Wednesday Wonderment

iPhone 2.2 Update Coming
The update is highly anticipated because it is expected to offer several new features including direct podcast downloading (you'll no longer have to go through iTunes to get your PodCasts!). Other features rumored are: Japanese emoji icons; Google Street View for Google Maps with rotating of the device into landscape mode and public transportation support and directions for walking or driving; a new Safari interface with new Google search bar; an on/off switch for text auto-correction; a new page featuring category icons for the App Store; and a tweaking of display pages for several applications. Also appearing in the last beta seed are location sharing via email and SDK support for manipulating line-in audio.

Expect the release of iPhone 2.2 on or just before January 6 at MacWorld.

The Beauty of Snow Leopard
Although Apple says Snow Leopard will be about improving OS X (10.6) performance there are going to be some new features including support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book and iCal. For users forced to use Outlook at work they will be able to sync up their Outlook calendars and address books with iCal and Mail's Address Book. Another new feature is Wiki Server which allows mulitple users to publish and share collaborative information. Think of it as a superior level of Microsoft's SharePoint in which groups of people are granted access to create and share information, files, applications, etc., collectively.

Snow Leopard will deliver the first 64-bit kernel for Mac OS X and Finder will be switched from Carbon to Cocoa (Cocoa is Apple's name for the collection of frameworks, APIs, and accompanying runtimes that make up the development layer of Mac OS X.) Cocoa is the most advanced object-oriented technology on the market today. Carbon combines earlier Mac OS compatibility with native functionality while Cocoa does not, thus Snow Leopard will only run on Intel machines.

Other new features will be revealed at MacWorld. You should be able to buy Snow Leopard in June 2009.

Kudos To Dianne Feinstein
For stepping forward and doing the right thing. What a shock and surprise it was to see the first airing of a Dianne Feinstein political ad promoting the defeat of Proposition 8. Declaring the Proposition the worst of discrimination she asks her followers and the viewing public to vote NO on Prop. 8 and ensure we stop blatant discrimination against one segment of our society. This is a commendable effort on the part of Mrs. Feinstein and it should surely help to defeat Proposition 8 and to put the far Christian Right in their rightful place once - in the gutter!

You go girl! VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 8!

Supporters For Prop 8 Lying Again

Apple Is Sterling! Apple announced their position regarding Proposition 8. "Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights, including the right to marry, should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Prop 8."

We LOVE Apple.

The Christian Right are lying again. The idea of lying directly to the public has become a pattern for the far right religious zealots. In reality Society sees through the lies and the Bible thumpers end up with less and less credibility. Does anyone believe them? Certainly normal people do not.

I know you've seen the ads. The most ridiculous is the one where the religious right have imported a young couple from Massachusetts, another state where same-sex marriage is legal, who whine that gay marriage is taught in the schools there. They know this because their child came home from second grade and told Momma and Daddy that she could marry a princess. Well, of course she can! She can marry anyone she wants to marry be it a prince or a princess but the idea of marrying someone of your own sex has the poor religious right up in arms!

So let's set the record straight here, no pun intended, regarding the teaching of same-sex marriage in California schools. Here are what the elected officials say:

"I've seen the spots on the TV, and (legalized gay marriage) just isn't going to require any kind of teaching of personal relationships or lifestyle," said state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who has joined the state's largest teacher's union in opposing the measure. "That's just not an accurate statement or portrayal."

In short, Jack O'Connell is being nice because the TV spots claiming California schools are going to teach gay marriage is an outright lie. Total lie. Not gonna happen. OTOH, California schools are required to teach tolerance of gays and lesbians, and the ballot measure won't change that. Oh my gawd, the religious right can't stand that! How DARE the schools teach equality and fairness!

"Current state law does not require school districts to teach anything about marriage or same-sex marriage," Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley wrote in ruling on Proposition 8's ballot arguments."

"The education code already has a high expectation that school districts are going to create an environment where respect for human dignity and acceptance of differences, including sexual orientation, are promoted," said Laura Schulkind, a San Francisco lawyer who represents school districts across California. "I don't see how the legalization of gay marriage or the passage of Prop. 8 changes that obligation."

And finally, this is my favorite quote that comes from a real teacher named Wendy Robertson, of Forest Park Elementary School in Fremont. She is not worried about having to explain same-sex marriage to her pupils. During her 17 years teaching kindergarten, Robertson says no one has ever told her to talk about any kind of marriage with her pupils. If one of her pupils asked if he could marry his best buddy, Robertson said her answer would be age-appropriate. "I would say, 'Wait and see, you have to be grown-up first,'" she said.

She is so sweet. I love her.

Don't believe the liars.

Vote NO on Proposition 8 and deny the religious fanatics the chance to discriminate against those they don't like. Same-sex marriage is a legal right. The California State Supreme Court has confirmed that. Let's keep it that way and ensure equality for all.

Feinstein Flips Bird To Gays!

Doesn't She Disgust You???

The powerful and very rich Dianne Feinstein has done nothing in the way of support against Proposition 8. Once again she has flipped the bird to the gay community when she could easily ask all those idiots who think she is God's gift to humanity to cast a vote against discrimination and defeat Proposition 8. But she won't do it.

How do we pay her back? Easy. Toss the old biddy out of office. DO NOT vote for her ever again.

How Bad Is This?

Those great guys over at Google are hiding behind their own bigotry and doing nothing to prevent the defeat of Proposition 8. With all of their bazillions they could easily slap ten million behind the committee to defeat Proposition 8 but they won't do it. Cough! Squeeze those damn balls and look the other way you bastards! What a bunch of weenies. If you're gay and you work at Google then QUIT! They don't deserve your talents!

How do we thank Google for being such asses? Bad publicity. Bad publicity and more bad publicity. Refuse to support them and their products. Use any other search engine but Googles. Maybe the loss of a few billion in ad revenue will bring it home to them that you shouldn't help others discriminate and deny those who have earned the right to marry.

Screw Google!

Obama Hates Gays!

I've said this before and I won't stop. A vote by any gay person for Barack Hussein Obama is a vote for a trip to the gas chamber. This guy is so homophobic he will do whatever it takes to shove gay people as far back in the closet as he can. He won't admit that now - not as long as he is running for President - but mark my words, the moment he is in office Gay people are going to find themselves being pushed so far back in his administration you'll ask yourself "wha' happened?"

How do we thank this guy for his refusal to support gay marriage? Easy. Vote for anyone else but Barack Hussein Obama and wipe that silly arrogant smirk right off his face. Let him fade into history as a "has been" and a "couldn't been". That's the best vote you could possibly cast!

My New MacBook 2009

Why did I buy the new MacBook 2009 when I have a perfectly fine Black MacBook released in 2008?
It is an upgrade, includes new features, is faster, lighter and amazing. Here are some of the new features and upgrades offered in the MacBook 2009:

New Look
It looks very much like the older twin brother of MacBook Air. Thin, sleek, light, aluminum, faster, tighter and much more handsome.

Unibody Enclosures
MacBooks are now manufactured with a single slab of aluminum. This reduces the number of parts and weight, provides a stronger chassis and is less prone to manufacturing flaws. Heat is dissipated through the back grills making the machine cooler.

GeForce 9400M Graphics Chip
The new MacBook display smokes by using the GeForce 9400M chip - which is six times faster then the previous display chip used in the BlackBook. The system chipset has also changed. MacBooks use Nvidia MCP79 controllers and not Intel controller chipset thereby facilitating the faster magic. You can play graphic intensive games and in addition, the upcoming Snow Leopard will use GPU to offload work plus Adobe CS4 apps will also use GPU for certain tasks.

New Display and Keyboard Design
The new MacBook has a glossy mirror-like LED backlit display just like the iMacs. The screen tilts back 10-15 degrees more then my BlackBook does. The keyboard sports a sexy black profile like the MacBook Air and an illuminated keyboard. The suttleness of the lit keyboard is very cool.

Multi-Touch Trackpad
The single mouse button is gone and Apple has given me nearly 40% more area to click. The trackpad is made of glass but optimized for smooth functionality. It now supports Multi Touch gestures, swipe, pinch, rotate, and the new four-finger swipe (for switching apps and Exposé). Touch the upper right hand corner and you get the right mouse click. Drag two fingers and you scroll easily anywhere. This one feature has really elevated the new MacBook to a much higher level. No other laptop can boast this feature and it is taken directly from the iPhone.

Replacing the MacBook HDD and adding RAM is a child’s play.
All you do is pop out the battery cover knob, remove the undercover HDD enclosure cover by removing 1 screw. Replace your HDD, or switch to an aftermarket SSD in a jiffy. Even your grandmother will find it easy. I expect to swap out my 250G hard drive for a 128G SSD. Doing that will increase system speed enormously. I have also swapped out the standard 2G of RAM for 4G and that adds even more speed. Update: 128G SSD SATA drives can be found at mwav.com for just $270!

Thinner and less weight
My new Macbook is thinner at 0.95 inch and 0.5 lbs lighter than the old MacBook. You notice this right away. You can never be too thin.

This is the first notebook to come with Mini DisplayPort.
The Mini DisplayPort, touted as a small port that makes a big difference, is used to connect to your external displays.

My new MacBook runs a different OS X 10.5.5, build 9F2114. Other Mac users run build 9F33. The new build has an extra option in the System Preferences for Trackpad and the ‘Energy Saver’ icon sports a CFL lamp (more energy efficient than conventional lamp).

FireWire is no longer supported in this new MacBook. Apple will transfer all of your previous settings, data, applications and files from your BlackBook over to the new MacBook quickly. So I took them up on their offer. When I bought my new MacBook I handed them my BlackBook. I came back a few hours later and everything from my Blackbook had been duplicated to my new MacBook.

My new MacBook comes with faster 1066 MHz DDR3 RAM and I noticed the increase in speed right away. When I placed my Blackbook with 4G of RAM beside the new MacBook with 2G of RAM and started them together, the new MacBook brought up the system and screen in about 12 seconds while it took the BlackBook 24 seconds. Once the 4G of RAM was added to the new MacBook that startup time decreased to 6 seconds. And when I eventually add an SDD 128G drive the startup time should be near instant, about 2 seconds much like the iPhone.

The battery indicator is now displayed on the side of my Macbook and that is a nice new placement. It is easy to see and it is a series of eight teeny tiny green dots that light up brightly. 8 dots is fully charged. The machine is usable for a good five hours.

The glass front panel and the LED display is one single part.

The cost was $1,606.00 and well worth it.

I will place my 2.4GHz BlackBook on eBay next week with a starting bid of $1,500. It comes with a 250G of hard disk, 4Gig of RAM, Leopard, original box and accessories and everything in and on it is in primo mint condition. It is an excellent machine and comes with Firewire 400.

Email me if you are interested in buying it before I put it on eBay (or wait until I put it on eBay and compete with everyone else!). OS2Guy@Mac.com

Apple Pokes Vista Again - LOL!

Apple has released two new Mac ads and they are very funny...
Apple transferred all my data from my previous MacBook over to my new MacBook last Friday. Very nice.

VOTE NO on Prop 8!

I Got The Latest MacBook On Friday! Watch This! So Cool!

Obama Loses Gay Voters

Barack Hussein Obama hates gay people and is comfortable denying their right to marry. After all, he's black.

He is steadfast against gay marriage. In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

That's total bullshit, of course. It is a cop-out and reveals the truth about his so-called claim to support gay issues. He doesn't support the gay person at all and feels they are less then everyone else by refusing to support their right to marry. There was a time in this country when it was illegal for a black person to marry a white person but Hussein Obama conveniently forgets that period. Perhaps we should bring it back as a law and let that group of people feel the discrimination the gay community feels each and every day that they are denied the right to marry.

If you're gay don't for for Barack Hussein Obama. He's certainly not voting for you, in fact, he'd rather you languish in hell before he will ever support your right to marry the person you love.

Gay people have faired better under a Republican administration - even though that is an abhorrence to accept it is true. In the last ten years we've seen more tolerance toward gay people then we ever did under the Clinton or any other Democratic administration. Pelosi and Feinstein hate gays with a passion but put up with them because they are a major voting block. When Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco, a position btw, she was never elected to but won by default of murder of the previous Mayor, she courted the gay community - stammered inside the Twin Peaks bar in Castro and cajoled the naive into believing she was behind them, that she supported them. She never did support them, ever. Feinstein's only interest in gay people was conning them out of their vote in an effort to keep her in office. Both Feinstein and Pelosi should be thrown out of office today. They are our most annoying political disgraces.

Young people today are stupid. They believe whatever is presented before them no matter how fake it is. Put it on the internet and repeat it over and over and it becomes fact to them - "but I read it on the Internet" - duh...

Barack Hussein Obama does not support gay people. Do you understand that gay people? He's demonstrated that repeatedly and yet you sit there reading this and think it's okay because - well, he's a black man and he's ... well ... he's a minority like you are ... and well ... it is okay because you are stupid.

Don't vote Obama. You're a fool if you do.

MacBook & Snow Leopard Rumors!

MacBooks WithBlu-ray Drives?

Apple is expected to reveal new MacBooks and MacBook Pros this coming Tuesday. The entire consumer line of notebooks will have an aluminum enclosure, the same number of ports and the new multi-gesture tracpad like the current MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. All MacBooks will receive an upgraded processor and the possibility that the current gpu from Intel will be replaced by a yet to be released Nvidia providing a nice but minor performance boost. Kevin Rose has liet it slip that the new MacBooks will have the option of a Blu-ray drive.

It is expected that Apple will drop the price of the basic MacBook down to $800

10.6 Snow Leopard Faster & Smaller

Apple has said Snow Leopard will have no new features but under the hood the truth is that there are a lot of improvements that will improve the user experience significantly by decreasing of size and memory use of the applications. To get a little glimpse, here are some numbers:

Calculator - 13 MB to 2 MB
iCal - 89 MB to 48 MB
iChat - 111 MB to 52 MB
Mail - 287 MB to 91 MB
Preview - 70 MB to 11 MB
QuickTime - 29 MB to 8 MB
TextEdit - 22 MB to 2 MB
and the Mac OS X Utility folder dropped down from 468 MB to 111.6 MB.

Monday Matinee

Emoji iCons Coming To iPhone!

They are so cute and will become well-used by those who love to throw in a cute icon in the middle of a sentence. And there will be tons of them! 461 to start you off! You'll probably be able to add your own and then, of course, there will be third party offerings for a small price. Also expected: panoramic street level photographs when using Google Street Maps; and, a switch to turn on/off auto-correction when typing. Apparently this seems to bother quite a few people because a petition holding 20,000 signatures was submitted to Apple asking that an on/off switch be provided.



October 14th Just Around The Corner!

And what will it bring? Rumors suggest a new MacBook offering in aluminum with rounded corners, more light-weight, larger hard drive, more RAM (8 Gigs?) and a faster CPU (2.6 to 2.8). How can I give up my current black 2.4 fully-loaded MacBook for something new? We shall see!

Apple Now Number 2 In SmartPhone Market

Not long before Apple will crack the number 1 spot, held by Motorola Razr 3, for the iPhone. The iPhone continues to be sought out after the coolest people.

A Couple Of Interesting Things

iLifeHosting

There is a new web hosting service aimed directly at .mac holders. It is called iLifeHosting and it is setup and optimized to work with iWeb (that's an app you already have on your system) and offers a great many advantages over other web hosting services. All of the following are free with each account:

Online Photo Filer
Quick Blogcast
Hosting with Web site builder
Personalized Email Account
Starter Web Page
"For Sale"/ Parked Page
Domain Forwarding
Domain Masking
100-Pack Email Forwarding
Total DNS Control
Change of Registration
Status Alerts
Domain Locking

This is what you get for $15 a month and I must say, it is very nice. Far better then what we're paying for WarpCity.com, OS2Guy.com and Chauvet.com:

Plan Features
• 300 GB Space
• 3,000 GB Transfer
• 1,000 Email Accounts
• Unlimited Web sites
• FREE! Software
• 50 MySQL Databases
• Unlimited Email Forwards
• Forums, Blogging, Photos
• $25 Google® AdWords® Credit1
• $50 Microsoft® adCenter Credit†
• FREE! Google Webmaster Tools

We're paying $20 a month and I'm getting no where near what iLifeHosting is offering.

Here's the url (keep this email for future reference): http://www.iLifeHosting.com/

VisualHub, AudialHub and iSquint Now Dead

For me, both of these first two programs are staples. VisualHub cost $33 and I registered it long ago and was able to grab AudialHub for $10 when it was first released. Visual Hub allows the user to convert any movie into any other format. Download a Windows wmv file and you can easily convert it over to the standard AVI format. And VH adds all your TVShows and movies directly into iTunes and ready for your iPhone, iTouch and iPod.

AudialHub came along much later but is just as amazing. It will convert any musical format (flac, aiaa, wm3, etc) into MP3 or vice versa and will actually improve the sound quality. It works just like VisualHub, the menu displays and is easy as pie to use. Prior to these two programs I was having to use four or five different programs and found some files could not be converted (flac and wm3 music for one). Now I can download ANY music and never worry that I can't get it to play on my iPhone or in iTunes.

Sadly, the author has abruptly decided to cease further development. The reason is sketchy. He wants to spend more time with his family and friends and says development of these two programs is keeping him from doing that. So, he has decided to put an end to his programs and has withdrawn them completely. If you don't have them (or you don't know where to find them on your favorite P2P site) you won't be able to get and use them.

What worries me most is what happens in the future when VH and AH eventually get too old - too old for Snow Leopard and any further OS X upgrades after that. What we don't know is whether the author is going to sell off his source code so that another developer can take it over. Even if he were to double the price, VH and AH are vital and much needed programs.

Obama/McCain: No Gay Marriage!

If you're gay and you think Barack Obama is going to support your right to marriage then you're as blind as a bat. “Neither of these two parties supports gay marriage,” said Giselda Rendon, an Atlanta lesbian who is volunteering for the campaign of Green Party.

“The Democratic Party is the party of the Defense of Marriage Act, it’s the party of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Rendon said. “They use us as a bargaining chip.”

Deny these two parties your vote.




The main backer of Proposition 8, which would amend California's constitution by defining marriage as a union "between a man and a woman," has raised close to $18 million, by comparison, the main group opposing the ban has raised just over $14 million.

"The polling we've seen and the demographics certainly seem to show there is an advantage to the 'no' side," said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist and media consultant. "And the voters, as is often the case in California, take a look at an initiative and find flaws in it. That's why 75 percent of initiatives in the state fail."

Orange County's attempt to deny marriage to same-sex couples is going down in defeat just as it should.

Snow Leopard News and More

Expect Snow Leopard in time for MacWorld. It isn't a major upgrade of Leopard but an upgrade to the core of OS X itself. Apple is optimizing Leopard and tweaking the core services.


No Light of Day for Flash

Adobe is downright desperate to get Flash on the iPhone but Apple is remaining firm and refusing Adobe's recent "lean iPhone" version of Flash as an addition to the iPhone. Apple has many reasons but the main ones are what can be expected if Flash were added to the iPhone. iPhone users would be inundated with Flash advertisements at every corner - in email, on the web, app games, etc. And the battery cost is substantial. To run all that flashing crap you gotta use up the battery. Add to all of this Apple's dislike of Adobe and you can see why Adobe is downright desperate to get Flash on the iPhone. Not gonna happen.

Apple May Close Down iTunes

Word up gang. Eddy Cue, iTunes VP, has responded to the Music Industry's demand for more of the iTunes profit grab. The Music Industry now garners about 70 cents of every iTunes dollar and they want another 6 cents per sale. Mr. Cue says Apple will shut down the music side of iTunes if they insist because it would place iTunes in a loss category. No matter how good the Music Industry thinks their music is, without the largest portal to sell those tunes, they ain't got squat. We'll see who blinks on this one.