that Apple spent $844 million on research and development in 2007, significantly less than competitors Microsoft, IBM, H-P, Sun, and AMD. This is interesting because everybody and their brother has been touting Apple as a uniquely innovative company.

I think Apple succeeds so prolifically because it is especially focused on innovation in its core competencies. Lots of its competitors invest in research that doesn't make the same impact on their product lines as Apple's research does on Apple's products.

I think people have a tendency to criticize Apple for the wrong reasons. A lot of people complained about Apple delaying the release of OS X Leopard, and waiting until recently to release the iPhone SDK. Could they have shipped those products faster if they hired more engineers?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was one of the people who bought a Mac in the fiscal quarter that ended March 29. The last time I bought a Mac for myself was over 10 years ago. I guess wasn't alone, because The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple's quarterly earnings rose 36 percent, largely on the strength of Mac sales. Revenues grew 43 percent overall to approximately $7.42 billion.

There were some aspects of the Mac sales figures that I found hard to believe. Apple reported that it sold 51 percent more Macs in the quarter than in the same period a year earlier. They sold nearly $3.5 billion dollars worth of Macs in three months. Overall PC market growth was only 12 percent, so Apple is clearly stealing a significant share of the U.S. market from PC makers.

Apple sold 1.7 million iPhones during this period, which is about what analysts that follow the company had expected. The article goes on to say:

Apple executives said a 'significant' portion of its iPhone sales continue to involve consumers who 'unlock' the iPhone to work on unauthorized wireless networks, especially overseas in countries such as China, where the iPhone isn't yet available from Apple.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Continuing our theme of honoring The Tour de Georgia pro cycling race that started yesterday, our third free iPhone wallpaper is "Brasstown":

I took this photo of the observation tower at the top of Brasstown Bald in April 2005 at The Tour de Georgia with a Canon Powershot A95 point-and-shoot camera.

If you are interested in what the conditions were like that day, read this article: Living on Clif Bars and 100 Calorie Snack Packs and check out a few of the photos from the Operation Gadget Photo Gallery, particularly:

• Tower in the Distance
• Finish Line at Brasstown Bald
• View from the Observation Tower Porch

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In honor of The Tour de Georgia pro cycling race that starts on Monday, our second free iPhone wallpaper is this neat photo I call Road Tires:

I took this photo in April 2005 at The Tour de Georgia with a Canon Powershot A95 point-and-shoot camera.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Alltop just launched a new podcasts category. You can find it at:

http://podcasts.alltop.com/

It looks like they are initially focusing on NPR and business-related podcasts, as opposed to the technology podcasts that I am typically subscribed to.

After looking at Alltop Podcasts, I subscribed to:

• The Web 2.0 Show
• Startup Story Radio
• PRI's The World: Technology
• World Cafe Words and Music from WXPN Podcast via NPR

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day I was looking forward to watching NHL playoff games, and started thinking about how much fun it would be to watch Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC instead of Versus.

I went over to CBC.ca and watched the HNIC Playoff Preview Show on the CBC Sports Video Player. The player is a Flash-based application that sits in your browser of choice. After a brief video introduction, the Hockey Night in Canada Opening was shown. This is a series of highlights playing over the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song. The opening sequence lasted about 45 seconds.

Occasionally I hear people talking about trying to buy the Hockey Night in Canada theme as their ringtone for their mobile phone. Nobody I know has it as their ringtone on their iPhone. I decided to try to use Mac software to create an iPhone ringtone of the actual Hockey Night in Canada Theme as broadcast by the CBC. I had no idea how easy this would turn out to be.

Before I describe this technique, I want to warn you that distributing copyrighted material such as the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song is probably illegal where you live. However, no one can stop you from making an iPhone ringtone for your own personal use using the following technique.

The software I used to make this ringtone was Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba Software ($32 direct from the developer) and GarageBand '08 which is part of the iLife '08 software suite from Apple.

Audio Hijack Pro allows you to intercept (or hijack) the audio output of any application running on your Mac, and save it as an MP3 file. I hijacked the audio output of Safari and captured the Hockey Night in Canada Theme Song in about as much time as it took to locate the Opening in the program and then watch and listen to that opening.

Once I had the MP3 file, I brought it into GarageBand '08 and did the following:

1. I positioned the MP3 on the timeline so that the beginning of the song was at time 0:00.
2. I clicked the button called "Cycle Region" in the second set of controls below the timelines. That button needs to be clicked to "on" before a ringtone can be created.
3. I clicked and dragged the region of the time bar representing the music I wanted as part of my ringtone. I learned from Googling around that the sound had to be 40 seconds or less in duration, so I made sure that I only selected that amount of time in the time bar.
4. I chose "Send Ringtone to iTunes" from the "Share" menu.

This last step automatically exported the music clip as a ringtone and caused iTunes to import it. The next time I synced my iPhone, the custom ringtone was automatically transferred to it.

Once that was done, I could designate my Hockey Night in Canada ringtone as my default ringtone. Better yet, I decided to make it a ringtone unique to some of my friends from hockey and hockey officiating.

The true power of this technique is that you can capture and convert into a ringtone any sound that your Mac can play for you. This means the entire repertoire of YouTube is at your disposal, as well as things like Hulu, current programming from all of the major networks, and things like CBS Classic TV episodes.

I'm thinking of making a ringtone of the Hawaii Five-O Theme Song or the Love that Good n' Plenty Jingle from the 1960s next. [ Hat tip to The Mac Observer for their article Making Custom Ringtones with GarageBand ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past few months, I've admired the free iPhone wallpapers that Scott Bourne has published over at The Apple Phone Show. While I was driving back and forth to the USA Hockey Girls' Nationals last week, the thought occurred to me: Why not unlock the Operation Gadget photo vault and liberate some of the photos that would make nice iPhone wallpapers?

The first one I'm publishing, in honor of the opening of baseball season, is a shot of the Liberty Bell sign at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. I took this photo in May 2005 with a Canon Powershot A95 point-and-shoot camera.

I'm planning to release one iPhone wallpaper per week for a while during this Spring and Summer.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had an iPhone experience tonight like the ones that make users of other mobile phones jealous. Kathleen, Jimmy, and I decided to go to Friendly's for ice cream after dinner. We showed up at the Langhorne location only to find a standing-room-only crowd waiting for tables. We were quoted a 20-minute wait.

We're already out, so where do we go for a similar ice cream parlor experience? I get out my iPhone and tell the Maps application, "Friendly's, Langhorne, PA". I find that there is a Friendly's in Morrisville, only seven miles away. I get directions because I am not familiar with the address. We decide to go there instead, figuring we can be seated, order, and be served faster if the other Friendly's is less crowded.

The other Friendly's was a lot less crowded, the ice cream was just as good, and our waitress was very nice. She gave Jimmy a balloon and a small stuffed animal at no extra cost to us.

The total additional cost of going to the other Friendly's was 12 minutes travel time between the two locations.

The reason I'm telling this story is because my wife was completely happy with the outcome of this trip, and my 22-month old son came home happy and went off to bed quickly and quietly.

If we had stood in the vestibule of the first Friendly's for 20 minutes, then ordered ice cream in a very full restaurant, I'm sure that Jimmy would have been bouncing off the walls and would have needed time to wind down when we got home.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen, Jimmy, and I went to Roberts Ridge Park in Newtown Township earlier this evening so that Jimmy could play on the playground there. While we were at the playground, a man began flying a kite. This attracted Jimmy and another boy who is about the same age.

I took out my iPhone and started shooting photos. I was surprised at how good many of the photos looked when I got home and docked the iPhone to my Mac. You can see more in my Jimmy and the Kite photo set on Flickr.com.

I'm not a photography expert, but I am struck by how good the pictures from my iPhone look to me when I'm shooting in the "Golden Hour" right before sunset. The pictures in tonight's set are quite different from the ones I published in my First Photos with My iPhone set from last July, but a couple of the photos Kathleen and I took while we were on the Circle Line cruise around Lower Manhattan have that same sort of "Oh wow" feel for me in their unretouched state. The photo above called "Statue of Liberty at Dusk" is a great example.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Saturday's Los Angeles Times carried a front page story that made the argument that iPhone users know too much because they tend to use the Internet capability on their iPhone to answer questions that used to go unanswered in everyday conversations. The article claims that people who don't use iPhones find this behavior annoying.

The problem with this article is that Michelle Quinn got the name of her primary source in the article wrong. She repeatedly quotes someone named Erica Sadum whom she refers to as a "technology writer in Denver". She's clearly referring to Erica Sadun the author of quite a few technology books including Modding Mac OS X for O'Reilly. She's also a contributor to The Unofficial Apple Weblog and a well-known commentator on the iPhone SDK.

Newspapers like the Los Angeles Times are supposed to be carefully edited. When I see the name of a key source misspelled in a front page article I wonder if any part of this article is credible.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Scott Bourne, the host of The Apple Phone Show, saved $5750 on a new car that he just purchased by using his iPhone during the negotiation. It looks like the most productive uses of the iPhone were recalling email correspondence that had occurred between him and the dealership, and verifying the information that the dealer's salesperson offered during the actual negotiation.

Kathleen and I bought our Honda Accord in December 2006 when we both had Treo 650s. At that time, we could recall our emails with the dealership as Scott Bourne did. However I'm guessing that we had less useful information in our emails than he did.

The web capability of the Treo 650 was primitive compared to my iPhone. If the dealer had open WiFi for use by its service customers (likely at least in California), the iPhone would be that much more useful.

Scott doesn't say what kind of car he bought. I assume that in order to get a $5750 discount on the price, he had to purchase a luxury car in the range of a Mercedes or a BMW.

I think what I learned from reading this article was that I should do some introductory email correspondence with dealers before ever going on a lot. If I had corresponded with dealers prior to going to any showroom, I bet I could have gotten the ask price to move in a favorable direction.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Mac Automation: listen to a text document on TUAW: "Don't have time to read that Word, Pages, or TextEdit document at your desk? Why not listen to it on your iPod instead? In this Automator how-to, I am going to show you how to create an audio file using text that you have in an open document, then sync that using iTunes to your iPod or iPhone." This is similar to a how-to published in Macworld last month.
• Reliance Digital to Open 60 iStores Across India on Tech2.com: "Reliance Digital... plans to open 150 digital stores and 60 iStores or Apple stores across {India}. While {typical Reliance Digital} stores offer a wide range of consumer durables, iStores are exclusively for Apple's products for professional and consumer segments."
• Time Machine Now Works with Airport Extreme USB Drives on MacRumors.com: "After the release of today's Time Machine and Airport update, several readers report that Time Machine now supports backups to USB drives connected to your Airport Extreme basestation. This configuration essentially reproduces the functionality of Apple's Time Capsule product."
• Shimano buys clothing company Pearl Izumi from Nautilus on VeloNews: "Bringing premium sports apparel and footwear to its offering of industry-leading cycling and fishing products, Shimano has completed its purchase of DashAmerica, Inc. (dba Pearl Izumi USA, Inc.) from Nautilus, Inc." This actually happened a month ago, but I just noticed it.
• The Feedzone with Monique Ryan: Protect your heart this season on VeloNews: This is a great article which focuses on eating the right kind of fats and other smart food choices as part of an athletic lifestyle.
• When to Stay With Windows in Mossberg's Mailbox on AllThingsD: Walt Mossberg talks about when it's OK to stay with Windows when upgrading home computers. A couple in their 70s asked if they should upgrade to a Mac although no family members have Macs, so family support wouldn't be available to them. He points out that it's OK to stay with Windows now, but the question will need to be re-evaluated sometime this sommer, when Microsoft stops selling Windows XP to OEMs for installation on new machines.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Topeak Mini 6 on CoolTools: "This incredibly compact, bike-oriented multi-tool has five different sizes of Allen wrench plus a Phillips screwdriver head, all of which folds up into a little pod about the size of a walnut. Sometimes I'll carry it in my pocket or toss it in shoulder bag; mostly I keep it in the under-seat pouch of my bike. It really comes in handy for quick adjustments...."
• Tapping Your TiVo's Hidden Talents on The Mossberg Solution in the WSJ: "... like any old friend -- or spouse -- who has been around for a while, TiVo has a few tricks up its sleeve that might surprise longtime users and new owners alike. This column includes just a handful of those tricks and highlights some features that may make TiVo more useful. These tips are for everyday users, not serious hackers, and many others exist."
• 1Password. It’s All I Need…And This Remote. on Apple Phone Show: "If there is anything I love more than software that works, it’s software that helps me save time and having to type on my iPhone’s keyboard. This is especially significant when having to type my uber-strong passwords into a login password field. I’ve been using 1Password since Macworld, and I really find it helpful...."

• iPhone SDK, Apple's Touch Platform, and The Next Two Decades on 37signals Signal versus Noise: "What we saw today {at the iPhone Software Roadmap Event} was the spark. The explosion will continue for twenty years. We will all feel the warmth."

  "What we saw today was the beginning of two-decades of mobile domination by Apple. What Microsoft and Windows was to the desktop, Apple and Touch will be to mobile...."



• Behind the scenes of the old school HBO intro, a video on YouTube noted on 37signals Signal versus Noise: If you have time to watch any of this 11-minute video produced by HBO about the filming of an introductory film clip that HBO used as a lead in to a feature film presentation, you will be amazed at the amount of time put into building scale models of a city, town, and countryside. Yes this was state-of-the art technology in 1982. But think of how differently it would be done today.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The first book I bought to try to get new ideas on how I could better leverage my iPhone as a multimedia Swiss Army Knife was iPhone Fully Loaded by Andy Ihnatko. I have been really impressed by this book because it has some really excellent tips and techniques that go beyond many of the ideas I've seen discussed on iPhone-related blogs and websites.

Andy Ihnatko is a freelance journalist who writes a technology column in The Chicago Sun Times and appears regularly on The Early Show on CBS. He hit my radar screen through his regular gigs on The Apple Phone Show and MacBreak Weekly podcasts. Some of the concepts he discussed on those programs, such as using Smart Playlists to fill your iPhone with a constant amount of music that you like but haven't listened to recently (mentioned previously on Operation Gadget), and using Handbrake to convert chapters of DVDs that you own to clips that are playable on your iPhone, are prominently featured in this book. However, there are a lot more ideas that go far deeper into Mac and PC technology to pull together content that you have access to, package it in a form that's storable on your iPhone or iPod touch, and get it transferred on to your device.

There are also ideas that didn't appeal to me personally, but were interesting to read about from a general knowledge perspective. Andy is a big fan of comic books, so he includes an entire chapter on finding comics on the Internet and transmogrifying for your iPhone. He also talks about extensively about electronics and software that can be used to record radio programs for later playback on your iPhone. I used to listen to a great deal of radio myself, so this is interesting to me, but podcasts have largely replaced my radio listening habit since I got my iPhone, and I can barely keep up with the podcasts that I'm subscribed to now.

There are a number of other good iPhone-related books, such as The iPhone Pocket Guide by Chris Breen of MacWorld Magazine, but few are as jam-packed with ideas for filling your iPhone with content as iPhone Fully Loaded. This book always seems to be sitting near my MacBook Pro, and I think it will stay there for some time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I ordered my MacBook Pro on Sunday night. It's a build-to-order machine with a 160-Gigabyte hard drive that's based on the 2.2-GigaHertz Core 2 Duo, Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pro. If I get the machine that's currently on the market, it will be 194-percent faster than my current Dell Latitude C810, the design for which is now six years old.

I think I will be picking myself up off of the floor when I open the box and turn it on. This says nothing about the switch from Windows 2000 to MacOS X Leopard.

There are so many places where I can't really go on the web right now, just because of CPU constraints. YouTube and a lot of the Flash-based video sites are typically terrible. A lot of frames are missing when I play clips. As a result, I find myself grabbing my iPhone and using the WiFi capability to watch video. I think that's going to make a huge difference in my web experience.

I'm hoping that the web development IDEs that I use, Zend Studio 5.5 and Zend Studio for Eclipse, are leaps and bounds better on OS X than on an old, slow Windows machine. I'm also hoping that a personal organization tool such as OmniFocus or Things make me way more effective. We'll see.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• The Complete Guide to iPhone Car Integration on iLounge.com: A great article that covers nearly every accessory for using your iPhone in the car without violating the laws requiring hands-free use of mobile phones in many parts of the USA. [ via TUAW ]
• MacBook Air review round-up on TUAW: "Ah, it is that magical time after an Apple announcement: the big media reviews are starting to roll in. As you might be aware Apple loans out new hardware to technology journalists to put through their paces.... The first few reviews are up, and they all pretty much say the same thing: the MacBook Air is really thin, and a great machine so long as you don't need the ports it doesn't have." Read the reviews anyway, if you haven't already.
• Junction Networks Well Positioned In Philly Burbs from VoIP Watch: Andy Abramson pointed out this cool little VoIP company called Junction Networks right up the road from me that I had never heard of. They provide SIP Hosting, Hosted PBX, and PSTN Gateway services. The Hosted PBX stuff is the easiest thing for me to get my head around. But who knew that these guys were out here (other than Andy)?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In listening to the podcasts emanating from MacWorld Expo in San Francisco this week, a few pundits lamented the fact that the MacBook Air doesn't have 3G built into it. This is echoed by an article published on MacRumors called Lack of 3G a Deal Breaker... No, Not Talking about iPhone.

Whining of this nature is beyond tiresome.

There are so many reasons why 3G shouldn't be part of the MacBook Air at this point. One big reason is that 3G services in the United States use two competing technologies. If Apple came out with another device that was married to a single wireless carrier (AT&T), these same people would be up in arms again. If the MacBook Air shipped with unlocked 3G capability, customers would have to choose their technology or Apple would have to ship the computer with multiple wireless technology's built in. Imagine the cost of that.

This says nothing about the effect of 3G on power consumption / battery life.

People who choose to buy Apple products need to accept Apple's technology choices. 3G capabilities are available in the MacBook or MacBook Pro laptops at additional cost. The iPhone will support 3G when Apple thinks that it can build a model that has the form factor and power consumption characteristics that are consistent with the user experience they are selling.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Gmail IMAP Change in 1.13 - Apple Phone Show on Apple Phone Show Blog: "The 1.13 upgrade to the iPhone automatically changes POP configured Gmail to IMAP...." I saw the change in folder arrangement on my iPhone after I updated the firmware, but I didn't realize the implications of it until I read about the switch to IMAP online.
• The new Favicons: Making Webclip icons for iPhone on SixApart ProNet: The professional developer website for Movable Type and TypePad posted the first explanation of how to make a custom icon for a website that will appear on the home screen of an iPhone or an iPod Touch. I already made a Webclip icon for RinkAtlas, a site whose logo lends itself to doing so.

• Forty years since Masterton's death on the Globe on Hockey Blog: "Masterton, 29 at the time, was checked by Larry Cahan and Ron Harris of the Oakland Seals, and hit his head on the ice after falling backwards. The game took place Jan. 13, 1968, in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Masterton died in hospital two days later due to a brain injury."

  "His death led to the lobbying of more widespread use of helmets, and a mandatory helmet rule was passed in the summer of 1979." Anyone playing ice hockey should pause for a moment and remember Bill Masterton. His unfortunate death began a series of rule changes and other protective measures that have made our sport much safer.



• Mini-Review: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader on 37signals Signal vs Noise: "There are plenty of comprehensive reviews of the Kindle floating around so I don’t think we need another one. Instead, I’ll focus on comparing it with the Sony Reader."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I expected to be wowed by Steve Jobs' 2008 MacWorld Expo Keynote a lot more than I actually was. However, I was doing other things while the event was going on (real work), and the products that I was most interested in (mainstream Mac laptops) didn't get addressed in this keynote at all.

Bummer for me. I could have bought my MacBook Pro two weeks ago if I had known that the Penryn upgrade wasn't immediately forthcoming.

Here are my comments on the other aspects of the keynote:

• iTunes Movie Rentals / AppleTV Take 2: Clearly the announcement with the most business disruption potential. I agree with one of the commentators on MacBreak Weekly who suggested that Apple is making a play to be the digital media hub in the house, usurping services like Netflix, as well as Television services providers such as Comcast and Verizon FiOS.
• MacBook Air: This is a machine aimed at people who travel a lot or who want a portable machine that is a shadow of their desktop Mac. I could see some very well off Mac users owning the big iMac and a MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is incredibly thin. It's hard to believe a machine with a laptop-like display and keyboard could be any thinner than this and still be usable.

• Time Capsule: This is an interesting extension to the AirPort wireless base station line. Time Capsule is an AirPort Extreme with a 500G or 1T hard disk in it, functioning as Network Attached Storage (NAS).

  My first reaction was, "Bummer. Kathleen just bought me the AirPort Extreme." But then I realized that I would prefer NAS that used RAID 1 or RAID 5 storage anyway. It also costs more than we want to spend on network appliances at this point.



• iPhone 1.1.3 Update: There's some good stuff here. I loaded it on my iPhone already. The cell tower triangulation in the Maps application works pretty well. That feature makes the iPhone version of RinkAtlas viable. Expect an announcement from me on that front soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

• The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry in Wired: Awesome story about how the iPhone made it to market. Absolutely worth reading.
• The best notebook you can buy in Infoworld: "After six months of intensive, daily use of the machine, I can state now that today's MacBook Pro stands head and shoulders above Apple's prior flagship Intel notebooks, and sets a standard for performance, features, durability, eco-responsibility, and quality that any PC vendor will find difficult to approach for a similar price." [ This is the current MacBook Pro, not the one expected to be announced at Macworld in San Francisco next Tuesday. ]
• Apple wins Best Notebook Computer of the Year Award for MacBook Pro in InfoWorld: Related article to the one discussed above.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wednesday morning 6:30 A.M. There's an eerie silence in The Home Office.

Over the next 10 minutes I come to the conclusion that the power supply on The Blogging Workstation, my four year old AMD Athlon 2500XP+ ATX Tower Machine that's the fastest PC in the house, has breathed its last.

This is the machine I use to sync my iPhone, and I'm only days away from buying a new MacBook Pro (or another high end Mac notebook, as soon as Steve Jobs tells us what the product line is for 2008). What do I do now?

Luckily I had a PC at the office that has been cannibalized for parts. I brought it home, took out the power supply, and initially thought that it wouldn't work with my motherboard. I found out that the 24-pin main connector for the motherboard was modular and could be divided into a 20-pin main connector and a separate 4-pin connector. I tried this and the machine started.

The Blogging Workstation still failed POST because I didn't connect the floppy drive and a few other minor things. I can fix those tomorrow. Hopefully then I can sync the iPhone and backup as much of my synced data, iTunes library, and other irreplaceable data on that PC to another machine on my network.

What a relief.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post reported that The RIAA is arguing that ripping CDs for personal use on your iPod or other digital music player is illegal. The argument has reportedly been made in a case against Jeffrey Howell from Scottsdale, AZ. According to the article:

The {RIAA's} lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings....

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

The recording industry can't be serious about this. In order to find in favor of the industry in this claim, a court would have to conclude that millions of owners of portable media player and personal computers are going beyond the principles of Fair Use of the digital entertainment that they legally purchased (or as some would insist, "licensed"). [ via The Drudge Report ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Apple Phone Show Weblog reports that GarageBand Version 4.1.1 (the update that was released yesterday), includes a fix for the "Send Ringtone to iTunes" feature that's found in the "Share" menu. The article implies that they tested this feature and it works.

This gives iPhone users another way to create custom ringtones, in addition to the feature in the The iTunes Music Store, and third-party utilities like iToner and iPhoneRingToneMaker.

GarageBand is part of iLife '08.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)