Uncategorized

Atlas Obscura:

When you travel internationally, power outlets provide a pretty good reminder that you’re not in Kansas anymore.

Outlets vary wildly depending on the part of the world, both in the shape of their sockets and the voltage with which they’re compatible. For those who travel across multiple regions, it can be frustrating. And it’s probably too late to solve this problem, because of decisions made more than a century ago.

If you don’t travel internationally, you won’t know the aggravation of the world’s power outlets. Here is an interesting video about the British outlets and why they may be the best design.

What’s your plan when your Mac’s hard drive dies? Plan ahead and get back to work in minutes with a Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup. CCC—the app that saves your bacon.

Jim’s Note: I’ve used this app for many years. I trust and love it.

Some Halloween links to spread the Halloween spirit. Have a great Halloween and be sure to save some candy for us!

Thanks to Marketcircle for sponsoring The Loop this week. Marketcircle, helping small businesses grow with amazing Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad apps. Marketcircle is a Mac-based software company in Toronto that develops award-winning apps to help you save time, stay organized, and work happier. Serving the Apple/Mac community for over 10 years, Marketcircle’s Daylite and Billings Pro can take your business to new heights.

Billings Pro is a time tracking and invoicing app that helps freelancers and small businesses create beautiful and professional invoices in as little as 60 seconds. With less time managing invoices, you have more time to focus on clients and do the work you love.

New in Billings Pro: support for El Capitan, and iOS 9, including multitasking support.

Read about how small businesses have grown with the help of Billings Pro.

I went to Cupertino to meet with the Apple TV team yesterday, and to pick up a unit to try out for myself. What struck me about the new model was Apple’s attention to detail—this is the most “Apple” Apple TV the company has ever released. […]

AmpliTube 4 is a guitar and bass tone studio for Mac/PC that works as a standalone application and as a plug-in for your favorite DAW. AmpliTube recreates the entire guitar/bass signal chain from instrument to recording device, and does so in a very realistic and intuitive way. But it also does it in ways you never dreamed possible.

AmpliTube has been around for years and is one of the best amp software packages on the market. I’m looking forward to trying this out.

Wired:

Although South By Southwest has long been one of digital culture’s foremost summits, recent events suggest it’s time to re-assess that. SXSW’s organizers have publicly foundered over some of the event’s programming on online harassment—undoubtedly one of the most important and complex topics facing digital culture today. And that they’ve messed this up so monumentally exposes a fundamental problem with the very events that purport to champion the issue.

This may seem too “inside baseball” and uninteresting but it’s actually an important issue on many fronts – it’s about the continuing and vehement online harassment of women by cowards and the companies and organizations, like SXSW, who don’t have the courage to stand up to that same harrassment themselves.

Mashable:

Inside the Apple bubble, a giant campus with more than 10,000 employees, it’s easy to lose introspection. Yet, when I ask Schiller if Apple does everything well, his answer surprises me.

“No, of course not, of course not,” he said. “And we don’t want to sound like we’re perfect. We never are, we always have to get better and always have to listen to where we’re not doing well.”

Well written and visually interestingly laid out piece by Ulanoff. I’ve met Schiller several times and I’ve always found him interesting and engaging. Then again, we both love hockey so that means I’m biased.

ZDNet:

During its quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Apple CFO Luca Maestri was keen to point out how beneficial swapping out PCs for Macs can be.

“There are currently over 30,000 Macs deployed within the company with 1,900 more being added each week. IBM tells us that each Mac is saving $270 compared to a traditional PC, thanks to the much reduced support cost and better residual value.”

Those of you who work in IT have known this for years. When I worked in a corporate environment, it was obvious there was more tech support needed for the PCs than the Macs. One company I worked for had 40 PC support techs who were busy all day, every day. They had two Mac guys for the same number of machines. They spent most of their day doing “fun IT” stuff and not troubleshooting and putting out fires. When you’re talking about thousands and thousands of Macs, that $270 per machine adds up to real cost savings for corporations.

Apple announced its fiscal fourth quarter results and the company reported quarterly revenue of $51.5 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.1 billion.

The growth was fueled by record fourth quarter sales of iPhone, the expanded availability of Apple Watch, and all-time records for Mac sales and revenue from services.

John Coates:

Aerial is a Mac screen saver based on the new Apple TV screen saver that displays the aerial movies Apple shot over New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, China, etc.

Aerial is completely open source, so feel free to contribute to its development!

These Apple TV screen savers are beautiful and they look just as good on your Mac’s desktop.

Fusion:

The Nobel Prize for chemistry was announced earlier this month: three scientists shared the almost $1 million award for their work on how cells repair DNA.

Once again it did not go to John Goodenough, the 93-year-old physicist regarded as the father of the lithium ion battery. You probably haven’t heard of him, but for years, pundits have predicted that Goodenough would win science’s highest honor. And for good reason. His work transformed society. His is possibly the most revolutionary invention yet not to win the prize. What’s it to you? Well, your life wouldn’t be the same without his work.

It’s hard to disagree with this characterization of the importance of the lithium ion battery. And that importance will only grow as we move forward with more and more kinds of electronics — in particular, electric cars.

CocoaConf Yosemite is set for next spring and I’ll be there again next year. I had a lot of fun here at the last conference.

Alphr:

Time to flex your Apple knowledge, with a quiz that delves into the company’s history and pulls out past classics (along with some lesser known products). Are you an Apple nerd extraordinaire or do you find it hard to tell your iPods from your iPhone? Take the quiz and see how you fare.

As I suspected, I’m not nearly as familiar with this stuff as many of you are. To be fair, I wasn’t around during the time of the really early Apples and Macs so I don’t recognize many of them. Still, I made it to the “Apple Nerd” category of the quiz.

Marketcircle, helping small businesses grow with amazing Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad apps. Marketcircle is a Mac-based software company in Toronto that develops award-winning apps to help you save time, stay organized, and work happier. Serving the Apple/Mac community for over 10 years, Marketcircle’s Daylite and Billings Pro can take your business to new heights.

Billings Pro is a time tracking and invoicing app that helps freelancers and small businesses create beautiful and professional invoices in as little as 60 seconds. With less time managing invoices, you have more time to focus on clients and do the work you love.

New in Billings Pro: support for El Capitan, and iOS 9, including multitasking support.

Read about how small businesses have grown with the help of Billings Pro.

CBC:

Turned, the tables have been.

After what seems like light-years of griping about the fact that Netflix users get more (and sometimes better) titles in the U.S., Canadians will soon have exclusive access to something our American friends might actually install a VPN for: Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

A representative from Netflix confirmed to CBC News on Sunday that Canada is its only territory in which streaming rights for the hotly-anticipated forthcoming Star Wars film has been secured.

“The reason Netflix will be able to offer the much-anticipated movie in Canada next year — and not in the U.S. or anywhere else — has to do with the timing of when Disney’s pay-TV distribution deals were up for grabs,” reports Variety, which broke the news Friday.

Once again, Americans will pretend to be Canadians.

Variety:

After racking up the year’s best per-screen average in its opening weekend and doing strong business in limited expansion, “Steve Jobs” hit a stumbling block in its national release. It debuted to a measly $7.3 million, only a little more than the $6.7 million that “Jobs,” a critically derided film about the iPhone father with Ashton Kutcher, made in its initial weekend. Going into the weekend, some tracking suggested that the picture would do as much as $19 million.

So what went wrong?

This dissection by Variety is really interesting. I never expected it to do Star Wars box office but I am a little surprised it has done so little. Apparently, there’s lots of blame to go around.

Nerdist:

Hold on to your butts and roll for initiative, because this might be the greatest game we’ve ever played. Together with our sister site, Geek & Sundry, we invited the one and only Vin Diesel to come play Dungeons & Dragons with us… and not only did he accept, he may have become our new best friend.

D&D isn’t cool. It’s fun, and I played a lot in high school and college, but it’s not cool. But, if one of your players is Vin Diesel, a giant buff nerd in his own right, D&D gets very cool and even more fun. BTW, the DM in that video is really good. There’s even a 30 minute version of this on Youtube.

There are some obscure costumes here, but I really like the premise.

I’m not a Star Wars nerd by any stretch but this trailer is some kind of epic.

Alf Watt:

I worked on the Mac OS Wi-Fi client user experience at Apple from 2007–2012, implementing a number of features to help users identify when a Wi-Fi connection was not working as expected, as well as the utilities built into the OS to help debug problems when they occurred. When I left Apple, just after my five year anniversary, I owned the Wi-Fi Utility and Network Utility apps, along with some assorted supporting components deep inside the OS.

During my last few years I spent a lot of time working closely with AppleCare on customer Wi-Fi and networking issues: poring over user trouble reports, sitting down at call centers and listening in on calls, and generally doing everything I could to improve the user experience of Wi-Fi for Apple users. I failed.

Ignoring the bad copyediting and his possible behind the scenes motives for writing this, Watt’s piece is a pretty damning indictment of at least one seemingly dysfunctional area inside Apple. I will say that, as soon as I heard about WiFi Assist, I thought it was a bad idea from a customer point of view. I didn’t realize that it might have been a bad idea inside Apple, too.

BobRoss.com:

Bob Ross introduces us to his “Almighty” assortment of tools and colors, tells us that anyone can paint, and creates a landscape of a forest path just after a rain shower.

This guy was utterly hypnotic. When I was a kid, I could never pass up watching an episode even though I couldn’t paint and had zero interest in painting. Watching and listening to Ross was just incredibly soothing.

Alphr:

Last week, Tesla rolled out new autonomous functions to the Model S, and drivers are already reporting some serious issues. There are already several cases of Tesla’s Autopilot software losing the plot, with cars veering off the road and breaking the speed limit.

But Tesla’s Autopilot isn’t totally at fault. Before launch, Tesla claimed that the Model S’ new Autosteer functions were designed solely for motorways – but that hasn’t stopped some drivers using it elsewhere.

I predict that, within a year, we’ll hear about an accident involving this feature where it will turn out that the driver was completely ignoring what the car was doing. Of course, he’ll blame Tesla and sue.

Thanks to Igloo Software for sponsoring The Loop this week.

What if you could get 5% of your day back? What would you do?

You already have enough work to do today and shouldn’t have to waste time looking for the things you need to do your job!

Igloo can’t solve the conflict in Syria but it can help with conflict with coworkers. Igloo’s not just for your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It lets you work better together with your team. Stop digging through your inbox for that file from 3 months back and give yourself the tools you need to do your best work.

Send your IT guy to try Igloo Software and see for yourself why Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like.

TechInsider:

After a number of short teasers, Netflix has finally revealed the first full trailer for its next Marvel series, “Jessica Jones,” and it’s going to be really dark.

The series follows titular character Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), a former superhero who is grappling with PTSD after being controlled by a mysterious man Zebediah Killgrave (David Tennant).

Not being versed in the various iterations of Marvel’s super heroes, I’m not familiar with this character so I watched the trailer with no notion of who Jessica Jones is. That being said, this show looks interesting with lots of dark elements. I’m looking forward to watching it in November.

The Wall Street Journal:

In the age of wireless speakers and Bluetooth streaming, vacuum-tube amplifiers may seem antiquated, but you don’t have to be an audio nerd to appreciate their appeal. Designed to power traditional speakers and/or headphones, these devices are throwbacks, to be sure. Still, when their steampunk-esque glass tubes glow a soothing orange, it’s evident something magical is happening here—and your favorite tunes will never sound the same.

The science behind how these radiant glass tubes produce better sound is difficult to grasp. Suffice to say, just as nothing quite matches the ambience created by an incandescent bulb dimmed low, nothing quite sounds like a good tube amp. Audiophiles will argue about whether a solid-state or tube amp is superior. However, it’s best to think of tubes as an aesthetic choice—akin to applying a vintage filter to a pristine snapshot.

I have no idea if these actually sound better than their more expensive digital counterparts but they do look a lot cooler.

Jim and Dan talk about the latest Apple news.

Brought to you by lynda (Visit lynda.com/thebeard to get free 10-day trial access to their 3,000+ courses) and Braintree (To learn more, and for your first $50,000 in transactions fee-free, go to braintreepayments.com/amplified).

Chapman University:

The Chapman University Survey of American Fears, Wave 2 (2015) provides an unprecedented look into the fears of average Americans. In April of 2015, a random sample of 1,541 adults from across the United States were asked their level of fear about eighty-eight different fears across a huge variety of topics ranging from crime, the government, disasters, personal anxieties, technology and many others.

A little light reading going into your weekend. The list is interesting. How does it correspond to your personal fears and worries? I think it’s hilarious that “Zombies” and “Clowns” rank at all, let alone enough to make the list. And having “Obamacare” at 35.7% followed closely by “Illness” at 34.4% is kind of ironic.

CNN Money:

Todd Stabelfeldt is sending his wife a romantic text. He taps his chin on a button mounted on his wheelchair, then grins, pleased with his wooing.

A quadriplegic since he was 8, Stabelfeldt can’t move anything below his neck. Now a 36-year-old engineer and business owner, he’s turned his wheelchair into a powerful mobile communication hub using switches, a Bluetooth headset and an iPhone 6.

He averages a phone call every six minutes and sends more than 100 texts a day.

Wow. This guy gets more done in a day than I do in a week.

Apple World Today:

Apple today released seven (!) new Apple Watch ads highlighting some of the features and capabilities of the wearable. Each of the ads is just 16 seconds long and is perfect for catching the attention of TV viewers and giving them a message… before they get bored.

I’m still not completely sold on this new ad campaign. Not sure what it is but they just don’t grab my attention the way other previous efforts have.