Apple – iPhone 4 Press Conference Fri

Engadget and others are reporting Apple will be holding a press conference on their corporate campus this Friday, July 16, at 10 AM pacific time to discuss iPhone 4.  No other details were given.

This should be interesting.

Consumer Reports on iPhone 4

It’s official. Consumer Reports’ engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

More here: http://cl.ly/1dZW

Thoughts on iPhone 4

I’d like to preface my post with a small description of what I do for a living, alongside being a full-time student at Robert Morris University (RMU) in Pittsburgh, PA.  Freshman year through senior year of high school at Fox Chapel Area High School, I worked as a student employee alongside the network and systems administrator and help desk staff to provide end-user support and training to teachers, administrators, faculty, and staff.  I continue to work there today providing the same services as before, but I also am now more involved in assisting the network and systems administrator with more complex projects.  Fox Chapel has over 40 Xserves and 5,000 Macs in the district.  I also work at Robert Morris University as an IT Student Associate Systems Administrator supporting Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server.  I manage most of the Macs on campus, most of the Xserves, and OS X deployments and the associated network services that go along with the authentication and collaboration of the Mac users.  In a nutshell: I know Macs and Mac OS X pretty darned well, Mac OS X Server decently well, and I absolutely love Apple and its products.  Why did I mention all of that?  I’m not usually one to complain about Apple.  I’m not just the normal flamer who’s overreacting about the issues with the iPhone 4.  And, when issues arise, I’ve always trusted and will continue to trust Apple to make those issues right for its customers.  That all having been said, here’s my thoughts on iPhone 4. (more…)

WWDC 2010 Keynote Predictions

Tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific Time, 1 PM Eastern Time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will take the stage at the Moscone West conference center in San Francisco CA to kick off Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 (WWDC 2010).  The keynote isn’t a general media event just to launch new products.  The entire conference is for developers to interact with one another and Apple engineers to learn more about developing for the Mac and iPhone OS platforms.  There’s workshops, lectures, and a whole host of other things going on at the week long conference.  However, one of my best friends, Kyle Van Essen, is attending and is representing his company Vibealicious along with his coworker and friend, Joel Levin.

Even though the keynote isn’t mainly focused on releasing new products, Apple generally uses WWDC to announce a few things.  Here’s what I think we’ll see tomorrow: (more…)

Guide: Using Mac OS X Server as a PDC

Mac OS X Server can act as an NT-Style Primary Domain Controller through the use of Samba (SMB).  The Mac OS X Server can provide file and print services as well as host user profiles and home folders and provide authentication services for the domain.  Even complex user and group policies can be implemented through the use of a logon script.  Again, all of this is accomplished through OS X Server’s implementation of the open-source Samba package which is a free software re-implementation of the SMB networking protocol.  Please note this guide focuses on Mac OS X Server 10.6 and Windows XP Pro SP3 clients.  Vista clients (Edit: Windows 7 clients are not supported. See this article.) should work equally as well with a few tweaks (outlined later). (more…)

Apple Announces The iPad

Today, Apple’s CEO and Co-Founder, Steve Jobs, took the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA to announce the product that everyone has been waiting for – the Apple Tablet.  Er, the iPad (Yes, that is the official name).  This device was perhaps the most anxiously awaited-for device in all of modern consumer electronics.  The Wall Street Journal said this past week, “The last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it.”  After the event, however, equally as many people left awe-struck as highly disappointed.  What is it and what does it do?  Is there anything super special about it?  Are there any shortcomings?  What are the tech specs?  Read on to find out. (more…)

Apple Event Predictions

David Weiss from http://unweary.com/ has posted a “Prediction Score Card” for tomorrow’s Apple event.  Attached in PDF format you’ll find my thoughts.  Feel free to post what you think in the comments.  I’ll have a full post up tomorrow evening covering the event in full detail.

Download Mike’s Predictions

Some Apple News

Hey guys, I apologize for the lax updates.  I’ve been incredibly busy starting my new semester and beginning the preparation for the Apple Certified Technical Coordinator exams.  Regardless, speaking of Apple, here’s some Apple news from this week:

- Apple has invited select members of the media to the now confirmed media event on January 27th at 10:00 AM PST.  The title of the event is “Come see our latest creation.”  Will it be the much-rumored tablet, iLife/iWork 2010, iPhone OS 4.0 with true multi-tasking?  We’ll have to wait and see.  I will be writing a long wrap-up at the end of the day on the 27th.

- Apple released BootCamp 3.1 today for Intel Macs and finally includes support for Windows 7.  Apple promised that by the end of the year 2009, but they missed the mark.  It was finally released today.

- A rumor was published today claiming a new version of iTunes, combined with Apple’s recent LaLa acquisition, could allow iTunes users to move their entire library to the cloud so they can play their music on any device on the web.  Neat!