For years after the release of Retrospect 6, we Mac users were waiting for the new version. Originally anticipated to be Retrospect 7 and/or Retrospect X, we read about the trials and tribulations of the EMC acquisition and reorganizations, hoping and praying that the Mac version of the Retrospect wouldn't be canned altogether. The Windows world got that much more ahead on the backup game, with offsite capabilities, backup pruning, government-level encryption, and transport compression becoming common features in all backup software.

Then, a funny thing happened: Mac users just gave up on hoping for a new version. We used alternatives like Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, and BRU to try to fill in where Retrospect fell flat – frequently Frankensteining backup systems to get 100% reliability. We learned to live with Retrospect's OS 9 legacy interface quirks and just bit the bullet and checked backups frequently and meticulously to get them working right.

So when Retrospect 8 finally was released earlier this year, I took my time getting to it. Not because I didn't need it, but simply because I was too busy checking all of my client's Retrospect 6 logs and reports via ARD to get around to it. EMC had simply beat my enthusiasm for what used to be a great product out of me.

That enthusiasm is back.

In a previous blog post from last year - Why you should care about the iPhone SDK, I talk about Xcode - Apple's secret weapon. You can read the previous article, typed up when iPhone 2.0 was released in 2008, to find out why I think the iPhone SDK is defining the future of Apple and the Mac platform.

Today's post is about tracking how that secret weapon is starting to energize. This is what I wrote in 2008, just about a year ago:

Uh, so Apple sells around 9 million Macs a year and now, around the same iPhones. Think of every Mac as not a Mac, but as a piece of equipment that runs programs running in Xcode.

Apple will sell close to 10 million iPhones in 18 months. Add to that all the iPod touches that they sell - millions.

Suddenly, in a matter of a year, the rate of growth of Xcode-enabled devices has doubled. Doubled - think about that. The conclusion is obvious: Apple's foray into the mobile space will result in double the number of programmers familiar with the fundamental coding environment for the Mac.

This weekend, Apple sold over 1 million iPhone 3GS units. In April, Apple released total numbers of iPhone and iPod touch users on a quarterly financial call: 37 million units, and that was before the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.0 was released. And then there's those pesky rumours about an Apple Netbook...

eWeek's been covering all of the latest iPhone and Palm Pre news over the last couple weeks - there's been a lot to cover, including the release of the Palm Pre, Palm's newest smart phone, aimed squarely at the Apple iPhone's target market; and the release of Apple's own iPhone 3GS, which sold over a million handsets on opening weekend.

Nathan Eddy of eWeek has quoted me on a couple of his articles.

For months, I've been griping about the iPhone's complete lack of features for syncing the iPhone wirelessly (either via Wifi or 3G) with Apple's own iCal server, part of 10.5 "Leopard" Server.

While I've covered many of the possible hacks to make this work in my blog post from January of this year - none of them were, ahem, optimal (i.e. reliable).

With the release of iPhone 3.0, Apple slid in a very essential bit of functionality for iCal server users: CalDAV support. CalDAV is important, because it's the open standard upon which iCal server's calendar data travels - so if the iPhone "speaks" CalDAV, then it can speak to iCal Server. (As a side note, a lot of people have noticed that the iPhone will also speak with Google Calendar this way as well)

And speak it does.

I was queried yesterday by Nathan Eddy of eWeek about Apple's recent security patches. It's interesting that he was inquiring about these particular security patches, as they seemed quite run of the mill. The specific security fixes that he was inquiring about referred to Apple's Quicktime and iTunes programs.

Here's what I said in the article:

Michael Oh, founder of the Apple-specific, Boston-based company Tech Superpowers, said based on the support page for the QuickTime update, all of the vulnerabilities related to the idea that it is theoretically possible for a user to click on a URL, encoded in a certain way, and it may crash QuickTime or be used to execute a code.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a large threat for the average user, but it’s a common attack vector used by a lot of hackers sending out spam, so it’s a pretty common type of thing you see out there,” he said. He pointed out there are theoretical hacks that can happen on any number of platforms, and singled out Apple’s diligence in security issues.

“Apple has a pretty serious stance on security and addressing these issues,” he said. “They are very good at pushing these updates down to users—Apple simply sees those vulnerabilities, addresses them behind the scenes and then releases the updates."

Oh said the stuff that really gets mainstream media attention, such as viruses or Trojans, tends to be things that have a mechanism to propagate wildly—as the term "virus" suggests. “It’s important to mention that none of the vulnerabilities have any sort of mechanism to propagate like that,” he said. “That’s a really critical thing you should look at with a security patch."

When looking at security vulnerabilities - particularly ones that have been fixes, there are two critical things to look at: (1) how bad is the problem and what could a hacker have possibly done and (2) how quickly would the security issue be spread?

Oh wait, I meant Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boston-MA/Tech-Superpowers-Digital-Lounge/...

Befriend us today and we'll befriend you back. It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Take a look at the photos from Cut&Paste Boston, including some of the great submissions to our 25x25 pixel Lite Brite design competition. Click on the image below for the image gallery.

I was recently quoted about rumours that Apple was making a move to Netbooks. In conclusion: I think it's a lot of talk about something that's not going to happen... yet.

First: a disclaimer. I own an Apple Specialist, but none of the information contained in this article was gathered from any Apple sources, either officially or unofficially. It's all conjecture.

With that out of the way, my opinion is as follows. Apple is an incredible company with a history of design innovation. They have perfected a core OS (OS X) that runs on machines with 30" screens and 3" screens, with a multitude of interfaces - keyboards, tablets, mice, and touch. It's obvious to me that a device with a smaller screen than the 13" MacBook but larger than the iPod touch would be one of the many in development at One Infinite Loop. In fact, I would guess that there are literally dozens of prototypes with varying screen sizes of 6" to 10" lying around in some super-secret lab in Cupertino.

All of today's social media – blogging, podcasting, twitter, etc. - are a combination of technology and content. Without both, you can't succeed in telling a story or getting the word out. For a lot of companies, that means getting IT and marketing in the same room talking to each other.

TSP is in a unique position, where we are both technologists and marketing folks – in that we have a business that sells products and services for technology. So when it comes to solving these problems, we frequently try to do everything ourselves (for better of for worse) – it's in our blood.

While this can sometimes come at the detriment of our free time, it does mean that we do get to learn a lot about both sides of the proverbial coin, more so than if we simply outsourced the technology or marketing-speak to someone else.

That process is beginning again, as we tackle podcasting: the posting of audio and video content in a blog-like form. Today, I'd like to give you a little bit of insight into how we're looking at the technical side of becoming podcasters – especially audio.

Using some creative brainpower today, the TSP crew came up with a solution to a persistent problem in Counterpoint's Eyebeam Voice-Over-IP software: dialing when using the universal international dialing string "+".

For those that don't know what Eyebeam does, it turns your computer into a phone (in conjunction with a Voice-Over-IP server and headset). It's tremendously useful for people on the go who want to be able to access their office phone system from anywhere on the Internet to make and receive calls.It's sorta like running your own Skype service out of your office.

Anyway, we recently ran into an issue where a client had a Fonality PBXtra phone system that we sold them and wanted to integrate dialing straight from Address Book. One of our techies, Henry, put together a QuicKeys script to do the dialing, but the problem was that Eyebeam didn't know what to do with the "+" in front of international numbers. To make matters worse, many of the US numbers in the address book were also preceded by "+".

Our solution is to make a quick modification to the Dialing Plan to trim the "+" for all non-US international calls. Here's how: