Macgasm

What is Apple doing with their $30 billion in the bank?

Apple has close to $30 billion in the bank.  This amount, to anybody but large governmental agencies, or large corporations where billions are next to nothing, is believed this to be a huge amount of money.  Just think, $30 billion is 100,334,448 16GB iPhone 3Gs, minus tax.

Now, I have no evidence of this, but I think Apple is Using some of their vast budget to help subsidize Colleges and Universities defer the cost of some of the courses, like Stanford’s Spring Class CS 193P, which is entirely available for free on iTunes U.

Now, I don’t mean to think that Apple isn’t already subsidizing the courses, through bandwidth and hosting, that is already given, but just through other means.

For instance, it could be as simple as supplying the iPod Touches for actual testing of the Student applications, or supplying the Macs, for free for the student labs, to the possibility of actually paying the salaries, or giving a donation that’s equivalent thereto.

It just seems odd that they are not, in some non-obvious way, subsidizing these classes.  I may be full of crap, and just have my conspiracy hat on too tight today, but who knows, there may be something to the whole situation.

If you have any evidence, and wish to remain anonymous, feel free to contact me, via the Contact link on top, or via email at <a href=’mailto:wayne.dixon@gmail.com’>wayne.dixon.gmail.com</a>A

For this Spring term, Stanford University will be releasing the videos for their CS 193P course, for free on iTunes U for all to download.

Stanford’s CS 193P course is titled: iPhone Application Programming.  Yes, this means that those who want to try and learn iPhone Programming and who need a pseudo class-based structure for learning, this is a good opportunity to watch and learn the in-and-outs of iPhone programming.

Of course, for those who want to learn iPhone programming, you will need an Intel-based Mac in order to run the iPhone SDK.

There aren’t any podcasts on the Stanford iTunes U website, or within iTunes, but there should be within the next few days.

If you want to read all about it you can head over here, and read the announcement or just browse what’s available.

I know I’ll be one who downloads the podcasts, and maybe I’ll be able to learn to better program my iPhone.

On of the things that has really bugged me over the last couple of years is the lack of Apple support on campuses across North America. Students are constantly being told that online quizzes or exams aren’t formatted for Apple based systems, and that failure to complete an exam because a lack of compatibility would still result in a failed grade.

Nazi IT policies just took a hit today

A friend of mine attending law school at the University of Michigan was actually given a “specification” listing so he could find the most compatible laptop that would fit “seamlessly” into their infrastructure. I immediately threw up in my mouth a little bit. Somehow, in today’s world, IT departments fail to create a network that can’t handle the diversity found on campus. It always perplexed me that an institution, such as a University, that often boasts of their “understanding” and diversity culturally, can’t put together an “online” quiz that adheres to standards and uses technologies that would allow students to choose their platform of choice.

Students will be getting hands on with OS X

Anyway, given the recent success of the Get A Mac campaigns and the increased use of Apple machines on campus, most institutions are being forced to adopt new policies. News has rolled in today that a Canadian University, Nipissing, is going to be the first Canadian institution to offer Bachelor of Education students Macbooks with both Windows and OS X. It’s long been understood that the first step in changing the past is altering educational curriculum to coincide with the new goals of a nation or institution, so getting OS X in the hands of educators at Nipissing will only help Apple in the future, as teachers show students OS X over their careers. While that’s an exciting proposition for any Mac fan, it’s certainly an huge sigh of relief for students who are Mac users. The tide is turning, and pretty soon, we won’t have to have “active x” to write our exams, or Internet Explorer to get our course notes.

Can I get three cheers for Nipissing?

[Download] [01.3 MB] [0:02:40]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Josh makes a quick correction regarding signatures in Mail.app.

• If you are not familar with Inquisitor, then you need to meet it. Inquisitor is an extension for Safari that allows for a “Spotlight” search of the internet. Well recently,  it has began to grow up some. With a recent release of an iPhone app! That’s right, you can now download the inquisitor iPhone app for free and it works just like the browser extenion. What is even more impressive is they are finally moving forward and have beta’s out for Internet Explorer and Firefox! My only guess with this sudden move to other browsers though is the fact that it looks as though Yahoo has acquired the extension. So with Yahoo’s future on the fence it is unclear on what will happen to this wonderful tool if Yahoo goes under. But for now you can pick it up free for your browser at http://inquisitorx.com or for your iPhone for free on the app store.

[Download] [01.6 MB] [0:03:20]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Grant talks about using Skitch, Jing, and Preview for capturing and annotation.

MacTracker provides detailed specifications for every model of computer and device that Apple has released. And I think it’s great.

Over the last year or so, I’ve started my very own classic Mac Collection. I’ve amassed a Classic(with carrying case), 2 Mac SE’s, a Powerbook 520(the very first laptop with a trackpad!) and the jewel of my collection a Newton H1000. Along with a G3 tower(with the flip down side), a G4 tower(flip down side) and an iMac G4(half-basketball, crane-neck).

For any one of these wonderful beasts I can find all the original specs, maximum OS, and original price. I can even play their start-up AND death sounds.

If you’re a Mac enthusiast, looking to upgrade, want a walk through the past or to find out about some of Apple’s more obscure products; check out MacTracker.

I just found out Apple made a digital camera.  In 1992.

MacTracker is freeware but a donation is appreciated.  Thanks to Ian Page for this great program and all his contributers.

UPDATE: We got news that the release date is going to be Sept. 2009 (Click here for the Article)

Our own Wayne Dixon had gathered a pretty educated guess about the release date for Snow Leopard, but the release date he mentioned came and went, and we were left wondering when we’d seen anything officially announced from Apple regarding Snow Leopard’s release.  It’s starting to look like the final build of the beta is scheduled to end the first week of August, and that an official release will be looming shortly thereafter.  Looks like we can expect the big cat to pounce within the year –thank goodness.

“People familiar with the matter have previously estimate that it will take Apple upwards of two-months from the time it shows off a feature complete Snow Leopard at WWDC to deliver the software to market, suggesting a release date around August” [Apple Insider].

I don’t know about you guys, but, I’m looking forward to see what the final beta stages bring us…  hopefully iTunes will stop disappearing when I hit CMD+Tab.