Month: January 2008

Apple Universe Appearing on Typical Mac User Podcast

One of my dreams for quite a while has been to join Victor Cajiao as a co-host on the Typical Mac User Podcast. Victor runs an extremely well-organized show using the live podcasting service Talkshoe.com, and also allows the audience to talk on the show, adding a radio-show level of interactivity.

Fortunately, I woke up (editor’s note: pun intended), and my wish came true this Sunday, as Victor and I talked about my background in podcasting, my love for Apple products, and various other Apple-related topics.

I joined Victor for his live podcast on Sunday evening, as Victor chatted with me and the live listeners of the show for about 50 minutes. You can listen to the recorded episode on the Typical Mac User web site, and listen in and participate on Talkshoe.com on Sunday nights.

Apearing on Typical Mac User Podcast

This Sunday, from 5:00 PM 6:00 PM Pacific time, I will be co-hosting the Typical Mac User Podcast with Victor Cajiao, and Victor and I will be talking about teens using Macs, Social Networking, and more. Please tune in – It has been my dream to be on the show, and now it is coming true.

The podcast will be available for LIVE listening on Talkshoe this Sunday evening, and you can join in. All you have to do is go to Typical Mac User Podcast page on Talkshoe. Talkshoe’s new web client lets you participate on the chat without even having to get an account (although registering allows for even more interactivity).

If you perfer dialing in to Talkshoe, call (724) 444-7444 and enter the TMUP’s Talkcast ID, 3097. You will be asked top put in your talkcast ID (the phone number you entered in your Talkshoe profile), which will place your username in the list of dialed in members, or you can listen anonymously.

I’d like to thank Victor for inviting me on the show, and hope to see you on Talkshoe!

~Daniel Brusilovsky

Flock

Today I will be heading over to Flock for an interview. This will be Apple Universe #101. Flock is a really cool web broswer that implaments social networking into the browser. I will release this interview on both the new site, and the old MyPodCast one.

I think its going to be a really cool interview, and I am going to try to stream the way on Qik! Check out the live stream, and chat with me!

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Macworld 2007 vs. Macworld 2008

Macworld expos come and go, but the products released at these events stay. In this entry, I really want to stress the importance of these events.

While we were recording Apple Universe episode #100, Shooby pointed out that Macworld 2007 was revolutionary, which made me think. Apple really pushed it to the limit in 2007 when they announced something that will change technology, eventually winning Product of the Year in 2007. That product, of course, is the iPhone, but what people don’t realize is that 2007 was an unforgettable year.

Okay, the MacBook Air is cool (blog post coming soon), and it sure changes people, but the iPhone was revolutionary in its field. Steve Jobs, at the beginning of his 2008 keynote, pointed out that Apple sold five million iPhones, having hoped to ship just one million units by the time of the keynote.

Like many other people, I think that there is no comparison between Macworld 2008 and Macworld 2007. The iPhone got so much attention which even Apple can’t beat anymore. Still, there’s a lot that I’d Apple to release in the next 51 weeks, as Steve Jobs joked about in his keynote.

Keep reading for more news about Apple’s announcements from the Macworld 2008 Keynote.

~Daniel Brusilovsky

MacHeist II Bundle

This year’s MacHeist bundle features twelve popular application titles for the Mac for just $49 USD. In particular, the 2008 package is of excellent value, since Pixelmator alone costs $10 more. The following is the list of applications available in this amazing MacHeist bundle:

25 percent of sale proceeds will be donated to various user-chosen charities. In addition, use the referral links in this post, and Apple Universe will receive a portion of the purchase price as well.

If you’re looking for great Mac applications in an affordable package, you had better act quickly! The Macheist package deal ends in four days from the publishing of this post!

Editing Episodes 97-100

If you check the Apple Universe Web site, you can see that the released episodes top off at show number 96. I am working on editing Apple Universe episodes 97 through 100 this weekend, and should have them released by next week.

Please understand that editing episode number 100, recorded live from the Zeum, might take a while, since the live event was more than one hour and 30 minutes long. It was the longest running episode of Apple Universe so far, and we hope to host similar events again in the future.

~Daniel Brusilovsky

Winner of iShowU Contest!

As many of you know, Apple Universe has been holding a contest for a free copy of shinywhitebox’s iShowU. To enter the contest, you send in an email with a video or link to a video saying why you want or need a copy of iShowU, the greatest screen capture software for Mac OS.

With the contest having reached its end, I am very pleased to announce that Jonathan Davies, of England, is the winner of the contest!

The reason Jonathan won is because in the U.K, it is much more difficult to get software at US prices. Jonathan is a great blogger, and I hope iShowU helps him with his video needs!

Apple Universe would like to thank everyone who sent in their videos for the contest, but I’d also like to mention that there still is one more chance to win a FREE copy iShowU! Details are to be announced soon.

Happy Macworld!

Macworld 2008: Day 1

Macworld 2008 has started, and it couldn’t start better off for me! This following blog post will be no ordinary blog post, I will by time, tell the readers my journey to Macworld 2008: Day 1.

5:00 AM- Wake up. At around 5:15 I eat breakfast, and get all my stuff ready for the days journey to Macworld 2008.
5:30 AM- Leave house to BART Station.
6:00 AM- Arrive at BART Station and board train to San Francisco!
6:50 AM- I arrive in San Francisco, and walk to Moscone Center West.
7:10 AM- Get my Super Pass, and go inside of Moscone West.
7:20-8:45 AM- Wait in line until they let us in the keynote room. At this time, I meet new friends, and talk about the Apple Universe podcast recording that night, and stream some live video on Qik.
9:00-10:30 AM- Steve Jobs Keynote! I get my seat, and take LOTS of pictures, and videos. A blog post coming up about the announcements from the keynote.
10:45 AM- THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY!!

At this time I want to talk about what happened after the keynote was over. I had no where to go, since I was waiting for a friend, and I decide to walk to the stage. What I didn’t know, was that the press were taking a lot of pictures. I didn’t know what they were taking pictures, and knowing that I was small enough, I went through some people to find Steve Jobs in front of me! YES! STEVE JOBS WAS IN FRONT ON ME!! Steve needed to go, so he turned around and turned in my direction. I talk to Steve and SHAKE HIS HAND! I SHOKE STVEVE JOBS HAND!!!!

Steve is a really idol to me, it was a great experience to shake Steve Jobs hand. After that, I meet with some Apple Executives like Jonathan Ive, and some iPhone person, that I don’t remember his name 🙂

Going back to the actual story:

11:00 AM- Meet with iPhoneAlley Founder, and Editor-in-Chief, Michael Johnston. We talk about the keynote, and talk, like us all 🙂
12:00-1:00 PM- I go out to lunch with a really good friend of mine, Eric Willis. Eric is now in San Francisco, and I have him a pass to Macworld 2008. We went out to lunch, and had a good time talking nothing other then Apple!
1:00-1:30 PM- Go to Eric’s office, and relax for a little bit before going back to Macworld 2008.
1:50 PM- Meet with Robert and Patrick Scoble in Moscone Center.
2:00- 4:00 PM- Walk around the expo floor with the Scoble’s and Mike Cohen of MacMegasite.
4:15- 5:45 PM- Set-up for my Apple Universe Episode #100 event at Zeum!
6:00- 8:00 PM- Apple Universe #100 with Robert Scoble, Dave Sifry, Shooby, iJustine and Cali Lewis! There will be a blog post about this event coming up.
8:30 PM- Leave the Zeum, and go home after a very long day.

This was basically my day at Macworld 2008. I am still in disbelief that I shook Steve Jobs hand! Apple Universe #100 was great, and I hope my parents let me go back to Macworld later this week, and if not, I had a great time at Macworld 2008!

Apple Universe #100 should be out soon.

Dream Set-Up

The following question has been presented to me numerous times: If I were to have one million dollars, how would I spend it, and where? Obviously, it must be spent on gear from a company I love; namely, Apple. You may think it’s difficult to spend a million dollars on Apple stuff, but you can get pretty far with Apple products (since Apple doesn’t license OS X to anybody, they can jack up the prices, and make tons of $$$). For purposes of this article, I’ll be outlining four systems, the first of which is the Mac Pro with Apple’s basic configuration:

  • Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
  • 32GB (8 x 4GB) 800MHz DDR2 fully buffered ECC memory
  • Apple Mac Pro RAID Card
  • Four (4) x 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA II (3Gb/s) hard disk drives
  • NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 graphics card, 1.5 GB video RAM (Stereo 3D, two dual-link DVI ports)
  • Two (2) x Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display
  • Two (2) x Apple 16x SuperDrive
  • Apple AirPort Extreme card (Wi-Fi)
  • Quad Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card
  • Apple wireless Mighty Mouse and Wireless Keyboard
  • Apple Mac OS X
  • iWork ’08, Final Cut Express, Aperture 1.5, Logic Express preinstalled
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro

This computer would be used for anything and everything that I do, from podcasting, to blogging, to video editing, to schoolwork. Obviously, it can handle all of those tasks, most even simultaneously, thanks to its massive processing power and memory.

To add even more spending to my imaginary budget, I will want a laptop, for podcasting and editing on the go. Again, for purposes of this article, I would have both the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models, with mostly identical specs:

  • 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
  • 4GB (2 x 2GB) 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM –
  • 200GB 7200 rpm Serial ATA Drive
  • Apple 8x SuperDrive
  • 15-inch (or 17-inch) glossy widescreen display
  • an additional Apple 20-inch Cinema Display
  • iWork ’08 preinstalled
  • Accessory Kit
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro

Most of you know that I love to stream live video with a great UStream.tv service. To more easily run my video camera, I added a smaller machine, a Mac Mini, dedicated to streaming. This computer includes:

  • 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
  • 2GB (2 x 1GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
  • 120GB Serial ATA drive
  • Apple 8x SuperDrive
  • Apple Wireless Keyboard & wireless Mighty Mouse
  • Apple 23-inch Cinema HD Display
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac mini
  • Accessory kit

(Editor’s note: In reality, if one were to buy a Mac mini just for streaming, it would be more practical to stash the computer in a corner or closet and use VNC to control it from a main computer.)

Another idea to go with the extra computer is to have a separate internet connection for the Mac mini, in order to alleviate my existing connection of the high-bandwidth load from video streams.

A 24-inch iMac, used as a family computer, will finish off the computers. This machine is also maxed out:

  • 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor
  • 4GB (2 x 2GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
  • 750GB Serial ATA Drive
  • Apple 8x SuperDrive
  • 24-inch glossy widescreen LCD
  • ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
  • AirPort Extreme
  • Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
  • iWork ’08 preinstalled
  • Apple wireless Mighty Mouse and wireless keyboard
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac
  • Accessory kit

As you can tell, such a large number of computers, mostly maxed out models, costs a ton of money. But wait, the [proposed] spending doesn’t stop there. Since I’m a podcaster, I’ll need a heavy-duty mixer, like Mackie’s beautiful and versatile Onyx 1620. Some basic features:

  • 16 channels
  • Eight ONYX microphone preamps, with individually switched phantom power available for each mic channel
  • 4-band Perkins EQ on each channel strip
  • Four Aux sends per channel (with pre- / post- fader switches)
  • Four stereo line-level inputs
  • Talkback section (able to use an internal or external mic)
  • Multi-country “Planet-Earth” power supply
  • 24-bit / 96Khz FireWire computer interface option (sends all 16 channels into the computer, plus the main stereo mix and an output stream)

(Editor’s note: The Mackie Onyx 1620 has been popularized by Leo Laporte as a podcaster’s ideal mixer, thanks to the FireWire option card).

A couple of accessories go with the mixer, like a Heil PR-40 microphone, and a pair of AKG K 240 Studio headphones.

It’s quite apparent that very few people have the kind of money for such a massive collection of Apple computers, which is why this post is only addressing a theoretical question. Perhaps I’ll make it far enough in my future career (I’m only a student now!) to actually be able to afford all of this stuff, even though by then I still probably won’t need most of it. Here’s to the future of the Apple Universe studio!