Laurie A. Duncan

TV & Movies

TV & Movies By Laurie A. Duncan

Mad TV's take on the iPhone

I've never been a big fan of Mad TV (and I didn't really care for their iPad spoof - not because it was offensive, just because it wasn't funny), but a friend just sent me this clip from YouTube and I'll admit to being amused by it. The impression of Steve Jobs, as portrayed by Michael McDonald (not of Doobie Brothers fame), is not really very good, but I think the overall sentiment behind the skit is on the mark. Is Steve Jobs an iWitch? You be the judge.Thanks, DD!

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Apps By Laurie A. Duncan

iPhony launcher for Palm OS

Well that didn't take long! If you're currently toting around a Treo, but really jonesing for an iPhone, you can install the Mo's iPhony launcher and get all the great icons without waiting for all of the great features! The current version, 0.2, is optimized for 320x320 screens, but a 320x480 will be released soon, which will make Palm TX users very happy.Sure, when you click the Mail button, it's still SnapperMail you'll be greeted with, but your home screen will look so much cooler. Mo is quick to point out that iPhony is more about a fun UI for Apple freaks and less about becoming a full-fledged launcher, of which there are already many he'd have to compete with. Still, we admire his efforts.Now, be sure to let me know when someone makes an iPhone theme for my Blackberry 8700!Thanks, Sammual!

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Apple By Laurie A. Duncan

TUAW tours the Apple Company Store

David Chartier and I made the obligatory pilgrimage to Cupertino this week to snag some Apple swag for ourselves, friends, family and potentially even for you - to win in a future contest. We've posted some Company Store and generic campus pics in the gallery for your enjoyment. So... enjoy!

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News By Laurie A. Duncan

Start planning now for Macworld Expo 2008

The Stevenote was barely over on Tuesday and already the sign for next year's Macworld was up in the lobby of Moscone South. For the first time in years, Macworld Expo in San Francisco will not overlap with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas. Macworld 2008 will take place January 14-18 2008, while CES is the prior week, January 7-10, 2008. I'm sure this has more to do with the fact that Apple is firmly a consumer electronics company itself now and will probably have a significant presence at both shows, and less to do with making Tech bloggers lives easier, but we'll take it however we can get it!So who is going to make the first Countdown to Macworld 2008 widget?

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Apps By Laurie A. Duncan

Prosoft Engineering gives sneak peek of Jax for iPod

Prosoft Engineering, makers of some popular Mac utilities like Data Rescue and Drive Genius, are getting ready to introduce something a little different than their flagship products. It's called Jax for iPod and it's expected to ship next month. I stopped by their Macworld booth for a preview and, unfortunately, left almost as confused about the product as I was before I got there. Not to mention, struck by how similar the Jax icon is to a certain iPhone carrier's logo. Jax for iPod is difficult to describe. Not just for me - the press release and the people at the booth also failed the "elevator pitch." But I'll try to sum it up. It's an iPod/iTunes utility with a myriad of modules (er... Jaks, as they call them) that do a little bit of everything. Jax includes some new iTunes visualizers, a song lyric downloader, and an album art importer. It also allows you to sync up various bit of information with your iPod, such as directions, weather forecasts, stock quotes, movie listings, even local gas prices! It can sync RSS feeds, the contents of your email and your text documents in iPod notes format and play them back to you as spoken word tracks if you want. In addition, Jax allows you to download directly from YouTube and Google Video to your iPod, without going through another converter first. Jax features are upgradeable and many more plug-ins will be available for free as time goes on. What I saw at the booth was an unfinished product, so it's hard to really judge until I get a full copy for review, but all of the Jaks are controlled through a menu in iTunes and the whole interface and concept reminds me a lot of Sherlock or Watson with all the different channels. That's what makes it so hard for me to grasp why I'd want it - it's doing too much. It seems to be trying to give my iPod a lot of PDA functionality, and make it a more versatile video viewer and feed me quickly-outdated information on stocks, weather and gas prices. Oh yeah, and give my iTunes some new visualizers. So far, I can't say I find the premise of Jax very appealing, and I can't help but wonder why they'd create this single app that serves so many different purposes, but I'll reserve further judgment until I see the finished product in February.

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Entertainment

Entertainment By Laurie A. Duncan

Graham Nash is not just a stoned California hippie

What the heck is one of my favorite guitar-playing, harmony-singing, songwriting hippies, Graham Nash, doing at Macworld? Most of you probably associate Graham with the folk-rock band, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young). But Graham wasn't at the Peachpit booth this week talking about music... he was talking about photography (his own, which is excellent, and others), as well as fine art digital imaging and printmaking. Graham, along with R. Mac Holbert (CSN's former road manager), conceived and founded Nash Editions in 1990 in order to develop methods of outputting Nash's digitally manipulated black and white photographs. Starting in the late eighties with a $125,000 IRIS 3047 Graphics Printer, which they heavily modified (warranty be damned!) in order to accommodate a wider range of papers, through their work today with Epson 9800, 7800 and 4800 printers, Nash Editions is now recognized as the premier fine art digital print studio in the country, if not the world. Both Graham and Holbert were on hand after they spoke to sign copies of their new book, Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing. As a bit of a reformed hippie myself, I was just happy not to have to wade through clouds of pot smoke to get close to Nash here, as I have had to in some other venues.

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Computing

Computing By Laurie A. Duncan

MacMod booth tour

The mad modders at MacMod have their very own booth at Macworld this year with a myriad of mods on hand for your enjoyment. Go check them out and say hello at booth N4320 in the oft-neglected North Hall of the Moscone Center. While you're there, grab a Sharpie and autograph the PowerMac to be a part of the community mod project!Check out the Gallery for pictures we took of some of the mods currently on display at the booth.

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Apple By Laurie A. Duncan

Where does Apple go from here?

Thirty years ago was just the beginning, you say? So now what? What's the next act? Where does Apple Inc, née Apple Computer, go from here?Steve Jobs and Apple have reinvented or revolutionized so many things over the years, it's hard to imagine what their next big move will be. I don't mean new operating systems and general hardware upgrades. I mean new ground. First the personal computer, then the way we listen to music and view photos and video - at home and on the go - and now they've made the phone and PIM their own, with the iPhone. So what's next? Apple has already invaded our offices and our living rooms, our cars, our bedrooms, our nursery, our closets, our gym, and even our bathroom! Will they invade our kitchen next? Our lawns? Is an Apple iFridge far off? iMower anyone? Seriously... on what area of our lives can Apple possibly still leave its mark?

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Smartphones

Smartphones By Laurie A. Duncan

iPhone video and Greg Joswiak interview from WSJ

Rex Crumb from MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal snagged an interview with Apple's Vice President of iPod marketing, Greg Joswiak. Greg talked about the iPhone and its awesomeness, of course, and Rex gets some rare hands-on video, too!Although some of the footage is stock from the Keynote, there's also some real-live, hot hand-on-iPhone action. It's hard not to notice that while they are talking, Greg never lets the iPhone out of his own hands, whereas you'd normally expect to see the interviewer at least get to hold the thing. Clearly there are some pretty strict rules in place about who gets to touch one of the few demo units. Even Uncle Walt only got to handle it for a few minutes - but there's no video proof of that, so we'll have to take his word for it.Thanks, Steve!

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Microsoft

Microsoft By Laurie A. Duncan

Microsoft releases Office 2004 11.3.3 and Office v. X for Mac 10.1.9 updates

Office 2008 for Mac (or Office 12, if you prefer) may still be months away, but the Microsoft Mac BU team is still working to improve Office 2004 and Office v.X while we wait.Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.3 Update and Microsoft Office v. X for Mac 10.1.9 Update include a variety of security and stability fixes, including a fix for the annoying DST bug in Entourage 2004 that caused calendar events scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 to be an hour off, thanks to the decision to change the start and end of Daylight Time (aka Standard Time) in the US.The specific fixes in these updates are: Improvements for all Office 2004 & Office v. X applications - fixes vulnerabilities in that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. Improvements for Word 2004 - improves compatibility with recent changes to the way Rich Text Format (RTF) documents are created by Microsoft Office Word 2003 for Windows. Improvements for Excel 2004 - fixes an issue that causes standard deviation calculations to produce inaccurate results when the calculations are used in PivotTable reports. Improvements for Entourage 2004 - fixes an issue for users of Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later that causes any calendar event scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 to display on a time slot that is one hour ahead of its original start time. This issue affects all meetings that occur on or after March 11, 2007, including recurring meetings. The Japanese postal code dictionary has also been updated with the latest information as of June 2006. Grab them from Microsoft AutoUpdate or from the downloads page. I just installed the 2004 update and nothing is broken yet, so hopefully you'll be just as lucky.

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Apps By Laurie A. Duncan

Now Software announces "NightHawk" cross-platform group calendar and contact manager

Now Software has announced a successor to the venerable Now Up-to-Date & Contact (NUDC). Their next gen cross platform group cal and contact manager is codenamed "NightHawk" and they are previewing it at booth 2634 here at Macworld. Aimed at enterprise and small business users, NightHawk supports Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Windows Vista, but will also still support Mac OS 10.3.9-10.4 and Windows XP and NT/2000. Migration from NUDC will be a breeze, and you'll be able to import from most other common formats, like vCard and iCal and sync with a variety of PDAs, cell phones and, of course, an iPod.Taking a cue from Apple's iTV-AppleTV launch, the official name has yet to be determined and will, according to a Now rep, be announced at a later date - presumably before the retail boxes are printed. It's expected to ship in the spring of 2007. As I've come to expect from Now, the Mac GUI of NightHawk is a few years behind the times, but it is an improvement over NUDC and it has tabs - so how bad can it be? That icon, however, has got to go.The NightHawk calendar & contact module will cost $149.95 per seat and owners of NUDC v5.x and later can upgrade for $69.95 per seat. For a limited time, current NUDC v5.X owners may also purchase a one-year maintenance agreement (that's usually a codename for "pay-for-tech-support") for $39.95 per license, which will give you free upgrades to new versions of Now and NightHawk for one year from the start of the maintenance agreement.I use NUDC personally, and have always been a fan, despite the GUI flaws. It's one of the few holdovers from my days of using Claris Emailer for mail. I wonder how many of you long-time Mac users are also still using NUDC at home or work?

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Accessories

Accessories By Laurie A. Duncan

EWOO Remote controls iPod and iTunes

Zicplay, a Swiss consumer electronics manufacturer just unveiled the EWOO, a remote control device that controls not just your iPod - but also your iTunes music and video library that resides on your computer.The EWOO system has a lightweight remote control, a dock, which holds and charges both your iPod and the remote itself, as well as a USB adapter that allows the remote to control your iTunes on your computer. The remote has a color TFT display, allowing for easy, intuitive use and navigation of iPod and iTunes. It operates at 2.4GHz frequency and boasts a 100ft range and 10-days of charge on the remote, thanks to its lithium polymer battery.The EWOO is expected to ship next month and retail for $129 USD. They have a pretty slick website, too, with more info and pics.

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Apple By Laurie A. Duncan

Is "One More Thing" yet to come?

We have nothing but an anonymous tip to go on but this one comes from a slightly more reliable source than our usual tips. Then again, maybe we are giving it more clout than normal because, as thrilled as we are with today's Applegasms, we still want more. We're greedy like that.Anyway, we've been advised to keep our eyes open for an announcement of new or updated software, perhaps before dawn. Since David is already a pro at sleeping on sidewalks outside of convention centers, we're trying to talk him into camping out in front of the Moscone again to see if he catches anyone swapping out the ad kiosk signage.I'm still thinking iWork '07 and possibly iLife '07, although with today's hardware intros, the iLife update seems more likely for spring and/or summer to coincide with the Apple TV and iPhone ship dates. I'm still surprised that Leopard wasn't mentioned at all during the Keynote, which makes me wonder when they are letting the cat out of the bag?Stay tuned to see if we called this one right or if we wake up with egg on our face - although the open bar tonight might cause that anyway!

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News By Laurie A. Duncan

How much have you spent today?

With Apple TV and the new AirportExtreme Base Station available today for pre-order from apple.com, I'm wondering how many of you have already whipped out your credit cards and bought one (or two, or three...)?If you placed your order(s), tell us what you bought in the comments.

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Apple By Laurie A. Duncan

Apple TV up close

The Apple TV isn't under lock and key, as the iPhone is. It's about half the height of a Mac mini, with the same footprint, and quite unassuming. It sports a remote we're already familiar with. Here are some of the first pics of the Apple TV, taken during and immediately after the Keynote.Update: For those that asked in the comments, those are Sony television sets, although I didn't note the exact model.

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Smartphones

Smartphones By Laurie A. Duncan

Apple iPhone up close

Although we haven't held one in our hands yet, we did get a few pics of the iPhone up close. There are several on display in the Apple "booth", but they are all in glass spheres, sitting on pedestals. Here are a few of the first pics, taken before the doors opened to the public...

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Laptops

Laptops By Laurie A. Duncan

My MacBook cuts like a knife

I have a long history of being immune to most of the widespread problems that people tend to have with Apple hardware, but today my luck has run out. I have started using a new MacBook (black, thanks for asking) as a replacement for my aging 12-inch Powerbook. Although I hate the extra weight it adds to my backpack, the speed and functionality the MacBook offers when I am on-the-go made it appealing enough for me to finally give in.Until yesterday I'd been mostly using an external keyboard and mouse with the MacBook since I haven't had to lug it around with me much lately. But since I am a mobile blogging machine here at Macworld, I am using the built-in keyboard and trackpad all week and realizing that all those reports I read about the edges on some MacBooks being sharp as a Ginsu are true: my own MacBook is afflicted.

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Apps By Laurie A. Duncan

Keep tabs on TUAW with a TUAW RSS Widget

TUAW fanboy Konstantino whipped up a new Dashboard widget for our RSS feed, just in time for Macworld. It's slick and simple - just the way we like it. Now it's even easier to keep up with all our MWSF '07 coverage! To install, just download the zip archive, unzip and double-click. Once installed, check early and often!Grab your copy here: Konstantino's TUAW RSS Widget.Thanks, Konstantino!

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Tablets

Tablets By Laurie A. Duncan

Pictures of the ModBook Mac Tablet in the wild

We got a tip that some pics of the ModBook, the Macbook-based tablet product from OWC and Axiotron, have surfaced on the MacResource Forums. How convenient for us!Just one pic that I can find and it's a rendering, not an actual product shot. From the looks of it, it's a "clamshell" mod that essentially flips the display over on the MacBook/MacBook Pro. I'm thinking it won't come cheap, but I bet many people will probably still salivate over it.Now pardon me while I go wipe the drool off my chin...

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News By Laurie A. Duncan

Brian Ball responds to xPad developer's claims

[UPDATE: Moments before I posted this, Brian's post on macZOT mysteriously vanished and he's not responded to my IMs regarding where the post went. So the links to Brian's post below are broken until Brian decides whether he wants his side told in his own words or not.][UPDATE 2: Brian has put a post back up at the links I reference, but he's replaced his original post with a new one indicating he's "over it" now.]Brian Ball has a few things to say about Garrett Murray's "Maniacal Rage," which I posted about earlier this evening.Brian's response appears on macZOT and it's worth reading, word for word, as it is factually accurate to the best of my knowledge and it's always good to hear both sides of a story from the involved parties themselves. And Brian spells my name right, which I always appreciate.The key points in Brian's post are not in dispute. The fact is that the contract between Garrett and Brian was not violated in the strictest sense. Garrett himself admits that and I didn't hide that fact in my post either. It was a dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb thing to have in the contract and Garrett has, I'm sure, learned his lesson.But - and there's always a but - sometimes it's about more than what's technically correct. Sometimes it's about what's "right" in the broader sense. Brian says "There is no wrong action to defend. You simply have to read what was stated and just determine if what happened is really unfair, or if somebody had unmet expectations and went into a Maniacal Rage about it." It's worth noting if you are just tuning in that Garrett's blog is called "Maniacal Rage," lest you think that Brian is overreacting. He continues... "We had every good intention of bringing lots of xPad to the market because we really like the application. But once we decided that really wasn't part of the core strategy we held up our end of the agreement we made. The fact that Garrett is making xPad free confirms the fact that he himself realizes that xPad is not worth further development but is still a very useful application."My take, and this is just my opinion as an uninvolved bystander, is that Brian lost sight of the bigger picture here and he could have handled it a lot better, while still accomplishing the same thing. He'd have come off less like a spoiled kid and more like a professional. I don't know Brian so I can't say he had ill intentions all along, but it comes off that way, whether he meant it to or not and whether he did or not. I would not go as far as many of you did in the comments on the last post, but I still think Brian blew it and his "I stuck to the exact terms of the contract and that's that" attitude really hurts him more than the act itself. Right or not, it's often about perception and not about facts. That's a lesson I have learned and forgotten and relearned many times, so it's close to my heart. Being right is great. Being perceived as being right is better.

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Accessories

Accessories By Laurie A. Duncan

Logitech announces X-240 computer speakers with iPod cradle

Looks like Logitech has another set of computer speakers in the works. No surprise there, right? But the X-240 speaker system is more than just speakers. This time they've added a "control center" that includes audio controls and a headphone jack as well as a charge/sync/play cradle for your iPod, PDA, mobile phone or other DAP. The X-240 also includes specialized adapters for both the iPod and the Zune to provide a custom fit as well as to help manage cable clutter.Of course you can still use the speakers without connecting an iPod or anything else to them, but why would you want to? Look for them to ship this spring for under $50.

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News By Laurie A. Duncan

xPad developer says macZOT and Brian Ball ripped him off.

Since MacHeist is over, we need a new punching bag in the indie Mac developer arena, right? Last week Mac App a Day crashed and burned in a predictable fiery death. Now macZOT - or at least one of the key players behind macZOT - faces some scrutiny over a licensing deal he made with the original developer of xPad. The gist of it is that - according to Garrett Murray, the aforementioned xPad developer - Brian Ball screwed him out of over $4,000 in a rather unprofessional and weasily way. There's a slight catch, however, in that the way Brian got out of honoring a gentleman's agreement was by using the loophole that Garrett himself put in the contract! Oops.Read Garrett's side of the story in detail on his blog (ahem... before you comment, please?) and decide for yourself whether he got played or not. Despite the very stupid mistake Garrett made by having a loophole in his contract that clearly had so much potential for misuse and disaster, I'm still taking his side on this one. I think Brian played dirty pool and that kind of behavior really shouldn't be rewarded, whether it's technically playing by the rules or not.The end result - no matter whose side you take on this one - is the xPad is now free for all and anyone who paid Garrett for it, since November '06 when it defaulted back to him, is getting a refund. Something tells me Brian also just got added to MacSanta's "naughty" list.UPDATE: My follow-up and comments from Brian can be found in "Ball responds to xPad developer's claims."Thanks Chris and Ryan!

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Apps By Laurie A. Duncan

Software Update: iChat Update 1.0 for Tiger

Apple just rolled out iChat Update 1.0 for Tiger on both Intel and PPC platforms.Apple says: "This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio and video conferences. For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304899."Obvious enough, but I like to be thorough so I visited that website, as Apple suggested, to see if there was more to learn. Nope, nothing there yet. That page says "This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio, and video conferences. This document will be updated as more information becomes available." Hmmm... Ok then. I can take a hint.UPDATE: I was remiss in not warning you all that a restart is required after this update. Why? I have no idea. I generally just force-quit Software Update and continue on with my business until it's convenient for me to restart...Thanks, nevrozel and everyone else who sent this in!

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News By Laurie A. Duncan

i'Coo baby stroller Made for iPod

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes an iPod in the baby carriage! We've blogged about iPod-enabled strollers (or prams, if you prefer) before, but it's been a while, so let's revisit the concept, shall we? The point of an iPod combined with a stroller is not to tune out your screaming kid - got that? The point is to entertain the kid. I think. I hope!The Pico-iPod from i'Coo appears to be more than just a stylin' stroller. It's a whole line of iPod-enabled baby paraphernalia including a car seat, diaper bag and something called a cosycoon, which I can't quite figure out... is it intended to hold your baby or just your baby's stuff? Regardless, it all looks pretty cool and if I had a baby I would totally wheel him or her around town in that stroller, iPod and all.The hood (or canopy, if you prefer) has a built-in iPod dock, volume controls and speakers so you and your baby can rock out while you run your errands. Other details are scarce, but it will be available in both black and white and it looks like the same thing that RockStarBaby was showing off a few months ago. Based on the prices I found for other i'Coo strollers, I'd say these will probably go for about $300 USD. Ouch.Thanks, zxspectrum!

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Big Tech

Big Tech By Laurie A. Duncan

Leopard makes an Amazon appearance

Apple's next-gen OS, Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, is expected to ship in Spring '07. This is not a secret. But somehow we feel better when Amazon confirms it for us. As Nelson pointed out in the iWork '07 on Amazon comments, they are already listing Leopard with a note that says "Scheduled to ship in spring 2007." Amazon is conveniently offering to email you when it's available for purchase. I guess Mac lovers who plan to be in hibernation for the next 3 months might need that.Thanks Sean and Nelson!

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