SBMUG

Steps for offering video on demand

By Christopher Breen

Podcasts are so last month.

If you want to get in on the hip trip, you’ll turn your attention (and camcorder) to vodcasts—Video-On-Demand-casts, that is. No, this isn’t stuff of the future. By following the steps I’m about to outline you can create and distribute a downloadable vodcast today.

The technology behind vodcasting is the same as the magic that makes up podcasting—RSS. By preparing your movies properly and creating the right feed, you can offer your audience video on demand through an application familiar to us all: iTunes 4.9, a version of iTunes that supports playback of local and streamed video. Here’s how to go about creating and distributing a vodcast of your own.

Read on

[Interesting iPod stats. It’s important to remember that the iPod has bankrolled the development of the MacOS and the hardware it runs on. Whether you like them or not, you have to love what they have done for Apple. mg]

Ipsos Insight has issued new research which shows that 20 per cent of US residents over 12 now own an MP3 player, underlining what a mass market device it has become.

The figure shows a 15 per cent rise in the installed base of digital music users, and is double the level of use revealed in a 2003 survey.

Teenagers account for 50 per cent of all sales, with 30 per cent within US adults between 18-34 owning a player. 13 per cent of adults aged between 35-54 also own a digital music player.

As predicted, iPods lead the field, with teenagers particularly interested in video-capable models. Interestingly, 6 per cent of US residents own more than one player.

Nearly half of music downloaders own a portable MP3 player (48 per cent), and these owners use their devices an average of 12 hours per week. On average, users have 700 songs stored on their portable music device, with 44 per cent of tracks ripped from CD.

Fee-based downloads (25 per cent) and files obtained from file sharing services (19 per cent) are also common sources of content, the research claims.

‘Over the past year, the portable MP3 market has really matured, and we are now seeing not just new buyers entering this market, but also growing levels of multiple device ownership indicative of overall category satisfaction and habitualised behaviour,’ said Matt Kleinschmit, a pice President with Ipsos Insight.”

Read more

[For productivity geeks, this link has a lot of ideas on how to keep your INBOX trimmed down. I’ve barely begun to implement them, but many of them look quite good. cheers, mg]

Get Out of the In Crowd

Fast Company speaks with author Michael Linenberger about not living out of your inbox. Although, like most GTDers, I’m not a big fan of priority- and date-based task management, the advice Linenberger gives is otherwise solid gold from my standpoint. Remember, if you’re using your inbox as an ersatz to-do list, you’re setting yourself up for a constellation of terrible habits and nearly certain procrastination. Quoting:

When you see a requested action in an email, don’t do it immediately. It might be one of the least important things for you to do that day. Instead, immediately identify what the action is and put the email in a task folder. Change the title so that it states what you need to do, and put a due date on it and a priority level. You can do that in 15 or 20 seconds. Then you move right on to the next email. Now you’ll get through your to-do email remarkably fast. Drag all of your other emails into a process folder, so you now have an empty inbox, which is a really nice feeling. The next thing you do is go to your task list and ask, ‘What are the most important things I need to do today?’ That’s the stuff that would keep you from going home at the end of the day.

(Via 43 Folders.)

http://www.43folders.com

[Ted, a good pal of our Beloved President Bob, always has great columns and suggestions for having a better time with our Macs. I’m certain that the folks at Apple read what he has to say on a regular basis. I hope that Leopard has LOTS and LOTS of really astounding things in it. I’m ready for another bang up Developers conference in 4 weeks or so and I look forward to Steve Jobs wowing the world again with how amazing the latest OS will be. cheers, mg]

Ted Landau

July 2006

Apple will offer its first peek at Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) at its WordWide Developers Conference (WWDC) next month. This means it’s already too late to expect Apple to add new features beyond the ones already slated. Still, going on the assumption of ‘better late than never,’ I’ve put together a list of improvements that I would like to see in the updated OS. The concept is similar to what other writers have done over the years, although this is the first time I am giving it a whirl.

To be clear: I am not talking about major new features here, but small incremental changes that would make my Mac life a bit easier. And yes, I know there is sometimes a third-party program or a hack that covers a given issue (I even mention a couple of examples later in this column). Still, I believe these are matters that would be better and more simply handled by the OS itself. Lastly, I concur that Mac OS X is already fabulous, and clearly superior to the alternatives. But there’s always room for improvement. That’s the spirit in which this list is presented. So, without further ado, here we go

Read more @ MacFixit

[Wow, sounds pretty desperate to me. I can’t imagine anything that AOL can do to reverse this decline and offer something unique and better than local ISPs are doing. Especially since alternative software has made email about as simple as it can be. I predict a long, slow, painful decline. Time-Warner will tell… mg]

By Grant Gross,

IDG News Service

AOL is looking at offering its services, including e-mail, for free to customers with a broadband Internet connection, according to a news report.

AOL Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Miller presented the idea to other executives at AOL corporate parent Time Warner last week, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal. Under the plan, AOL would stop charging subscription fees to customers who buy Internet service from another provider, the Wall Street Journal said.

Subscribers with AOL dial-up service would continue to pay subscriptions. AOL subscribers get e-mail service, as well as virus protection and other security services.

The plan comes as AOL looks for ways to counter a decline in subscribers. In the first quarter of this year, AOL had 18.6 million subscribers in the U.S., down by 3.1 million from a year earlier. AOL’s revenue declined 7 percent to US$2 billion in the first quarter of this year, driven by a 13 percent fall in subscription revenue. Advertising revenue increased 26 percent, offsetting part of the subscription decline.”

Read more @ Macworld

[This is apparently an old bit of news from the last millennium, but I sure didn’t know about it! Curses! Gates thought of everything! :-/ mg]

March 25, 1998 | Issue 33•11

REDMOND, WA—In what CEO Bill Gates called ‘an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors,’ the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday. At a press conference beamed live to Microsoft shareholders around the globe, Bill Gates announces the company’s patenting of the binary system.

With the patent, Microsoft’s rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones—the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programs—unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.

‘Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975,’ Gates told reporters. ‘For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals.’”

Read the rest of the story @ The Onion

[Brian posted this on the ListServ and I thought it was Blog worthy. Really amazing that Microsoft is using APPLE hardware for their presentations. As my GrandPa from Texas used to say, “Boy HOWDY!” It feels like something big is coming… Mg]

It looks like Macs are Vista-Ready…

By: Victor Mihailescu, Apple News Editor

The Microsoft HQ in Diegem, Belgium was the scene of a rare sight recently… At a presentation of Windows Vista and Office 2007 for a group of bloggers, the hardware chosen for the presentation was Apple’s.

Much to the surprise of those attending the presentation, the thing was run off a MacBook Pro. While this is not really breaking news, and Vista has been made to run on Intel based Macs for quite some time now, the fact that this was a Microsoft presentation, makes this an exceptional case. The fact that Microsoft feels comfortable enough to run presentations off on Mac hardware means that Vista is running very smoothly indeed on the Apple hardware.
”

Read more @ SOFTPEDIA

[Again, no surprises here, but the drums seem to still be beating the same tune. And I may be mistaken, but isn’t this the same security firm that recently talked about the MacOS being “less secure that we think?” Or perhaps I’m thinking of the “independent” security firm owned and funded by Symantec?… I think more and more Windows users will be looking seriously at buying a Mac in the next 6-12 months as they tire of the battle with not just viruses, but identity and plain old money theft! I will honestly be surprised not to see the Mac marketshare double what it is today in 12-18 months. Stay tuned… Mg]

By Jonny Evans

Security experts at Sophos are recommending home users should switch to Mac, warning of a huge wave of malevolent Trojan malware attacks.

The company has published new research into the past six months of cyber crime: the ‘Sophos Security Threat Management Report Update’. This reveals that while there has been a vast drop in new viruses and worms, this has been over-compensated for by increases in other types of malware, as cyber criminals turn their attention to stealing information and money.

Trojans now outweigh viruses and worms by 4:1, compared with 2:1 in the first half of 2005. As Windows-based threats continue to dominate, the researchers are recommending home users should switch to Mac, in an attempt to protect themselves from malware.”

Read more @ Macworld UK

[No big surprise here, but it’s good to get rid of the remaining CRTs. I would imagine this would also help Apple streamline its product line as well as get a nice bump in sales prior leading into the new school year. I know that a lot of educational institutions have been delaying purchases until this announcement, so this should help. Mg]

On Wednesday, Apple introduced a new $899 configuration of the 17-inch iMac designed specifically for education customers.

The computer features a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, a built-in iSight video camera and iLife ‘06, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications.

Apple said the 17-inch iMac for education is available immediately and will replace the eMac, its last CRT based computer, providing students and teachers everything they need to learn and create in today’s digital classroom, all in the ultra-efficient iMac design.”

Read more @ AppleInsider

[I’ve always thought that Apple was going to eventually do something with the code from the AppleWorks Spreadsheet program. I have never had a good time with Excel, so if they really could make it more consumer friendly, AND allow easy, flawless exports into the .xml format, I think I might just say goodbye to Excel as a place of creation. This really seems to be Apple’s decade. Microsoft is fighting anti-trust issues all around the globe, Bill Gates is leaving to give his life to philanthropy, Apple has found a way to run Windows Applications INSIDE the MacOS in real time…do I hear a bell tolling or is that just my wind chime?… cheers, Mick]

By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor

July 5, 2006 - EXCLUSIVE For its third birthday, Apple’s iWork productivity suite will see the addition of a third application, Think Secret has learned. Currently dubbed Charts, the software is planned for iWork ‘07, which will likely be released in January, in keeping with Apple’s previous iWork annoucements.

Long rumored—or at least, assumed—to be in development, sources say Apple is not planning on positioning Charts as a competitor to Microsoft’s Excel, but rather as a more consumer-friendly spreadsheet application that can handle the needs of home users and small businesses but not pretend to execute any of the more advanced functions of Excel. Nonetheless, Charts will support importing and exporting Excel formatted documents, as well as legacy AppleWorks spreadsheets, and Apple is hoping the performance of Charts will at least rival that of Excel, sources report.”

Read More @ Think Secret