Muskoka Mac User Group

I’m not quite sure what to make of this CNet article, but I see the University of Waterloo was in on it.

Long story short – showing people just the Apple logo via subliminal advertising made people more creative in problem solving than showing them the IBM logo. I sure hope they do follow up studies to try and figure out why.

What’s your theory?

One of the Leopard features that was advertised heavily at first was the ‘Back To My Mac’ ability.

It’s a very handy item for a lot of people, but there’s a couple of gotcha’s.

• One, it requires a .Mac account, which isn’t cheap.
• Two, it doesn’t work in a lot of public settings because of the infrastructure hotels etc put in place when they give away internet access.
• Three, Apple’s servers seem to be overloaded – often….

So, if you like the idea, but not Apple’s implementation of it – check out this Lifehacker article explaining how to get the functionality without the same drawbacks.

Please note I don’t agree with all of their suggestions – if you get serious about this drop by a meeting and talk to me first – I have a few related suggestions of my won.

I have a bunch of quick notes saved up for blog entries that I’m never going to get around to writing….

So I’m firing them out without a lot of pre-prep. Read ‘em or write your own

Looks like I’m moving to Leopard soon on the Macs at work – so I found these two articles at MacWorld about Leopard ‘Four Months Later’ interesting.

I believe there are a few more in the series since I first noted these if you find them particularly interesting.

Leopard Four Months Later and the related leopard survival tips.

So, Apple fixes the problem that prevented Airport Extreme’s from being used for Time Machine updates, but

Apple’s release notes for its Wednesday updates don’t mention adding the ability

I’m shaking my head…….. again………

What could they possibly be thinking?

One of my (dear departed) iPod mini favourite features was the way it automatically paused when my headphones were unplugged.

Now an enterprising software guy has made ‘late model Apple laptops only’ do the same thing.

Check out the MacWorld article.

(And no, this isn’t MacWorldLite – they just are publishing good stuff lately

Apple finally released an SDK software developers kit for the iPhone and iPod touch.
People here in Canada may not realize what a big deal this is elsewhere. Apple’s is going to have sold (or has already sold) a million of them since their launch.

MacWorld has gone slightly nuts with articles covering the details – here are (count ‘em)
one,
two,
three,
four,
five articles out of a bunch of them released within hours of the announcement.

Now this week they’ve added this tidbit article noting the SDK has been downloaded an awful lot.

Here’s the executive thumbnail version:
• Apple’s programming kit was originally hoped to have been available a year ago, and now that it’s here all the Apple centric companies are drooling at the opportunity to cash in on the success of the iPhone.
• The programming enviroment itself is very good if you are used to developing on a Mac (no Windows version (yet?)).
• The only way to actually get a program onto the iPhone is thru the iTunes store.
• The only way to get something in the iTunes store is paying $99 US a year subscription, and agreeing to let Apple take 30% of your gross sales.
• There’s some way to have no cost applications – but you still have to pay the subscription
• Apple will only approve and allow applications it feels are ‘appropriate’

I’m quite curious to hear other people’s reactions….

Comments please!

Here’s a trick Mac users aren’t used to seeing that’s old hat to PC users.
Software that scares you into buying something you don’t need.

Follow the link for all the gory details, but basically it’s a website that claims to offer a free ’scan’ of your computer to make sure it’s ok. Then, surprise surprise, it always finds problems only they can fix for only $39.95! It’s a scam, and not very original. Heck, it even sounds like late night TV. The only thing of interest is that it’s actually aimed at Mac users rather PC users for a change.

If you’re a member of the Muskoka Mac Users Group we can vet crud like this for you for free! (Whooops! Now who sounds like late night TV?)