Dear Steve

Let me begin by adding my congratulations to the multitude on both an amazing product (I am talking about the iPhone in case you couldn’t guess) and a very impressive launch. I guess the loudest thanks are coming for your staff – nice touch that giving them all a free iPhone. Hope it’s not one of those gifts that end up costing the recipient, you are picking up the two year contract right?

Well there is one good thing that has come out of iPhone Friday (I wonder in years to come if it will become a public holiday) and that is the fact that the iTunes 7.3 upgrade that they have released today for it fixes the problem in 7.2 of sharing videos that I wrote about earlier in the week.

Over the last week or so the ‘urge’ has started to rise again. You know the one! It is like a whisper in the back of your mind that slowly gets louder, and louder. You start off by telling yourself not to be silly, that what you have is enough, that you don’t really need it. But it is no good – like a tidal wave of irrational emotion it builds until you find yourself comparing prices, considering specifications, creating justifications in your own mind, planning how to fund it, planning how to tell the wife …………. yes, I want a Mac Pro and a second 23″ Apple Cinema Display!

TheMacPak, a popular new mac discounts site, today announced TheMacPak 5, the next in a line of fun, exciting and innovative Macintosh bundles planned over the next few months. Starting today, and lasting for 5 more days, TheMacPak 5 includes 3 amazing Mac applications for just $5.00. That’s why it’s called TheMacPak 5.

To get the huge discount, TheMacPak have agreed to not reveal the names of the applications to anyone but buyers, so there’s only one way to find out what’s inside – buy the bundle!

I am tempted to say ‘only in America’ but I think that would be somewhat unfair in this case, but if I say ‘typical of America” I doubt anyone can really argue?

I have a checking and savings account with the BoA. I have had them for years, although I don’t use them much as I don’t reside or work in the US. The ‘deal’ was that checking was free so long as I deposited $25 in the savings account each month. This could be a transfer from my checking account, so long as it was a monthly direct debt. I could even go on line the next day and transfer it straight back to the checking account and my banking would still be free (go figure that logic!).

You will have seen yesterday that my Almerimar Life site gave a very ‘interesting’ error message if you tried to view it:

The e-mail could not be sent.
Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function…

Interesting in that I had never seen it before, and because I did have email enabled.

The background was that I was posting a picture to the site, when I noticed that I wanted to edit a few other posts, so I went ahead and edited them and tried to repost them – all in Mars Edit. I have done this before and never had any issues, but somehow or other yesterday was a problem.

I reviewed Ready Set Do in May and really liked it so it was good to hear from the Developer that 1.2 has just been uploaded to their site.

Another one from the archives I am afraid. I have just not had time to get out and take any pictures this weekend. I have been busy showing my father around the PowerBook that is now his.

It has been fun, and he is certainly impressed with the ease of use, quality of the screen etc. As I post this he is busy importing and keywording his pictures into iPhoto.

One thing that I still need to address is a replacement for GWBASIC on the Mac, so any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Last night I wanted (proudly) to show my parents some of Moreno’s movies over the network via Front Row. On every Mac I tried it showed the shared videos but wouldn’t play them – kept coming up with a “The shared video server may be having problems playing the video”.

It looks like this is now a known fault with iTunes 7.2, so if you are still on 7.1 stick with it for now!

This year I have slowly being setting up the network and technology around the apartment. It all started with the hope that I would be able to mirror the Mac mini to the TV in the lounge. Now, one network, a second Mac mini, a Flat screen TV and several cables later I am pretty much sorted now with the way we have the various technology set up around the apartment:

Sands Room

Sands Room: not bad for a reluctant Mac Chick.

I have received a number of questions regards the new design of the site and while I have answered them all directly, I thought it may be useful to put most of the points down in one article.

How long have you been blogging and what got you started?

I have been blogging for about 18 months now. I really became aware of the special place a blog retains in the WWW when I was looking to purchase my first Mac, a PowerBook, in January 2006. At that stage I thought that blogging might be fun, and would give me a good way of getting to use the PowerBook for more than just ‘work’ stuff.

I used LogMeIn a lot in the past, in my Windows days, specifically to support my parents and a few other people that I helped out from time to time. As my father is coming over this weekend to pick up his PowerBook and learn how to use it I was really pleased when I saw that there was a free preview of LogMeIn for Mac available. I have being using it for some time now and I am impressed (and somewhat relieved as this is going to be a great way to help my father as he gets to know his PowerBook).