February 2010 NEWS

iPad Editorial During the introduction my daughter I have not ‘sourced’ many of the articles asked me if this was going to be my lead in this issue - the best I can do is “all story. Here it is! over the web”. My sources are (generally) Wired, CNET, iLounge First, pictures from Apple’s website: Daring Fireball, Infinite Loop, and even CNN and The Chicago Tribune. Many stories are repeated in all publications.

The Editor

Program Schedule All scheduled meetings are to be held at the Grande Prairie Public Library from 7:00 PM to 8:45

February 9: Bento Database and Voice to Text Todd Smith

February 16: SIG Apple Mail

March 9: Global Positioning System John Massura

April 13 How Computers Actually Work Bill Geraci

May 11: TBA with TBA

June 8: Home Automation Walter Palmer

1 Wednesday January 27, 2010 11:20 $499 FOR 16GB, 32Gb for $599, 64GB for $699 plus $130 for 3G models of all those.

Synching and charging are the same as the iPhone and the iPod Touch

Accessories: There is a case that converts into a stand, and, although the on screen keys are big enough to type on, a connectable keyboard. “

Ars Technica Live Streaming Weblog Jacqui Cheng

Quoting Steve: Always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts …products that are intuitive, easy to use, fun to use…a combination of these two things have allowed us to make these creative products like the iPad

Breakthrough deal with AT&T…first one gets you 250MB of data per month; most people will get by on that, for $14.99 …unlimited plans for $29.99. How do you turn it on and manage it? You can activate right on iPad itself and there's no contract. Prepay.

They will be shipping in 60 days worldwide

2 Officially called the Apple iPad Dock large multi-touch display and will be Connector to VGA Adapter ($29), this available for just $9.99 each. custom Apple cable enables the iPad to be connected to a projector or monitor to ‘You’ll Rule the World’ display its screen content -- or in the 10:52 AM future, separate content -- at 1024x768 by John Gruber resolution. When used with this cable, Alan Kay, regarding his reaction to the audio is performed solely through the iPhone in January 2007: iPad's speakers or headphone port. When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of Based upon Apple's earlier iPod Camera it. I said: Well, it’s the first personal Connector, which sold for the same computer worth criticizing. So at the end price, the new Apple iPad Camera of the presentation, Steve came up to me Connection Kit ($29) comes with both a and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? Dock Connector-to-USB adapter and a And I said: Make the screen five inches Dock Connector-based SD Card reader, by eight inches, and you’ll rule the enabling you to connect either a camera world. or an SD Card to transfer pictures to the iPad. Pictures can be organized in [Editorial] Photos and used with various My thoughts, for what they’re worth: applications, including iWork apps, then It’s a little bigger than I would like – transferred back to your computer. 5X8 inches would be better. The price is half what is was rumored, I wonder if Apple's more complex dock for the iPad the $800 wasn’t a deliberate leak so they is called iPad Keyboard Dock ($69), could sound inexpensive, still, not bad. combining the features of the standard iPad Dock (Dock Connector pass- What is bad is that they still use AT&T. through and audio line-out) with a Their network is not as good as modified version of Apple's latest Verizon’s – in my opinion. aluminum keyboard. The keyboard contains function keys that control the Tablet makers rethinking things in iPad's brightness, volume level, and iPod wake of iPad's $499 price music playback features, as well as calling up search, the home screen, and a by Jon Stokes couple of other shortcuts. It enables Infinite Loop users who type a lot to dock their iPads in a reclined position, connect a wall Competing tablet makers are adapter for charging (not included), and reevaluating their pricing strategy in the use a "real" keyboard. wake of Apple's iPad announcement, according to a rumor in the Digitimes. (Jeremy Horwitz, Editor in Chief, The article cites the usual unnamed iLounge) sources in claiming that companies like ASUS and MSI had expected Apple's Apple executive Phil Schiller gave a iPad to debut at $1,000, and were demonstration of the new version of planning to undercut that price by 20 to iWork built specifically for the iPad. All 30 percent with their own, presumably three applications, Keynote, Pages and Android-based offerings. But with the Numbers have been reworked for the iPad base model coming in at $499—the price of a decent netbook—the

3 companies are now going to have to control unit with snap-on rotors. This compete on something besides price. was described as a toy. Not with a TV camera in its nose. Your editor wants ++++ one.

Parrot shows iPhone-controlled +++++ AR.Drone toy I have not commented about CES before in this newsletter, but this year is an (from CES) exception. Items from the reports that By Charles Starrett aroused my interest are 3-D technology Senior Editor, iLounge Published: (it’s crude, but it will get better, how Wednesday, January 6, 2010 much is always the question), new and Parrot, primarily known for its wireless clever uses of the iPhone/iPod Touch, mobile accessories, has unveiled the Parrot convergence between television and AR.Drone, a quadricopter piloted via an computers, and a single laptop with a iPhone or iPod touch. The AR.Drone’s translucent lid/screen. It’s a one way companion application allows users to fly in barrier between the computer user and a real-world environment, complete with the world. Details can be found at places objects and conditions to account for, while like WIRED News, CNET, CNN, and simultaneously playing a video game on the probably others. device’s screen. The app uses the accelerometer and command buttons for ++++ control, while the Wi-Fi-connected AR.Drone employs a wide angle camera and high speed camera, an accelerometer, a From Wired News: It seems that the gyro, an ultrasound sensor, and an advanced iPhone/iPod Touch is becoming a computer to make piloting accessible to both popular attachment to firearms as savvy and inexperienced users alike. Parrot ballistics computers. (Side Note: The plans to make an open SDK available to first computers were used for compiling developers soon, and plans to release the Census Data and to figure ballistics for AR.Drone to consumers sometime later this cannon fire. Ballistics came much year at a currently undetermined price. earlier. An early leader in the second Continue reading to watch a demo video field was Leonardo Da Vinci. Much of showing the device in action. the early work got applied to astronomy before the ink was dry.)

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Apple and Nokia Trade Lawsuits

Nokia sued Apple about a month ago on the grounds of patent infringement. Watch the video: Nokia claims that just about everything http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ne that Apple makes infringes on one of ws/comments/parrot-shows-iphone- their patents. Apple has sued back. controlled-ar.drone-toy/ (Personal thoughts: In situations like this what the entity that filed the first suit You’ll have to watch the video to see the wants is a juicy out-of-court settlement. ‘real’ Quadricopter There is a central Apple’s countersuit is to tell Nokia that

4 they can forget it. Please note that when Apple’s share of sales good – a Apple was not doing so well, it wasn’t little better than expected. sued often. Now that Apple is doing well, other companies want some of their money. This is one of the things Bill Gerci was referring to at the January meeting when he used the phrase “Corporate Backstabbing”.

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McDonalds to offer free wi-fi in as many of its restaurants as can be (Source: World of Apple) managed. ASAP. Source: All my news sources.

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Google and China in Battle (all over the web)

Google and China have been locked in an ongoing series of battles. Early in January, it was announced that China had hacked the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents. Just today (January 18) it was announced that now the Gmail accounts of foreign reporters in China have been hacked. China has said that Google is complaining because of economic reasons. Maybe the Chinese are truly blind to the Source: Ars Technica, also known as concept of freedom of expression. Infinite Loop.

++++ ++++ Google is to introduce competition for the iPhone. Like Apple they have seen the value of controlling both the hardware and software.

5 Uses for the iPhone – attachment to a rifle used to calculate wind and distance Meta-Data – usually involving tracking information. edits in a document - can also get a lawyer in trouble if the other side is able Google’s Chrome browser has moved to see and use it. This included contract into third place, pushing Safari to 4th. I bargaining as well as litigation. prefer the way that Safari auto complete works rather than the /Chrome Google Wave – a telephone number method of using it as a search term. consolidator.

Ford is installing Wi-Fi is some of its If you like reading electronic books - cars. OnStar has/is a built in Verizon cell free and legal, try Many Books – it’s phone, this must work like that. basically a front-end for Guttenberg. Not all are ancient. iFixIt Manuals are now free to the public. Be Careful! WarCraft Clone

On January 10, Apple bought a company Stu Kurtz mentioned MacNetNews as an specializing in mobile advertising. They RSS reader. MNN has free and paid also bought an online music distributor. versions now. The paid version is new. Commentaters are beginning to compare During a recession – genius! I prefer Apple and . Shrook (free) anyway.

Heck, they already come close to ++++ controlling a movie studio. (Pixar) Sun has set Several ways of restoring old features to Snow Leopard, but they all involve Sun Micro Systems has been de-listed on using the monitor the NASDQ. This means that their stock will no longer be sold on the Dragon Dictation caused a big stir. The computerized sales (Quotation) system program records the audio, sends it to of the National Association of Securities their computer and then sends back a Dealers. This is usually done because the text version of the recording. While exchange in question feels that the stock computers with no human intervention is too risky for them to be associated while the translation is being done the with. There are very few ways to buy company has made an official re- stock that is not listed on even the assurance that material submitted is not NASDQ. There has been no report of read by humans. For an Attorney, for bankruptcy or dissolution of the example, this is crucial. An Attorney can company, but this means that things are be disbarred and sued for violating very bad for Sun. Attorney-Client privilege. It’s pretty much a slam-dunk. If the Attorney can Not so long ago Sun was a force in the point to the re-assurance and say that it computer industry, but now, clearly, has leaked out but that they trusted Dragon fallen on hard times. to the best of (my) knowledge and belief, then the malpractice pretty much goes away and the license is ‘only’ suspended.

6 understand what they mean probably ++++ already have theirs. Your Editor knows just enough to wince at some of them.) Apple Seeds OS 10.6.3 to Developers ++++ Apple has started sending copies of OS 10.6.3 to developers. This is not the final Palo Alto will be prototype for revised version, but it is close enough for Apple Apple Store design to send to developers so they can: 1. Test it and tell Apple what they like and what by Chris Foresman they don’t, and, 2. Start modifying their Infinite Loop software to work with the changes, if needed. Apple is planning to build a new Palo Alto store to serve as a "prototype" for (From World of Apple) future Apple Stores, featuring a completely transparent front and an Apple Releases First Build of Mac OS indoor atrium "feel." The revised, more X 10.6.3 [U: Seed Notes] open design will serve as a "commons by Alex Brooks for [Apple's] community to gather," according to documents filed with the Apple has today given developers the City of Palo Alto's Architectural Review first build of Mac OS X 10.6.3. The Board. update, which is labeled build 10D522, weighs in at 666MB and is said to Though Apple is not named in the filing, contain over 200 fixes and uncovered by Silicon Valley Mercury enhancements. News, the architect for the project is Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, who also The build contains four known issues for designed the 5th Avenue Apple Store in the build listed as Displays preferences, New York. That store is well known for iTunes hangs, and ColorSync Utility its large glass cube entryway for the Filters and issues with application underground retail area, open 24/7. Palo updating. Alto planning manager Amy French told Known Issues the Mercury News that it is her understanding that the location will be a (Here followed 12 pages of bug fixes. new Apple Store. There seems to be a lot of crashing going on. 10.6 was supposed to squash bugs in In addition to the open glass façade in 10.5, but it has a long list of problems all front, the roof will be modified to its own. The proposed fixes involve a lot include large, open skylights. The of everyday areas beside the ones natural light coming in will help three mentioned above, like printer drivers large trees, planted near the rear of the (CUPS – these are generic Unix printer store, to grow inside. These features, drivers instead of Apple’s or the along with materials choices and other manufacturer’s own), Searchlight, energy efficiency design cues, will Airport, Mobile Me (yet again), Text qualify the remodeled building for Edit, etc. My own experience has been LEED certification. less than happy. I can email the list to anybody who wants it, but those who are The renovated location will occupy most interested and most able to 10,700 square feet. The existing Palo

7 Alto Apple Store, located just a block away, is about 6,500 square feet. The ++++ added space will include plenty of room to offer training for businesses and Inklet turns your MacBook trackpad individual consumers. into a tablet

++++ Posted on Jan 11, 2010 9:05 am by David Chartier, Macworld.com (as mentioned above:) Brief: Apple acquires its own mobile Has your inner artist been on a hunger ad firm to one-up Google strike, protesting to be let out? Or is he or she more of the red-paint-on-fur-coat by Chris Foresman activist type that’s angry about the high Infinite Loop cost of Wacom tablets? Regardless, Ten One Design’s new Inklet app may put an Not long after Google announced it had end to your suffering, as it can turn an acquired mobile advertising firm ordinary MacBook trackpad into a pen AdMob, Apple has announced tablet. the acquisition of its own mobile advertising firm, Quattro Wireless. The Inklet displays a canvas in most popular announcement came today just after drawing and image apps, like Photoshop, All Things D broke the rumor that the Brushes, SketchBook Pro, and deal was imminent. Quattro cofounder Illustrator, on which your trackpad and CEO Andrew Miller has been movements become pen and brush named vice president of mobile strokes. Inklet's tools stay out of your advertising for Apple as part of the deal. way, however, awaiting activation by Apple paid a reported $275 million for keyboard shortcut or a menubar item. Quattro, a much better deal than Google You can customize the size and position ended up paying for rival mobile ad firm of Inklet’s drawing space on the actual AdMob. Google ponied up $750 canvas you are working in, and you can million in an attempt to outbid Apple, get pressure-sensitive strokes if you use which had also reportedly made an offer Ten One Design’s Pogo Sketch tool for the company. That price is while drawing. Inklet can even work approximately 16.7 times AdMob's with Mac OS X’s built-in handwriting sales, "the sort of price rarely seen in recognition tools, and a couple of demo takeover deals since the heady days of videos at the company’s site show the the dot-com boom," according to feature in action. Reuters. Ten One Design says Inklet should work with more apps than those mentioned ++++ above, so it might let you draw in other popular apps like Acorn and Pixelmator. Microsoft is patching Mac Word to A recent MacBook with a multi-touch remove the "custom XML" compatibility trackpad running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow after it lost a patent lawsuit. Mac Leopard is required, and a demo is versions weren't named in the suit, but available. A license costs $25. the move is to "allay... concerns about compliance with the injunction."

Multiple Sources

8 command - smaller command 0 (zero) oringinal size ++++ This provides a Java bookmarklet that can assist in readablility for those of us Troubleshooting who need it. The link is: www.labarc.com90/experiment/readibility. (I If you are suffering random drops in have similar set for the iPhone/iPod Airport there is a chance that it is Touch’s version of Safari if anyone is interference from another wireless interested. They came from MacWorld, computer (dueling computers my wife so there is some assurance that they will calls it), multiple networks (my house is work for you as well as they have for me covered by two – besides our own) and on my iPod Touch. Email me at cell phones. The Electro Magnetic [email protected] if you are interested.) Spectrum (radio) is getting pretty crowded. (Aside: This is the famous EM There is supposed to be a blue star in the Spectrum they were talking about in Star TopSites thumbnail in Safari to indicate Trek: The Next Generation all the time.) an update. I have been unable to locate it. ++++ You can drag a link to the toolbar or the Shift>option> k produces an . desktop where it will form what is called a “webloc”. If you store the webloc ++++ somewhere safe and drag it into the dock. Safari opens real fast! Apple is rumored to be working on automated 3-D modeling. Bill did not mention it but the webloc has a companion: the “mailtoloc”. Drag ++++ an email address onto the Finder and get something clickable for email. Meeting Summary ++++ Summary of the program presented by Bill Geraci at the January 12 meeting. SOFTWARE NEWS Open-source project aims to build Recommended , email new Mac e-mail client client, IRC client and Newsgroup client: Sea Monkey, available through Posted on Jan 21, 2010 10:00 am by Lex Versiontracker and probably others. Friedman, Macworld.com

To select items in the bar (N It all started, innocently enough, on equals the number of itmes from the left Saturday, January 16th. Brent Simmons, – if you want to select the fourth item the Mac software developer and creator from the left, type a 4 where I have put of NetNewsWire, wrote a post the letter N): wherein he lamented the lack of a truly command #N - number of spaces in tool awesome Mac OS IMAP e-mail client bar – Safari only. for power users. Brent's basic thesis was that the Mac community needs such a command + larger client that caters who folks who rely on

9 email for a living. (He later said to me, browsers and got to see a lot of the via email: “Mail [.app] ... is a good app, differences between Firefox and Safari. and I like it -- I want to be clear about What if you can’t have both because of that—but it's not designed for folks like disk space? Admittedly this isn’t a me who ask for a lot more power.”) problem for those lucky people who own But alas, Brent doesn't have time to code a newer Mac with tons of gigabytes of the darn thing himself. His thought, space. So, if you’re like me and have to though, was that an open-source chose one, and chose Safari because it community of similarly minded Mac comes installed as part of the OS, there heads could collaborate and potentially are features of Firefox you liked and make something, well, insanely great. want to have in Safari. How to do it? Brent wrote: “I am not volunteering to lead it. I may not even be able to Try Glims. contribute. But I can at least kick off a conversation about feasibility and What is Glims, you ask? It’s a real tiny interest and scope.” (2.0 mb) add-on to Safari that does a lot. It gets rid of my personal bête noir, the Two days and literally hundreds of inability to set Safari to always open a emails later, Brent posted again. At that new link in a from inside Safari. Or point, a name for the project existed— if you want some links to open in new Letters.app—along with a Twitter tabs and others in windows, you can account. Brent announced an election to enter url exceptions to the open in a new fill the role of “president” for the project, tab command. But you don’t have to writing: “The president’s job is to ship open links in tabs with Glims. Glims the next major release. The first does allow you to continue opening new president will ship 1.0. This keeps the windows while enjoying the rest of its job product-focused rather than time- features. focused.” And those are . . . Fast-forward two days later, and famed Apple pundit John Gruber was e- Don’t like Google? Glims will allow you inaugurated in that role. A draft of the to change your preferred search engine Letters.app vision document was created to another, again just like Firefox. You as well. In an e-mail to me, Gruber can chose to run your search from any revealed that Gus Mueller, the man one of a dozen search engines, including behind Flying Meat Software (Acorn, iTunes, .com, MacUpdate, VoodooPad) will serve as the project's Version Tracker, eBay, Facebook, and technical lead. MySpace. And if you want to use a search engine that isn’t on their ++++ extensive list, you can always add it. PS is also there. Reviews Glims also adds some ways to further Glims: Turning Safari into Firefox customize bookmarks and provides By Carrie Palmer support for non-English speakers. Okay, so nothing can really change the Finally, Glims preferences are easily Safari into Firefox, but Glims comes located with the rest of Safari’s close to it. In our January meeting we preferences which makes personalization were treated to a presentation on web easy.

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Pretty nice huh? Now a bit on the About 2010 - Astrological Retrograde downside. While tabbing is made easier, Calendar with Glims, it isn’t perfect. The new tab Featuring precise dates and times for all opened with Glims preferences doesn’t retrograde and direct motions for all immediately come to the front like a planets of our solar system (except regular tab. Earth):

All in all, Glims is a nice little add-on System Requirements for Safari, that does take away many of Mac OS X 10.1 or later, Cal the differences between Safari and Download Details Firefox. Safari still handles PDF files Company: Tree of Life Publishing, Inc. better than Firefox. But on the flip side, Version: 1.0 Firefox still handles the growing trend Post Date: January 4, 2010 towards webmail better. So which is for License: Freeware you? You decide! Convert to PDF 1.2 If you would like to try Glims, it can be 11/09/2009 Automator action for found at http://www.machangout.com/. converting any file that cupsfilter can And unlike some third party developer handle to PDF. (Freeware) add-ons, Glims is 100% free! Calories 2.1

From Apple’s Web Site About Calories Finally healthy, slender and attractive! About CapSee You tried thousand and one diet with no A small utility that let’s you see when success? You want to change your body you bump the caps lock key. Identical to and your life? Are you looking for an the built-in Mac OS notification bezels, infallible guide? Then Calories 2 is for like volume and screen brightness, you! Easy to use software for your daily CapSee presents a bezel whenever you needs. While others still dream of a enable caps lock… preventing the slender life, you have already begun! accidental caps lock forever! System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later or later Download Details Download Details Company: danholt consulting services Company: Threemagination Inc Version: 2.1 Version: 1.0 Post Date: January 21, 2010 Post Date: January 18, 2010 License: Demo License: Freeware File Size: 50MB File Size: 1.1MB Dejal Simon 2.5.5 iCalBirthdays 1.7.1 01/18/2010 Create a birthday calendar in About Dejal Simon iCal from Address Book. (Freeware) The essential site monitoring tool for Mac OS X. It checks web pages, FTP 2010 - Astrological Retrograde (iCal) and DNS servers, local or remote ports, Calendar 1.0 and other services for changes or

11 failures, and notifies you via email, variables to achieve advanced sound, speech, or HTML reports. automation tasks. Email notification profiles based on exit code can be set for Add tests to Simon to track updated tasks. Schedules can be synchronized to sites, to alert you when an important allow or prevent overlapping schedules. server goes down or recovers, check on Dynamic variables allow for advanced Samba SMB, take periodic screenshots automation solutions. A number of of the system, track posts and new command line utilities are available to comments on your or friends’ , remotely and programmatically control check for web mail, make sure a key tasks and the scheduler. application is running, get notifications of updates to favorite news and entertainment websites, keep an eye on System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 auctions, and many other uses. Many or later more features. Download Details Company: Hitek Software System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 Version: 8.34 or later Post Date: January 19, 2010 Download Details License: Shareware Company: File Size: 7.3MB Dejal Systems, LLC Version: Email Backup Pro 2.4.1 2.5.5 Post Date: November 23, 2009 About Email Backup Pro License: Shareware An easy to use, powerful, automated File Size: 12.7MB email backup solution. It allows for scheduled backups of the most common AutoKrypt 8.34 email applications through the configuration of a simple interface. About AutoKrypt Encryption software designed for System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 automation. Automatically encrypt and or later decrypt files and folders. Encryption Download Details methods include password based, secret Company: Squashed Software key, public and private key, OpenPGP Version: 2.4.1 password, OpenPGP private and public Post Date: January 11, 2010 key encryption. Includes key generators, License: Demo and a key store to manage keys. File Size: 1.2MB Common tasks include encrypt, decrypt, copy, zip, unzip, synchronize and file monitors. Includes scheduler to run tasks. A chaining feature can run tasks in sequence or conditionally depending on exit codes.

Additional features include email notifications on task failure, zip file viewer, extensive logging, remote task control and more. It supports dynamic

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