Being able to accept credit cards is good for business. It's convenient for customers, and it's fast for the vendor. Unfortunately, for the small businessman, accepting credit cards has been an expensive hassle. Not anymore-- thanks to Square.

Square provides, for free, a credit card reader that fits into your iPhone's headphone jack. Use the Square iPhone app to enter the amount of the bill, swipe a card through the Square reader's slot, and you're on your way to getting paid. Start by going to Square and signing up for an account. All you need to provide is a US-based mailing address, a US-based bank account, and a Social Security Number. You can sign up as a business or as an individual, and even without the card reader, you can accept credit cards by manually entering the credit card's number. The card reader will arrive in a few days and at that point you'll be all set. There's nothing else to do.

The Fees
Square's fees are simple: no set-up fee, no monthly fee, no monthly minimum, no variable rates. Just 2.75% on every scanned credit card, and 3.5% + 15 cents for every manually-entered credit card. (For those new to this credit card stuff, a scanned card number is less of a fraud risk to Square than a manually-entered card number is, so they charge less for that.)

Why Square?
Square's fees are competitive with those from other "merchant services" companies, so price isn't really the reason to use them. Where Square really shines is in ease of set-up, ease of use (iPhone app), clear reports, and excellent customer service. It could not be easier to set up, the iPhone app is super-convenient, the reports tell you everything you need to know, and when you need help from Square it's easy to get, and fast.

Here are a few screenshots taken from my iPhone. This one shows some work that I'm going to charge for.


If I'm on-site, the customer gives me a credit card and I scan it. The customer then signs her name with her finger, right on the iPhone. It's wild. One more touch and the card number is sent to Square (so yes, you need to have internet access, either WiFi or through your iPhone's cellular data network). Approval is immediate (assuming it's a good card) and a receipt is emailed to the customer. The whole affair is fast and fun, even for the person paying.

Here's how it looks when you don't have a card to scan. Just type it in and Authorize.


Here's a stock photo from Square themselves showing the signature screen. Yes, they compute tips for you, if that's what you'd like.


Here's a screenshot showing how nice and clean the Square iPhone app is. If I tap the Sales History button I can see how I've used Square, right on the phone.


It's not blurry when you look at it on the iPhone.


The money gets to your bank account in about three business days. First it goes to Square's system, then it's sent to your bank, and then it's in your account. There are a couple of holds and delays along the way but it ends up in your bank account in about three days.

I Know What You're Thinking
"That's nice, but I have no need for that." Oh no? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to accept credit cards at a garage sale? Or at a bake sale? Or at some other kind of fund raiser? Of course it would. Wouldn't it be nice if your pool man or plumber or the neighborhood kids who cut your grass and wash your car accepted credit cards? Tell them about Square and they can. Yes, they'll need an iPhone (or an iPad, or-- ugh-- certain Android devices), but that's hardly a bad thing. They can read The Boyce Blog (or play Angry Birds) on their iPhones when they're not scanning credit cards.

As long-time readers of The Boyce Blog know, we only recommend things that we use ourselves. We switched to Square six months ago and we've been thrilled with it ever since. I highly recommend Square.

This, by the way, is my 300th blog post. How about that.

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I thought I'd put a few of my favorite Steve Jobs links here, all in one place. Enjoy.

Playboy Interview, February 1985. Long, meaty interview with Steve Jobs, at the time head of Apple. Fantastic reading. Three months after this interview was published, Jobs was out of Apple, fired from the company he started.

MacWorld Expo 1997 Keynote Speech. Jobs is back with Apple, thanks to Apple's acquisition of NeXT. Gil Amelio (the Apple CEO who oversaw the acquisition) is out, and Apple is operating without an official CEO. In his first big public speech since his return, Jobs outlines his plans for bringing a reeling Apple back to health. He is particularly gracious in giving thanks to the outgoing Board members for working hard under difficult circumstances. Watch and listen as Jobs alludes to "the crazy ones" that Apple makes computers for (soon to be the theme of some very memorable ads). Great stuff throughout.

Stanford Commencement Address, 2005. Twenty-two minute video (counting the introduction by Stanford's President John Hennessy). Jobs' pancreatic cancer had been diagnosed the previous year, and the perspective it gave him is evident throughout the speech. Highly recommended.

Original iPhone introduction, MacWorld Expo 2007. "This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years." Steve Jobs at his very best. Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

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I'll be on the Digital Village radio program Saturday, September 3rd 2011 at 9 AM, talking with hosts Doran Barons and Ric Allan about Steve Jobs and his legacy. Should be an interesting program. Click here to listen live. If you miss the show, use this link to listen to a recording.

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Here is an iCal calendar showing the times and teams for every prime-time NFL game for the 2011 season. The calendar is provided by Scott Crevier of South End Zone and if you're a football fan I strongly urge you to visit his site.

In years past, I've modified Scott's full NFL schedule using AppleScript, producing a calendar of just the prime-time games, but Scott agreed to build the prime-time calendar himself this year. Scott's calendar has the advantage of being kept up to date as the season moves along.

If you click the link here, iCal will launch and ask you whether you want to subscribe to the calendar.


The answer is "Yes" so click Subscribe (don't change the Calendar URL-- that has to stay as shown). In the next box, you may wish to rename the calendar, change its color, and turn off the Alerts and Attachments and Reminders. You may also want to change the update frequency to every day rather than every week. See below.


The NFL season is right around the corner. Subscribe to this calendar and you'll know who's playing on Monday Night Football (and Sunday Night Football, and Thursday Night Football), and when.

(Those who are interested can read how I created the prime-time calendar myself in years past, starting with South End Zone's full NFL schedule and using AppleScript to systematically remove every game that started before 4 PM Pacific time. Writing the AppleScript was a fun exercise but this year's calendar from South End Zone is better due to the updating.)

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This is Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone at MacWorld Expo in January 2007.


This is Steve Jobs introducing the iPad three years later.

I don't know of another big-time CEO who so obviously loves his products. Look at his face. He can hardly contain himself. I can't decide which picture I like more. So here they are, both of them.

***
As you surely know, Steve Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple today via this letter to the Apple Board of Directors "and the Apple Community" (which I thought a nice touch). I've received numerous comments via email, text, phone, and in person, all saying "It's a sad day." And I agree. But, as I've written before, it's hardly the end of Apple. It's also hardly the end of Steve Jobs' involvement at Apple-- he's still on the Board of Directors, and now he's Chairman of the Board, and he's still an Apple employee. Yes, it's a step back, but no, he's not leaving Apple. Not just yet.

(Apple's going to be fine. Tim Cook, whom Steve Jobs personally picked to be CEO, is going to take the job. Cook isn't Steve Jobs, but he's been Chief Operating Officer at Apple since 1998, and he wouldn't have lasted that long if he didn't understand what's important to the company and what makes Apple special. I've read that Apple has codified "the Apple way," going so far as to create a series of courses that formally explain and teach the company's core beliefs. Those beliefs may have started in Steve Jobs' mind, but they aren't going to end there. Obviously, Steve Jobs is not replaceable in the sense that we're all different, and Jobs is more different than most. But the company is in good hands with Tim Cook.)

So what's so sad about today's news? Plenty: An unmatched leader is unable to continue doing the work he loves. That's sad. The public has probably seen its last Steve Jobs keynote speech/product introduction. That's sad too. Reading between the lines it's easy to assume that Jobs' health is deteriorating, and of course on a human level that's even sadder still.

Steve Jobs tried to change the world-- and he did it. He had a vision of how ordinary people could use computers and technology to make their lives better, and now, after all these years, the world understand what Jobs meant. The Mac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone, the iPad-- all game-changers, instantly copied, with the ideas being so good that even the copies were better than what was there before.

Steve Jobs changed computers, music, phones, and with the iPad, "everything." He changed the world, and now it appears he might not be around to enjoy it very long. That, to me, is saddest of all.

UPDATE: According to Ars Technica, Tim Cook sent a letter this morning to all Apple employees, saying "I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change." Read the full text of Tim Cook's letter at Ars Technica.

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Hewlett-Packard appears to be through as a PC maker. Their TouchPad (HP's version of the iPad), introduced only six weeks ago, was recently discounted-- and now it's discontinued. Today, at HP's quarterly earnings conference call, HP said that it was "exploring options" for getting out of the PC business altogether. Wow.

There's a lot of other HP news, though none of it as shocking as HP's ability to face the fact that an HP logo on a not-as-good-as-the-iPad tablet isn't nearly good enough. The thing that really stands out, though, is what HP's CEO and CFO say is the driving force for the company: namely, creating and increasing "shareholder value."

You never hear Apple talking about "shareholder value" in its conference calls. All Apple talks about is making great products-- and about record sales. I don't think it's a coincidence.

If you make it plain that your Number One priority is "increasing shareholder value" you also make it plain that "making great stuff" can't be higher than priority Number Two. To my mind, HP has it backward. Make great stuff first. "Shareholder value" will come along for the ride.

In case anyone from HP is reading... imagine the man on the street talking about your products even when the products haven't been announced. Imagine world-wide news coverage of your every product introduction. Imagine repeat customers desiring your products so strongly that they camp on the sidewalks outside your stores for the privilege of exchanging their money for your goods. If you're HP, you can only imagine. But if you're Apple, you know what it's like first-hand.

Maybe one day HP will realize that they got where they are (actually, where they used to be) by making great stuff, and maybe one day they'll focus on that instead of on shareholder value. I hope they do. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Here are some excerpts from HP's conference call (with emphasis added by me). You can read a transcript of the entire event here. You can search the transcript for the word "shareholder" and find it many times, including in the snippets below:

Léo Apotheker, HP's CEO: "Today is all about rising shareholder values and addressing the challenges we face in our business."

Mr. Apotheker: "... continuing to execute our current device approach in this market space [tablets] is no longer in the best interest of HP and HP's shareholders. Therefore, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to shut down the webOS hardware provisions within Q4 2011."

Mr. Apotheker: "... most importantly, we very strongly believe the transaction [purchasing Autonomy] will create significant value for our shareholders."

Mr. Apotheker: "...as CEO, I believe in transparency about what we are facing and be clear on the decisive things we are doing now about it. To conclude, I'm taking ownership for these decisions and investments with a focus on driving actions that deliver value for shareholders as we shape the new HP."

Catherine Lesjak, HP's CFO: "We are repositioning our portfolio, discontinuing or exploring options for lower margin businesses and investing in higher margin areas, including Services and Software. This effort will require patience, but the clear objective is to drive long-term shareholder value."

Mr. Apotheker: "I said it before, this is about a transformation to position HP for a new future and about driving long-term shareholder value... As CEO, I'm steadfast in my commitment to take action to do the right things to drive value for our shareholders."

Yikes.

Here's something a little different: the transcript from Apple's July 19th, 2011 quarterly earnings conference call. You can search it for the word "shareholder" but it's not mentioned even once. They do mention"products" six times, and "customer" eleven. Could be they're on to something. Maybe.

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Today Apple released its first update to Mac OS X Lion: 10.7.1. You can read a little about it on Apple's site. If you're on Lion already, this update is a must. Here, 10.7.1 runs in glorious silence, quite a difference from my Mac's "roaring" (get it? Lion? Roaring?) fans under the initial 10.7.0. That's a big plus.

It's likely that Apple was working on this update even before Lion's initial availability, which means that much of 10.7.1's improvements is stuff that Apple already knew about. And that means that bugs that were found after Lion's release could still be present-- but I'd expect a lot of them to be fixed in 10.7.2.

If you're on 10.7, Step One is be absolutely positive that you have a current backup. You can go to Time Machine's menu and tell it to "Back Up Now" (that's what I did). Step Two is get 10.7.1 via Software Update under the Apple menu. Step Three is restart, which the Installer will insist upon. You might get some disk activity and fan noise immediately after the restart, but it ought to go away in time. You can restart again after that and from then on it ought to be smooth sailing.

You can probably tell that I am not keen on Lion. I prefer Snow Leopard for several reasons, some of which I will write about someday soon. But, if you're already on Lion, you'll be happier after installing the 10.7.1 update. Just be sure you have that backup, just in case.

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Apple put out a "supplemental" 10.6.8 update today (July 25th, 2011). Among other important fixes, it restores network printing functionality that broke with the original 10.6.8. Apple puts it this way: "resolves issues with certain network printers that pause print jobs immediately and fail to complete."

Sounds good to me.

Go to Software Update under your Apple menu and get this fix.

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I installed Mac OS X Lion onto my MacBook last night. Once installed, Spotlight began indexing my hard drive, and that's a pretty intensive process that really slows everything down (except for the fans inside the MacBook, which were going full-speed). Considering the "About 10 hours remaining" in the following dialog box...

...I thought it would be better to leave it alone, have dessert, go to bed, and try it again in the morning. With breakfast. Which is what I did. Here's how it went.

Let's Get Started
The first thing I noticed about Lion is how clumsy I am with it, especially with the scroll bars and window resizing. This is going to take some getting used to. I will probably have something to say about the new Finder, and it will probably not be totally positive, because my first impression with Lion's Finder is it's not as good as Snow Leopard's Finder. Quite a disappointment.

Main Course
The Apple apps all seem to work just fine, as you would expect. Mail upgraded my old Mail and it's better than the old mail. iChat works. Safari works. Address Book works but I like the old one better. Spotlight works but needs configuring (somebody, remind me to write about that). Pages and Numbers '09 work (but man is it weird to see Pages say "saving" when I quit without saving! That's Lion for you.)

Third-party apps, including Microsoft Word 2011, Microsoft Excel 2011, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2011, seem to work fine. I launched them all, made a new document with them all, and printed from them all. Nothing fancy, and of course I can't test every feature in every program so there may be something that does not work. But, at least for the basics, Office 2011 seems to work.

Office 2008 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) open and print. AutoUpdate DOES work (choose "Check for Updates" from the Help menu of any of those three apps). Microsoft's AutoUpdate used to be PowerPC code, and it is probably hanging around in your Applications folder, a mistake by Microsoft's installer-- it looks like this, and it won't work in Lion:
(when you see it in Lion it will have a circle and a slash through it).

The version of AutoUpdate that works looks like this:
and it lives in a totally different place (see below).


You don't need to know where it lives, but you do need to know that it works. So, basically, if you have Office 2008 installed already, you're probably good to go. If you're only up to Office 2004 (which definitely does not work), you should probably buy Office 2011 (amazon link). Note: contrary to what I thought I knew a few days ago, Office 2008 can be installed under Lion. I tested that first-hand here. I had my doubts about the installer but I was able to install Office 2008 on my Lionized MacBook without any trouble.

Outlook 2011 works (part of Office 2011 if you pay for the Business version). Entourage 2008, which you really ought to ditch anyway (Microsoft did-- that's why they ship Office 2011 with Outlook instead), doesn't work very well for me. In fact, it won't do anything other than launch and crash. Your mileage may vary but if I'm having trouble, who's to say you won't too?

FileMaker Pro 11 seems to work, more or less. It isn't as fast as it was in Snow Leopard but that may be due to increased RAM requirements. Look at these screenshots of FileMaker Pro 11's opening screen-- the first, under Snow Leopard, the second, under Lion. Seems to be having some problems.

Wow.

Other issues in FileMaker include an inability to export files in Excel's "xls" format (requires Rosetta, which is not available in Lion). This is not such a big deal because you can export to the "xlsx" format (the newer one) without Rosetta. However, if you have a FileMaker database with scripts that call on the xls export step you are going to have some work to do changing things over.

If you use Evernote, which I do, you will be sorry to hear that as of this writing Evernote's Safari Web Clipping button does not work. They know about it, and they're fixing it.

Fujitsu's ScanSnap scanner works, hallelujah. This is the greatest time-saver and desk-cleaner-upper ever... scans both sides of a sheet of paper in seconds, one-button operation, and if you couple it with Evernote you can search for items by their content! No more worrying about naming things perfectly or filing them perfectly. Very handy, and I'm thrilled that this works fine in Lion.

I Think I Will Have a Second Cup, Thank You
Lion is more or less working here. Apple will probably have an update of their own soon-- my advice would be to wait for that first Apple update, at the very least, before installing. Most likely Apple already had a list of things they wanted to fix but they couldn't wait forever to get Lion out the door. Let them get that first update out before you make your move.

UPDATE: Here is Microsoft's official statement about Office 2008 and 2011 and Lion. According to them, everything more or less works, and updates are on the way-- for Office 2011 first, then for Office 2008. (I like how they say that such and such action "may" result in a crash. I think I would bet on it.)

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At this very moment I am backing up my MacBook in preparation for a Lion install. I want to be able to go back to 10.6.8 in a hurry if I have to, so what I've done is purchase an internal hard 500 GB hard drive (same size as the drive in my MacBook), stick it into my NexStar Hard Drive Dock, and using Super Duper make a complete clone of the MacBook's internal drive. Once that's done, I'll take the old drive out, put the new drive in, and then (with the original drive safely stashed away) I will begin the Lion upgrade. If something goes terribly wrong I can take the Lionized hard drive out, put my 10.6.8 hard drive back in, and I'll be back in business. Whether I have trouble or not I'll make another post here relating my initial Lion experience, hopefully by midnight tonight.

In the meantime, if you're looking for an excellent review of Lion, read John Siracusa's lengthy Lion write-up. Yes, it's long, but it's worth it. Mr. Siracusa has written a detailed review of every Mac OS X version and they are always excellent reading. In fact, it's Mr. Siracusa's reviews that keep me from feeling the need to write one myself. Everything's covered, and long as it is, it's very readable. He even tells you which parts to skip.

If you don't want to read John Siracusa's 18 pages on Lion, try Robert Mohns' Lion review over at Macintouch.com. This is also great stuff, just not as detailed and without Siracusa's legendary deadpan humor. There are plenty of other reviews to be found but these two are the best.

If you're looking for a master list of what works with Lion and what doesn't, you're just like me. There really isn't an official list. There is a nice bit of collective work, relying on reader contributions, over at RoaringApps.com, but it is hardly complete and certainly not official. However, it's the best there is as of this writing and a useful place to start. Note that some of the reports at RoaringApps were posted in the months leading up to Lion's release so it's possible that the final "shipping" version of Lion took care of some of the issues seen there. (How weird it feels to write about Lion "shipping," when it comes to us over the internet, with no box or cellophane or truck or plane-- or ship. We are living in a modern world.)

That's it for now. Gotta wait for that backup to finish.

UPDATE: Lion is up and running on my MacBook. The backup took longer than I thought it would and so did the installation of Lion. And, with Spotlight re-indexing the drive (apparently it has to do this), the fan is going full-blast and the machine is sluggish. I expect the machine to feel speedy again when Spotlight is finished.

So far, I've done VERY brief tests of Microsoft Word (from both Office 2008 and 2011), and they both seem to work. The AutoUpdater worked in 2008-- that piece of Office 2008 had itself been updated, and placed in a new location, leaving behind the older, PPC version of Microsoft AutoUpdate. The older one won't work but it doesn't matter-- the new one will. And if you have kept your Office 2008 installation up to date, you will already have the new Microsoft AutoUpdate.

There are some neat new features in Lion and we'll start covering those soon. The focus for now is on compatibility, so if you have a question about a particular app, let me know and I'll see if I can test it for you.

UPDATE 2 (7-25-2011): Microsoft Office 2008's main problem with Lion is in the Microsoft Setup Assistant. It will not run properly under Lion. So, if you already have Office 2008, you have a chance of it working in Lion, especially if you don't use Entourage. If you try to install Office 2008 after you put Lion on, you'll have problems. It just won't work. Office 2011 is then your only hope (available via Amazon here).

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We all like new stuff. With Apple's new Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) coming out tomorrow and for only $29.99 it's oh-so-tempting to download it as soon as possible. But I wouldn't do that if I were you. You might end up with a better operating system, but you might also end up with a printer that doesn't print, a scanner that doesn't scan, installers that don't install, and programs that won't launch.

Your best course of action is to wait. While you're waiting, do your homework: find out whether your printer will work with 10.7, and whether your scanner will work with 10.7, and whether your programs will work with 10.7. I would guess that they might not.

Here is a partial list of software that I know you will have trouble with after installing Mac OS X Lion.

• Microsoft Office 2004
• Quicken (any version except for "Quicken Essentials")
• FileMaker Pro 7 or earlier (those versions won't run at all-- later versions have issues too)
• Palm Desktop
• Adobe Creative Suite CS2 or earlier (Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, etc.)
• AppleWorks

In some cases, solutions exist but they all cost money. For example, you can upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 , upgrade to Microsoft Office 2011 (get the Business Edition if you want Outlook), upgrade to FileMaker Pro (but don't rush out to do that-- I would not bet on the current version working on Day One)). In other cases, there is no upgrade to be had-- not for Quicken, not for Palm Desktop, not for AppleWorks. In those cases, you'd be looking for another program to use. You'd better think about exporting the data from those applications before you install 10.7-- if you can't launch, you can't export.

UPDATE: you can download Microsoft Office 2011 (Home and Student Family Pack-- 3 Installs, or Home and Business-- 2 installs) from the Amazon Mac App Store via this link. Sorry, they don't have the single-installation versions available for download but if you need it now, you need it now.

I am sure that in time most (but not all) of the incompatibilities created by Lion will be dealt with. The key phrase is "in time." Don't expect everything to work right away. My advice: wait. Let someone else find out that stuff doesn't work. Give developers time to gather bug reports and put out some updates. Make your move to Lion after that.

When you do decide to go to Lion, please make sure that you have a backup. If things go wrong it would be nice to be able to go back to 10.6.8.

UPDATE 2: the people at RoaringApps.com are compiling an extensive Lion compatibility table. See it at http://roaringapps.com/apps:table. Notable on the list: Microsoft Office 2004 (does not work), Microsoft Office 2008 (tested, has some problems), Microsoft Office 2011 (tested, has some problems). What a great time to switch to Apple's iWork. Here's a link to a good deal on it at Amazon.

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Mac OS X 10.7, otherwise known as "Lion", is coming soon. If you are on 10.6.8 you'll be able to download it in a few weeks for $29. It might be better if you don't, because you might not be able to use some of the software you're used to using. Such as Quicken.

Yes, Quicken. After all these years (five of them), Quicken is still not Intel-native. Instead, it's written for the older PowerPC chip (PPC). Apple provides software called Rosetta which translates PPC programs into something the Intel Macs can use, but it slows everything down and while it's available in every version of Mac OS X from 10.0 to 10.6, Apple is leaving it out of Lion. What it means is you will not be able to use Quicken on a Mac running Lion.

You can read all about it here, straight from Quicken's support web site.

It's easy to get mad at Intuit (Quicken's publisher) and say they should have built an Intel-native Quicken by now (five years after Apple announced the switch to Intel chips). In fact, it's so easy that a lot of people have gotten mad and said that already. I wouldn't bother. Intuit has a very poor track record when it comes to listening to customer feedback regarding their Macintosh products and I would not expect them to change their tune now.

If you're already using "Quicken Essentials" you'll be OK-- Quicken Essentials is Intel-native. But, most people use the "real" Quicken, because Quicken does more than Quicken Essentials does. Essentials can't pay bills online, and it can't track investment activity (though it does show you how much each investment is worth). The reports aren't as good in Essentials either.

Intuit will sell you a copy of Quicken Essentials, which WILL run on Lion, for $24.99 (half-off) if you use this link. If you're using Quicken 2006, or 2007 on a Mac, and you really want to run Lion, spend the money and get a copy of Essentials and see how you like it-- BEFORE installing Lion. (If you're using an older version of Quicken you will have to upgrade to Quicken 2006 at least before moving to Essentials. That will complicate things. Thanks Intuit!)

QuickBooks is a different story. QuickBooks might work with Lion (at least it's Intel-native, so there's hope). With Quicken, there's no hope. Actually, there is a tiny bit of hope: Intuit might try buying or licensing Rosetta and folding it into Quicken itself. I don't think they'll be able to do that, but if they do it would be a slick solution. Better, of course, would be for Intuit to hire more Mac programmers and have them build an Intel-native version of Quicken. Even better would have been to start this effort a few years ago.

There are plenty of other programs that won't work in Lion too. Anything that it written for the PowerPC chip simply won't work. Easy way to find out whether your programs are PPC or not: open the Applications folder, click once on an application, then Command-I to Get Info. Look toward the top of the Get Info window. You want it to say "Kind: Application (Intel)." See below.


Note: just because it's an Intel application doesn't mean it will work just fine in Lion. There could be some issues, but at least we have a chance.

If you see something like the following, you're sunk. This application will not ever work on Lion.

(What a coincidence. We were just talking about Quicken!)

You can do this on a one-by-one basis, which is fine, or you can do it all at once. To do it all at once, go to the Apple menu and choose "About This Mac..." and then click the "More Info..." button. That will bring up the System Profiler, and in there you can click on Applications and see what kind of app each item is. See below.

Just remember: PowerPC apps will not work on Lion. Intel apps might, and it's likely that most of them will (maybe after an update or two). Classic apps won't work on Lion either, in case you were wondering.

This looks to be a somewhat messy transitional time in the Mac world. Some software is going to be left behind. Some people are going to stick with 10.6 as long as they can in order to keep using their older software. If you're thinking of buying a Mac in the next few months and you have some PPC applications it might make sense to buy a Mac before Lion comes out, so it will have 10.6 installed and therefore, Rosetta. Eventually you won't have a choice, but right now you do. Do some legwork now and figure out whether you're going to have issues with Lion so when the time comes you'll be ready.

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We interrupt the iMom Project to bring you this news about the Mac OS X 10.6.8 update. If you have a networked printer there is a chance that the printer won't work after you update to 10.6.8. 10.6.7 works perfectly but 10.6.8 has a problem. Think it over before automatically clicking "Install".

UPDATE: the 10.6.8 "supplemental update" (available via Software Update, in the Apple menu) fixes the problem. (7-25-2011)

The problem has been traced to a small change in the printing system. It appears to be a mistake. Fortunately, the fix is relatively easy. Just go to this web page: Mac users: After updating to 10.6.8, Getting “paused printer” message. FIXED! and download the Network Printer fix. Takes just a few seconds. Thanks to Eliran Sapir for the web page and the fix.

If your printer is connected with a USB cable don't worry, this issue won't affect you. But if you use a networked HP printer, or a networked Xerox, or a networked Canon or networked Minolta, or many others, you may run into the problem. The symptom is you try to print and right away the printer reports "paused" even though it is not. You won't make it work by resetting the printer system or reloading drivers or repairing permissions, so don't bother. Just use Eliran's fix. It only takes a minute and you'll be back in business.

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I talked Saturday with with Digital Village, a terrific radio program based in Los Angeles, about Apple's recently concluded World Wide Developers' Conference. We talked about iCloud, iOS 5, and Mac OS X Lion. This link will take you to Digital Village's archived audio page-- my part is right at the top (or, if you're coming in late, it's in the June 11th 2011 section). Lots of other good stuff to listen to while you're in there. Have a look around.

From their web page:

"Digital Village is a weekly broadcast about the impact of technology, computers and the Internet on media and popular culture, hosted by Ric Allan and Doran Barons.

Rather than endless product reviews, we focus on how the technology is changing the way we communicate."

That works for me.

Apple launched their annual "Back to School" promotion this morning, offering a $100 "Back to School Card" with purchase of a qualifying Mac. The card can be used at the Mac App store, the iPhone/iPad/iPod App Store, the iTunes Store, and the Apple iBookstore.

You have to purchase between now and September 20th, 2011 and to be eligible you have to be a college student, a parent buying for a college student, or a faculty or staff member at any grade level. If you're an elected or appointed member of a school board, or an elected or appointed officer of a PTA or PTO, you're also eligible.

Buy through the Apple Online Store for Education. Or, buy it at your school's Authorized Campus Apple store. Or, buy it at an Apple Retail store and tell them you want the education discount (bring an acceptance letter or a school ID). You'll save at least $50 that way, probably $100, and maybe more than that.

So... you save money on the cost of the machine, AND you get a $100 gift card. You'll also get Mac OS X "Lion" for free via the "Up to Date" program (see this link) so there's another $29 you're not spending. Just about every Mac qualifies, including MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs, and Mac Pros. Maximum of two per customer.

Steve Jobs will give the keynote speech at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference today at 10 AM. It is sure to be all over the news. I will post a link to the official keynote video as soon as it is available (it does not appear that we will be able to watch it live at 10 AM).

No one "on the outside" knows what Steve Jobs will show at WWDC, except for what Apple has formally announced:

• More stuff about Mac OS X 10.7, aka "Lion"
• New stuff about iOS 5 (a new version of the operating system that makes your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch work)
• New stuff about a service called "iCloud"

Anyone who says he knows more is probably just guessing. Apple does not like leaks, so even if a person does have insider info he would be foolish to tell. So no, I don't know whether we will see an iPhone 5. Or an iPad 3. Or some other gizmo that completely changes the game.

Basically don't know any more than you do. I have to wait for the keynote, just like everyone else. No matter what, it will be great to see Steve Jobs doing his thing on stage, even if it's delayed until Apple gets the video up.

Next year might be a different story. By then, I will be, officially, an Apple Developer, building iPad and iPhone apps (I can do simple stuff already, and making progress week to week). Thus, the WWDC would be a great place for me to be next June. In that case, I could report live from Moscone West.

If I can get my company to pay for it I'm going.

UPDATE: the Keynote Speech video is available via this link.

There's this bad thing called Mac Defender. It comes from bad guys (Russians, just like in the movies). Then there's this good thing called Apple Security Update 2011-003. It comes from good guys (Apple, Inc.). You want the Security Update 2011-003 because you DON'T want Mac Defender. So, Step One: go to your Apple menu, choose "Software Update...", and install Apple Security Update 2011-003. You can read about it by clicking here but this is a case where you can take my word for it. Get the update and read about it later if you want. For Mac OS X 10.6.7 only. Sorry, Mom.

Mac Defender has gotten a lot of press. It's a scam, pure and simple: a fake anti-virus program that does nothing other than put your credit card info into the wrong hands. It works like this: you're reading a web page when all of a sudden a message appears telling you that your computer is infected with viruses and other malware, and that you need to take care of this problem right away, and Mac Defender offers to do it for you, for a fee. In fact, the warning message is faked; the Mac Defender virus warning is canned, and when "they" say they can clean up the problem they mean that if you give them your credit card info they'll quit with the phony "you're infected!" messages. Pretty easy money-- but that's not the end of it, because now they have your credit card info and you can bet they'll use it.

You know better than to give your credit card info to some total stranger, even if they have a trustworthy-sounding name like Mac Defender. Right? Right. And you know the internet is not locked down nice and tight-- websites are hacked all the time, so malicious code can be put onto a site that you thought you could trust. (It's happened even to Google, believe it or not.) So, it's not going to work to say "Well I never go to those bad websites, I only use Google and PBS.org and ChristianBoyce.blogspot.com"-- the bad guys can stick their nasty code into any site if they try hard enough. Passwords are learned, weaknesses are exploited. Bad things happen. Just don't let them happen to you.

If you get a message on your Mac (or your iPhone, or your iPad) and it says "pay me, quick" it's probably a scam. Take a picture of the screen (Command-Shift-3) and email it to me and I'll help you figure out what's going on.

The really good news here is that Apple has figured out how to stop scams like this in their tracks. Get the Security Update 2011-003 and you're all set. If you are on Mac OS X 10.5, you're somewhat on your own, but just keep being smart and somewhat suspicious and you'll be fine. And of course send me those screenshots (Command-Shift-3).

Here's a nice write-up about the Mac Defender phony anti-virus thing, though it's a little out of date now that Apple's come up with the Security Update. Good reading anyway. Thanks to PCWorld.com for this.

You are probably going to receive one or more emails, reading something like this:

"Today we were informed by Epsilon Interactive, our national email service provider, that your email address was exposed due to unauthorized access of their system. We have been advised that the only information that was obtained is your name and email address."

That's nice.

I've received four such emails, including two from Ralphs Supermarket (interestingly, the first one says "Dear Christian Boyce" while the second one says "Dear Valued Customer"), one from Best Buy, and one from Robert Half International. Citibank, Walgreen's, and the Home Shopping Network are other companies who use Epsilon for their email marketing, along with many, MANY others. Several of these companies have sent out breezy little emails to their customers saying "Sorry about that, and watch out for viruses in emails from people you don't know. It is possible that you may receive some spam email messages. We apologize for any inconvenience." I would call this more than "inconvenient" but that's just me.

Besides making a note to stay away from Epsilon (but good luck with that-- they are the world's largest email marketing service, sending out more than FORTY BILLION EMAILS PER YEAR, for over 2500 companies), there's not much you can do, especially considering we don't know what happened. Epsilon put out a one-paragraph press release on April 1st, 2011 (no fooling) that's a little on the vague side. They don't say when the security breach happened, they don't say how many email addresses were obtained, they don't say whether it was an inside job. They DO say that apart from names and email addresses "no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk."Somehow I don't find this very reassuring. If we had asked them last Thursday they would have said that NONE of the information they store was at risk at all. And they would have been wrong about that. So maybe they're wrong this time too.

It would be a good idea to be extra suspicious of emails that appear to come from a bank or a retailer asking you to "verify your information by replying to this email with name, address, social security number, and PIN." Such emails are phony and you shouldn't reply at all. If you get an email asking for that kind of information just throw it away. You should have been doing that all along but if you haven't been, start now.

I was in Round Rock, Texas last weekend and while there I used my MacBook to bring up the Los Angeles Times website. I noticed a couple of ads that mentioned a "Round Rock Mom" and wouldn't have thought much of it except that the "Round Rock Mom" looked familiar. The reason she looked familiar is that I'd seen her picture many times before while reading the Times from home in Santa Monica-- but, in those cases, she was cast as "Santa Monica Mom." Hmm.

Here's how it looked when viewed in Texas...


And here's how it looked when viewed in Santa Monica.


I suppose they could be twins. But probably not.

I clicked the links and shockingly they wanted to sell me something. Here's where they took me:

After clicking "Round Rock Mom"


After clicking "Santa Monica Mom"

I did appreciate that they personalized things to my location either way. "EXPOSED" indeed. Scam-o-matic.

But wait, therer's more! While in Texas, I accidentally clicked an ad and found myself looking at a web page telling me that I (me!) was "Today's Lucky Texas Visitor!" See, it says so right on the web page.

I wondered a little bit about the snowflakes and the "Holiday" reference at the top, but for a free Apple iPad 2 who's complaining? I scrolled down a bit and saw a list of previous winners, and what do you know, someone in my own neighborhood was on the list. I didn't know who she was but it had her name and picture and it said "Round Rock, TX" and that "proved" it.


Just for laughs I connected to my machine in Santa Monica and brought up the same web page, clicked the ad, and up came the same web page. Except this time I was the Lucky California Visitor! What are the odds of THAT! I had visions of me carrying an iPad 2 in each arm, looking like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. (Please click the link.)


I scrolled down a bit to see the people who'd won before, and what a surprise to see our new friend Jennifer Layton-- except this time she lived in Santa Monica.

After seeing Jennifer in two places, I couldn't believe it either.

Turns out it is not very hard for a website programmer to determine the general location of your computer, based on your IP address. Try this link and see if it "knows" where you are. I'll bet it's pretty close. Eye-opening.

The point is, don't fall for the old "Gee, there's a picture of someone from my neighborhood, that makes this offer so much more believable" trick. It's probably faked. If you want $84 per hour, or an iPad 2, you're going to have to earn it. Sorry to be the one to tell you.

A friend sent me a link to a New York Times article called "How to Procure an iPad 2." The article was very interesting and made it sound like you could get one at Best Buy with minimal effort. Unfortunately, the article is wrong. So, read it if you want, but with a grain of salt. And like your Mom told you, don't believe everything you read. Even in the New York Times. Shocking.

I will bet you, however, that your Mom NEVER told you not to believe what you read here on The Boyce Blog. Your Mom was right. You can trust The Boyce Blog.

I did some legwork today, visiting the Best Buy in West Los Angeles in person, and calling Best Buy in Culver City, California on the phone. I got the same story both places and they told me that I would get the same story no matter where I went. The story from Best Buy is this:

• They do have a waiting list for iPad 2s, but they are not adding names to it any longer.
• The waiting list was available ONLY for people who came into the store, not over the phone.
• Getting on the list meant making a $100 deposit.
• A person on the waiting list could buy a single iPad 2.
• The waiting list was closed three days ago.
• Best Buy has not received an iPad 2 shipment since opening day, Friday March 11th.
• The waiting list is several times larger than the initial shipment of iPad 2s, so it's going to be a while before they get through the list.

Well now. That's quite a bit different than what the New York Times reported. Based on the above, it appears that there is no sense in going to Best Buy for an iPad 2 anytime soon. No sense in camping out overnight to be the first one in the store, because any iPad 2s Best Buy receives will be going to people on the waiting list. No sense in calling them up to get on the waiting list because the waiting list is closed (and they wouldn't do it over the phone even if they still were taking names). No sense trying to order online because they aren't taking iPad 2 orders online at this time.

So, cross Best Buy off your list of places to go to get an iPad 2 before everyone else. You can't buy what Best Buy doesn't have. Eventually, they'll have them. But they don't have them now. UPDATE: they have them now (March 23rd, 2011). Use the Best Buy iPad 2 Availability Checker (thanks, www.obamapacman.com).

Target doesn't have any either. They haven't seen any since opening day, same as Best Buy. However, you can check Target's iPad 2 inventory. Don't get excited, you probably won't find an iPad 2 anywhere near you. But it is interesting to see how many Target stores there are.

Apple Stores might have some but they're gone in minutes. A week after launch, the lines are still longer than the supply. So, unless you're willing to be in line before 5 AM, don't plan on getting an iPad 2 at an Apple Store. At least not now.

It comes down to this: if you're wondering how to get an iPad 2, your best answer right now is "order one through Apple's online store." Do it that way and get the back engraved for free. Order the thing today and you can expect it in 4 to 5 weeks. I know, that's a long time, but do it that way and you can quit chasing the thing, letting you move on to other stuff, like figuring out which 3G wireless plan to buy.

Note: as long as you're here, take a look around. I've posted hundreds of Mac and iPhone and iPad tips and hints and shortcuts. Click this link to go to the home page.

Best Buy sells the iPad 2, and they have a handy online iPad 2 availability checker where you can tell it which iPad 2 you want, enter a zip code, and find out whether Best Buy has it in stock at a store near you. They are not currently accepting iPad 2 orders online so if they do have it in stock you'll have to RUN to the store and get one (because you can't reserve it online). Still, it beats driving all over the place and making a bunch of phone calls.

UPDATE: Best Buy has changed their site a tiny bit. Now, when you follow the link above, you get to a page where they show the iPads, but then you have to click on a link to check availability for that particular unit. Of course, they don't have any iPad 2s, in any flavor, when I check, but who knows, you might get lucky. Here's a picture of what you're looking for. Bonus: click anywhere on the picture to see Best Buy's complete selection of iPad 2s. From there, click those "Check Shipping & Availability" links.



UPDATE 2: Target also sells the iPad 2, but it appears that Best Buy is a better bet. I went to a big Target in Los Angeles and they told me they'd received FIVE iPad 2 units-- not even one of each Wi-Fi flavor-- on launch day, and nothing since. They have no idea when they'll get more.

UPDATE 3: Best Buy has them now (March 23rd, 2011). Use the Best Buy iPad 2 Availability Checker (thanks, www.obamapacman.com).

Note: as long as you're here, take a look around. I've posted hundreds of Mac and iPhone and iPad tips and hints and shortcuts here. Click this link to go to the home page.

This is a business card.



So is the black-and-white mess below. And the messy one is easier to put into your address book. That's because it's a "QR code," and it turns out it contains all of the information in the card above-- and you can read it using your iPhone's camera and add it to your address book without doing any typing at all. I'm telling you, it's the Next Big Thing.



The QR code format is rather broad. Storing name, address, and phone numbers is only the beginning. You can use a code, and your iPhone's camera, to generate a pre-addressed email, or to go straight to a website-- no typing required. And lest you think that this is an iPhone-only thing, it's not. Just about any decent smartphone can do it.

Obviously, there are two aspects to these QR codes: making them, and using them. I'll tell you how to do both.

First, let's make a QR code. You can search the internet for a QR code generator, but I've already done it and the best QR code generator is by Kerem Erkan, in the beautiful country of Turkey. Click the link and make yourself a code. It's fun. Here's one I made, using a Code Action of "Browse to a Website" (the simplest kind, but have a look at the other options in that Code Action menu).

In a minute, after I show you how to read a code, you can figure out which site I chose. When you create your own QR code, type in the desired web site URL, and then click the Generate Code button at the bottom. You'll get a nice big code-- click on it and drag it to your desktop for later use.

Now, let's figure out how to read these codes. What you need is an iPhone app called Qrafter. (There are nearly 200 iPhone apps that can read a QR code, but once again I've done the work for you and found the needle in the haystack. You want Qrafter.) It's free, so you have nothing to lose. Here's a bigger button to click.


While you're at the iTunes Store, have a look at Qrafter's screenshots.The main screen is shown below, and it could hardly be simpler. Just touch the giant "Scan with Camera" button, aim your iPhone's camera at a QR code, and in a second or two the image is recognized and decoded. It feels like magic, even after you've done it hundreds of times.



You can experiment with the Settings (at the bottom of the screen) yourself, but I recommend the options shown below. You'll also want to click the "Info" button at Qrafter's bottom right to learn a little more about the program.



Now let's go back and scan the codes we saw earlier.

Touch the "Scan with Camera" button and aim it at the first code... and you get all of my contact info, perfectly done, no mistakes. Scroll down a bit and you'll see a button to "Create New Contact" and another to "Add to Existing Contact." Touch the one that's right for you and all of my name/address/phone number info is added to your Contacts app. Easy, fast, and error-free.

Try the second code-- the one I generated with a "Browse to Website" Code Action. If your settings are like mine, you'll go straight to the website I chose. If not, you'll have to touch a button to "Open URL in Safari." Try it and see (and then change your settings so that "Scan and Go" is ON). Try the code you made and dragged to your desktop-- I think it will work.

You can use Qrafter to scan QR codes in magazines and other places too-- who knows what you've been missing.

So... now you know how to create a QR code, and you know how to read them. All you need to do now is figure out how to use them. Here's one way: I've printed up stickers with my business card info on them and stuck them to the backs of my business cards. Next time I have cards printed, I'll include the code, but the stickers work great.

Here are some other ideas:

• Make a "Browse to Website" QR code with your blog or website address on it, and put it on your business cards or stationery.
• Make a "Google Maps" QR code showing your business' location and put it on all of your company materials.
• Make a "Free Formatted Text" QR code with additional information about a product or service, or a list of ingredients for a dish at a restaurant-- or send "secret" messages to your friends (secret, that is, until everyone catches on to QR codes).

QR codes are easy to make, easy to read, and they don't make typographical errors. They take you from print (the code) to the web, or to email, or to a phone call, or to a text message-- all with a simple scan of a code. Fast, accurate, easy, and bridging the print and online worlds-- that's a pretty tall order, but QR codes deliver, and that's why I'm convinced that QR codes are the Next Big Thing.

UPDATES: The "QR" in "QR Code" stands for "Quick Response." And, it turns out that you can store over 4000 characters in a QR code. That's almost enough to store the text of this particular blog post. Find out more about QR codes using this link to Wikipedia. Very interesting stuff.

No better way to find out about the iPad 2 than to watch Steve Jobs introduce it himself. Watch the unveiling. You'll want an iPad 2 before the video's anywhere near finished. Worth watching to the end though so you can hear Jonathan Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President of Design, say "Aluminium" (1:04:15).

Certainly nice to see Mr. Jobs. I hope he's feeling better.

From the press release:

New York, NY, February 2, 2011 – Today Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation, unveiled The Daily -- the industry’s first national daily news publication created from the ground up for iPad.  
 
“New times demand new journalism,” said Mr. Murdoch. “So we built The Daily completely from scratch -- on the most innovative device to come about in my time -- the iPad."
 
“The magic of great newspapers -- and great blogs -- lies in their serendipity and surprise, and the touch of a good editor,” continued Mr. Murdoch. “We’re going to bring that magic to The Daily -- to inform people, to make them think, to help them engage in the great issues of the day. And as we continue to improve and evolve, we are going to use the best in new technology to push the boundaries of reporting.”
 
The Daily’s unique mix of text, photography, audio, video, information graphics, touch interactivity and real-time data and social feeds provides its editors with the ability to decide not only which stories are most important -- but also the best format to deliver these stories to their readers.

You can download The Daily from the App Store via this link. It's free. But not completely (and of course you have to have an iPad-- there is no version for the iPhone). When you subscribe to The Daily they send you a new edition every day, and it costs you roughly 14 cents per day (exactly 99 cents per week). If you pay for a year up front it's $39.99 for the year, or roughly 11 cents per day, or $3.33 per month. Compare that to what it costs to subscribe to a newspaper on a Kindle:

• New York Times, $19.99 per month
• The Wall Street Journal, $14.99 per month
• The Los Angeles Times, $9.99 per month
• The Austin American-Statesman, $5.99 per month
• The Boston Globe, $14.99 per month
• Chicago Tribune, $9.99 per month
• The Denver Post, $5.99 per month
• The Houston Chronicle, $5.99 per month

There are some advantages to the Kindle offerings (for starters, you can read them on a Kindle, and that's a GREAT way to read stuff), but they're not in color (The Daily is), they're not loaded with movies and sounds and interactive elements (The Daily is), and they're not designed to be read on an iPad (The Daily is). Of course, there's that little matter of "content" and it will be interesting to see whether The Daily turns out to be as polarizing as Murdoch's Fox News Channel (note to Mr. Murdoch: please, no).

They're offering a 14-day trial so if you have an iPad you may as well check it out. The Daily includes daily crossword and sudoku puzzles, by the way, and though I haven't tried it out I am guessing that doing them on the iPad will be a neat experience (literally).

Whether The Daily turns out to be great journalism or not, it's a step in the modern direction as far as presentation and delivery, and while you can't wrap a fish in it I think the modern way is going to win. I am guessing that a LOT of people in the "real" newspaper business will be watching The Daily very closely-- and if it's a success you can bet that we'll see a bunch of publications putting themselves onto the iPad too. I'm thinking that "newspaper delivery boy" may not be a really good career choice in the not-too-distant future.

You can read the official press release here. You can go to The Daily's website here. Lots of good stuff in both places.

I'm back from Macworld 2011 and as usual, it was a lot of fun. Also as usual, it was a lot of walking but this year I wore tennis shoes instead of cowboy boots. It took a while but I'm getting smarter.

There was plenty of cool stuff to look and play with and you can read about some of it here, here, and here. Rather than describe every interesting item I saw at Macworld I'm going to tell you about the things that I bought. You know I had to like it if I spent my own money on it. Here, then, is what I bought.

Camera Plus Pro (iPhone app for cropping/fixing/enhancing photos), $1.99. Share your modified pictures via email, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Picassa with just a couple of taps. You get a lot for your money with this one.

Here's a picture I took with my iPhone 4.


Here's how it looks after cropping and sharpening and a little "warming" using Camera Plus Pro. I could touch that triangle in the lower left-hand corner and post it to Facebook in a jiffy if I wanted to.


Here's what the interface looks like for cropping. Easy enough to do.


L5 Remote (iPhone app combined with an infrared transmitter), free app, $49.99 for the transmitter. Use your iPhone as a custom universal remote control for TV and stereo. Create multiple remotes (swipe to move between them) for different rooms. I can make one for controlling Mom's TV and another for controlling my own stuff.

Here's an example of what you can do. Note the buttons at the bottom for various stations-- Tennis, Golf, ESPN and ESPN2, etc. Set those up and you'll never have to remember that ESPN is channel 417 and ESPN2 is channel 429.


Two things I'm going to buy soon:

Kensington "SoundWave" Sound-Amplifying iPhone mount (for use in the car-- attaches to windshield with a suction cup or to an air vent with a clamp), $29.99 with free shipping (via Amazon.com). I've decided to use my iPhone as a GPS, but I need to attach it to the car somehow. This Kensington device is the ticket. The part that makes this thing special is the sound from the iPhone comes out of its bottom speakers and is routed through some tubes into a couple of flared-out openings, and it makes the sound louder-- a very important thing when using a GPS in the car. Without some sort of amplification the iPhone isn't loud enough to be heard in the car. This holder's design approximately doubles the iPhone's volume. And you don't have to take the iPhone's case off to make it fit.


IRIS "Scan Anywhere 2" scanner. List price is $199 but the people at the IRIS booth told me it will go on sale at Frys.com with a $75 mail-in rebate starting February 1st. They expect the price to get down to about $120 after the rebate. This scanner is about as big as a box of aluminum foil so it is very portable. It connects to your Mac with a USB cable and you can shove paper into it a sheet at a time and it scans just fine. The really big news: you can do it even without being connected to your Mac. The Scan Anywhere 2 has rechargeable batteries in it, and it has built-in memory, and it has an SD (camera card) slot, AND it has a USB port for attaching a USB "thumb" drive. So, you can use the Scan Anywhere 2 on an airplane, or in a hotel room, or really just about anywhere. Then, after doing your scans, you connect it to your Mac (or pull the SD card or USB stick and connect that to your Mac), and it mounts on the desktop like an everyday drive, and from there you can drag the scans to wherever you want to drag them. Very neat, especially at $120.

Here's a picture.

Macworld 2011 begins today in San Francisco. Historically the largest annual Mac-related love fest held near a large body of water, Macworld has evolved over the years to a smaller show, with iPods and iPhones pushing Macs aside. However, it is still held near the same large body of water.

I think I've been to every Macworld Expo, which means something like 25 of them, which also means that I'm not 22 anymore. Hmm. I expect to see a lot of iPad-related things at the show, but one thing about Macworld Expo is you really can't predict it. One other thing about Macworld Expo is you can "do" Macworld in thirty minutes by listening to my Macworld Report on KPFK-FM radio this Saturday at 10:30 AM. Click here to listen (or tune to 90.7 FM in Los Angeles). Not now, silly-- Saturday at 10:30 AM. Of course it is OK to practice in advance.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a recording of my Macworld report. Twenty-two minutes and 46 seconds.

Steve Jobs is a lot of things, but he's not a mind-reader. I mention this because article after article tells us:
• "For years, and across a career, knowing what consumers want has been the self-appointed task of Mr. Jobs" (New York Times)
• "Jobs' greatest gift hasn't been for invention as much his uncanny ability to anticipate what people want" (The Associated Press)
• "He is perhaps singular in his ability to know what people want" (The Christian Science Monitor)

I say bah.

Steve Jobs can't tell what people want. But he doesn't have to. He knows what he wants, and he knows that when he shows it to you, you're probably going to say "I want that."

I am willing to bet that you NEVER sat around thinking "You know what I want? I want some raw fish. And wrap it in seaweed. And make it expensive while you're at it." And then someone introduced you to sushi and you said "I want that." You didn't know you wanted it because you hadn't thought of it. And if the person who introduced you to sushi had asked you what you wanted to eat you sure as heck wouldn't have said "raw fish, wrapped in seaweed, very expensive." No chance-- because it would never have crossed your mind.

Henry Ford said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse.'" Steve Jobs has cited that quote a few times, usually when someone asks him why Apple doesn't use focus groups to help design products. More to the point, he's put it this way:

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

That makes sense to me. The point is that a lot of us don't really know what we want-- but show us something, and we'll know whether we want that particular thing or not. The hard part is in the imagining. There is nothing magic about this, and it happens in other fields, notably writing (hardly anyone can start with a blank page and put something good on it, but almost everyone can tell whether someone else's writing is worth reading). Steve Jobs has done a great job of putting ideas on paper and turning them into products. And, when he shows them to us-- and that includes me-- we all say "I want one!" Actually, I usually say "I want two!"

Knowing that people WILL want something (once they see it) is different than "knowing what they want." Lucky for us, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs didn't ask us what we want-- because if they had, we'd all be riding a faster horse, and though horses don't have charging ports for iPhones it wouldn't matter because the iPhone wouldn't exist.

Apple employees were sent this email on Monday January 17th, 2011, announcing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would be taking a leave of absence to concentrate on his health. That's all we know. We don't know when he's coming back. We don't know that he's coming back for sure. We don't know what's wrong. We don't know anything.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of people saying thinks like "that's the end of Apple, time to sell my stock." I don't agree with that. Yes, Steve Jobs is a special guy. But, he's hand-picked a bunch of special guys to help him run the company, and they've done it before, and they will do it again. Odds are that there's a new iPad coming soon, a new iPhone coming soon, and who knows what else coming soon. These things take a long time to develop and it's very likely that the pipeline is full of products on their way to market.

If the CEO of Christian Boyce and Associates takes a medical leave of absence, you'd be right to worry for the company. In Apple's case, just worry for Steve.

Well well well. As predicted, you will soon be able to use an iPhone on the Verizon Wireless network. You can read all about it on Verizon's website but they leave a few things out. Here's the stuff they don't come right out and say.

1. Verizon's version of "3G" is not as fast as AT&T's version, so speed-wise AT&T's network is better. When you have coverage.
2. Verizon's 3G network has more coverage than AT&T's, so coverage-wise Verizon's network is better.
3. Verizon's network does not allow you to talk on the phone while doing internet-data things such as sending email or browsing websites but AT&T's does.
4. Verizon has not announced pricing for its iPhone service.

You can't sign up for an iPhone for Verizon until February 3rd, and maybe until the 10th. Depends on whether you have a Verizon account already or not. If you're using an iPhone now (with AT&T, of course) you will have to get another iPhone because the AT&T iPhone won't work on the Verizon network. Different antennas and all that.

I think it boils down to this: if AT&T has good wireless coverage in the places you go the most, you're better off with an AT&T iPhone. Technically AT&T is a better network, with better speed and more modern technology. Of course, AT&T's network is rather overwhelmed in some parts of some cities, so if Verizon works more reliably for you then Verizon's the way to go, even though it 's slower and uses older technology. Do keep in mind that if you want a Verizon iPhone you will have to get in line behind my friend Jeff, who has been waiting since 2007.

Apple introduced its Mac "App Store" today and I love it. I think you will too. First things first: your Mac has to be on 10.6.6 or later. Here's a link to the 10.6.6 Combo Update. You can't use the update unless you're already on 10.6.something, FYI.

When you install the 10.6.6 Combo Update you get one new application-- the App Store-- placed into your Applications folder, and it's also given space in your Dock. Give the App Store icon a click and you're in-- that's all there is to it.

Here's what you see when you launch the App Store. By the way, I don't like the App Store's icon, even though it's blue. I think they could have done better.



In many ways, the App Store is just like the iPhone's App Store already in place for the iPhone, and it has all of the iPhone's App Store advantages:

1. Very, VERY easy to purchase an app, 24 hours a day
2. Apps install themselves-- all you do is choose an app and pay.
3. Payment handled through your Apple ID, the same one used for iTunes purchases and iPhone app purchases-- no need to supply credit card info again and again.
4. Well-organized, searchable collection of apps.
5. Lots of free stuff.

Yes, you can find apps all over the web, but that's part of the problem-- they're all over the web. In the App Store, everything is right there in one place. It's easy to find apps, even if you're not looking for them-- for example, I downloaded the free "Alfred" shown above, and am having a great time playing around with it. I probably would not have stumbled across Alfred if not for the App Store. I am sure that you will find plenty of neat apps that you weren't necessarily looking for when you go to the App Store. It brings a little extra fun to the Mac.

Installing an app purchased from the App Store is completely automatic. When you click the little "free" button under the app (or the one that says "$4.99" or whatever-- you have ONE thing to do, namely enter your Apple ID name and password. The app then flies across your screen in a nice arc, landing in your Dock. That's it! No disk image to deal with, no dragging to the Applications folder, no message about this app being something downloaded from the internet, do you want to use it etc. Could not be simpler.

If you know what you're looking for you can search for it (top right). If you're just looking around, try looking at the free apps, or the paid apps, or the "Staff Recommendations." Or browse by category: Business, Education, Entertainment, GAMES (hi Zach), Photography, Productivity, etc.-- 21 categories in all.

One more thing: in many cases the App Store will save you money. For example, if you want the latest iPhoto, but don't want to spend $49 for the entire iLife suite, you can spend $14.99 and get just iPhoto-- and get it right now. How cool is that?!

Nothing's perfect, and if you want to read about all of the imperfections here's a nice link. I think the good far outweighs the bad, and I'm sure that the App Store will be a big hit with Mac users and software developers alike. I see that the people who programmed Angry Birds for the Mac have the 3rd-highest gross for the day-- and at $4.99 a pop, they must have sold a zillion copies, because the programs at numbers 1 and 2 sold for $79.99 and $14.99, and the program in position 4 sells for $29.99. Which reminds me: parents, encourage your kids to learn how to program for the Mac and iPhone. Someday they might strike it rich. The Angry Birds guys did. Happy New Year indeed.

Google called us last week. At least, they said they were Google. Turns out they weren't-- instead, they were crooks, hoping to scam us. Luckily, we were a little suspicious and didn't get suckered into handing over our money but it would have been easy to be fooled. Here's how the scam goes-- make sure it doesn't happen to you!

First, the phone call comes from an Oklahoma area code. Google, of course, is in California. But, when they call and say it's Google calling it is sort of exciting-- "Imagine! Google is calling ME!"-- and you might not pay attention to the area code. Pay attention. They are trying to steal your money.

Then, they will rattle off some information that they say is in your Google listing, such as your company name and address and phone number. They will tell you that part of the information is wrong-- in our case, they told us that our listing showed a home address rather than the business one-- and that it should be corrected in order to make it easier for potential customers to find us via Google. Sounds reasonable. Every business wants more customers, and every business hopes that someone will use Google to search for the business, and find it. The person on the phone says that he will help you correct this information.

Early in the conversation they ask "Are you authorized?" They don't explain what they mean by that. But, they really, REALLY want you to say yes, and that's because they are recording the conversation, and they want to have "yes I am authorized" on tape.

The rest of the conversation is hard to understand. The reason it's hard to understand is that while the phony "Google" person is talking to you he is also playing a tape recording saying something like "You are authorizing XYZ company to optimize your search engine listing and for that you will be charged $70 per month for three months. The charge will appear on your phone bill as XYZ Services Inc." Then, the phony Google person says-- in unison with the recording-- "Do you understand?" If you say "Yes" it goes onto the tape, and the next thing you know they're charging you $70 per month, on your phone bill, and if you try to get your money back they'll have a tape recording of you saying that Yes, you are authorized, and Yes, you understand. Pretty clever. And pretty rotten.

Google has nothing to do with this scam. The bad guys are using Google's name to give them the sound of legitimacy. Tell the people who answer your phones to be suspicious of anyone ""calling from Google (because Google doesn't call), and while they're at it be suspicious of anyone calling from "The Online Yellow Pages" or anything like that. Rather than having a conversation on the phone, ask the caller to send you something written, in the mail. If they're legit they will, but don't wait by the mailbox. Almost all of these "Online Yellow Pages" are scams, so they won't send you anything at all. In that case, consider yourself lucky. Tell your employees, tell your friends-- don't fall for this scam.

Of course there will be another scam tomorrow but at least you're ready for these guys now.

Executive Summary: we waited three years for THIS?!
Don't bother buying it, unless you absolutely have to. And, keep in mind that in some ways it's not even as good as the previous version.

Microsoft's Office, like McDonald's hamburger, is very popular without being very good. Thanks to clever bundling arrangements on the PC side, Microsoft's Word, PowerPoint and Excel have become a workplace standard. Until recently, Mac users who wanted to view documents created by PC users were almost forced to purchase a copy of Microsoft Office for the Mac, even if they really didn't want to use it themselves. (There are some excellent non-Microsoft options available for Mac users today, notably Apple's iWork, a word processor, presentation program, and spreadsheet that are a pleasure to use. And they can open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents just fine.)

Microsoft was not particularly quick to get this version out the door-- the previous version was released in 2008-- but it still feels rushed, and frankly it's a huge disappointment. Microsoft's Mac Business Unit, which had suffered under previous "leadership," was under new management, and Office 2011 was supposed to be the product that showed that Microsoft "gets it." Based on my experience with Office 2011, which I bought with my own $200, it's plain that Microsoft still doesn't get it. They don't get what's important to Mac users, they don't get how to make software that's a pleasure to use, they don't get that the out-of-the-box experience matters.

They also don't get that iPhone users would like to sync their calendars, carrying with them the events and appointments that they've entered into Office 2011's Outlook. Well, maybe they do get that. But they didn't provide that feature. Yes, that's right-- if you're going to use the calendar in Outlook from Office 2011, you won't be able to sync it to your iPhone. Not. At. All. From what I hear, the iPhone is fairly popular with Mac users-- what was Microsoft thinking?

If they made a word processor that couldn't do the letter "Z" it would not be more surprising than this lack of calendar synching. Apple's been doing calendar synching through Sync Services, something that is available to everyone who programs for the Mac, for something like five years. Even Outlook's predecessor, the not-very-good Entourage, could sync calendars (though, to be fair, Entourage's synching was very unreliable, producing duplicates galore). It's a mind-boggling omission.

You might be thinking that I'm just getting started, and I am, but I'll spare you the details. I will, however, describe some of the more notable gaffes that I've found in just a few days of using Office 2011.

Notable Gaffe #1: lack of awareness that computer screens are wider than they are tall.


This is Microsoft Word from Office 2011. Gee, that empty gray space looks nice and there sure is a lot of it. Meanwhile, the toolbars and "Ribbon"-- a much-trumpeted feature that is, for the most part, simply a way to turn on and off toolbars-- shove my document so far down that I get about half a page on the screen. Word could gain more than an inch of document space by putting toolbars on the sides of the window-- where all of us have extra space-- but no. Toolbars should be horizontal. Thus spake Microsoft.

Big deal? Yes. Thanks to this one poor design decision, every single user of Microsoft Word will spend extra time scrolling and zooming in and out trying to see how his documents look-- every user, every document, forever and ever amen. They call this "Print Layout View" but if you can't see the whole page at once, it's not very useful... thus the endless zoom out to see how it looks on the page, zoom back in so you can edit. A giant time waster, multiplied across thousands or maybe millions of documents per day. No wonder we're not keeping up with China.

Notable Gaffe #2: registering the product-- which you must do before using it-- is a pain.
Here's the product key (serial number) from the back of the CD cover (actual size, with most of the number blurred out for security):


and here's the message I got when I typed it in:


As you can see, according to Microsoft, "The product key is not valid." I clicked that blue link to contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support, and got this:


I would have clicked "Activate By Phone" if such a link existed. But, as you can see from the figure above, the link does not exist. How helpful. (They're lucky I don't call "Inaccurate Help files" Notable Gaffe #3. Maybe I will anyway.)

Since I wasn't getting very far using the "Help" system I decided to try, try again. I very carefully typed and retyped that product key and each time got the "Invalid" message. Finally, I found my mistake: the real number is BK92B, not BK928. Microsoft has used the same weird computer-printout font to print their Mac product keys for about ten years, but as is typical of Microsoft they don't seem to look at their own products and think "how could we make this nicer for the user?" (The font face and the font size is bad, but to make things even worse, the ink they use to print the product key spreads, so the fine points of the characters get clogged up, making things even harder to read. Come on, Microsoft!)

Notable Gaffe #4: Confusing and awkward "Product ID" craziness
If/when you manage to get the product key entered correctly, you get this screen:


That's a completely different number than the product key I just entered. Why can't I use my product key to identify my product? And, what's the difference between "registering" and "activating"? Yikes.

It turns out that "registering" means you put in your name and email and sign up for "tips & tricks, product update notices, and special offers just for our Office for Mac users." Activating merely turns the product on. That's a big difference, yes, but why not use the same number for both? And, when am I supposed to do the registration? They force you to activate, but leave registration up to the user, without telling him how to do it. Hint: if you want to do it, open any Office 2011 program-- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook-- and under the menu named for the program, choose "Online Registration." Wouldn't have been hard for Microsoft to put a link to the Online Registration webpage right here in this window, but no. Yet another example of a tiny bit of extra work that Microsoft could have done, which would have made things a lot easier for EVERY user of Office. ONE person at Microsoft could have added that link in 15 minutes. Instead, each and every Office 2011 USER gets to spend time trying to find how to Register (they don't ALL read this blog), and the cumulative amount of time lost by the users is way, way, WAY more than the 15 minutes it would have taken one person at Microsoft to fix this. I have to find that person and talk to him. Of course a lot of people never bother to register-- this screen is the last time they think of it. There's no way for me to know how many people actually bother to register, but it can't be 100% of Office users-- so Microsoft's lack of attention to detail here ends up costing them too. Holy cow, what a mess, and it would be so easy to fix-- but only if you're in the right position at Microsoft, and only if you care.

Bonus Gaffe: when you go to "About Word" (or Excel or PowerPoint or Outlook) you'll see the Product ID at the bottom of the window (see below).

But, you don't see the Product Key. So, if you have multiple copies of Office 2011, each with its own Product Key, you'll have no way of knowing which Product Key was used during the installation on a particular machine. Better write it down somewhere, because if you inadvertently use the same Product Key on two machines you'll have a situation where only one or the other machine can be used with Office at any particular time. There's no predicting the Product ID based on the Product Key, and vice versa, so if you haven't kept track of which Product KEY was used for which machine, you're going to be in a jam when you someday reinstall. This "feature" has been present in at least the two previous versions of Office 2011, and maybe more. All it does is waste time and cause frustration, and it could be EASILY fixed-- for example, they could show you part of the Product Key in the "About..." window. As mentioned above, once Microsoft has something going they don't go back and say "Gee, this really could be better, let's change it." So much for constant improvement and refinement.

Double-Bonus Gaffe: they tell us, during Activation, to "Keep the following Product ID in your records" and it sounds as if this may be our last chance to see that number... but, as seen above, the Product ID is available ANYTIME, from within the program itself. They could have simply said "You can get the Product ID at any time by going to the Word menu and choosing "About Word." Maybe they didn't know! Somehow, it doesn't seem that Microsoft actually tries this stuff themselves, or reads the dialog boxes. So easy to fix, but again, they'd have to care enough to try. Of course it was exactly the same in the previous two versions of Office, dating back to 2004-- no surprise there (and no improvement either).

Smaller but still notable blown opportunity: Poorly designed Document Gallery (template chooser)

At first glance, this looks pretty good. (You get a similar Gallery for PowerPoint and another one for Excel.) The idea is, you click once on a thumbnail in the middle section of the Gallery, obtaining a slightly enlarged "preview" of the chosen template in the right-hand pane. It's rather neat, and in some cases you get some font and color options in the right-hand pane too as shown here. But, if you double-click the preview's icon, nothing happens. You have to either click "Choose" at the bottom of the box or go back to the small thumbnail and double-click that (and it feels weird, after using the preview pane to make changes to the color scheme, to go back and double-click the small thumbnail still showing the original set of colors and fonts). The natural thing would be to double-click the big preview, now that you've made changes to it, but that doesn't work.

They Just Don't Get It award: floppy disk used as a symbol for "Save."


Here's part of Word 2011's Toolbar. Circled is the icon for "Save." I wonder whether anyone using Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac uses floppy disks anymore. Actually, I know they don't, because Microsoft Office 2011 requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, and no version of Mac OS X supports floppy drives. Apple last sold a Mac with a floppy disk drive in 1998. Before that, the floppy disk icon had some meaning (but not a lot-- we had hard drives for saving stuff, so the floppy was a lousy symbol for "Save" even before 1998), but it has zero now. All it does is make Microsoft look silly and careless and out of touch.

I could go on (and on). There are so many omissions and weird design choices and carryover dumbness from previous versions (my favorite: the character count that shows how many characters there are in your Word document, but adds "an approximate value") that I could be writing for a month. I think though that the point's been made: Microsoft Office 2011 is not very good, and I do not advise buying it except in special cases. You can contact me to see if I think you're a special case.

If you want a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation package that works the way you'd expect it to, with the ability to open and save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, get Apple's iWork '09. It costs a lot less, does a lot more, and is a million times nicer to use. Click here to get a 30-day demo for free.

Apple introduced a new MacBook Air portable computer today-- actually, two of them. One has a 13-inch screen and the other an 11-incher. They replace the existing MacBook Air and offer several improvements over the older model, including longer battery life, better screens, instant on, and a great big multi-touch trackpad. The biggest difference under the hood is the use of a "Flash" drive rather than a traditional spinning mechanical hard disk. For all practical purposes the MacBook Air's new Flash drive is just like a digital camera card-- small, flat, no noise, no moving parts, all electronic, low power demands. You can get as much as 256 Gigabytes of storage space when you buy the MacBook Air and if I were buying one, that's what I would do. There's a 128 GB version, and a 64 GB version (for the 11-inch model only) but I'd go with 256. I wouldn't be mad at you if you got the 128, but I would not recommend the 64 GB model because I think you need more space than that.

You will enjoy this little video, courtesy of Apple, talking about the new MacBook Air and how it came to be.

Here are some things to watch and listen for as you watch the video.

1. Isn't it ironic that Apple has based this machine on Flash technology, when it was only a few months ago that Steve Jobs was telling us how miserable Flash is and that he wants nothing to do with it? Actually, maybe it's not ironic. It turns out that "Flash" is the name of two totally different things. The Flash that Steve doesn't like is resource-hogging software from Adobe, used in web page design. The Flash that Steve does like is a little storage device on a chip, like a camera card. Totally different things, with the same name. What a drag.
2. They refer to the camera as a "FaceTime" camera. Yesterday, we called it the iSight camera. Bye-bye, iSight. Hello, FaceTime. I'd expect to see more and more FaceTime stuff as time goes by-- including, I predict, coming soon to an iPad near you.
3. Does every interview with Jonathan Ive have him facing the same direction, slightly off-screen? So far, yes.
4. Bonus: Jonathan Ive says "Aluminium" as only he can say it, at the 2:27 point. Listen for it.

All four models are available for ordering from Apple's website today. Here's the link. By the way, you'll get the new iLife '11 package pre-installed, for free.

Update: two more things about the new MacBook Airs. First, they are fast-- about as fast as the "regular" MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Second, they are thin. Very thin. If they were any thinner they would only have one side! Heh heh. Extra credit for those who laugh at my joke.

Note: I am honored to present this special Guest Expert blog post, written by my friend Zach, a Macintosh and iPhone gaming expert.
-- Christian Boyce

Top 3 iPhone Games
by Zach, age 9


First Place: Ancient War
Type of game: side-scrolling battle
Point of the game: destroy a totem pole without your own totem pole being destroyed too
Cost: $1.99

Ancient War is great difficulty-wise.  It has different levels that start off really easy and become extremely hard.  Also Ancient War has good action, good controls and okay sound effects. I like how every couple of minutes you get to shoot fireballs.

Ancient War

Second Place: Angry Birds
Type of game: Arcade
Point of the game: get your eggs back from the green pigs by launching birds at the pigs using a big slingshot
Cost: 99 cents

Angry Birds is like Ancient War difficulty-wise.  It has different levels, some easy and some not.  Good controls, pretty good action, and ok sound effects. I like how you shoot your birds from the slingshot and hit something hard.

Angry Birds

Third Place: Eliminate Pro
Type of game: shooting
Point of the game: kill a guy without being killed
Cost: FREE

I like Eliminate Pro because you can play people online. I play it with my friend William online almost every week. It is good for advanced players and beginners.  If you play someone good it is hard, but if you play someone not so good it is easy.  It has great action, not so good controls because controls fade away a lot when you need them most so you don't know where every button is, and good sound affects. I like how if you shoot a guy when he is dead he explodes.

Eliminate Pro

Note: this is a repeat of a blog entry from last year, with updated data for 2010. Preseason games are not included.

I wanted an iCal calendar of the prime-time NFL games (Monday Night Football, the Sunday night game, the occasional Thursday night game) but I couldn't find one online. I did find the entire NFL schedule, but that was way more than I wanted. Solution: I imported the entire NFL schedule, then wrote an AppleScript to remove every game whose starting time was before 4 PM. Simple. Here's the script, for educational purposes...

-- By Christian Boyce, macman@christianboyce.com

tell application "iCal"
set the_games to every event in calendar "NFL"
repeat with i from 1 to (count of the_games)
set the_start_date to start date of item i of the_games
set the_day to word 1 of (the_start_date as string)
set the_hour to character 1 of time string of the_start_date as string
--
if the_hour is not greater than 3 then
set the_event_id to uid of item i of the_games
delete event id the_event_id of calendar "NFL"
end if
--
end repeat
end tell

and here's the NFL Prime Time calendar, ready for you to click on and import.

Note: you will get the chance to put this calendar's events into one of your existing iCal calendars. That's probably not a good idea. Choose the "New Calendar" option when asked and I think you'll be happier.

Thanks to http://www.southendzone.com/ for the entire NFL schedule in iCal form.

Like the calendar? Did it help you? Leave a comment and let us know.
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RadioShack wants your old stuff. And they'll pay for it.

Start by clicking this link to the RadioShack Trade & Save program. Once you're there, you tell them what sort of stuff you're looking to get rid of. Here are the choices.



Suppose you have an iPhone 3G, and you're moving up to an iPhone 4 (which you can buy at RadioShack). You click on the Phones button, then choose Apple from the several manufacturers listed, then indicate which model iPhone you have. Click a few buttons to show what kind of condition your iPhone is in, click the "Calculate" button, and just like that they tell you what they'll give you for your phone. Neat. Looks like this:

Your next move is to send your stuff to RadioShack, which you do with a pre-paid shipping label that RadioShack will generate for you. When RadioShack gets your item(s) they'll look them over to be sure they're what you said they were, and then they'll send you a RadioShack gift card loaded up with money.

Of course, you may want to do this at a RadioShack store, and you can, as long as the thing you're trading in is relatively small. Here's the list of things you can bring to a RadioShack store:

• wireless phones
• GPS receivers
• digital cameras
• digital camcorders
• video games
• mp3 players

Everything else has to be done online, and then mailed in, but that's not much of a hardship. Still, I think I'd rather get my gift card on the spot instead of waiting for it to arrive in the mail, so where that's possible that's what I'll do.

Note: there is a slight possibility that you will not become rich by sending your old electronics to RadioShack. Some stuff, such as my 17-inch Apple Studio Display which cost $699 new, fetches an almost insultingly low price-- in the case of my monitor, $7.20. (I have to wonder about the 20 cents there-- I would have figured $7.35, easy.) Still, something is better than nothing, and since RadioShack is going to turn right around and sell your old stuff to someone else, your perfectly-good-but-not-the-latest-model electronic gizmo will get a new life with a new owner, and that's worth something too. Considering that I thought I'd have to tape ten dollars to some of my old stuff just to give it away this RadioShack program sounds like the best thing ever.

Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with the $7.20.

I found this amusing for some reason.

Apple's iPhone 4 press conference is going on right now. They started it by showing this YouTube video.

MacWorld Expo 2011 is six months away, but if you plan ahead a little you can save major buckos on admission. In fact, if you use this link before the end of the day on July 26th, you can get in for free. San Francisco in January isn't exactly balmy but who cares, it's SAN FRANCISCO, and it's MacWorld-- the biggest Mac (and iPhone, and iPad) love-fest on Planet Earth. You are likely to have a great time. Mark your calendar.

Note: they've changed the dates. The conference part of MacWorld Expo starts January 26th and the exhibits part (the part you can get into for free via this link) starts on January 27th.

People ask me all the time "What does the new iPhone 4 do that my old iPhone can't?" Here's one thing: FaceTime. Only on iPhone 4.

You've probably heard about problems with Apple's iPhone 4-- specifically, there's something about the antenna that makes the number of AT&T signal bars go down when you hold the phone in your hand "in certain ways". It turns out that "certain ways" includes the way I'd normally hold it (in the palm of my left hand). Bummer.

I had not noticed this problem myself, but I was able to reproduce it. Here it is, in pictures.

iPhone 4 on desk. Five AT&T bars (top left corner).

A few seconds later, I picked up the phone and held it in my left hand as anyone who uses his right hand to type would. Looky here-- down to three bars!


A few seconds later and I'm down to 2 bars.


Then I put the iPhone 4 back into the cheap-o silicone case that used to hold my iPhone 3GS and my bars shot up to 5.


So-- independent research shows that indeed this "fewer bars when holding the iPhone" phenomenon does indeed occur. Maybe, just maybe, putting the antenna on the outside of the iPhone, right where a person would naturally hold it, wasn't the best idea ever. But, as demonstrated here at Boyce Labs, we have two ways to get a 5-bar signal. One of the ways (leave the iPhone 4 on the desk) isn't practical. The other way (put the iPhone 4 in a case) is super-practical, and since there's a case for every taste, I say "get a case and put this problem behind you."

That would be the end of it, except for one thing: Apple's written a very interesting letter (click here to see it) that attempts to explain it all away. I say "very interesting" because while one might expect Apple to say "sorry about the bars, we're going to give away free cheap-o cases for all iPhone 4 users and solve this problem for you" they instead said (paraphrased) "Yes there's a problem, but it's not what you think. You had lousy signal strength the whole time, and we made a boo-boo in how we calculate the number of bars when it sits on your desk. You think you have 5 bars but you don't."

Hmm. Like I said, very interesting.

How can it be that they've made a mistake in their bar calculation "all along" (that's what the letter says), but the mistake only shows up when you hold your iPhone 4 in your hand? And how can it be that they expect me to be happy with a phone that gets 2 bars out of five while in my apartment? I think what they're telling us is that they're going to change the formula to "more accurately reflect" the signal strength... but that means that even with a case on, my iPhone 4 is going to show 2 bars. That's a different problem, and according to Apple it's all AT&T's to fix. Too bad, because I have more confidence in Apple's ability to fix a problem than in AT&T's.

June is loaded with holidays: there's Flag Day and Fathers Day, of course, but there's also National Donut Day (on the 4th-- free donut at Dunkin' Donuts if you follow that link), Donald Duck Day (on the 9th), and Waffle Iron Day (on the 29th). To that, add National Accordion Awareness Month and National Turkey Lovers Month, and you might think that June is all holiday-ed out. But no. It turns out that June is National Office Manager Appreciation Month, and in recognition of National Office Manager Appreciation Month all Amazon referral fees for the month of June will be gift-certificated to my Office Manager. If you don't have an Office Manager you can show your appreciation for mine by clicking the Amazon link at the top of this page when you want to do some shopping.

It sounds like a joke-- "Guy walks into a bar..."-- but it's pretty serious stuff: Apple engineer loses prototype iPhone in a bar, someone finds it, leaves the bar with it, and sells it to tech/rumor/news site Gizmodo.com for a cool 5 G's. Gizmodo takes it apart, writes about it, gets lots of attention. Apple wants its phone back, police get involved, search warrants are presented, Gizmodo reporter and the guy who "found" the iPhone are both in big trouble.

That's the short story. Until now, that's all we had. Until now.

The longer story is very nicely told in the Affidavit for Search Warrant as published by Wired.com tonight. Have a look. It's a little slow to get started but when you hit the half-way point it starts getting interesting (and it gets better after that).

Looks like crime doesn't pay after all. Good.

I've thought quite a bit about this Apple, Adobe, and Flash issue. I think it comes down to this: Adobe is saying "Hardware doesn't matter." They have an idea for an app (for a smartphone) or an idea for a desktop application (for a Mac or a PC), and then they try to make it run on all of the machines they can. They don't care which phone you use-- iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, something else-- they just want to get their program to work on it, and if they're able to make it work on your phone, you can be sure that it will look exactly the way it looks on someone else's phone. Even if you have an iPhone with lots of cool hardware features, and the other guy has some other phone that isn't as good. Adobe starts "at the top" with an idea of how they want their app to work. The hardware that it runs on is irrelevant to them.

Same thing with their desktop applications (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.). They have an idea of what their program should be, and then they try to fit it onto Macs and onto PCs. They ignore much of what makes a Mac special, because that's not interesting to them. Adobe's focus is on getting Photoshop to run on as many machines as possible-- and to look exactly the same, whether you're running a Mac or a PC. Again, the hardware doesn't matter to them.

The problem with this, of course, is that some machines are simply better than others. Some phones have accelerometers, and GPS devices, and touch screens. Others don't. Macs have features that PCs don't, notably the Mac OS X operating system and a set of user interface guidelines that make using a Mac a consistent, predicable experience-- unless you're using Adobe applications, with their own Print and Save As and Open dialog boxes, a complete thumbing of the nose to the ones Apple provides for all developers to use.

If you're making smoothies it doesn't really matter if your blender is a Waring or a Hamilton Beach. If you're painting a house you can use a brush from Ace or from Home Depot (but use the one from Home Depot, I have stock). In cases like that, nobody cares about the hardware, because when you get right down to it all blenders blend, and all paint brushes paint, and there's not a lot of difference between them. When you're dealing with phones, and desktop/laptop computers, there IS a lot of difference between the offerings from different companies, and when Adobe ignores those differences, you (the iPhone and Mac owner) end up with the same crummy experience that people with lesser phones and computers get. And it's not very good.

In my opinion, hardware DOES matter. It matters a lot. So does the operating system. Adobe doesn't think so, Apple does, and that's the root of this conflict.

You may have heard that Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch do not run Flash. Flash is Adobe's plug-in software, used by web designers for animations and video. Apple doesn't like Flash because it's buggy and slow, and-- I suspect-- because it leads to sloppy, cheesy websites with gratuitous rollover action.

Adobe gives away the Flash plug-in-- you probably have it. They sell the tools that developers use to MAKE Flash (you watch it for free, but the people who make it pay to make it). This is a nice business for Adobe, with no real competition. They'd like to keep that going.

Adobe also makes tools that help people make applications for cellular phones-- including, but not restricted to, iPhones. Using Adobe's tools, which they sell, a programmer could write ONE program and have it work on an iPhone, a Blackberry, a Google Droid, etc. That's not possible with any other tool today. You can imagine how appealing this is to a programmer-- write your app once, and sell it to everyone with a smart phone, whether that device is an iPhone or not.

The trouble with Adobe's write once, works everywhere approach is that all smart phones are not created equal. A programmer then has to develop for the least common denominator-- that is, the set of features common to all smart phones. (Example: iPhones have accelerometers built in, so when you rotate the screen your email and your web page etc. can rotate automatically. Other smart phones don't have accelerometers. A programmer writing an app for a wide audience would not include features reliant on accelerometers because those features would only work on the iPhone.) The result is a watered-down, dumbed-down, why-did-I-spend-all-this-money-for-an-iPhone-if-the-apps-don't-take-advantage-of-its-features experience. It was the same way with Java-- you might remember. I remember, and Apple remembers, and Apple's not going to let it happen again.

Apple's recently changed its agreement with iPhone app developers to say, in effect, "use Apple software to create your apps. Otherwise, they won't be approved for sale in the App Store." Pretty compelling argument to the developer! Apple wants to ensure that applications take full advantage of the features they've built into the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPhone OS, and eliminating a middle-man (Adobe) that may not be motivated to do so is a good move in terms of guaranteeing a high-quality experience for users of Apple's devices.

Adobe's come down on Apple, officially and unofficially, saying that not supporting Flash is bad for users, nevermind bad for Adobe, and that forcing app developers to use Apple's tools will lead to stifled creativity etc. This has gone on for a few weeks now, played out on blogs and in interviews, but now Steve Jobs has addressed the issues in a nice long letter. It's interesting reading. Provide the coffee and I'll talk it over with you.

Here's the link to Steve Jobs' letter.

Apple showed off its upcoming iPhone software update, the so-called iPhone OS 4. It really looks great but to most people, it won't "look" at all because it's mostly under the hood, which is how it ought to be. All you'll know is your iPhone (and iPad) will be easier and more fun to use.

There are plenty of things to like about this new version but the thing I'm looking forward to the most is Multi-tasking. Multi-tasking means that with iPhone OS 4 the iPhone can do more than one thing at a time. This lets you receive Skype phone calls on your iPhone even if you're doing something else. It lets you listen to Pandora radio while you do other things. It lets you use the very cool "Line2" voice-over-IP app even if you switch away from the Line2 app. (It also lets you move between apps very quickly. This will solve a problem for ME-- the one where I'm reading a book and want to adjust the brightness. It used to be hit the Home button, find the Settings, go to the Brightness, then back to the Home screen, then find the book app, then finally tap it. Yikes. Now it's going to be about three taps. About. Yay.

I'm also looking forward to organizing my apps in iPhone OS 4's new "folders."

You can watch Steve Jobs and Co. introduce iPhone OS 4 by clicking the link. You'll see multi-tasking, folders, and a whole lot more.

The iPhone OS 4 software will come to us this summer. Watch for it.

300,000 iPads sold so far. Pretty impressive for something that no one thought they wanted or needed-- really, an extra device, not a replacement for anything else-- until Apple showed it to us in January.

Correction: it's 300,000 iPads as of midnight Saturday April 3rd (the first day they were available). That's even better.

PCMag.com reviewed the iPad and produced this very nice video that tells you all about it. Yes, the narrator speaks too rapidly, but you're in control-- put your mouse over the video and pause it if you need to (I did). Or grab the time (above the little stripe showing how much you've watched) and drag it back to the left to make the guy back up (I did that too).

PCMag: Apple iPad video review from PCMag.com Reviews on Vimeo.

David Pogue reviewed the iPad. Actually, he reviewed it twice. Worth a quick read.

You can get 1Password touch for your iPhone or iPod Touch for free right now. It's usually $4.99. Go get it while it's free. You can figure out whether you want it or not later. I think you want it. Here's the link. And here's a video that shows how it works.

In a nutshell, 1Password (both the iPhone version and the Mac version) stores login information for websites. It does more than that (one feature that I like: password-protected notes, where you can store things like the combination to a padlock or your secret cheesecake recipe.) It's easy to use, and it's not too hard to keep your iPhone and your Mac in sync, which means you can store a password for a website using your Mac, and then retrieve that password using your iPhone later. I did this exact thing last week, when paying my truck's registration fees in person. Turns out I forgot my proof of insurance papers, so I pulled out my iPhone to log into my insurance company's website in hopes of getting the documentation. Naturally I didn't know the user name and password-- but 1Password did! I looked up the info in 1Password, went back to my insurance company's website, and used the name and password to log in (and to get my proof of insurance emailed to my iPhone). That saved me more than an hour-- I would have had to drive back home to get the info. 1Password (on the iPhone) to the rescue.

You may be thinking "but I use the same password for everything, why would I need this?" The answer is "because using the same password for everything means that if your password is stolen for ONE thing, in effect it's stolen for everything." So you really ought to use different passwords for everything.

(A compromise strategy: use one password for your financial accounts and online shopping, and another for everything else. Using this strategy, if someone gets your email password, or your password for the New York Times website, your bank accounts are still safe.)

Whether you are keeping track of two passwords or two hundred, 1Password will remember them for you. It remembers, the name of the website, the name or email you use to sign in with, and the password. All YOU have to do is remember the password that unlocks 1Password. 1Password does the rest. And, because 1Password will lock itself when your iPhone goes to sleep, you don't have to worry about having all of your passwords in one place, unlocked.

In combination with Dropbox (see my post on that) you can keep 1Password synchronized across multiple Macs. That's what I do, and it's great. If I create a login for a new website, or change a login for some other website, I know that my other machine will know about the change. VERY handy.

The Mac version of 1Password, which I recommend, will cost you $39.95. Sometimes you can get a deal-- in fact, "now" is one of those times. Use coupon code "iSlayer" at checkout and save $7.99, or 20%, making your actual cost $31.96. Here's a link to the 1Password website-- watch the video, and at the very least download the free trial.

Apple showed its first iPad ad last night, during the Academy Awards. (I think they showed the first iPhone ad during the Academy Awards three years ago-- that worked out pretty well.)

Here's a link to the ad. I'm not sold on the iPad, nor on the ad. It's a bit noisy for me-- I was hoping for something a little less frantic. Oh well.

Radio station KPFK FM 90.7 in Los Angeles had me on their show March 6th, 2010. Here are links to the audio archive: one link for the first half hour, and another link for the second. It's an interesting show so I recommend you listen to both. However, the interview with me is in the second half.

(from Apple's press release)

Apple today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple's online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.

(posted via iPhone, using BlogPress)

There's a terrific radio program called "Digital Village" on Saturday mornings in Los Angeles. The hosts (Ric Allan and Doran Barons) discuss technology and its impact on communication. It's always interesting. You should check it out.

This Saturday, March 6th, I'll be Digital Village's featured guest. I'll be talking about last month's Macworld Expo, and iPads, and iPhones, and Macs.

The show starts at 10 AM Pacific time. My portion of the program begins at 10:30 AM, roughly speaking.

Three ways to listen:

1. Tune your radio to KPFK, 90.7 FM.
2. Click this link and listen over the internet (or go to http://www.kpfk.org/listen-live.html and try the various options).
3. Wait for the interview to be archived and for me to put up a link to it here.

Depending on how things go there might be time for some phone calls. Here's KPFK's phone number: (818) 985-5735

I'm back from Macworld Expo. I spent about a day and a half there, plenty of time to see all of the exhibits once and many of them twice.

The show was much, MUCH smaller than last year. We knew in advance that Apple wouldn't be there, but we were all wondering how many others wouldn't be there. The answer: about half of the vendors from last year stayed home.

Off the top of my head, here's a list of big companies that WEREN'T at Macworld this year:

• Canon
• Epson
• Adobe
• Quark
• FileMaker
• Intuit
• Google
• Logitech

Quite a list of heavy-hitters. Even so, the show was a lot of fun, and there was still plenty to see. I plan on attending next year and I encourage you to do the same. Dates for next year are already set: January 25th through 29th, 2011. Click here to add the dates to your iCal calendar. (Really, please click it. It's my first click-and-add-it-to-iCal link.)

Here is a short list of things that caught my eye at Macworld. Check 'em out.

iPhone apps

• Business Card Scanner, $1.99 (Macworld Expo special-- regularly $5.99). Take a picture of a business card using your iPhone and the program reads the information and adds it to your Contacts on the iPhone. Since you're surely synching your iPhone with your Mac that means the contact will be on your Mac too. Very neat. I bought it and it works. It's not always perfect but it's always good enough to be pretty helpful.
• Grocery Pal, free. Tell it your zip code and it gives you all of the specials for the stores around you. Limit it to just the stores you like if you want to. Add items to your shopping list for each store and do price comparisons across all of your stores. Search for items easily. By the way, blueberries are 2 baskets for $3 at Ralphs this week.
• Square-- not yet available, but boy oh boy does this look good. It lets you accept credit cards as payment even if you don't have a merchant account. The Square people will take some small percentage of the transaction, currently estimated at 2.99%. No yearly fee, no per-transaction fee, no muss no fuss. This will be great for when you go out to dinner with friends-- you could pay the restaurant with your credit card, and your friends can pay you with theirs. Neat. The app will cost 99 cents and the scanner thingy will be free.

Mac stuff

• TopazLabs Photoshop bundle, $129 (Macworld Expo special-- slightly higher now). This amazing set of tools, which also works in iPhoto, lets you do incredible things to your photos. Some of the tools help you to rescue badly exposed or backlit photos, others help you to take the noise out of noisy jpegs, others let you have a great time experimenting. Get a 30-day trial and go to town.

Click here to see a slide show of some pictures I fixed up last night with Topaz in about two seconds. Look for the navigation (next, previous, home) at the top.

I still have a lot of Macworld paperwork and notes to go through so I may be adding to this list.

The big Macworld Expo show starts this Thursday in San Francisco. For the first time in Macworld's history, Apple will not be there. (In case you didn't know, Macworld Expo is put on by the people who own Macworld magazine. Apple was never the host of Macworld, only an attendee.) It should be an interesting show anyway. Prediction: there will be several super-cheap iPad knockoffs available for you to waste your money on. I mean "buy."

You can get a free pass to Macworld by clicking this link and signing up. That will save you $25 over doing it at the show. Do it do it do it (Dave). You can buy me a cup of coffee on the show floor with the money you save.

For the first time in fifteen years I will NOT be doing a remote radio interview from Macworld. KPFK is having a pledge drive and it has pre-empted the Digital Village program that usually has me on. The hosts have told me that I'll be their first guest as soon as they get back on the air. Watch this space for details.

You may not have heard but Apple introduced something called the iPad today. There are plenty of places for you to read about the not-shipping-for-two-months iPad, and I haven't had my hand(s) on one yet, so rather than write about it myself I'm just sending you a few links.

• Apple's iPad pages
• Engadget's iPad pages
• MacRumors' iPad pages

It certainly looks like an interesting device. Two things that jump out at me: Apple used its own chip to power the iPad-- they did not use an Intel chip, nor an AMD chip, nor any other kind of chip. I've always liked apple chips, by the way, though I prefer banana.

The other thing that jumps out at me is the lack of a camera. I sort of think it ought to have one. So much for doing video chats with it.

I wonder if it can print. I'll try to find out.

UPDATE: here is the video of Steve Jobs introducing the iPad. 93 minutes.

UPDATE AGAIN: I should have included a link to John Gruber's Daring Fireball website. Go there now and read everything he had to say about the iPad.

You know that feeling you get when you suddenly discover that there's a much easier way to do things? That's the feeling I got when I "discovered" Tripit.com, because Tripit makes one of my more tedious tasks go away. Which task is that? The one where I type flight information into my calendar so I have it when I need it.

Anyone who's done it knows the routine: you make your travel plans online (typity-type, clickety-click), then you get to type even more into the calendar, trying very hard to be careful, but take it from me, it's hard to be perfect.

Enter Tripit.com. Go there and sign up for a free account. Then, when you make plane reservations and subsequently get a confirmation email from an airline, you forward the email to "plans@tripit.com." Tripit reads the email, puts the information into a handy little private space for you on their site, and then-- the best part-- they put your trip information into an iCal feed, which you subscribe to ONCE, and all of the information about the flying out and flying in is automatically part of your iCal calendar, forever and ever amen.

I made a Rule in Mail to automatically forward my Southwest Airlines "Ticketless Confirmation" emails to plans@tripit.com, and by golly it works. My calendar has ALL of the information-- flight numbers, departure times, arrival times, confirmation numbers, you name it-- and of course I can subscribe to the same iCal feed on my iPhone, so my iPhone's calendar is up to date too. You can change the information if you'd like, so the trip that Tripit titles "Oakland, CA 2/11/2010" can be retitled "MacWorld Expo SF 2010." That's what I did.

Tripit has a "pro" account but the free one is great as it is. If you fly frequently this is a no-brainer. Go to tripit.com now and sign up. You will save yourself a lot of typing, over and over and over. I wouldn't do any of the stuff that asks you to upload your email address book-- that will just irritate your friends-- but that's not required anyway. Just do the minimal free stuff, and you will reap the benefits time after time.

If you can't figure out how to subscribe to your Tripit calendar let me know. I can help you.

Bonus: if you use the USA Today's free iPhone app called "AutoPilot" you can connect to your Tripit calendar information very easily. Give that a whirl too.

Everyone's asking me about this new "thing" from Apple, so I thought I'd answer all of you at once. First of all, no one outside of a select few at Apple know anything about Apple's not-yet-announced thing. We don't know what it's called, we don't know what it looks like, we don't know when it will be available, we don't know what it will cost. And we don't know what it will do. All we do know is that Apple sent out an invitation yesterday (I didn't get one) and that Apple will show their "latest creation" on January 27th, 2010.

Here's what the invitation looks like.


People are trying to find meaning in the colors, in the splashiness, etc. but all of it is guesswork. All of it.

My advice: wait until the 27th. Then we'll all know. However... I do have some thoughts.

1. If Apple does introduce a tablet-style computing device it will be far more than just an Apple version of Amazon's Kindle book-reading device. FAR more.
2. I would expect Apple to try to leverage the vast universe of iPhone apps, probably enabling you to run more than one app at a time on the tablet, to drag them around on the screen, and to resize them arbitrarily.
3. We already have great Apple products for when we have a desk or a table to work from (iMac, MacBook), and we already have iPhones for those times when we're on the go. There seems to be no need for something in between. You can bet that Apple has thought of this too. I expect Apple's tablet to include something very cool, which you and I will want desperately-- and it will not be available on any other device, including the iPhone. That will give you a reason to buy the tablet. My guesses: live video chatting, tablet to tablet-- or streaming TV and movies. Or both.

Calendar synching with your Mac? Of course. Address book synching with your Mac? Double of course. Weather/stocks/maps/wireless-- yes/yes/yes/yes. Something really incredible that I haven't thought of? Almost certainly yes.

A couple of years ago, my friend Dave asked me what I thought Apple would introduce at MacWorld Expo. I told him I didn't have any idea-- but I wanted two of them. That's how I feel about this January 27th Apple product intro. I can barely wait.

This just in: AT&T is cutting the price of their unlimited voice and data plan for the iPhone to $99. The old price was $129. There is no word (yet) about whether they will cut the price on the other, not-unlimited plans.

Existing iPhone users can switch to the cheaper plan by going to AT&T's website starting Monday January 18th, 2010. There is no fee for making the switch and the end date of your contract will not change. Basically, if your iPhone is on an unlimited plan, it's a no-brainer. Change to the $99 plan.

There is always the chance that AT&T will do this automatically for you but I wouldn't count on it.

In years past, the first week of January meant "incredibly cool and awesome" new products from Apple, presented by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during his keynote speech at MacWorld Expo. Apple's not going to MacWorld this year, and MacWorld's been moved to February anyway, and gee it feels like something's missing.

This video-- a condensed edition of a recent Steve Jobs talk-- isn't a substitute for the real thing, but it helps. Check it out.

It's time for the college football bowl games. Here's a handy iCal calendar with the entire schedule. It's updated to show you the most recent information (dates, times, TV network, and even the scores). Click the link, add it to your iCal calendar, remember to tell it to refresh (recommendation: daily), and you'll have the information at your fingertips. Or at least on your computer.

Thanks to DavidGagne.net for the calendar.

Amazon has Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition at $89.99, almost $60 off of the list price (The Apple Store sells it for $98). This is an especially good deal because you get three installation serial numbers in the package, meaning your $89.99 covers three machines. Microsoft Office is a little on the clumsy side but if you're getting documents in Word and Excel formats you'll be glad that you have Office installed.


Another good deal: Apple Airport Express for $94.95 (Apple's price: $99). Use this to extend your wireless network, and/or to play your iTunes music from your Mac through your home stereo-- wirelessly.


And another: iWork '09 Family Pack for $80.49. This is the 5-installation Family Pack, at only $1.49 over the single-user version at Apple. Apple charges $99 for the 5-user pack. Amazon sells the iWork '09 single user package for $72.99, if that's the one you need.

All in all, it pays to check Amazon's prices. Use the Amazon box at the left-hand side of this page to do your search, and simultaneously support the Blog.

It took a few weeks but Amazon finally has the new Apple iMac 27 inch Quad-Core in stock. You can click this link to go straight there. The price is $1972.98, or $26.02 less than Apple charges... and you don't pay sales tax if you're in California, and there's no charge for the shipping either. When you consider the sales tax it costs you $210 more to buy it from the Apple store. The warranty is through Apple either way, so it seems a lot better to get it from Amazon. (Those of you not living in California should go through the motions of buying the iMac through Amazon to see what your total will be. Regardless, it's probably going to be less expensive than going directly through Apple.)



Amazon also has the new Magic Mouse, reviewed by me here a few days ago. You can click this link to go to the Magic Mouse page on Amazon. You get free shipping and no tax (in California, and maybe where you live too).

Note: purchases made on Amazon through the links above benefit The Boyce Blog. Such contributions-- which come from Amazon, not from you-- keep The Boyce Blog going, and are very, very much appreciated.

There it is: Apple's Magic Mouse (held by someone else's nicely manicured hand). I have one (a Magic Mouse, not a nicely manicured hand) and so far, so good. I've used it for a week and I'm happy. It's super-precise, it's wireless (yay), and there aren't any parts to get gummy and quit working. Plus it slides very well on the desk.

Setting up the Magic Mouse is easy, except for getting it out of the box. Generally speaking, unboxing an Apple product is a delight, something you want to share with a friend (putting it back in the box, taking it out again, over and over). Not so the Magic Mouse. But once out of the box, it's trivial to set up.

If you're using Mac OS X 10.6.2, you need only to turn the Magic Mouse on (it runs on two AA batteries, which are not only included, but installed at the factory). You can see the on-off switch at top right in the photo below. The Magic Mouse in the picture is on.



If you're using Mac OS X 10.5.8, you will need some software, available here. If you're using 10.4.11 you will not be able to use the Magic Mouse. Sorry Mom.

Everyone wants to know how it feels in the hand and the answer is "it doesn't." That is, you don't hold it in your hand, you hold it with your hand. You don't rest your hand on the Magic Mouse, you rest your hand (the heel of it) on the desk, and hold the Magic Mouse lightly. And it's comfortable that way.

The scrolling-via-the-touch-sensitive-surface is very convenient, and it's nice knowing that it's never going to get gunky. I use the scrolling feature all the time. I love that the Magic Mouse is wireless, and that it's not too heavy even with the batteries (it's barely heavier than the wired Apple Mouse it replaced). The only thing I don't like about the Magic Mouse is the name. Big deal.

The Magic Mouse has a few options: you can set it up to do a right-click, you can zoom, etc. The older Apple Mouse had more options but most of them were better left turned off, so really there is not much of a loss in the options department. Here's a look at the Preference Pane for the Magic Mouse, in Mac OS X 10.6.2:

Nice to know I have a ways to go before the batteries need replacing. Looks as if the batteries will last about three months at a time. I'll keep the wired mouse around just in case.

You can see from above that I turned off the "with momentum" feature. The idea is that you can scroll and if you're vigorous about it the scrolling will continue a bit after you stop. That quickly drove me crazy, not that it was a long drive. At the same time, others think it's the greatest thing ever. Nice that they give you the option.

The Magic Mouse costs $69. You get one for free when you buy a new iMac so if that's in your future don't bother buying a Magic Mouse separately. As of this writing, the Magic Mouse is very hard to find-- Apple doesn't have them online, and neither does Amazon. I'll post an update here when the Magic Mouse is widely available again.

UPDATE: Amazon has the Magic Mouse in stock. $69, free shipping. Click this link to get it.

I like the Magic Mouse and I imagine you will too.

For a video demonstration of the Magic Mouse click this link, courtesy of Apple.

Apple released the 10.6.2 Snow Leopard update and it fixes a whole lot of issues (click the link and start the download while you read). I had been waiting for this update before moving to Snow Leopard, and I'm glad I did. Apple had already put out the 10.6.1 update, but that didn't address the problems that early adopters of 10.6 had been reporting. For those problems, we'd have to wait for 10.6.2, and now it's here. Armed with the 10.6.2 update, I installed 10.6 on my original Intel iMac (the white one), and then the 10.6.2 update, and also the HP Printers update, and everything is great. Printing is fast again, the iMac starts up quickly, Mail's loading speed is especially improved, and overall the iMac is running better than it was in 10.5.8.

If you have an Intel Mac of any sort and you've been waiting to install 10.6, now is a good time. There is always the chance that something that you use will not be compatible with 10.6, but if you make a backup first (please) you'll be able to revert to 10.5. There's a good list of compatible/not compatible programs at Macintouch.com-- worth your time to check it out.

It is always better to download the "Combo Update" (linked above) rather than a simple Software Update. So do it that way if you can. In fact, if you already did the Software Update, download the 10.6.2 Combo update and run it.

Given the advantages of 10.6 over 10.5, and the super-low cost ($29), upgrading to Snow Leopard (10.6) is a smart move. The only question really was when to do it. With 10.6.2's fixes in hand, the time to upgrade is now.

If you don't have a Snow Leopard disc you can buy Snow Leopard from Amazon and save a few bucks. Single user is $25, five-user Family Pack is $43.99. They ship for free.

The people at MacHeist put together bundles of software at a low price. This time it's VERY low: $0. All you have to do is visit their site and sign up. For FREE you get...

• ShoveBox (for storing information snippets, though I prefer Evernote)
• WriteRoom (a nice little writing program)
• Twitterific (very useful if you use Twitter at all)
• TinyGrab (for sharing screenshots over the internet)
• Hordes of Orcs (game)
• Mariner Write (a very nice word processor)

For free, why not give these things a try? That's what I'm going to do. The offer expires on Wednesday the 11th, so get going and click this link.

We're introducing something new today: Managed Service from Christian Boyce. In a nutshell, you get the same great service as always, but you get it sooner and it costs you less. Click this link to read all about it.

Actually, some of this stuff isn't really "new." It's more like "revised." But hey.

And most of this stuff wasn't in the stores today, though it will be in about a week. I found that out by visiting a few Apple Stores this afternoon, in search of a Magic Mouse. I'll get one, and when I do, I'll review it here. That looks to be about a week away.)

I couldn't find a new iMac (or a Magic Mouse) anywhere, but I did see the new MacBook at the Apple Store in Santa Monica and there are a few notable differences between this one and the one it replaces:

• It's shinier
• It has the no-button multi-touch trackpad, like the MacBook Pros
• There's no FireWire port at all
• The bottom has a no-slip texture coating on it (no rubber feet to fall off)
• 250 GB hard drive vs. 120 in the old one
• It has a longer-lasting battery
• Curvier shape (looks more like the MacBook Pros, though still on the plastic-y side)

Here are a few notable similarities between this machine and the one it replaces:

• Same $999 price
• Same 13 inch screen (1280 x 800 pixels)

All in all, it's better than the machine it replaces, but not wildly, fantastically better. If you want a new Mac laptop this is the cheapest way to go, and based on the specs it gives the $1199 13-inch MacBook Pro pretty good competition. Unless you can't live with a plastic laptop (or if you need a FireWire port) the new $999 MacBook looks like a better deal by far.

I'll write more about the new iMacs and Mac Minis when I get more information, but in the meantime here are a few nuggets of info:

• The Magic Mouse looks to be really, really cool. And every new iMac comes with one
• The Time Capsule, and the Airport, were updated today too (faster, and longer range)
• The new iMacs can take up to 16 gigs of RAM (4 gigs are standard)
• The 27-inch iMac is wall-mountable (and it's bigger than any TV my family has ever owned)
• The new iMacs come standard with a no-numeric-keypad wireless keyboard
• The new iMacs come with an SD card slot (for your camera card, unless your camera card isn't an SD)

(By The Way: It must be fun to announce a record-setting quarter on Monday, and then put out a whole slew of new products on Tuesday. I wonder what they'll do on Wednesday.)

(It must also be fun to put out a whole bunch of new stuff without any advance notice at all, and without making any big deal about it, as if this is something they do every day at Apple so it's hardly worth mentioning.)

Power Support Anti-Glare Film is the best $14.95 you can spend on your iPhone. It does a great job of cutting glare, it protects your iPhone's screen, it cuts down on fingerprints, and it feels great as you tap and drag. You ought to get some. They come two to a package so find a friend and split the cost. Here's an Amazon link to the Power Support Anti-Glare Film Set for iPhone 3G/3GS, and here's a link to the Power Support Anti-Glare Film Set for the original iPhone. Get the right one: the sizes are just slightly different.

I wrote about Power Support's anti-glare film in August of 2008, when I was using it on my original iPhone, and I loved it then. When the iPhone 3GS came out I thought I'd give the 3GS' new "oleophobic" screen a try without using the film, with bad news/good news results. The bad news was the iPhone 3GS' screen picked up fingerprints like crazy. The good news was they were easy to wipe off, on (for example) a pants leg. The other bad news was the glare on the screen was distracting, and the other other bad news was the screen wasn't protected from scratching. All that, and it didn't feel nice to drag my finger across it.

Today, after being every-so-slightly irritated with glare and smudges every time I used my 3GS, I finally applied the Power Support Anti-Glare Film. It's fabulous, better than I remembered, and I am kicking myself for not doing this sooner. No glare, smudges are a thing of the past, it feels great under my finger, and there's at least some protection against a scratched screen. Worth the $14.95, and more.

Fifteen months and 120 blog entries ago I started writing The Boyce Blog. One of the reasons I did it was to experiment with the blogging concept, in particular how a single person's writings-- a voice in the wilderness-- would be discovered out on the web. How long would it take? Who would the readers be? Would they come back for more? We've figured that out, and more. Now we want to see how things go if I come right out and ask. So here goes.

First, if you find The Boyce Blog interesting, informative, fun to read, or anything else positive, would you please use the "Share" button and tell a friend? You can "Share" this site via email, Facebook, Twitter, and a whole lot of other ways. Start by either mousing over or clicking the button.



Second, if you're using Twitter, and you'd like to know when new Boyce Blog entries are posted, it would make great sense to follow me on Twitter. We offer discounts and extra timely tips via Twitter, more than just the Blog, so it's in your best interest to sign up. It's free, and it's fun. Start with this link.

Finally, if you're an Amazon customer, you might be interested in knowing that Amazon purchases originating on this site provide support to The Boyce Blog, at no cost at all to you. Just start your Amazon shopping by either searching in this box or by clicking anywhere on it and Amazon will know you came from here. It all adds up and we appreciate your support.

Apple released updated iPhone software, version 3.1.2, this very afternoon. The previous version was 3.1 and no I don't know what happened to 3.1.1. This update takes a lot less time than the 3.1 version and it is supposed to help the iPhone to wake up from sleep more reliably, to connect to the AT&T cellular network more reliably, and to show video without crashing more reliably. I never saw any of those problems but I guess someone did, and the new software is here to fix it.

Assuming you want the update, which is free, all you do is connect your iPhone to your computer with the USB cable, wait for iTunes to launch, click on your iPhone in the left-hand side of iTunes, and then "Check for Update." It's a big button-- you can't miss it-- and it looks like this:



Click it, follow the directions, and you're all set. You will be asked at the end whether you want to update your carrier settings, and you do.

The whole process took about half an hour for me, and my iPhone seems to work at least as well with this update as it did without, so I say go ahead and do it.

All signs point to a revised/renewed/refreshed iMac coming very very soon. If you can wait, wait.

MMS: noun. Abbreviation for Multimedia Messaging Service, an enhancement to the SMS (Short Messaging Service). In English: with MMS, you can still "text" someone, but now you can send a picture, or a video, or a sound.

This feature was part of Apple's 3.0 upgrade a few months ago, and lots of people have been using it ever since-- except not in the United States, where AT&T couldn't get its network ready in time. AT&T is ready now, and you can start using MMS today. Unless you're using an original iPhone, in which case you can't. Sorry about that. Those are AT&T's rules.

Here's what you need to do.

1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac with a cable. iTunes should start automatically. (If it doesn't, launch iTunes yourself)
2. Click on your iPhone in the left-hand pane of iTunes.
3. Look for an "Update" button. Click it.
4. You will probably see a window like this one:

Click Update Settings, turn off your iPhone, turn it back on, and you're ready to go. (The turning off and turning on is very important.)

After the restart, start the Messaging app, as if you were going to text someone. You'll see a camera icon next to where you type-- that's new. If you touch it you'll get a chance to use the camera to take a photo or video, or to choose an existing photo (or video). You get to write a note to go with it, and then you can send it. Yay.

Too bad that it doesn't always work the way you want it to. What you're expecting, I imagine, is that the person on the other end gets your message, complete with photo or video. A lot of the time that's exactly how it will work. Sometimes, though, it won't. The reason: the person on the other end doesn't have a new enough phone. How are you supposed to know what kind of phone the other person has? Beats me. Luckily it doesn't really matter because you can always use your iPhone to send pictures via email, just as you've been doing all along. But, if you know the other person has a modern phone, MMS can be sort of handy. And fun.

Amazon is discounting the Home and Student Edition of Microsoft Office 2008. Save $44.58 as compared to Apple's price. Read More...

Get published (but not paid) by National Geographic. Read More...

Another update for the iPhone, with some neat new features. Read More...

iWork '09, at a discount: $20 off via Amazon. Read More...

Apple’s special event came and went yesterday-- pretty interesting stuff, especially if you spend your time rearranging your music. The highlights: a new version of iTunes, and iPod nanos with video cameras. Details follow. Read More...

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Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) starts tomorrow in San Francisco. WWDC is an annual gathering of programmers who create applications for the Mac and the iPhone, hosted by Apple, and it’s a very big deal. It costs $1000 to attend, which is also a very big deal, and that explains why I’m not there this year. That, and my iPhone application programming is taking longer than I thought it would. Wait for next year.

Anyhow, with WWDC comes a lot of press coverage, and with that comes a lot of guessing what we’ll see and hear tomorrow during the opening keynote speech. Yes, we could just wait until tomorrow and know exactly what we saw and heard, but what fun is that? Here’s what I think MIGHT happen tomorrow. If any of this stuff turns out to be true remember you read about it here. If it doesn’t come true forget I mentioned it.

Game-Changing Rumor: Apple will take advantage of the attention and introduce a new iPhone-- this one with the camera on the front. Primary use: video chatting. If you’ve use iChat to do video chats on your Mac you know how cool this is. To be able to do it on a cell phone? Incredible. (This is my own personal rumor-- I think I’m the first to mention it.)

If they do come out with video chat on the iPhone they’ll change the name of Palm’s new Pre to “Post.” As in “mortem.” Sure was a nice two days you had there, Palm.

Interesting Feel-Good Human-Interest Rumor: Steve Jobs will make an appearance. The betting line on this is about 2-1 in favor. Jobs is officially expected back June 30th but with everyone watching he might come on stage, hopefully a little heavier than last time we saw him.

Boring, Evolutionary Rumor: new iPhones with more memory, faster processors, and the exact same appearance will be introduced, taking the place of the current iPhone 3G. You won’t be able to tell the new ones from the old ones but they’ll be better and cost the same.

The keynote speech kicks off at 10 AM Monday, June 8th 2009, about 12 hours from now. There’s no live coverage of the speech but you can do what I do and get updates from someone planted in the audience. Try this link (http://www.macrumorslive.com/) and let’s see how it goes. If you miss the live updates you can usually watch replays of Apple keynotes a little later in the day, and I’ll have a link to this one as soon as they make it available.

Apple’s giving away an iPod Touch with purchase of a MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or iMac. Actually, it’s a rebate thing, so you have to pay for it first, then submit the receipt, and wait for your money to come back. And, you can only take advantage of the deal if you’re going to college, or work at a college, or something like that. You can read all about it here.

If you don’t qualify for the rebate you may be interested in an offer from another company: Ferrari. They are giving away an iPod Touch with purchase of every Scuderia Spider 16M. Here are the details on that. You might want to hurry as I hear that they are only making 499 of these cars and when they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s a convertible, by the way. Here’s a picture.



No matter how you get it, even if you have to pay for it, an iPod Touch is a groovy device. I would wait until Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference kicks off June 8th before buying one because there just might be a new model coming out soon-- and if there is, we’ll learn all about it June 8th. Watch this space for further information.

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It’s taken nine months but here, finally, is Stuff I Like, part 2. (Stuff I Like, part 1 was about PowerSupport Anti-Glare Film-- and I still like it.)

You can read all about these programs at their websites, so I’m not going to go into great detail here. I will give you a short summary and some special features I especially like.

First up: 1Password. Remembers your passwords for logging into various websites. Works with Safari, Firefox, and a couple of other browsers and you can switch back and forth between them and 1Password works regardless. Generates strong passwords if you want it to. Lets you create “Identities” such as Home and Work for filling in web forms with one click. Lets you create secure notes. Synchronizes across machines and with the iPhone. Price: $39.95 (iPhone app is free). Free trial download.

Next up: RapidWeaver. Web-site creation tool. Lots of pretty templates, fairly easy to use (much easier than DreamWeaver, about the same as iWeb). Something like Apple’s iWeb but a little more expandable. Used to create this very site. Price: $79.00, free trial download.

Last but not least: VMware Fusion. Allows you to install Windows on your Mac. Much more stable and trouble-free than Parallels. Does not require a reboot like Apple’s Boot Camp. Easy installation procedure. Price: $79.99, free trial download.

More to come, as I find more Stuff I Like.

Apple’s iPhone App Store is closing in on one BILLION downloads. From now until the billionth download, everyone who downloads anything from the App Store will be entered into a drawing for a gob of cool prizes ($10,000 iTunes gift card, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, lunch with C. Boyce, etc.). Click here for the details.

By now everyone’s written about Steve Jobs taking a little break for health reasons. Two themes have been repeated:

1. Is Steve OK?
2. Is there life for Apple after Steve Jobs?

The answer to number 1 is “we don’t know.” Rumors have him considering a liver transplant. No truth to the rumor that Apple is developing the “iLiver” in several colors.

The answer to number 2 is “yes, at least for now.” Apple is going great guns, selling more stuff than ever. Their earnings report for the first quarter of the fiscal year (which is the last quarter of the calendar year) impressed the socks off of the “analysts.” By the way, in case any of you are looking for the easy job of all time, be an “analyst.” I think I might try it myself.

Macworld Expo’s over-- hopefully, just for this year, but possibly forever. Rumors are swirling that Apple will go to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next year (which means that I might get to finally attend that show, since it’s always conflicted with Macworld). In fact, some sources say that Apple’s already paid for their booth. We’ll see about that.

Highlights of the show (at least for me):

• A new iLife package from Apple, with an iPhoto that recognizes faces. You have to see it to believe it.
• A new iWork package from Apple, improving an already very-nice-to-use alternative to Microsoft Office.
• A nifty to-do list manager called “Things,” with an accompanying iPhone application.
• Free samples of a new “smart drink” called BrainToniq, which I believe is still working for me.
• Free coffee in Acura’s “coffee lounge,” decorated with their latest line of cars.

Memo to future Macworld Expo exhibitors: free drinks are good.

Well, it’s come and gone-- the 2009 Macworld Expo keynote speech. You can watch all 90 minutes of it, including a couple of songs by Tony Bennett-- here’s the link. I have to say that Phil Schiller did an admirable job, considering what he was up against.

Here’s the keynote in a nutshell:

There’s a new version of iLife coming out this month, which means updated iPhoto, Garage Band, iWeb, and iMovie.

The highlight of iLife: face-recognition in iPhoto. It can find a face in a photo and if you tell it who that face belongs to, iPhoto will search its database of photos and make an album of other pictures with that face in it. Neat. I can’t wait to try it. But I’ll have to wait until the end of January, same as everyone else. The new iMovie is pretty neat too (watch the first 40 minutes of the keynote speech and you’ll see iPhoto and iMovie demonstrated).

iWork is also getting an upgrade. I already liked iWork but I’m looking forward to seeing the new version.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro has been updated. Now it looks like the other MacBook Pro models (aluminum case, big-clicker trackpad). Its battery is supposed to give you 8 hours of use but you can’t take it out yourself. It’s all sealed up, like an iPhone’s.

I’ll be at Macworld Thursday to see it all in person, and if it’s super-groovy I will let you know all about it.

Meanwhile, here’s a link to the new iPhoto goodies, and another link to the new iMovie stuff.

Coming Soon (January 10th, 2009 at 10 AM): it’s the Christian Boyce Macworld Expo Report, live from San Francisco. I’ll tell you all about the groovy stuff I saw at Macworld and I’ll tell you what I found out about Steve Jobs and I’ll tell you whether there will be a Macworld Expo next year or not.

KPFK, 90.7 FM in Los Angeles at 10 AM January 10th, or streaming on the web via this link.

If you have a Mac, you have a copy of Apple’s iCal calendar. It’s a nice little calendar, and it syncs with the iPhone, and there’s almost no reason not to use it. Especially when someone else types in the information! That’s where MarkThisDate comes in. MarkThisDate has zillions of calendars that are yours for the clicking-- they jump right into your iCal and you can easily turn them off by unchecking a checkbox, or delete them all at once with just a couple of clicks.

By the way, the calendars are free.

Here are a couple of handy calendars to get you started.

NFL Playoff Schedule (updated as the playoffs progress)
California Golden Bears Football Schedule (updated as games are added and changed)
Moon Phases

Note: when you click those links you’ll be taken to iCal, where a box will appear asking you some questions about this new calendar that you are about to add. The key: tell the calendar to REFRESH every day (or at some other interval). You want it to refresh because you want updated information. For example, the NFL Playoff calendar as of this writing shows that San Diego beat Indianapolis in overtime, and that Arizona beat Atlanta. Very nice.

What a cool website, and gee don’t I wish I’d found it before I took apart that iBook and couldn’t put it back together again. Click the picture and have a look.



How-to manuals. Parts. Friendly tips. cboyce says “Check it out.”

(Here’s the manual I should have read before taking apart the iBook):

Macworld Expo is still three weeks away and already there is plenty of news, and all of it’s bad. First, as you’ve surely heard by now, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will NOT be giving the keynote speech this time. That’s bad. Jobs’ keynotes have been a big part of Macworld Expo, often the best part.

Second, Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide marketing, WILL be giving the keynote speech. That’s also bad. Schiller’s robotic spin-meister marketspeak is a sad contrast to Jobs’ genuine enthusiasm for Apple’s hardware and software and people. I hadn’t thought about Jobs’ predecessor Gil Amelio’s last keynote speech for awhile (it was horrible-- boring, and long, and delivered in a sleep-inducing way) and I hadn’t ever thought that anything could be worse... but I am thinking that maybe it might be this time. Phil, if you’re listening, here’s some friendly advice: when you give the talk, lay off the marketing hype. Just play it straight. The products are good enough.

Third, Apple has already announced that they aren’t going to be part of Macworld 2010. I do not expect the show to survive beyond 2010. I completely understand what Apple is saying about how the whole notion of the trade show isn’t important in the Internet Age, and how they can now release information and introduce products on their own schedule instead of trying to come through every January with new and exciting stuff-- but understanding the reasons doesn’t mean I like the result. Macworld Expo gave people like me-- and people not at all like me-- the chance to meet face to face. And that was a good thing.

Here’s a handy website for you iPhone users. It’s called “AppShopper.” With more than 10,000 iPhone applications available it’s getting harder and harder to find just the one you want via the iTunes Store. AppShopper makes it easy. Here’s a screen shot.

I hear that Steve Jobs sent “someone” an email saying he knows about the iPhone problem reported here-- the one where all applications (except the default Apple ones) open for two seconds and then slam shut. He says the problem will be fixed in September, via a Software Update. Yahoo!

Apple put out iPhone software 2.0.2 last evening. I of course installed it, and I of course am still having problems. If you were hoping (as I was) that everything would be fixed the next time Apple put out new iPhone software, you will be disappointed.

Apple doesn’t say much about this release. All they will tell us is “bug fixes.” That’s nice. They didn’t fix the bugs I care the most about, though. On the other hand, it’s free.

And it’s easy to get. Connect your iPhone to your Mac with the USB cable and when iTunes comes up you can check for updates right there. It took a few hours here-- more than an hour to back up my iPhone, then some more time to put the new software on, then a lot more time after that to put my old stuff back on. And it got stuck restarting-- that went most of the night, until the battery died. So then I had to do the “restore” which took another couple of hours.

Not sure what I got for my 18 hour effort but at least things are no worse than they were before. I think.

If you have an older iPhone I wouldn’t do the update. If you have a newer one I would, because (despite Apple’s secrecy) I think the improvements have to do with the 3G reception, which doesn’t do anything for the older, non-3G models. Just be sure you have plenty of time.

In the olden days, you watched the Olympics on TV and you only got to see what they wanted you to see, when they wanted you to see it. If you were away from the TV you didn’t get to see it. Life was hard.

But NOW, you can watch the Olympics on your computer, and see what YOU want to see, when YOU want to see it. Provided that the event isn’t in the future. All you have to do is click this link. You’ll need the “Silverlight” plug-in from Microsoft, and if you don’t have it, you’ll get the chance to download it for free. Remember to install it after you download it.

I’m watching Poland vs. Germany in women’s team Table Tennis right now (LIVE). Smooth video, and NO ANNOUNCERS! It’s like being there (I think). You can also watch archived stuff, such as the men’s swimming relay race that was so sensational a couple of nights back. So give it a whirl and take advantage of this modern world we live in.

Wednesday July 30th, 2008 was www.christianboyce.com’s biggest day ever in terms of “site visits.” We had 50, which means that someone came to the site 50 times. Now, that could be ME going to the site, closing my browser, coming back a little later, etc., 50 times... but it wasn’t. I like to think it was Steve Jobs, Mom, my nephew, and 47 of YOU. So “thanks.”

The Boyce Blog page was the most-requested page on the site, even more than the home page. Which means that people are coming straight to the Blog without going through the home page. Interesting.

Today (actually, Wednesday) 50, tomorrow 100. Tell a friend. Let’s do it.

There’s a new search engine-- www.cuil.com. It’s really cool. In fact, that’s how you pronounce it. Give it a whirl.

I’ve been hearing (from everyone) that the guy who runs Mac Rumors has quit his doctoring job and is now supporting himself via his daily blogging. Incredible. The key, of course, is traffic-- you need to have lots of people coming to your site so you can get advertisers interested in paying you to display their ads. The more traffic you get, the more money you get. Pretty simple equation.

We don’t have a lot of traffic. Not yet. But we can dream. Tell a friend to check out the Boyce Blog. Who knows, one day you may be saying “I knew him when.”

In the meantime, our advertising rates are going to be “among the most competive in their class.” Whatever that means.

I think, therefore I blog.