Apple User Podcast

Apple’s (AAPL) market share has grown to 6.38% according to a new survey by Net Applications (details here).
From Here

The Chinese stock market dropped 9% on tuesday and it pulled the Dow Jones and many global marlets down with it, but Apple took a hard knock and shed more than 5% so get out there tomorrow and buy, buy, buy.

Disclaimer: I own Apple shares.

Onion Reports
“Microsoft released its new operating system, Vista, on Jan. 30. Here are some of its features:

Microsoft Word’s helpful paper-clip icon now blinks at rate of normal humans

Enhanced graphics on “System Is Not Responding” pop-up window

Five new card-back designs for Solitaire

Something that Apple would never, ever dream up in a billion years

4,391 security flaws to be patched over next 15 years

Promise of broad, open-minded future or some bullshit

Lists blocked wireless connections with greater speed and accuracy

New operating system, same old Microsoft Paint”

Over the last six months (someone tipped me off about fakesteve.blogspot.com in August) this blog has provided great insight, hilarious wit and a few great Apple stock buying tips.
This blog is one of the funniest and most entertaing sites I’ve seen in recent months, heres a good post from November, depicting IT managers cheering over Vista’s increased footprint and higher complexity:

“Allah bless you, O wondrous Microsoft! How do you perform these miraculous feats? You have reproduced the Mac OS X desktop with none of its reliability and a far greater hardware requirement. All this plus hundreds of as-yet-undiscovered security holes, and for only $400 a seat, plus $500 for extra memory and another $500 for our IT drones to install it and patch it? Thank you, thank you, thank you, for always putting the customer first! Oh we are so grateful that we never adopted those attractive, easy-to-use, super-reliable iMacs”

FakeStevs is Finally shutting down though, a quote from the latest post:

“For now, dear friends, let me leave you with a message of hope and peace and love. Follow your dreams. Do what you love. Dance like nobody’s watching, sing like nobody’s listening.”

We’ll miss you FSJ.

“In other news, one blogger believes that Vista is the first Microsoft OS since Windows 3.1 to have regressed in usability from its predecessor (he kindly forgives and dismisses Windows ME). And there’s a battle raging over the top 10 reasons to get Vista or not to get Vista.”

Last week Ballmer gained infamy when his nervous laughter at Apples iPhone made it to youtube.com, today on slashdot I saw this quote in relation to the fact that Microsoft has announced it needs testers quickly for its Service Pack 1, how often are Service Packs being prepared before OS’s Ship?

Related to the prior post about GIMPshop and keeping with open source software discussion, I’m posting a link to Inkscape’s web site where you’ll find a Universal (i.e. Runs on Older Macs like G3’s & G5’s and newer Macs like Quad Core Mac Pros) version of Inkscape under the download section that is a Free Vector Drawing program along the lines of Adobe’s illustrator.

These thumbnails illustrate what beautiful art you can create with Inkscape, and as with GIMPshop, you’re getting a version of Adobe’s Illustrator that runs at FULL SPEED on your new Mac, and is legally free.

Remember that by donating to these projects, you give these open source developers the opportunity to quit their day jobs and become full time developers of this great software, being Mac users we can of course influence them to develop Mac friendly software utilizing Core Animation and the other great features of OS X.

As you can see in these thumbnails, Inkscape can create great art and yet is a free universal application, so don’t hesitate, make sure you have X11 installed (its on your discs that came with the Mac and also at apple.com, then download and install Inkscape and discover how good it is!

Many new Mac users want to take advantage of higher rendering speeds, brighter sharper displays and the more vibrant colours that are a part of the Mac Experience in their photo editing.

Well, Adobe is just beginning to release its Intel version of Photoshop that’ll run nicely on the new Macs and Macbooks, but for the past few months there’s been an unknown Image editing application that could be ideal for anybody who wants to run Photoshop but can’t wait for CS3 (the name of the upcoming release) or can’t justify spending over $500 on Photoshop and its name is GIMPshop

GIMPshop is an evolution of the open source GIMP that I and most Linux users will know well, it’s created by Scott Moschella and he gives a description of what Gimpshop is supposed to be here:

“My original purpose for GIMPshop was to make the Gimp accessible to the many Adobe Photoshop users out there. I hope I’ve done that. And maybe along the way, I can convert a Photoshop pirate into a Gimp user.”

Its free, open source and gives you powerful image editing features on your Intel Mac, why wait?

While at the iPod and iTunes Workshop provided free twice daily in the San Francisco Apple Store, an attendee asked a good question, “Can I catalog my Cd’s without importing the entire CD to iTunes?”

Delicious Library is definitely the solution to cataloging your media collection, be it CD’s, Dvd’s, Books or Computer games.

Our presenter was an expert on iTunes and I learnt some new tricks at the workshop but he didn’t know the answer for this, I pointed out Delicious Library to this software engineer.

Delicious Library is really great software, as with a lot of third party Apple applications, its a niche product. Not everybody will need Delicious Library and yet some will absolutely NEED it.

There are a multitude of ways to add items to Delicious Library’s database on your Mac, using Voice recognition, manually entering information, using a bluetooth scanner (sold by Delicious themselves, but I find the easiest way is to use the iSight camera that Apple integrates into its Macs, up until December 16th 2006, iSights were available as seperate devices through the Apple store but are not available anymore (rumour is that there’ll be new iSight cameras coming soon for Mac Mini and Mac Pro owners)

Once you’ve cataloged your CD’s, you can pack them away in the Basement and take advantage of a lot of great features that are pointed out on the website for Delicious Library http://www.delicious-monster.com
Here’s an excerpt:
“Once your whole library is cataloged, you can find and use your items like never before. Browse, sort, and search through your digital shelves. Sync your cataloged library onto your iPod or print a color catalog and take it with you. Find and purchase new items using Delicious Library’s personalized recommendations. Keep track of the items your friends are borrowing using Delicious Library’s loan management system, which integrates with Apple’s Address Book and iCal.”

The cost of the software is $40 which is incredibly good value in my opinion, I think larger companies like Roxio or Omni might charge $99 for the functionality that this software provides.

So if you’ve a large collection of CD’s or Books, and have rebought a CD because you forgot you owned it or given a Book to a friend and forgotten which friend has it, this software is definately worth trying out, the free trial restricts your collection to about 30 items but gives a great idea of how it works.

Download, Enjoy.

Quite a few defendants of the existing Windows CE based smartphones are stating that you can’t view MS Office documents on the iPhone, but, as any Gmail user knows, Gmail automagically makes ANY office format viewable as html, with our FULL safari browser running on the iPhone, we can open ANY office document and view it as html or drop it into docs.google.com , edit it, share it and send it.
So, full access and readability aswell as editing facilities for Office Documents on the iPhone! You heard it here first!

but this is a really good looking mockup of an Apple cell Phone:

If you must read more, click here