Ivory Tower February 2009

By Ted Bade

 

Let start this monthly article with a rant.

 

I am truly (as I expect most Americans are right now) sick of the financial investor aspect of our country. When I was young, I remember one of the nastiest insults one could say was that “that so-and-so would sell his own mother.” Well, the financial speculators of this country have proved that they would not only sell their mother, but their grandmother and grandfathe, and any member of their or anyone else's family. They brought us inflated oil prices, (great for grandmothers and fathers on a fixed income), they drove their companies into the dirt with their lies and schemes, causing the collapse of many financial institutions world wide (great for mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles getting ready for retirement), then had the gall to beg for help from the very same people whose money they ripped off in the first place. Should I mention that some of them even refused to give up their bonuses? IMHO, bonuses are for when you do something extra good, I don’t think driving a company into financial disaster meets that qualification.

 

I call these people the true terrorists of 2008. May the viruses of a thousand PCs infect your every day, pttttth!!!! (that’s my best try at a raspberry,...).

 

Apple Quarter one financial information - Apple ended the month of January by posting their first quarter financial reports. Things look good for Apple. Once again Apple makes the best quarter in their history. To quote their statement:

 

“The Company posted record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion, or $1.78 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, equal to the year-ago quarter.”

These number add up to sales of 2,524,000 Macs (9% growth), a record 22,727,000 iPods (only 3% growth), and 4,363,000 iPhones (88% growth).

 

Great news for Apple, and their customers. Let us hope this continues into the future.

 

Never go partying without it - I am always amazed at the devices and applications people develop for our electronic computer toys. I just head about an interesting device called the iBreath, an alcohol testing device that plugs into your iPhone/iPod! This interesting little device plugs into the bottom of your iPod, you set it up and then blow your alcohol laden breath into a little port on the side and within seconds, it will tell you your alcohol level. Pretty cool. However, it doesn’t take your keys away from you. ☺

 

The site has a little video showing how to use the device. While it seem pretty simple to set up, I cannot but help wonder if setup is all that easy when one’s alcohol levels are high enough to warrant using it! Never the less, this is a great idea. Perhaps the designated driver can operate it!

 

It seems like 2000 all over again - Leave it to Microsoft to be nine years late for Y2K issues (well, actually, they did have lots of Y2K issues, but I liked the analogy). According to several articles I read, many of Microsoft’s Zune digital media players locked up when at the end of the year, when the date changed from December 31, 2008 to January 1, 2009.

 

There were several Internet articles on this. One very informative article on the SlashGear site, explained Microsoft’s official statement on the issue:

 

“Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device” Matt Akers, Zune product team, Microsoft”

Another really fun article on this issue was run the by the Los Angeles Times. Definitely take a look at it. They created a button to wear (or to use as a piece of flair on Facebook) I just love that button!

 

Okay, so perhaps this wasn’t the Y2K issues, perhaps Microsoft never expected anyone would use those Zunes into 2009, and never considered the leap year or that all important leap second we experienced this year end....

 

Phone calls on your iPod - Last month I mentioned there were several solutions for making telephone calls using an iPod Touch. Myself and a friend gave it a try and it was surprisingly easy to do.

 

Attaching a microphone to the second generation iPod Touch was no problem. I decided to not buy the Apple variety. I found a microphone only system that was around $15 USD. This iPod microphone plugs into the iPod and lets you plug in your iPod earbuds or any headphone with the correct connector. I am not a big fan of earbuds, so I like the option of using headphones.

 

We tried two different free applications. One is called Fring and the other Nimbuzz. Both of these option allow registered users to call each other (for free). Of course, this requires that you both be online at the same time. Luckily, both let you create a friends list and online friends show up as available. These programs also let you communicate to people using other text based networks like AIM or Yahoo chat. But the voice options is cool. There were some other voice chat applications which may or may not be better then the free ones, but we didn’t try them.

 

So there we were, two friends, sitting at a table talking to each other on our iPods using his WiFi network, while his wife and kids laughed at our apparent “geekyness” The audio was fine, and there was only a slight delay between the local words and that returning from the server.

 

These applications will also allow one to use an Internet based VoIP service like Skype. The next day my friend calls my house, nothing unusual, except that he was calling me using his iPod Touch! He had set up a Skype account and used it to call my home phone using his iPod Touch. Cool beans! While the audio wasn’t as clear as his regular phone (his voice was a bit on the tinny side), it was clear enough to easily understand. Now we are replacing our weekly phone call with an iPod call!

The call wasn’t free obviously, he had to pay using his newly created Skype account. However, he was able to call my home phone with the iPod Touch and Skype rates are very good.. So I feel our experiment was completely successful! It wasn’t even a very expensive experiment. I paid about $32 for the two microphones (with shipping) and he paid $10 for some minutes on Skype. The Applications for the Touch were free. If you are interested in trying this interesting use of technology, please give it a try.

 

MacWorld Expo - As can be expected, Apple and several other companies announced some interesting new products a the recent MacWorld Expo 2009. MacCompanion will be providing lots more information on these new products as they become available. I was really impressed with some of the features added to the new version of iPhoto.

 

Apple released a new version of iPhoto which offers several new interesting features. The biggest “wow” factor for me was the inclusion of face recognition. What this feature does it allow you to fine a face and attache a name to it, then let iPhoto search your database of images for other pictures that include this person! Once you have identified faces, you can then use a new faces cork-board feature to search for pictures that include this person. If several people appear in the picture, you can name them all.

 

FaceBook users will like the easy ability that iPhoto 09 lets you add pictures to your FaceBook account. Additionally, people viewing your FaceBook images can name any faces you didn’t name yourself, and this information will come back to iPhoto the next time you connect. You can then use this information to add another named face to your collection. While I have no idea how well this feature works, it just sounds very cool!

 

The new locations feature of iPhoto takes advantage of new cameras that GPS stamp your digital images, keeping track where they were taken. It also allows a user to input locations manually. Based on this location information, you can search for images using popular landmarks, or specific locations. Its an interesting feature, but I seriously doubt that we will take the time to record all the various locations of the 3000 plus photos already in our library.

 

There are also new album and slide themes. Slide themes let you present images with some effects. However, being a fan of viewing an images, themes that squash down pictures to cutely includes several on one screen, just aren’t to my taste. I am also not a big fan of the “Ken Burns” effect. I use a big monitor so I can get a nice eyeful. I don’t like trying to remember what the one side of the image that scrolled off the screen looked like.

 

If you are a fan of iPhoto, you should definitely take a look at the guided tours Apple has made available.

 

As a final note, join me in what ever way you believe, in sending good thoughts and wishes to Steve Jobs. As you know he is having some health issues and has taken a medical leave of absence from Apple. Unlike those investors who would use this to find ways to make more money (by suing Apple? Egads, what toads!), I choose to send positive energy toward Steven and hope for his speedy recovery. I hope you will as well.

 

Keep on using your Mac!