In the third installment of of "Up-Close", we interview Jason Snell. Jason is Editor In Chief of Macworld and Playlist Magazines and had many other hobbies and jobs all related to the Macintosh industry. We were lucky enough for him to take time out of a busy day to give us a look into his life and how he got where he is today.

Click "Full Story" for the interview transcript

Everyone clapped while Steve was showing off new features of iLife ’05 at the Macworld keynote but when the price of $79 USD was announced people started booing. It was not many but there were a few. Apple is doing it again. They have done this with the iPod and now with iLife. They add a couple of new features and make the price higher. Apple added very little things to the iPod photo or U2 Special Edition and expected people to pay 49-200 dollars more. Now, Apple is so surprised there are stockpiles of the photo and U2 version. I don’t know how much my readers love Apple computer and think as a company, they can do no wrong but I have to remind you of how iLife used to be. Mac Fanatics, skip a paragraph.

Apple’s iTunes 4.0 software with the iTunes Music Store was released on 2003 and it makes you wonder what is next for “the worlds best digital jukebox”. Apple released iTunes 4.5 late spring of 2004 and added a better iTunes store, Party Shuffle, Apple Lossless audio codec, and a few minor upgrades. iTunes 4.7 ads support for Apple’s new iPods’ U2, photo and shuffle. I find it amazing that almost two years have gone by and we are running iTunes 4.7.1. It seems we would be at five by now and why didn’t Apple release iTunes ’05 at the Macworld conference? Some can argue it is a free application due to the iTunes Music Store’s income which fuels iTunes development so Apple is welcome to update the jukebox anytime they want.

For those that have purchased or looked at Apple’s iWork and iLife ’05 software boxes, they noticed the horrid appearance of these boxes and how “un-Apple” they truly are. When I first saw the boxes during Steve Jobs’ keynote address three weeks ago, my mouth dropped and I quickly added to our transcript how bad the packaging looked. I know that is irrelevant to how the software works. If you look at Microsoft’s Office packaging, you may feel inclined to pull out the MasterCard but after using it for five minutes there is a sad and alone feeling deep in your soul and thoughts of suicide are present for weeks after using it. It may not be that bad, but for some it is.

Macworld was a fantastic time, as it was last year, but each show I attend there are more and more white earbud on the expo floor and around the city. When I left home, I knew 10 iPod owners in my city and all Mac fanatics. There were also 4 iPod owners at the gym I work out and that is all I know of for our area. San Francisco is synonymous for tech (since in the heart of Silicon Valley) and you see more Macintosh computers and iPod than anywhere else, from my experience. This year, iPod headphones were much more prevalent. Every fourth person I passed on the street had something Apple made going into their ears and when I was spending time with the owners of other Mac enthusiast websites, it seemed they had developed anger towards those wearing the headphones.

One of our Pt-time writers, Mike Livsey submitted this story as a short review of his experience at the Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco. A funny story and we could not help posting it. Some of the MPG writers stayed in the same hostel and it was a great place with plenty of room, satellite TV, wi-fi internet and the rules were very few. Of course, with Mike's luck, he is the one that gets into trouble. Here is his post...

Click "Full-Story" for the rest.

MWSF is over and, as with all good things, time flew by. We all went to Macworld to celebrate our iLives and their randomness, here's what happened:


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Apple has been getting farther away from the PC using world since the turn of the century. They have been successful with the iPod because it is affordable, small and easy to use. Every other product they have made is pushing the limit in terms of how intimidating it can be. The PowerMac G5 is a huge box of metal sitting higher than most monitors and looks ready to launch a nuclear bomb. The Powerbook, especially the 17”, is gigantic and brushed metal takes industrial design to a new level being fashionable but setting itself aside from other notebooks. The iMac, flat panel and G5 are great looking machines but are so far away from anything on the PC market, it scares the switchers away. Pcs are all one look and the same price range. Not only are you asking a user to switch software, operating system and more; you are asking them to buy a white 3x2 foot slab with everything integrated. Mac users are accustomed to Apple’s “ahead of the trend” behavior but Pcheads have needed a reason to switch.

Each year, thousands flock to the Moscone center in San Francisco to see the latest products, enhance their skills from leaders in the Macintosh and tech sectors and some users just want to hang out with fellow Mac users. All attendees share a common interest and motivation for attending and that is Steve’s keynote. For years, the keynote address at MWSF has set the tone for the year ahead and given users some brand new toys for which to play. Steve Jobs has delivered the address since 1998 and each time users love to hear him discuss the going ons at Apple Computer, crack a few jokes and generally make people excited about the technology the same way he feels.

January 11th: Sunday was awesome! We met up and had a total of seven people hanging out with us as we went all over SF all excluding the Mission and Golden Gate. We had dinner at a Thai place in Castro. We went split into groups and went to the hotel and I went to the Redwood Room to meet some friends I met last year. From there, went to a club called, "Pink" and the music was great. I would touch on things more but it is 3AM right now and I have Macworld coverage at 5:30. I have 200 photos to title, rotate, touch-up and post to our site.

The plan for day 2 of our San Francisco trip was to meet our MPG support group at the Moscone center at 8:30 AM, but since Adam and me stayed up really late the night before, doing totally different things. I was walking around the slums of Downtown San Francisco trying to find my way to the hostel ( took me like 2 hours to finally get a ride with a Police Officer, while Adam was out partying.

As I write this first entry of MPG’s MWSF trip, I am on an airplane over Oklahoma. The entry I will update and post Monday morning. I have some updates to provide in regards to our trip and would, first, like to thank you all for stopping by for MWSF updates.

In our first Macworld related entry, it is best to summarize all rumors, mild or wild, leading up to Steve's keynote address on January 11th at 9AM. If you read all of the rumor sites, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the ammount of rumors so we are bringining you the current rumors with links.


Click "Full Story" for more.

SPOOF

Apple excelled through year of Mideast turmoil, high oil prices, and a market that spent most of the year on a roller coaster. What's in store at Apple for 2005? Hopefully we will all find out in a week at MacWorld San Francisco. There has been much speculation about new hardware and software. Rumors have been flying over the internet for several weeks about flash based iPods, an iPod video, iWorks, and even a sub $500 iMac. Keeping up with the latest rumors is a tough job, but I found one that has to be heard, the $99 iMac.

November 18th: The creation of mac advocate and mastermind, Dennis Sellers; Macsimum News reports the Mac news and the more obscure in a better design and with movie and product reviews as well. Mr. Sellers may work for both of the news sites, but Macsimum is a great alternative for you to switch up and you won't miss a bit of news. In fact, the switch will give you news others don't report and will make you seem like the more involved Mac user at the next User Group Meeting. With almost no ads and an OS X look and feel, Macsimum News has the content and design to catch anyone's eye.

http://macsimumnews.com/

The digital music player competition is heating up just in time for the holiday season. Reports are all over the internet about the success of the iPod. Research company The NPD Group states that the iPod has a hold on 92.1 percent of the hard drive-based digital music player market. That same group reported that the iPod has an 82 percent share of the market in U.S. retail stores. These figures are rising. The iPod continues to eat up market share of other products.

Apple continues to have success, but can they keep it up?

October 12th: Typically we either report news or write opinion articles based on the news, but this is current news in an opinion article, if you will. Quark, today, announced QuarkQPress 6.5. It will be shipping in thirty days and will have long awaited features. On their website, they seven new features and the popular, "and much more!", which only says, "this is the best we have". I will settle for seven more features if they are things I really need and before Quark could not offer me.

Let's analyze the additions to Xpress 6.5. "Click Full Story"

Spymac Network, Inc. (http://spymac.com) has it all for today's Mac users. In a nutshell, you can engage in conversation, use their .Mac similar services, advertise your website, host your website, use their blog software, gallery and have an @spymac.com email address. Many were happy with just the community and complain when Spymac adds features week after week but for many, Spymac is a godsend for Mac users that need it all in one place at a great price.

Well, you guys looks like me and Adam got off the hook pretty easy again, there was no major damage here in St.Augustine at all, the storm lasted for about 2 days ,

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As you all know, two of MPG’s writers, Adam Jackson and Mike Livsey were up all night on Monday covering Apple Expo’s keynote. There, Phil Schiller introduced the long-awaited iMac G5. The new beauty packs a G5 processor, 17/ 20” LCD, combo or Superdrive and a brand new design that is a mix between iMac, eMac and Apple’s iPod. At MPG we love the new design and its entry price of $1299. Many complain of its lack of aluminum and minimal moving monitor but others have fallen in love with the new computer and have already bought theirs.

I think that part of a college education should include a mandatory temporary job serving at a restaurant. I have been a server off and on for nearly 4 years now, while going to school. I have learned some valuable lessons in the process. The biggest thing I have learned is how to:

TIP YOUR SERVER

Beware Apple fans, your next visit to a Six Flags park may startle you after the rides are renamed to "The Blue Screen of Death" and the newest ride "The Longhorn." Which I might add is only 65% complete. But when your roller coaster car flies off the unfinished track, it will be your own fault. Bill Gates who owns 12% of Six Flags may be considering a take over of the company...

Well its official me and Adam are both alive and the hurricane officialy sucked, i mean it was windy for about 4 hours here in St. Augustine , it totaly missed us , there is like leaves and dirt on the ground, thats about it. It didnt even bring in any water or anything. Its kind of funny cause everyone in town bought like 3 weeks worths of groceries and flashlites and like baricaded their houses for nothing. Well I just wanted to let you guys know that me and Adam both survived and im pretty sure Adam will be posting something soon.

August: 13th-15th: We are going to cover the hurricane heading north through florida for the entire weekend. It will be updated at least twice a day. Click the "Full Story" Link for our blog entries in order...

Well, this very well may be the last you will hear from me, Charlie (the hurricane) is passing directly along side of our little town of St. Augustine. By our I mean me and Adams home town. its pouring down, theres not much wind right now but the night is young. We went to Arbys to get our last meal. I mean your last meal should be something great. I got a chicken wrap, curly fries and a coke, the All-American meal. Yumm! :)
On another subject, i find it sad that people need something as extreme as a hurricane to come together, I mean it was really amazing how everyone at the gym totaly woke up and started working togeter, me and Adam were the same fun loving goofballs we always are, cause we are already down to earth people and dont need an extreme situation to bring out the inner potential of every human being. Well me and Adan went our seperate ways to tend to our families, so if we die, please remember us fondly peace out , and have a fun hurricane even if you are dying , have fun doing it, you know , go out with a bang!

Click "Full Story" for the Update

I recently found a Newton 2000 in the back of my house. As most u know this is the second last Newton before they discontinued them. It's really a piece of history our boss and my friend adam offered me a whole 20 $, for it but its really worth around 300$ . I do pretty much all my work on it but its incredibuly hard to find new attachments for it . Adam and I spent over an hour looking for the cord to allow you to go online , nowhere to be found. If any of you guys know a good Newton supplier please let me know.

July 30th: In a weekly phone call to Apple Support just to have small talk I finally got bold. Let's go back a bit. I call Apple just to tell them what I think, advice, boast my website and discuss computer specs and their ratio or repairs. Some questions they answer, some they don't. Eventually, they come right out and ask if I have a computer issue, and I just say, "well that's my time for today, talk to you guys next week." I am hoping the Apple support managers listen to my calls later and one day decide to hire me as a support guy cause I know so much.

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July 12th : After a long night of rain and thunder, I was anxious to get out and get my daily errands done before work. The whole way out to the car I was dodging puddles left and right, all with my trusty iPod by my side. Usually, I keep it in my Terforma iSleeve, DLO Transcase or my Marware Classic case; but today I decided to try the Red Radtech Podsleeve. It’s a mighty good thing I did too!

Chances are if you're a Mac user you've got an iPod, or a Keyboard--I sure hope you have a keyboard. And chances are that you own, or have seen at least one of iSkins' many wonderful products. Wonderful as they may be they do have their faults. For starters the iSkin's many iPod covers will degrade the battery if the iPod is charged inside the silicone sleeve. Heat doesn't disapate properly, and that's what zaps the battery. The ProTouch PBKeyboard Cover also has it's faults. In the 15 and 17 inch AluBook models the keyboard is used to vent a fair amount of heat through the keys. The PBCover can restrict the release of hot air and cause the Powerbook to overheat.

Only days after the Dashboard Konfabulator battle was in full swing, Apple developer, Dan Grover composed his own Parody song of the situation. We contacted him for a look about him, his thoughts on the Apple Konfabulator battle, and his inspiration in creating this great tune.

June 30th: The news stories today across the Mac Web have a similarity. MacDailyNews has two reports. One, they Point Out jobs' hint of an August 31 (Paris Expo) release date for an updated iMac (possibly G5). The same website also pointed out Apple's DashBoard Website has Apple's stock price 10 points higher than today's and Microsoft's much lower making Apple and Pixar the leaders in stock prices over M$. MDN adds " Is this just a nice inside joke or a prediction of the future?" Finally, MacMerc Noticed the address book of one, Alan Smithee. It turns out Alan Smithee has a deeper meaning. Click the links to read the full reports.

Discuss

Nerds and women. For the most part, these two groups of people often lie at far ends of the social spectrum. Most sterotypes label the typical nerd as someone who lives in thier parents basement, only ever venturing to the light for more video games and cheese puffs. This, however, has begun to change. More and more of my female-friends have shown interest in those on the geekier side of my life, for good reason.

Most people have seen what happens to people after high school. The star football player, and the most popular kid on the block end up working blue collar jobs. Conversly, the out casts and nerds land higher paying jobs in technical feilds. People like Bill Gates, once looked down upon by many of his peers, claims a spot on the 'richest man in the world' list.

As the need for network techs and computer programmers expands, the need for the proverbial nerds also expands. People see the light shine thorugh the social awkwardness and see that nerds are people too.

Our 40th President Ronald Reagan passed away on Sunday, June the 6th; yet his burial service was at sunset on the 11th. What took so long? I am not the only person saying this; at my work, we have Fox News playing all day and of course Reagan coverage was all day every day starting Monday. I can’t count how many customers came up to me talking about this “Reagan World Tour” and thought it is wrong to keep him and his family making public appearances for days after his death.

It looks like Apple made some changes to its DRM (Digital Rights Management) policies used by their iTunes Music Store this week. Of course yesterday, June 15th, they introduce localized versions of iTunes for the UK, France and Germany. Well after accessing the store to get the free song of the week, I tried to play one of my 200 purchased songs and I get an error, “You are not authorized to play this song purchased by…” I checked my authorization, de-authorized my computer and did it again but I got the same error. Now, I don’t keep my songs in the protected AAC format. I like to have flexibility so I use Fairplay or Hymm to strip the DRM from my music. I have used this software for the longest time now. I don’t give the music to other people or am a pirate I just like to have more flexibility with my music like the ability to play it in other players or mess with the songs to make remixes. I will tell you now, I have never given purchased music to others and never will.

With the release of iPod, iTunes, and the Airport Express w/ AirTunes it seems like Apple is slowly entering the market where Phillips and Sony dominate; that’s right, home electronics. Sony and Phillips make DVD players, CD players, headphones, stereos, and other devices that converge people with digital content. Apple is pulling their usual strategy and just stepping in the water but not jumping in, but you can tell they are trying to steal market share from these larger companies slowly with their Digital Hub strategy.

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