Chuck Joiner: MacVoicesGroup.com
Katie Floyd: MacPowerUsers.com
Joseph Nilo: HiLoMedia.com
David Sparks: MacPowerUsers.com
Kan Ray: MacOSKen.com
Tim Verpoorten: MacReviewCast.com
Allison Sheridan: Podfeet.com
Don McAllister ScreencastsOnline.com
Victor Cajiao: TypicalMacUser.com
John Chambers: OneMinuteTip.com

The Mac Roundtable gets together at Macworld 2011 and discusses the future and the evolution of the Mac Operating System and iOS. This audio was recorded from the Macworld Live stage at Macworld 2011. Special thanks to Paul Kent, Kathy Moran, IDG and Macworld.com for making this live show possible.

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This week’s show was hosted by:

Steve Stanger – The Mac Attack themacattack.tv twitter.com/tmasteve
Victor Cajiao – Typical Mac User Podcast typicalmacuser.com twitter.com/victorcajiao
Allison Sheridan – NosillaCast podfeet.com & twitter.com/podfeet
John F. Braun – Mac Geek Gab macgeekgab.com twitter.com/johnfbraun
Joseph Nilo – josephnilo.com twitter.com/josephnilo
David Sparks – macsparky.com macpowerusers.com twitter.com/macsparky

Apple Resources

Resources for those that got new Apple goodies this holiday season. sites, books, etc.

iPad Guide: 25+ Essential Resources for Your Apple Tablet:
mashable.com/2010/12/27/ipad-apps-tips-accessories/

Mac OS X The Missing Manual Series by David Pogue: Amazon.com

Mac At Work by our very own David Sparks: Amazon.com

Dr. Bob Levitus’ books – he writes iPad for Dummies, iPhone for Dummies, Snow Leopard for Dummies: boblevitus.com

New & Upgraded Macs in the MRT House

Joseph Nilo talks 12 Core MacPro and LED display. How is this beast, who needs one etc.

John F Braun:

MacBook Pro Repaired! Replaced logic board (claimed GPU issue, I’ve heard of this before with some Nvidia chipsets) upper case (which includes trackpad which was reporting errors in console) and keyboard.

While MacBook was being repaired, took drive out and decided, rather than wrestle with PowerMac G5 and data migration, get a Mac mini instead!
– Migration Assistant
– 2GB of RAM is not enough!
– Getting old Time Machine Backup working with new machine
– 10.5: Repair Time Machine after logic board changes
– hints.macworld.com
– Requires use of “fsaclctl” command, which isn’t included with Snow Leopard!
– Pacifist, extract it from Leopard DVD

Allison Sheridan – MacBook Pro added 60GB SSD from OWC in optical drive bay macsales.com

David Sparks – MacBook Air 13″

Tagging Photos and more

How about the benefits of tagging photos, music, files etc on our Macs as well as other places on the net like Flickr etc? Do we do it? should we do it?

Tags from Gravity Apps gravityapps.com

Picks of the Week

Allison – Twelve South Compass Portable Stand for iPad apple.com/store $39.95

Victor: Good Sync goodsync.com/mac $29.99

Steve – Ergonomic Snow Shovel & Flickpad for the iPad – flickpadapp.com

John – Calcium Chloride for melting snow.  Gets melting point down below other chemicals, and doesn’t damage concrete/pavement like some other chemicals. Melting Snow and Ice with Salts: chemistry.about.com

But seriously, this is the external case I got

EZQuest Pro Audio/Video Enclosure
FireWire 800, and High-Speed USB 2.0
with EZQuest IDE/ATA to SATA Adapter
eshop.macsales.com

Joseph:
Glenlivet single-malt scotch for when the power goes out. And Colorista 2 from redgiantsoftware.com
and FxFactory Pro from noiseindustries.com

David:
Hazel – noodlesoft.com/hazel.php
Brookstone Helicopter — brookstone.com

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This week’s show is hosted by:
Allison Sheridan:podfeet.com twitter.com/podfeet
Don McAllister screencastsonline.com twitter.com/donmcallister
Katie Floyd macpowerusers.com twitter.com/macpowerusers

Reading on iPad

? Katie’s family’s kookie book policy
? Which eReader application do we like? Kindle because it has books
? We’re all reading more than ever before because of the iPad?

Complaint about Screen Rotation Lock

While it’s futile to complain, the Screen Rotation Lock is now FIVE operations instead of one – push, push, swipe, touch, touch. What a waste of time! And mute doesn’t even mute everything for crying out loud!
But Steve has spoken

Do we really care about printing?

Then there’s a question, do we really care about printing from the iPad or is it truly necessary? 
I’m more intersted in why the feature was promised and then so royally not delivered? What went so wrong and how did they not see that coming? 
I’ve noted that, on my iPod Touch with the latest iOS, my HP B8550, which can be seen by HP’s iPrint Photo software, can’t be seen by iOS.  WTF?  Network printing isn’t that new an invention, and I though what they were doing was somehow based on HP’s technology, here’s a list of the supported printers:
? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4356?
Then of course there’s Printopia, what are they doing that Apple isn’t? Print to PDF and Print to Dropbox FTW!
? http://www.ecamm.com/mac/printopia/?

Do iPhone/iPod Touch Users care about iOS 4.2?

What difference does 4.2 makes to iPhone/Touch users?  I know it’s huge for folders and multi-tasking on iPad but since we had that on iPhone, is there more?  (other than security updates)
Air Print was suposed to be the biggie-but not so much
Lots of security updates – etc.
See above, it hasn’t really changed the way I use my iPod touch, and HP’s software does the printing I’d like to do.  Being able to print other documents would be nice, but not a deal breaker.
What about AirPlay – if you have an Apple TV can make a big difference. Don’t get me started on the Apple TV 2nd gen not working on my UK TV though… OK, if you must!

Picks – what we want and don’t have

Don
? JamBox by JawBone – jawbone.com
? Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPhone 4 – mophie.com
Allison
? SSD for older MacBook Pro in the Optical Bay: OWC Data Doubler + 60GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD – $200 eshop.macsales.com
? External optical enclosure – $25: eshop.macsales.com?
? ScreenCastsOnline Members Show on SSD installation – screencastsonline.com
? Light box for photographing stuff – $140 comes with light box + 2 lights + case + table top tripod: squareperfect.com
Katie: 
? Livescribe Smartpen: livescribe.com (Consider SoundNote for iPad: soundnote.com)
? MacBook Air (cheating) ?

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This Episode is hosted by:

Allison Sheridan – http://podfeet.com, Twitter

This special episode is all about the Beatles coming to iTunes!

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This Episode is hosted by:
Katie Floyd – http://www.macpowerusers.com, Twitter
Chuck Joiner – http://www.macvoicesgroup.com; Twitter
John F. Braun – http://www.macgeekgab.com; Twitter
Adam Christianson – http://www.maccast.com; Twitter
Tim Verpoorten – http://www.macreviewcast.com; Twitter

Discontinuing the Xserve

Introduction of Mac Pro Server

iLife ’11

Black Friday can be the best day to buy an Apple Computer if you’re in the market. In addition to Apple’s discounts (usually around 5% or so) resellers traditionally also have great deals especially on previous generation models.

• Favorite Black Friday Sites:

• Black Friday Info: www.blackfriday.info

• Deal Brothers: http://www.dealbrothers.com/

• DealMac http://www.dealmac.com

• Deal News – http://www.dealnews.com

• Deal News Black Friday – http://dealnews.com/black-friday.html

• The Invisible Hand Safari Extension – http://www.getinvisiblehand.com/

Thoughts on MacBook Air

Picks:
Tim: Air Video: http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html

John : Lumix DMC-ZS7 http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/compact/zs7_tz10/index.html

Chuck:  Red Laser: http://redlaser.com/

Katie: Camel Camel Camel  http://camelcamelcamel.com/

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This week’s Hosts are:

Allison Sheridan
The NosillaCast Mac Podcast http://podfeet.com
Twitter: @podfeet

John F. Braun

The Mac Observer?s Mac Geek Gab http://www.macgeekgab.com/
Monday?s Mac Gadget http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/features/mondays_mac_gadget/
Twitter: @johnfbraun

Don McAllister
ScreenCastsOnline – http://screencastsonline.com
The MacScreencast Guy http://themacscreencastguy.com
Twitter: @donmcallister

Bart Busschots
Personal Blog: http://www.bartb.ie
International Mac Podcast: http://www.impodcast.tv
Twitter: @bbusschots

Changes in iWork on the iPad

Better Office Integration
Access to MobileMe iDisk
Webdav – anyone actually know of any WebDav services? I do – I run it on my own servers sometimes – just a simple loadable apache module

http://www.box.net/ 1gb free
Is Box.net still working with WebDav? Thought they’d removed the webdav interface
ah could be my info is dated

http://icloud.com/en/webdav 3gb free?
Enough to start actually using iWork on the iPad?
Still having to manually manage versions of files but a step in the right direction

SpiderOak https://spideroak.com/
2GB free, 100GB for the same price as Dropbox charges for 50GB ($10/month or $100/yr)
(Knightwise from http://knightwise.com turned me onto SpiderOak)

Mac OS X Server?

Impending Apple TV

Out this week?
Who has pre-ordered one?
AirPlay in General? (Airplay is a standard radio broadcasting industry term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airplay)
I see that iTunes 10 is using the AirPlay terminology for the audio streaming to an AirPort Express.
Is Apple taking a risk by moving to a streaming model, in light of Net Neutrality and/or providers charging for certain levels of data consumption?

Blu-ray on Mac

Steve (Sheridan) suggested this topic.
Problem statement:  

• He makes home movie DVDs with chapter markers, scene selections, music, and pretty covers to give to family and friends after shared events.  For example he’s created a 2 DVD set of our European vacation for Don, Bart and Knightwise, including a 30 minute slideshow to music.  
• The sad part is that while the source material is high def, he can’t easily make high definition DVDs since Steve Jobs believes that physical media is over and there’s no Bluray burning capability built into the Macs of today

The Question(s):  

• Is there yet a (reliable) Bluray burner/software combination that would allow us to make Bluray DVDs?
• Where do you see this going for the future?  Bart and I talked about maybe we’d be able to post a disk image online for friends/family to download (someday when bandwidth levels increas) – is this the future? or what other ways could we accomplish this same goal?

John likes this topic, just got a Blu-ray player!

Maybe Steve J was wrong when he called Blu-ray a “bag of hurt?”
Phil chimed in with “We have the best HD movie and TV options in iTunes.”
Unless you can match the price of my local library (free) or redbox (1.50 a night) I’d like more options

Blu-ray looks very nice from a storage capacity point of view (25GB single/50GB dual layer)
I have the same question, can’t you just get a Blu-ray burner and use something like iDVD?

Final Cut Pro 7 will actually export to Blu-ray: http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/whats-new.html

According to the guy from Roxio I talked to last year at MacWorld, even their stuff matched with a BluRay burner wasn’t any good. That was a year (or was it 2 years ago?) though so maybe it’s better now?

Picks:

Allison: Launchbar ($35) from obdev.at/products/launchbar Haven’t recommended on MRT since 2008, time for some fresh love!
Don: Plane Finder AR for iPhone 4 ($2.99) Just for a bit of fun. my.pinkfroot.com/page/plane-finder-ar
John: treamWatcher ($15) eloquentsw.com/streamwatcher.html
Bart: totally stupid time-waste, but I love it all the same iQuarium for iOS ($1) idreams.pl/iQuarium

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The panel for this show includes:

Katie Floyd: Mac Power Users Twitter
Bart Busschots The International Mac Podcast Twitter
Chuck Joiner The MacVoices Group Twitter

The Mac Roundtable discussed the announcements from Apple’s September 1st Music Event. Including the new iPods, Apple TV, Television Rentals, iTunes 10, iOS and more.

iPod Shuffle

Pod Nano

iPod Touch

iTunes 10

Apple TV

Keynote Video

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Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Mac Podcast http://podfeet.com Twitter @podfeet
Don McAllister – ScreenCastsOnline – http://www.screencastsonline.com
Tim Verpoorten http://www.surfbits.com, http://www.macreviewcast.com, @surfbits
Bart Busschots – International Mac Podcast (http://www.impodcast.tv), http://www.bartb.ie Twitter @bbusschots

Don’s SSD Failure

Are there drives it’s not logical to back up?
Is it better, worse or no different that SSD’s don’t warn you when they fail?
how do you deal with friends  and their backups?  what have you used to convince them to back up? any  sure fire strategies? I’ve had a bunch of people I set up with time  machine, but since they have laptops they just don’t seem to get around  to plugging that drive in!

iPhone case refund/acquire process

very cool and super efficient!
helping people make a decision on the iPhone cases
Apple bumper case doens’t have a dock connector hole big enough for the dock connector on many cables, even those from Apple
Katie bought the Scosche Charging Adatper for iPod & iPhone fromscosche.com, fixes not-fitting dock connector and charging problem.

New Mac Pros, iMacs and MacBook Airs

What’s our wishlist for these?

iPad hits and misses after the first 90 days

Goodreader from http://www.goodiware.com/goodreader.html
Wall Street Journal App isn’t nearly as bad as it was early on!

Picks:

Allison – Altaz HD Network Multi-Media Player ($100) http://www.altazdesign.com/Altaz-HD-Network-Media-Player-AZNMP101.htm

Tim – Freeware Video Converters:
MPEG Streamclip: http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
FLV Crunch: http://flvcrunch.awardspace.us

Don – FlipBoard for iPad  – http://www.flipboard.com/

Bart – Fraise – port of the now defunct Smultron programming editor – http://wiki.github.com/jfmoy/Fraise/

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Allison Sheridan:
Nosillacast Podcast http://podfeet.com
Twitter: @podfeet
Katie Floyd:
Mac Power Users http://www.macpowerusers.com
Twitter: @katiefloyd
Adam Christianson:
Maccast http://www.maccast.com
Twitter: @maccast
Bart Busschots:
International Mac Podcast http://www.impodcast.tv http://www.bartb.ie
Twitter: @bbusschots
David Sparks:
Mac Power Users http://www.macpowerusers.com http://www.macsparky.com
Twitter: @macsparky

iOS 4

Good:

• Folders are pretty cool and definitely useful
• Camera speed is INSANELY fast not! BOL folks thought it was iPhone 4 that had the faster phone, but it’s iOS4 that causes the speed, worth the upgrade just for this
• Unified inbox

Bad or So So:

• Allison – “multi-tasking” not as cool as I thought – I keep finding 20 apps waiting, stresses me out!
• Limited fucntionality on 3G – no multitasking, background apps or wallpaper (what’s up with the Wallpaper?)
• Finding it very slow on my iPhone 3G, and battery life has been poor
• 65 security updates in iOS4, but what about iPad and older devices?
• Exchange calendar color issue

iPhone 4

• David Pogue’s explanation of the different discount prices by AT&T: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/how-much-it-costs-to-upgrade-to-an-iphone-3g-s/

Good:

• Dang, that screen be beautiful
• Gyro in one game is pretty darn fun
• Speed
• Camera – w00t!
• Adam’s iMovie 4 example: http://www.youtube.com/user/themaccast
• Allison’s Taco Bell Thursday 720p video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R0Pk4Xreq8

Bad or So So:

• Battery life – unimpressive! – I’ve found battery life to be great.
• Poor reception – dropped calls and 1-2 bars in areas I use to have 4-5 bars and no problem
• No GSM buzz noise when connected to non-shielded speakers
• First iPhone to work with my car audio system w/ iPod dock (Charging not supported – but should be corrected with the PASSport) http://www.scosche.com/products/productID/1667
• Works well with original iPhone dock
• Problems with using a case – won’t fit in the dock!

iPhone Death Grip Problem

• very real. I can watch my iPhone go from 5 to 1 bar.
• Who all is having problems?
• Software vs. Hardware or both?
• Problem persists with MicroCell but seems worse in areas with flakey AT&T coverage (like all of my town.)
• 4.0.1 Coming soon (Monday)

Picks of the Week

Katie – Jiggler – http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20791
Allison – Disk Warrior http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
Bart – TechTool Delux – free with Apple Care on a Mac
David – OmniFocus iPhone
Adam – SonicPics, http://www.sonicpics.com/

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John F. Braun
The Mac Observer?s Mac Geek Gab http://www.macgeekgab.com/
Monday?s Mac Gadget http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/features/mondays_mac_gadget/
Twitter: @johnfbraun

Chuck Joiner
The MacVoices Group http://www.macvoicesgroup.com
Twitter: @chuckjoiner

Steve Stanger
The Mac Attack http://www.themacattack.tv
Twitter: @tmasteve

Victor Cajiao
Typical Mac User podcast http://www.typicalmacuser.com
Typical Shutterbug Podcast http://www.typicalshutterbug.com
Twitter: @victorcajiao

WWDC Keynote – We discuss what we feel was left out of the keynote as much as what Steve Jobs announced during the keynote.

PICKS

John
TotalFinder http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/

Steve
AirVideo ($2.99) http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-video-watch-your-videos/id306550020?mt=8
Fast PDF ($.99) http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fast-pdf/id365270223?mt=8

Victor
Camera + iPhone app. ($2.99) http://campl.us/

Chuck
Take Control of Apple Mail in Snow Leopard by Joe Kissell ($15)
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/snow-leopard-apple-mail

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