I should hit 25 podcasts later in the week.

I will put a list of the podcasts done so far in here shortly but now it is way past time for hitting the sack.

Don McAllister Interview

Apple will not send it to my address here in Spain because it is a refurbished model.

If I go to the Spanish site it will come with a Spanish Keyboard and will be 100 Euro more expensive. Total pain in the arse and I did ring up Apple to ask if there was a way around this problem but no chance.

Apple said I could get the Spanish one then pay to have the keyboard changed to an English one at a local reseller. Who knows what that would cost on top of the already more expensive price for the same model.

I did look at the possibility of getting a new non refurbished model but that would have added about €200 on the price.

The refurbished models are great value, about 16% saving and will be totally pawed over by the Apple technicians to make sure that it is in good order. Could be better than buying one of the assemble line as it will have had extra checking.

A Mac Fan Boy or girl is someone that will stand on the side of Apple whatever happens due to a love of the Apple Mac experience. The beauty of the hardware, the ease of use of the software and the fact that it is not Windows.
I am not quite a Fan Boy but I tell you it must be a close thing, I have just started a new web site called Mac 20 Questions. The idea behind it is to talk to Mac users and get a down and dirty view of how they spend time with their Mac.
There are loads of Mac fan sites where they talk incessantly about the Mac and the rumours about the Mac. There are sites that review software and talk about the rumours surrounding Steve Jobs. But there are not many sites that talk directly to users to find out what they actually do with the Mac on a day to day basis.
This is where Mac 20 Questions comes in. It is going to be a podcast in which I interview people and chat about the applications they use and how they use them. I should get a real world view of the, I think excellent Mac computer from the people that actually use them.

So today of course I was very interested to see what would be coming out of Macworld over in San Fransisco. I followed the live (ish) feed from Gizmodo and it seems mostly it was about updated iLife and iWork applications with a new MacBook Pro of 17 inch proportions thrown in the mix for good measure. I will be pleased if they have done something with iMovie which despite being a Mac fan boy, I can’t stand in iLife 08. The previous version iMovie HD was great to use and then Apple really messed it up with designing something totally new and left out what I consider important features, the time line for one.

iPhoto now  has face recognition which is kinda funny as I have had that for nearly 50 years. iPhoto also has GPS functions so that you can Geo Tag your photos easily now. You do need a camera that does GPS though. The camera in the iPhone doesn’t really qualify as a camera in my book. There is no focusing and well no controls at all, give me a good point and shoot like the Canon G9 or G10 or better still a SLR. But iPhoto gives you a map with pins stuck in it to tell you whare you took your photos, it has Facebok and Flickr support built in. I suppose it will not be necessary to use plug ins for that now. In the area of making slides you have more themes with transitions etc. This sort of thing makes it easy for the novice with no idea or skill to make something that will look great.

iPhoto ’09 makes it even easier to browse and search photos, not only by when they were shot (Events), but by who appears in them (Faces) and where they were taken (Places). iPhoto automatically scans photos to detect people’s faces and when you assign a name to any face iPhoto will automatically find more pictures of that person. The library can be searched by name or browsed using the new Faces View. Places automatically imports photo location data from a GPS-enabled camera or any iPhone(TM) or you can manually assign a location to any photo, group of photos or event. Once iPhoto knows where photos were taken, you can easily explore them with a simple search or an interactive map. iPhoto ’09 lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod(R), or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.

iMovie is getting a precision editor, more themes and advanced drag and drop. It has to be better than the last version which was just rubbish and not finished. Better not forget to mention the Advanced travel maps and video stabilisation. I reckon though that the best video stabilisation is a good tripod when you are shooting. And then there is Other editing features: Skimming, seeing edits (before and after cuts), overlaying audio. I will reserve judgment on the iMovie updates until I see them in action with some of my video. I still think I might prefer to use Final Cut Express.

GarageBand can now teach you to play an instrument as well as record your music. Sting is one of the artists in there to help you learn to play guitar. Could be prophetic seeing as I am getting a new guitar arrive tomorrow. I first got a gitar when I was fifteen or sixteen and tried to learn, I had othert guitars along the way but never really got to where I wanted with the guitar. I have decided to give it one final shot and this time to finish the job. I went on this new path of the guitar after seeing videos on You Tube which teach basic riffs and licks and thought blimey I could do that. I even downloaded some video podcasts which have increased my guitar musical knowledge, so seeing that Garageband now will have lessons to teach people to play an instrument included might be a good thing. It is so easy to learn when you have someone showing you how, even with a video. I have just read that the lessons are $5 a lesson, not sure about that, but it is true and available in the the GarageBand Lesson Store.

GarageBand ’09, the updated version of Apple’s popular software used by millions to play and record music, now gives budding musicians a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar. Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. Artist Lessons feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Choose from lessons by popular artists including: Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. Artist Lessons are sold separately at the new GarageBand Lesson Store, available inside the GarageBand ’09 application. GarageBand ’09 also includes exciting new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

iWork has been updated too, also there will be iWork in the cloud coming soon. All of the office software vendor will have to go this route with it being possible to use something like Google Docs for example. Who need a Word processor actually loaded on you computer.

I like that there will be more DRM free tracks available in iTunes Store although I rarely by tracks, still it is a good thing. The DRM free tracks possibly cost more though?

The New MacBook Pro
Finally providing a noticeable difference between the MacBook and MacBook Pro, Apple has pushed the Pro’s screen to 17 inches, its price to $2799, and thrown in a high-capacity (non-replaceable!) battery.

It looks great but well out of my price range. What I need is probably one of the Macbooks so that I can use it to record podcasts out in the field, direct to GarageBand or Amadeus Pro.

Well lets see what happens with all of this once everyone has had time to assess the last Keynote speech of MacWorld San Fransisco.

I did manage to make it freeze up by trying to do a couple of things with it. I was listening to a podcast and wanted to try out the GPS. Took me about half an hour or more to work out how to get it right again.

Still want to use the Fring app to make a Skype call or better still make a VOIP call for free by using the wifi connection and not have it be a mobile call. Didn’t work when I tried this evening but that could be that the person I tried to call was out or something. Try again tomorrow.

I have to say I am totally besotted with the iPhone. I had read a good bit about the super phone but actually playing with one that belongs to you and trying things out really makes it hit home. It really is an excellent phone. Worth even changing to Telefonica to be able to get one.

I have it connected up to Mobile Me so that I get my emails directly on the phone. That works great and I have been twittering with it also. I expect I will hit the data limit with the plan I have fairly quickly during the month.

When I tried out the GPS program later it worked really well pinpointing when I am exactly on the map. I can see that being really useful when going places. I will be in Birmingham later this week. The place has changed a lot since I lived in the area. I hardly remember some of the street names anymore. I will not be using Google Earth for the iPhone anyway as I have heard it crashes the phone too much.

Tomorrow it is nose back to the grind stone so that I can get making some interviews and recordings for the BravaChat web site. I need to get more Spondicious and Wizardgold podcasts completed also.

Well today I got notification that the money was received and the device would be sent to me in a couple of days. I will probably have it on Monday. I can hardly wait. What is it ? A Wacom Cintiq 12WX graphics tablet. It has a screen that I will be able to draw directly on to and should have a greater degree of control in the drawing process.

I have been using a standard Wacom tablet of the sort that you draw on while looking at the screen. So you can imagine a huge difference between how I work now and the way I will be able to work with the Cintiq.

I was able to see online that there was information on the Movistar site about the 3G iPhone but no chance to do anything about it. I would have liked to get inside a shop and see if there were any iPhones in the shop. Managed to get home 7pm after 10 hours of working during the day and I am fit for nothing. I considered looking in a shop on the way home but tiredness had set in and due to the traffic at that time plust it being Friday when all of Girona and Barcelona descend upon the town, I have no wish to find the nearest iPhone shop. I think it may have to wait until Monday.

Mind you that depends on whether I can get away with us being one man down at the camp site in the reception

Other news today dissapointed me was the discontinuation of my favourite Betfair betting software BinarySoft BDI. Excellent software and great for trading. I was thinking about getting a subscription to it at the start of the Premiership. No chance of that now.

Last time I got something from Apple it came to me via Holland then Barcelona. I will be getting excited when I see Barcelona on the tracking because it is only a hop skip and a jump away by then.

The older iMac will be going to a good home with my son. He needs a Mac for his art work for college next year. He wants to be doing Flash animations plus photoshop and Illustrator work, the iMac will be just the job for him.

I have to tell you that Ubuntu is great, to use. I have found open source free program for all the things I want to do with the machine and I am happy using it. OK so it is not as nice and pretty as Leopard looks on my iMac but prety nifty all the same. The other option was to buy a MacBook which was over specified for what I wanted to do and therefore more expensive. The great thing about Linux is that it will run fast on lower end machines.

I have even set up a new blog which will be about using Ubunto. I am calling it Typical Ubuntu User and when I have got some content to put up on it I will broadcast more about it. I have a podcast started  already.

At the moment I m copying back the previous installed applications back in off the back up drive. Apple do have a thing called migration assistant which I may have to use if this method doesn’t work. The first application i dragged and dropped back in to the new Leopard installation worked al right. I will have to see how it goes with applications that have a password or maybe a special set up. Will be interesting to see that with SuperDuper which I bought this morning so that I could have do a good back up for me.

Talking about back up I am really looking forward to using Time Machine in Leopard.

Oh I took advantage of .Mac and the free 60 days available to try it out. The Back to My Mac feature could be very useful. Seeing as I have multiple Mac computers there are syncronisation benefits with having the use of .Mac. I will give it a good try out for the next 60 days