Thursday, May 23, 2002
iPod Wins Gold
Yesterday at the British Design and Art Direction (D&AD) Awards, Steve Jobs was on hand to accept three awards for product design excellence. Our favorite MP3 player took Gold, while a Silver was awarded for the iBook and PowerBook G4 Titanium. Apple has consistently won D&AD awards year after year as best explained by the D&AD Jury foreman Dick Powell:
“Well-designed products continuously remind you of their excellence. Apple has long understood this – investing heavily in Emotional Ergonomy that rewards consistently.”
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
10GB iPod Locks Up and Possible Solution
MacFixit is reporting a thread on Apple’s Discussion Boards about the 10GB iPod locking up. One of MacFixit’s readers, Cole McDonald responded to the MacFixit report with a possible solution for an alternate method of recovering a locked-up iPod if it’s out of warranty.
“Cole McDonald writes: “I have seen the same issue on 2 iPods. The solution (for out of warranty units) is to remove the metal cover on the back and disconnect the battery. Plug the firewire cable in, reconnect the battery and let it charge for the day. The Li-ion batteries in them don’t seem to like running empty.”
Software: EntourageMail 1.1 Released
“This application takes Entourage e-mail messages from a given folder and exports them into a vCard file called Email-folder.vcf. Since the application will only delete files for the folder currently being exported, you can easily export multiple folders to your iPod and update individual folders as required.”
- You can now restrict the messages available to export to be only those that have been received within a given date range from today.
- You can choose not to display the messages of a folder, in which case you can only export all messages (unread or not depending on your preference settings). This is useful if you have lots of messages and don’t want to wait for them to be processed just to export all of them.
- Include the message subject in the text of the message since it may not fit in the contact name field.
- Added an indicator as to how many messages you’ve selected to export.
System requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.1.2 or higher
- Microsoft Entourage X 10.0.x
- iPod Software Updater 1.1
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Cases: Voyageur Waterproof Case with Audio Port
We’ve reported waterproof bags/cases for the iPod before, but this time we found the perfect waterproof case for any water sports or activities.
The Voyageur Squawk-About Two-Way Radio Case ($30) from REI fits the iPod perfectly and has a waterproof audio port for your headphones.
Though you cannot control the scroll wheel while its in the case, all other function buttons can be pushed through the clear vinyl.
Software: iPod2iTunes 1.0 Released
“Within iTunes or the Finder it is not possible to transfer tracks or playlists from your iPod to your Mac(s). iPod2iTunes (i2i) is the only utility which allows you not only to copy but to synchronize tracks + playlists from your iPod(s) to your Mac(s). The synchronization ensures that you don’t produce duplicate MP3 files on your disk as it is easily the case if you just copy files from the iPod via other methods.”
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What’s new in 1.0:
- Known Issues: Library maintenance scripts + ReadMe updated (see Known Issues folder).
- Improved environment check: i2i will only refuse to run if i2i-dependend components of the OS change, not mandatory on every update of the OS.
- Minor improvements in the user interface.
- Other minor improvements.
- Icon changed (with easter egg)
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.1.2 or higher
For more info…
Download…
“‘Copy-Proof’ CDs Cracked with 99-Cent Marker Pen”
You may have read about the recent decisions by Sony Music to copy-protect music CDs. Reuters has a report that some techies have managed to by-pass the copy-protection technology with a felt-tip marker.
“After an initial attempt to play the disc on a PC resulted in failure, the edge of the shiny side of the disc was blackened out with a felt tip marker. The second attempt with the marked-up CD played and copied to the hard drive without a hitch.”
Software: PodUtil 1.0b2 Released
“PodUtil is (another) management program for the Apple iPod. It allows you to directly edit the Contacts on your iPod, presenting them in a list for one-click editing. As soon as you’re done editing, the contact(s) are saved for immediate use on your iPod. No more fiddling around copying .vcf files everywhere, PodUtil does it in one click!
Another function PodUtil can do is to copy the music from your iPod back to your computer. While doing so, it can organise your music by artist and/or album, and will also change the creator codes to match the one of your favourite MP3 player.
All this, and a friendly interface to boot! Oh, and it is free!”
What’s new in 1.0b2:
Key:
[Cont] Contact Manager feature/fix
[Scan] Music scanner and copier feature/fix
[All] New feature/fix that applies to all PodUtil functions
[Other] Other feature/fix
- [All] You can now bring up a new Contact/Scanner while using another function.
It is possible to have more than one Contact Manager/Scanner per iPod open. This is not recommended.
- [Other] Default memory allocation in Mac OS 9 increased to reduce risk of freezes caused by large music/contact lists.
- [Cont] Export vCard button added.
- [Cont] Extra information in vCard files (such as category info) is no longer lost.
- [Cont] Now supports multiple contacts in one file, such as files exported by Palm Desktop. Note: These files are split up into one .vcf file per contact.
- [Cont] Contacts are now saved when closing the Contact Manager. This eliminates the need to switch to another contact to save changes before quitting.
- [Cont] Supports version 3.0 vCard files (such as those created by Entourage).
- [Cont] Added support for Home and Work addresses (Version 3.0 vCards only).
- [Scan] Scanner window can be resized.
- [Scan] You can now choose which files to copy by using checkboxes in the file list.
- [Scan] Copy errors are now reported and all files that were not copied are displayed.
System requirements: Mac OS 9 – OS X
For more info…
Download…
MacNews.com Launches
Larry Angell and staff have informed us of their new website, MacNews.com. Well designed and ready to give us the latest reports in all things Mac, we welcome MacNews.com into the online Mac community.
“I am writing to let you know that our new website, MacNews.com will be launching today, Tuesday, May 21st. We hope to become a well respected news site dedicated to the Macintosh community. We will be updating news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in an effort to bring our visitors the very best content available.
We will be posting news in three main categories: Mac News, for everything related to our favorite company and the Macintosh; Mac OS X News, with the latest info on everyone’s favorite new operating system; and Tech News, bringing you news on the Tech community, and new Tech gear.”
“Refurbished Apple iPod 5GB for $295”
Dealmac reports:
“PowerMax offers the factory-refurbished Apple iPod 5GB for $295. It’s the lowest non-academic price we’ve seen. Shipping starts around $8.”
Monday, May 20, 2002
Tips & Tricks: iPod “Users”
We first spotted this tip at MacOSXHints and are now bringing it to our readers with permission from the author, Marc Z.
“You are thinking about a useful argument to buy an iPod? Well, see it as some kind of notebook. Thanks to the power of OS X, you can carry your complete workspace from home in your hand.
Just copy your complete “Users” folder to the iPod. Now go to another computer running OS X and create a new user on this machine. Let’s name it ipod_user. When you have created the user, open NetInfo Manager, click the lock and enter your admin password, and scroll to the “Users” entry.
