International Mac Podcast

Like most of you reading this post, I have a fairly worrying number of social media accounts: Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader and multiple Twitter accounts, which for some reason I feel the need to be constantly updated on. I think you realise you’re a social media addict when you meet someone in person and refer to by their Twitter handle, as @Chris… I mean Chris Wall will attest to!

Up until recently I’ve had to run a Twitter client (Tweetie, of course), an RSS reader, and then have Fluid SSBs for Facebook and Flickr, which meant a lot of dock real estate hogging and a fair bit of CPU and RAM usage too.

Then I found Socialite, formerly EventBox, from the lovely folks at Real Mac Software. I had a license of EventBox from a while ago, but the Real Mac Software gang kindly upgraded that to a Socialite license for no extra cost.

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[EDIT: Will everyone PLEASE stop calling it the MacPod - Stu]

My prediction for the magical flying unicorn of a product that is the Apple Tablet is as follows; almost everything everybody, including me, has predicted so far will be partially to totally wrong. Obvious paradox aside, the build up to this iUnicorn mirrors that of the iPhone almost perfectly; hundreds of tech blogs speculating wildly different things about a product, agreeing only on a name (well, usually) and a few basic ideas about what it is. So yes, I could spend the next 3-4 paragraphs analyzing the exact position and length of every one of the few hairs remaining on Steve Jobs’s head looking for any clues to what this iFlyingNarwhal is, but that would be stupid, unhelpful, repetitious, and take longer than the 45 minutes I have allotted myself to write this before Chuck starts, so instead I’m just gonna write about what I’d like to see, and what I wouldn’t. (more…)

As one of the more public Mac users, I have a lot of experience evangelizing for Apple and the Macintosh among my school community. I have come to realize that when I get into a conversation with a Windows user, they almost always end in one of three ways.

1. I convince them and they agree with me that Macs have value and are worthwhile, and sometimes they even look into drinking the koolaid.
2. They sort of grumble and walk away, realizing that I have beaten them, but refusing to admit it. This is generally the most common.
What is unfortunate is that the following response is becoming more and more common:
3. “Macs are overpriced and not worth what Apple charges because I can get any software for free.”

This, of course, means that he pirates software. I hate pirates. They ruin everything for everyone else.

They make small developers struggle because people aren’t paying them, they make large companies (cough Adobe cough) keep their prices high, and they perpetuate DRM and license enforcement (cough Microsoft cough RIAA cough MPAA cough). Their stealing (yes, that’s right, folks. Software and media piracy is STEALING) ruins the experience for everyone else. (more…)

The “Get a Mac” ad campaign (sometimes known as the ‘Mac vs. PC ads’) shown in the U.S has, last month, been named AdWeek’s “campaign of the decade”. In light of this, I have now found an excuse to unveil my personal distaste for Apple’s latest Mac campaign and the people who love it.

Now before I begin, I cannot, and will not deny how successful these advertisements have been for Apple. The fundamental reason why I believe this to be the case has been worded perfectly by AdWeek themselves:

“That series of 60-plus ads brought some humanity into the equation by turning the machines into live-action cartoons. In so doing, the comic spots offer transparent understanding of the aspirations of its audience and how people identify—and connect emotionally—with technology.” (more…)

With Apple’s new mouse comes some pluses and some minuses. There a couple new features to the mouse, including multi-touch, multi-touch gestures, and momentum scrolling (all of which are welcome additions). Some features were left on the cutting room floor as they crafted the new tinier mouse. Exposé and Dashboard buttons have been taken away, however I believe they will return in the form of a software update.  The multi-touch gestures to go forward a page and backward a page are a bit awkward to activate but once you get used to it it’s nice to be able to do. Also adium users will be able to use these gestures to switch between chat windows, like you can on the MacBooks.

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This series was started when David Allen’s system, Getting Things Done, was all the rage. I was somewhat fascinated by it, and the name doubled, and continues to double, as a collective name for any way to organize tasks. However, this is not the only way to accomplish organization, and not the best for many people. There are several different ones out there, and you can pick the one you like best, or make your own. (more…)

Today I was browsing my RSS feeds, getting notes together for this week’s IMP Live when I came across this story from iPhone Alley and it got me thinking about the relationship between Apple and AT&T.

The basic gist of the story is that Apple have released two new iPhone ads in the US, both of which highlight the fact that the iPhone (and subsequently AT&T’s 3G network) can handle voice and data at the same time, and giving real world examples of how this benefits iPhone users. What Apple does though, is to bring up the whole  which 3G network is better ‘battle’ in the ad, is this right, is Apple being paid off by AT&T?

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