July 2007 Archives

Sometimes the Mac can be too clever for its own good. iMovie has a hidden directory structure for movies and somehow a movie I made is chewing up 50GB of disk, but you can't see it. Discussions.apple.com tells us that iMovie keeps its files in something called a pacakge. This is a collection of files that Finder and Spotlight only see as one file.

You need to download WhatSize to figure out what is actually on the disk since packages are hidden.

To then take them apart, you that need to find the movies which have the extension .iMovieProject and then you can see whats there by right clicking on the name and then choose Show Package Contents to find the Media folder with all the clips.

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I wish that they had shipped this smaller brick with the initial MacBooks, but at least you can buy a much smaller adapter for $80 in a few weeks...

MacNN | Briefly: New MBP adapter, Duke/iPhone solved

brief: Apple has begun shipping a new MagSafe power adapter for the MacBook Pro with the model number MA938LL/A. The new 85W adapter is significantly smaller than the old iteration, appearing physically similar to the 65W adapter included with 13" MacBooks. In early June, Apple debuted a new line of MacBook Pros, some of which include LED-based screens and offer significantly better battery life. The new adapter appears to be compatible with both newer and previously released MacBook Pro models .

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So if you've got all your files on your iPod, how do you back it up. If you aren't near your computer, this could be a disaster. iLounge saves the day with a good overview of the many utilities available. I've used a bunch of these are they are so, so reliable

Here is what their review says, CopyTrans ($20) costs money, but it recovers all the metadata (for me ratings really matter!) so it is worth it. Only for Windows though. If you are on the Mac, then iPodRip ($15) is the equivalent and works very well. You get a coupon CPN1530724219 for 15% off

Senuti is a freeware recovery tool and works pretty well too and the same with YamiPod

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The Complete Guide to iPod, Apple TV and iPhone Video Formats | iLounge

So what are the different resolutions and formats supported by Apple’s video playback devices? The table below provides an outline of the maximum resolutions supported, as well as the output quality of the device itself:

The new iPhone has an amazing screen double the resolution of the 5G iPod Video. It goes from 320×240 to 480×320, how confusing. As before, the best format from a compression POV is H.264 and it is now complex to figure out what to encode hwere given the formats. Here is iLounge recommendations for what to encode. Basically you do slightly higher than what the device can handle. 640×480 is probably about the right level

For DVD conversion, Handbrake is the recommended tool on Mac OS X and seems to work OK. iLounge like Handbrake for DVD to iPod conversion. It works on Windows and the Mac which is great. I also use autoGK to encode things for PC viewing.

If you are converting Internet content like AVI or DIVX files, then the simple choice is iSquint that makes it easy to convert directly for the iPod Video but it doesn't yet have presets for the iPhone in 320×240 format. The one that loloks quite good is MPEG Streamclip which has a specific iPhone format if you are like me and want the minimum size for each device. That is to get an:

1. iPod 320×240 for full screen
2. iPod i320×180 for 16:9 letterboxed
3. iPhone 432×320 for 4:3 full screen
4. iPhone 480×272 for 16:9

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I've had remarkably good luck with the Buffalo Linkstation Pro 500GB. It's a 500GB network attached drive. It supports 1GB ethernet and seems reasonably fast and most important very compatible. Works super well with Windows XP and even with Mac OS X which is amazing. The main issue is that 500GB fills up pretty fast these days, so time once again to look for the latest:

• PC Magazine did a review two years ago which selected the Buffalo, but they now have a great NAS section that goes over the basics. Right now they are recommending RAID configurations for reliability like the Iomega SorCenter Pro NAS 150d. Its quite expensive at $800 for 1TB but has four 250GB drives in at RAID configuration. It's small at 10"×7"x12". It comes configured as RAID 5 which means you get 750GB usable, but you can have one disk fail and everything still works. My main conclusion is that this is great for a small business but maybe a little overkill for our network which only really needs this to backup the storage on personal computers. You can get 750GB for about half the price if you go lower end.
• PC World also keeps a review set and likes a completely different set of machines. The "Netgear ReadyNAS NV+": for instance is more expensive at $1100, but it very fast so good for a real server setup. Another good compromise is the Maxtor Shared Storage II also with 1TB and just $450. It is a single terabyte drive, so like the Buffalo Linkstation, not super redundant
• Pricegrabber is interesting because it shows what's popular. It shows that SimpleTech STI-NAS 500GB is a best seller. It is an amazing $135 for a 500GB drive. Almost too good to believe. Newegg reviews say it works, but isn't very fast because it only has 100Mb Ethernet. If you want speed, you really need 1Gb Ethernet and computers that support it. For most laptop oriented installations like we have at work it will be fine though since laptops are either 100Mbps Ethernet or much slower 54Mbps shared channel Wifi. Not clear if it supports Macs. It is just $135 because the underlying 500GB drive is just $105 or so now and there is $35 of other hardware. Makes the $400 Buffalo Linkstation 750GB look pretty expensive doesn't it? 500GB by the way seems to be the sweetspot for these devices. They are between $140 to $250 for that. Buffalo is at the high end at $275 or so.
• Newegg is a big enough site now that its ratings are meaningful. Those users like the Thecus N2050UD which is $140 but where you need to install two hard drives in it, so you can built it yourself.

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I normally use DVD Decrypter and then DVD Shrink on the PC to backup the kid's DVDs which are constantly getting trashed. For Mac OS X, the solutions seem to be Mac The Ripper and then to burn the copy, you can use the included iDVD to get a dual layer onto a single layer or you can use Burn OSX

You can also check Rip Different as a good overall source of information

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The best place for Dim Sum (dian xin) on the East side is easy. Top Gun is our favorite. Sea Garden is also nice. But if you want to take the grandparents out in Seattle, where to go? Well, amazingly there are still just lousy local search for something like this. Citysearch has the most decent. It looks like O'Asian is the most popular. It looks new which is nice. At Fifth and AMarion so pretty close 206-264-1789. On the other hand, folks on that site like House of Hong's and I have to say it ain't that great.

Main problem is they don't take reservations and some folks think it is like P.F. Chang's which is sort of Chinese, but not the real thing. We finally went to Sun Ya. The main thing about this place was there is parking. I'd say it was OK. 3 out of 5 stars. Service was quick though.

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With the iPhone out, you get pretty board of the stuff there. Apple only allows web applications right now to run on it, so you have to find web game portals according to Joystiq like MacMost, iGiki or fun4phone

The best thing to do is to find sites liek iPhoneHacks.com that will unlock things like the ringtones which are locked or backgrounds like the Matrix running. Folks just love to customize and a Custom iPhone Background is the place to start at their wiki and also seee Hacktheiphone.com

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Green Car Co. is for those of us who really want to save some energy. Now that the Scion xB is an overweight monster, beside the Prius, what can someone who cars buy?

1. Plug Prius For just $10K more, you can buy a plug hybrid. (Wow that's expensive), but it gives you a 16 mile all electric range and with a simple 110VAC charger its just six hours to recharge overnight when electricity is generated for free basically. Its kind of a hack, you add another lead acid battery pack that transfers into the NiMH batteries onboard.
2. Volkswagon Tdi Biodesel. Gets 45mpg but you might as well get a Prius then
3. Smart Car. Only two passengers and it is tiny and gets 50mpg, so not that much more than the diesel.

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The iPhone is amazing. Like the iPod, the kids learned to use it in three minutes and the most incredible part is that activation is actually wonderful. A reminder that carriers should stick with high quality networks and not try to be consumer companies. I am sure that no one but Apple could have made activation so simple. It was literally three clicks and two minutes to get the phone actually running. The screen is of course magnificent and the eye candy is quite amazing. There are not many applications on it though and here is a list of the annoyances and fixes for them. The net is that I'd say that RIM is safe with its Blackberry for business users, but everyone else had better watch out for the iPhone:

1. Despite that fact the phones are being sold unsubsidized, you still have to sign a two year contract with AT&T. This is actually outrageous given that there is no logical reason other than the iPhone's popularity not to allow SIM unlock. Even the Blackberry on AT&T can be bought unlocked ($349 vs a two year contract and $200). No word from the blogosphere as to how to unlock it and beside making lots of money, no particular rational
2. Keyboard. I have to say the input is nice, but ain't no Blackberry. Main things are that the calibration of the keyboard is hard. My right thumb is always one over. Folks say it automatically corrects, but typing is frustrating. I'd rate the Blackberry Curve #1 in this regard, then this thing because at least there is a full keyboard. Personally I find both SureType and other predictive typing on numeric keyboards to be beyond frustrating.
3. Headphone Jack. For some reason they designed the thing with a recessed jack so that a standard headphone doesn't work. Instead, you have to pay $11 for a Belkin adapter just because of this recessing. Arrgh. The Belkin by the way is lousy because it is rigid and so looks really wierd. There is also one from Shure which has a microphone and switchf or pausing but it costs an amazing $50. I need this for a cassette adapter in my car and my fancy Etymotic headphones. Or you can take a knife to the plastic and make it work :-) There is even a hack from LessonPortal.com that shows you how to do it by carving the soft rubber with a knife. Good luck, it might destroy your headphones and you have to do it with everything you own.

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I've tried most of them and they seem amazingly buggy. What I really need is something that translates from Chinese ot Pinyin and English and ideally where it goes into a sidebar and also hovering so you can read it. The main issue is that most of these are pretty buggy, so caveat emptor.

Filination likes Foxlingo as a site, gTranslate for phrases and ChiensePera-Kun for hovering.

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Now you can read and write NTFS volumes. Mac OSx only allows reading with NTFS-3G

Here are some miore notes:

MacCast Forum [Powered by Invision Power Board]

The first step is made possible by Google. They created a program called MacFUSE which allows for (oversimplification warning) new file systems to be accessed by a user-space app rather than loading a kernel extension. What you need to do is http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/. There are many FUSE modules out there for various types of file systems, there are far too may to enumerate and I don't know how many are available on OS X.

Daniel's Useless Site

NTFS-3G is a FUSE filesystem that implements read/write NTFS volumes. NTFS-3G now works on Macs using MacFUSE. I’ve had a Fink package for NTFS-3g for a while now, but since I’ve had so many people asking about a binary version, I decided to make an Installer package.

This package doesn’t use Fink, but instead requires the MacFUSE Core package from here. Then download the NTFS-3G package and install it. This package contains ntfs-3g 1.710.

To connect to an NTFS volume:

first unmount the NTFS disk if currently mounted read-only (you can use Disk Utility to do this and also to get the partition). Then

mkdir mountpoint
ntfs-3g /dev/diskpartition mountpoint -ovolname="Volume Name"

where mountpoint is directory to mount the disk, diskpartition is the NTFS disk’s partition in /dev and Volume Name is the disk’s volume name.

To disconnect:

umount mountpoint

or eject from the Finder.

See ntfs-3g man page for more options.

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Swedish SummeRun is a great event that helps raise money for ovarian cancer research. You'll see us there!

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If you are Global Services, you can extend the conversion of Mileage Plus 500-Mile upgrades to bonus miles. They stopped doing this, so losing these upgrades is a pure loss, so go to  loss.http://www.united.com/promoreg?title=Expired+500-Mile+Upgrade:%3Cbr%3EConversion+Registration&pcode=MPP697

Also, there is a new thing to keep track of at http://united.com/gstracking in addition to EQM (the elite qualifying mileage) and EQS (segments) for getting to 1K traveler status), you also have to keep track fo your full fare miles. These are fares you've booked on F, A, P, C, D, Z Y and B classes and if you get more than 50K of these, they say your Global Services status is saved. Confused yet. There are basically two programs, one for getting frequent flyer credits (Premier, Premier Executive, 1K) at 25K, 50K and 100K EQMs respectively and then a separate counter that if how much you paid on a flight that can get to Global Services. Whew, that's complicated.

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Here are some that the kids are asking about:

• Sid Meier's Civilization IV is the next step in a great franchise. Getting older now since it was released late 2005, but a nice game. There are two expansion packs now and it goes for about $37 at Go Gamer
• Nancy Drew The White Wolf of Icicle Creek. These are done for pre-teen and teen girls from Her Interactive. These are actually quite hard to find online, so you have to get them direct from the publisher for $20 each.
• Europa Universalis III. Seattle Times said this was a great educational game as it has real history and kind of a cool strategy game like Civilization. These are also hard to find, but Go Gamer has them for $37.

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So sue me » Blog Archive » iPhone Independence Day

Magic iTunes 7.3.0.54 numbers:

Offset 2048912: 33C0C3
Offset 257074: 28
Offset 257013: 33C9B1

Add “127.0.0.1 albert.apple.com” to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Download Phone Activation Server v1.0 to activate your iPhone for iPod+WiFi use. Note that this application will not do anything unless you understand the magic numbers as well as add the hosts entry. Phone Activation Server (PAS) requires that you have the MS .NET Framework 2.0 installed.

Alternate Activation Methods - The iPhone Dev Wiki

These guys are clever and have four ways so far to activate

# 1 Activating an iPhone via AT&T Loophole
# 2 Activating an iPhone using another iPhone when you buy them, another loophole having to do with family plans.
# 3 Activation with a Pre-paid-Plan where you sign up for a GoPhone which is actually quite elegant and a loophole it looks like
# 4 Activation via Jon Lech Johansen’s PAS (Phone Activation Server) with detailed instructions on how to use Ultraedit to hack at itunes.exe

Wow, these things are popular. I ordered mine online 5 minutes after the Apple store opened online so here's a compendium of mostly good, but with three bad things (activations are taking a very long time, AT&T won't unlock the phone for a new SIM for you, and the headphone port isn't very standard so it is hard to fit third party headphones in):




Think Secret - Steve Jobs: Free iPhones for Apple employees

Meanwhile, unconfirmed Think Secret reports suggest that while three million iPhones are said to have been manufactured ahead of Friday's launch, Apple will only release about one million into the channel this week, staggering product availability availability beyond that to avoid any perceived major shortages.

iPod News | iLounge

The Times is reporting that cellular service provider O2 has beaten out Vodafone and others to win exclusive rights to offer the iPhone in the UK. According to the report, negotiations are still ongoing with mobile phone retailers like Carphone Warehouse over an agreement to allow sales of the iPhone in their stores after a period of exclusivity with O2. The agreement between Apple and O2 is thought to include a share of revenues generated by iPhone customers, and O2 is expected to make the necessary network configuration changes to support iPhone’s at-home activation and features such as Visual Voicemail. As previously reported, T-Mobile is expected to offer the iPhone in Germany, while Orange is believed to be the front-runner to carry the phone in France.

iPhone hack allows iPod, Wi-Fi use without activation

Well-known hacker “DVD” Jon Johansen has discovered a way to “activate” an iPhone without signing up with AT&T. The hack allows iPhone owners to use the device’s iPod and Wi-Fi features, but due to the lack of an AT&T contract, the device’s phone features still won’t work. In a post titled ”iPhone Independence Day,” Johansen posted Phone Activation Server 1.0, along with several other instructions necessary to run the hack. The hack does not unlock the iPhone for use with other carriers. [Basically iPhones are locked to AT&T, how unfair!]

Teardowns undress iPhone, suggest $200-$265 component cost

Teardowns by iSuppli, Portelligent, iFixit, and iResQ have revealed much about the inner workings of the iPhone. As reported by BusinessWeek, Portelligent estimates the component cost for the phone to be in the $200-$220 range, with iSuppli’s estimate of $265.83 in cost for the 8GB model slightly higher.

Taking the iPhone Apart

The most expensive component on the phone, Carey says, is the touch screen, for which Apple tapped a little-known German concern called Balda

Taking the iPhone Apart

Samsung, which supplied the main microprocessor chip. It was stamped with an Apple logo, but with a serial number that matches closely a chip that Samsung sells. Samsung also supplied the NAND-type flash memory that stores data on the phone, including songs, video, and pictures. Samsung's microprocessor chip, interestingly, is based on a core design that is owned by the British chip technology licensing firm ARM Holdings (ARMHY)

iSuppli Corporation : Applied Market Intelligence

Infineon, a new supplier to the iPod family, was among the biggest winners in terms of semiconductor content. The German semiconductor supplier contributed the digital baseband, radio-frequency transceiver and power-management devices, providing much of the core communications capability of the iPhone.

iPhone activation problems widespread, serious (updated x3)

Discussions on Apple’s support forms now describe quoted wait times of “up to 24 hours” for activation, as well as numerous other issues relating to conversion of Individual Plans to Family Plans. Though 5 of our 7 iPhones activated properly, iLounge’s editors are currently attempting to get activation issues resolved with the other 2, and will update this article as appropriate.

Update: A second AT&T representative has told iLounge that a team of AT&T engineers has been manually working around the clock to process the flood of delayed activation requests experienced last night, which were described as falling into the “change of account type from individual to family” and “number portability” categories. Wait times range from 6 to 9 to 24 hours based on the category of account change; iLounge received a “24 hours” notice on a ported number. More straightforward iPhone accounts are typically set up via iTunes in minutes.

Updates 2 and 3: One of iLounge’s 2 long-activation iPhones was activated successfully after 18 hours. The other took roughly 40 hours, and five phone calls, since the first attempt on Friday night, and has now been fully activated.

Here are some that the kids are asking about:

• Sid Meier's Civilization IV is the next step in a great franchise. Getting older now since it was released late 2005, but a nice game.
• Nancy Drew The White Wolf of Icicle Creek. These are done for pre-teen and teen girls from Her Interactive.
• Europa Universalis III. Seattle Times said this was a great educational game as it has real history and kind of a cool strategy game like Civilization.

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This is an awesome tool, particularly the section called key statistics. I've never been able to figure out what all the measures mean, but Yahoo actually defines them:

Enterprise Value
Formula: Market Cap + Total Debt – Total Cash & Short Term Investments
EV is a measure of theoretical takeover price, and is useful in comparisons against income statement line items above the interest expense/income lines such as revenue and EBITDA.

PEG Ratio
Formula: P/E Ratio / 5-Yr Expected EPS Growth
Forward-looking measure rather than typical earnings growth measures, which look back in time (historical). Used to measure a stock's valuation against its projected 5-yr growth rate.

Operating Cash Flow
Formula: Net Income + Depreciation and Amortization, Total + Other Amortization + Other Non-Cash Items, Total + Change in Working Capital
Net cash used or generated in operating activities during the stated period of time. It reflects net impact of all operating activity transactions on the cash flow of the entity. This GAAP figure is taken directly from the company's Cash Flow Statement and might include significant non-recurring items.

Levered Free Cash Flow
Formula: (EBIT + Interest Expense) * (1 – Tax Rate) + Depreciation & Amort., Total + Other Amortization + Capital Expenditure + Sale (Purchase) of Intangible assets - Change in Net Working Capital + Pref. Dividends Paid + Total Debt Repaid + Total Debt Issued + Repurchase of Preferred + Issuance of Preferred Stock
Where: Tax Rate = 0.375
This figure is a normalized item that excludes non-recurring items and also takes into consideration cash inflows from financing activities such as debt or preferred stock issuances.

Forward P/E Ratio
Formula: Current Market Price / Projected Earnings Per Share
A valuation ratio calculated by dividing the current market price by projected 12-month Earnings Per Share.

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Blackberry finally has the Chinese input for the new Curve. CSL has the download.

As a reminder, you install this and then you go to

1. c:\program files\common files\research in motion\apploader
2. delete vendor.xml
3. run the desktop manager and then select the application loader

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