Macking 134

by Michael Pearce
Also published in Computer Chips, October, 2006

Battery Recall
In case you hadn't heard yet, Apple is recalling all batteries in iBooks and G4 PowerBooks made between 2003 and 2006. There is a web site you can go check this but if you get a No from the built-in checker, call AppleCare about it and talk to a human. Some qualified systems are getting rejected by the site.
This is Sony's goofup, not Apple's, and although it will cost Apple a bundle, the big bite comes out of Sony, to the tune of a quarter billion dollars. That's what happens when you cut back on your QA department.
This is great news for Mackers. You have been using your PowerBook, a couple of years have gone by, and you notice you are not getting as much life out of the battery as you used to. No fires or explosions yet, and you think it might be time to spend $100 on a new battery. Now you get a shiny new one for free.
Just be sure to charge it all the way up the first time you use it, and then run it all the way down to forced sleep. That's proper break-in procedure for new batteries.

My MacBook Sucks
I reported last month that it was gone for three weeks to replace a motherboard which fricasseed itself for the two months I had it by running at temperatures over 160°. The fan would just not come on when it should have.
I got it back on a Friday and, on my lap and running on battery, reading email and writing in AppleWorks, it maintained a mild 86 degrees inside. Earlier that day it was loading video web pages and up to only 114°. (It still runs 20° warmer when plugged in.)
However, come Monday all of the symptoms returned! Sitting asleep but not closed over Sunday night, I awoke to the old 145-150° and all the window display, application launch failures and other weirdness that motivated the initial repair had returned. The fan no longer kicked in at 125°. I had to restart several times when I wanted to launch those programs that misbehaved. Finally, I closed it up to force sleep and went away for a couple of hours. I reopened it and the temp had dropped to 105° or so, but still demonstrated the problems of programs launching once, and then failing to launch a second time, and carrying that problem with them to other programs that would not launch at all. Sheesh.
So I called Apple again and they sent a FedEx box claiming it would be there overnight (it took two days). They claimed it will would be away only five days (not including weekends) instead of almost three weeks as before. They won't replace it outright until it goes back a THIRD time and even that is not written in stone. I don't know what else they can do - they put in a new motherboard/fan configuration and it should have kept working. I knew I should not have been a first-week buyer. If it would work right, it would be much better than the 12" G4 PowerBook it replaced, but right now I wish I had my old one back.
Here we are at the end of the second week and it is again on indefinite hold while they desperately try to locate replacement parts. Trying to talk to Apple on the extension devoted to status checking results in indefinite hold; the standard help extension produces faster response. Apple finally admitted to the press that if a user experiences the sudden shutoff syndrome they should call AppleCare. There must be tens of thousands of sick MacBooks piling up in their Tennessee repair center. I really hope someone is fired for this extreme failure in their Quality Assurance department. (It's in China.)
The Sept. 14 Macintouch reported the following paragraph: "the heatsink replacement is a widespread problem that caused the repair factory to switch to 24hour a day, 7 days per week overtime and additional employees were hired to assist with the repairs. I believe this is an enormous manufacturing issue that will affect many Apple customers. Its important that you constantly watch the status of your Macbook when you send it for repair."
At this point I am advising clients seeking a new laptop to contact PowerMax for a last-generation G4 PowerBook instead of gambling on the unreliable Intel models. Worse, Apple has not publicly recalled all of the units on the shelves, so people are still walking out of the stores with MacBooks that will start failing in a few weeks.
While the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro have not been reporting similar problems, and I have not yet seen this happen among my clients who own them, I would be very wary and always, always, buy AppleCare, even though things like this are covered after warranty expires. These problems are not waiting that long, though.

Another AOL Failure
Out of the box and into the grave, or "Save to Trash" best describes the new movie/video download service from AOL's pathetic attempt to save their dying service.
Why? Let me count the ways... first is cost: $9.99 for "classic" movies and $19.99 for those in current release on DVD. For that, you can't

That also means no phones or PSP viewers, either. Should Microsquat decide to change the format or codec in WMV to, let's say, attempt to circumvent all the successful attempts to remove their DRM code, then all of your purchases will become worthless unless you, too, avail yourself of the DRM cracks circulating on the Internet. Which eliminates the whole purpose.
Your other choices: Buy from iTunes, with an easier-removed DRM; download clean MP4 files through BitTorrent for free, or do the same thing from Usenet sites. Or just buy the damn DVD and do whatever you want with it forever.
AOL, I might note, has dropped in value from a high of $200 billion to 20 billion in three years, according to TheRegister. That seems high, but probably included the entire media empire at its height, with the TV network providing most of it.

AOL Is Now Free
Desperate to keep some of its hemorrhaging user base, AOL will now let you cancel your account and keep your username and email address. You will no longer be able to dial in, but you can still use the software and log on through your normal Internet account, access your archived old mail and create new. Why pay $25/month any more?
Just call them to cancel your account and tell them you want to keep your email. If they give you any resistance, tell them you have a proper Internet provider but you read about their new FREE policy.
This has been reported on at least the 3 most popular Mac and general Net blogs, and probably hundreds of others.

SpyCams for Fun, No Profit
You may have seen ads for those IP security cameras that require nothing more than an Ethernet connection (some with WiFi) to keep an eye on your home, business or whatever. But according to an article in TheRegister most people do not enable password protection on those cams, allowing anyone with access to Google and these search commands : "inurl:CgiStart?page=Single" or "axis inurl:view/index.shtml" to spy on any Web-enabled camera. People who do this are called "Video Hams," after the hobby of scanning the radio spectrum to see what's out there. When you add the fact that some of these cameras have PTZ (Pan, Tilt and Zoom) capabilities right on the web page, one can have endless fun mucking about in companies' private spaces.
All they need do is read the manual and configure a password to secure themselves, but so many don't it makes for a grand old time. Of course crooks and stalkers can do the same thing, and so can... wait for it... the "terrorists."
More details in the book and website "Defeating the Hacker". Now why would you want to defeat us poor hackers (and Mackers)?

Cost of Mac vs. Dell
A correspondent wrote Macintouch.com with a price/performance comparison between the new 24" iMac and its equivalent Dell:
"Boyd Waters took a look at iMac pricing vs. Dell's computers:
"Recent Apple pricing, along with product-line updates, is very interesting.
"Last night I got an email from Dell, promoting their $350 Dimension 1100 computer. I was intrigued enough to go to their store and try to buy one.
"With the Dell online store, you start with the loss-leader computer, then wind your way through five pages of "you want fries with that?".
"The experience -- quite different from that of Apple store -- got me to thinking about comparing price points. (This morning Apple upgraded their iMac line to Core 2 Duo processors, making the iMac line competitive with the Dell Dimension 9200.)
"The new Macs are aggressively priced:

"That video card on the Dell has maybe 1.5x the video-memory bandwidth as the one soldered into the iMac.
"Obviously the Dells can be had in more configurations than Macs, and there may be a less-expensive option that is a better fit for a particular purpose.
"But those fries and soda pop really add to the cost of the hamburger.
"So, what about that $350 Dell?
"Curiously enough, if I configured it with the $500 of software needed to compare Windows to Mac OS X with bundled iLife '06, the "shipping and handling" was only $35. If I wanted the bare-bones machine for my nefarious file-server purposes, that $350 computer had a $150 "shipping and handling" charge.
"Looks to me like Dell pads their S+H to maintain a minimum margin.
"(Apple Store does not charge for shipping their computers. Your cost is the stated price + sales tax.)"

Letters
Paul Morris writes, My iMac G4 (10.4.6) has 4 user accounts, including my son and his ITunes Library. He is the first person to have an iPod and an iTunes library. Now I have an iPod and am starting to load up my jazz CDs on my iTunes Library. There are some CDs in his library that I'd like to have on my iPod; mostly these have come from my CDs. Is there a way I can get them onto my iPod via an alias without duplicating the files on the hard drive? My 80GB HD isn't too close to being full, but I'm getting into video editing and I need all the space I can get.
Easy. Move the iTunes folder from Music to Shared and inform iTunes of the new location through the Preferences. Combine all your music by dragging and dropping anything not in the common Library onto the Library icon.
Then change the iPod settings to load specific playlists instead of the whole thing, or choose "Manually manage files and playlists..." and just drag and drop the ones you want onto your ’pod. I prefer the function to automatically update playlists because you can edit those any time, then just plug the ’pod in and it will update itself. You can create as many playlists as you want.
All the music will go in Shared, but each user's settings will remain unique. iTunes is designed this way to allow multiple iPods to share the same library.
John P. Hayden writes, I have been trying to back up some files using Disk Utility to burn a disk image to a DVD. The Disk Utility Progress Window opens. I see writing track (OK) Then closing session (OK) Then I see verifying and I get the following message: "Unable to burn (the disk image)--Verification of the burn failed." I have been using JVC DVD-RW 4.7GB. These are brand new disks. I had set the disk image for 4.7GB. I cannot see where I've gone wrong. Could it be the DVDs or the Super Drive? Any ideas? I had no trouble backing up using CD ROMs under 10.3.9. Thanks for any thoughts you can offer?
The disk image needs to be reduced to 4.2 gigs to make up for the lost space taken up by formatting, but you don't even need to use the disk image at all. Just drag all the files and folders you want to the DVD in the Finder. You can create folders on it and drag stuff into them as well. Initially, they display only as aliases. When you choose Burn it will read those aliases and load the original files onto your DVD, maintaining the order and appearance you create.

Late News: Apple Showtime
On Sept. 12, Jobs held a presentation of the newest iPods and updated iTunes. If you would like to see the one-hour presentation, go to the Apple Event site and watch the movie in QuickTime 7.0.1 or later.
iTunes looks vastly improved in library management. It now has separate libraries for music, podcasts, TV and movies. Movies are now part of iTunes Music Store, too, with releases coming from ABC Disney and their wholly owned subsidiaries including Pixar. Yep, ABC, the people who brought you that horrificly fraudulent TV movie about 9/11 that has been caught openly lying about the people and events leading up to the attack. I didn't expect Jobs to comment here about that, but I certainly expected to hear from him somewhere. After all, he is the largest shareholder.
In any event, the items look cool, the iPods are much better and cheaper than ever before, but no full-screen model as hoped by the rumor sites.
iTMS will be selling its TV and movies in larger format, 640x480 instead of the 320x240 they have been doing all along. That doesn't sound like much, but for viewing on an iPod or your new flat-screen TV, it is really quite nice.
Apple also announced a new set-top box that uses AirPort to stream these videos from your Mac (or, ugh, PC) to your TV from the room where your Mac is, controllable on screen with the Apple remote. It looks like a great box, and it will be only $299 when it ships early next year. For now it's called the iTV, but that's just a codename because Elgato owns the name EyeTV and the Independent Television Network owns ITV. Maybe we will see something from Apple that doesn't begin with a little "i" for once.
My own media center does most of this now, but I don't really have proper remote control over it. Besides, it's a serious hack job and the new hardware/software combo will make it easy for everyone. For those who don't mind paying $2 for TV shows or the new $13-$15 for movies, this will be great. You will need broadband to take advantage of this, but it's getting pretty widely available now and all the new toys just add reasons to give up on dialup.
Apple used to be behind in the computerized media center, at least in terms of eye candy and ease of control, but the new box will change all of that. You won't even need a new Mac to use it, either. The iTV will work with either hardwired Ethernet or AirPort; you can use anything that is capable of running OSX 10.3.9 or later.
One of the attractive things about the new iTunes is the fact that Apple finally makes available all the album covers you have not been able to get when you rip your CDs. Now, when you upgrade to iTunes 7 and log into your ITMS account, it will scan your library and upload all the cover art it can find.
Then it uses that art in a scrollable window that you can use to scan through your music collection and stop on an album you want to play. This visual component adds greatly to the experience of sorting through your collection. Best of all, it does not limit itself to just the songs you purchased from them.
Probably won't be able to get art from the vinyl albums you recorded yourself and converted to MP3, though. Oh, well, you can search for those manually using a program called "Clutter.".
There was no announcement of loss of rights and privileges in the new version of iTunes, either. This is where Apple would take away your ability to burn CDs of purchased music, if they were ordered to by the RIAA. Their position in the industry gives Apple a lot of power, so it may not happen for a while yet. I hope they can continue to keep their boot on the neck of the RIAA and the MPAA for a while longer. No one else has even tried.
The iPods themselves now come with brighter screens at lower prices, too. The video model is $249 for the 30-gig and $349 for the new 80-gig. Remember the largest earlier models used to be $499 and didn't do video! The iPod Nano is 2nd generation. The case is now anodized aluminum like the old iPod Mini, but just as tiny as the current Nano. They are cheaper too, and come in colors. The Video now plays games, which can be had for just $5 each from the iTMS.
Finally, the iPod Shuffle is redesigned and now the smallest MP3 player of all. It holds a gigabyte of music and is only $79. Longer battery life is claimed on all models. I just hope they do better with their quality control than they did with the MacBook.
I am now downloading the new iTunes for use on my G4. If I have any problems with it, or it is even more exciting than it looked in the presentation, I will report further.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

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