Apple On an iCloud

A look how Apple store your data online
here was a time when, if you said you were under a cloud, all your acquaintances suddenly discovered they had pressing business elsewhere and, come December, you were dead short of Christmas cards.

But with computers, when we talk of clouds we mean somewhere in cyberspace where you can store information or reach for it over the global communications network.

Apple has built a cloud of its own, called MobileMe, an online service that uses mobile phone networks and wi-fi, either hot spots or domestic networks as well as landline broadband, to push emails, calendar events and other information between iPhones, iPod touches, Macs and PCs.

MobileMe is a subscription service that replaces and revolutionises the .Mac (pronounced dot-Mac) system I have used all over the world for years. It costs $A119 a year ($179 for a five-user family pack), which gives you access to everything plus 20GB of storage on Apple’s servers for your movies, photos, disparaging emails from Great Aunt Maude and other essential stuff. A 60-day free trial is available.

On an iPhone or iPod touch you need iPhone firmware 2.0 and iTunes 7.7 (downloadable from apple.com, where you can also sign up for MobileMe). If you are already a dot-Mac subscriber, you will have been signed up automatically. You can keep your @.mac.com email address but you also get the same username at me.com.

MobileMe is a further example not only of Apple’s ability to make difficult things easy and spread the doctrine of constant connectedness, but also of how the Mac is invading the PC environment.

Macs are now selling at a rate three times faster than PCs, according to Ron Johnson, Apple’s head of global retail sales, and they are moving steadily into the business arena.

Axel Springer AG, a huge German publishing company with 150 newspapers in 30 countries and 10,000 employees, is currently replacing its 12,000 PCs with 12,000 Macs; towers, iMacs and MacBooks. It makes Springer Apple’s second-largest customer, behind Google.

While you cannot run Mac or iPhone applications on a PC and MobileMe will not talk to Windows Mobile devices, you can use MobileMe to synchronise data on a Mac, an iPhone or an iPod touch with a PC.

The data is stored in your corner of the MobileMe cloud, aka Apple’s servers on what is essentially still the old iDisk arrangement, but under MobileMe your iDisk is more accessible; drag and drop on the desktop.

If you make changes, they are pushed to every device you have given access to your MobileMe account. Or you may log in from any internet connected computer, using the new me.com website.

MobileMe will talk to Outlook on Windows and, of course, to MacOS X’s Mail, iCal and Address Book. If you make an entry in iCal on, say, your iPhone, and if your other devices are connected via wi-fi, a mobile phone network, or a broadband line, the iCal calendars on every device you have listed (and Outlook if you also use a PC) are automatically synchronised. Similarly, emails show up on all the devices you have linked to the cloud.

Via me.com, you can get to Web 2.0 style applications to share photographs and other files and expect many more will be created as Macintosh and iPhone developers get going.

This has led the socially mobile and surreptitious to worry whether, should they (in the joy of the moment!) carelessly use their iPhone to take pictures of their girlfriend in a bikini at Noosa, would their wife instantly see the incriminating images pushed to the domestic iMac? Even good technology has traps.

The other worry for Australians might be the cost of pushing all that data around a mobile network. But, to be optimistic, greater traffic should mean lower prices and better plans.

The concept of synchronising devices and sharing information is far from new, of course.

Big companies use Microsoft’s Exchange, which works well with expert management, but for ordinary folk is like learning Icelandic while knitting bed socks out of barbed wire.

Apple boss Steve Jobs has called MobileMe "Exchange for the rest of us", which is a fair analogy, but in my view underplays the seamless user friendliness we should expect from Apple’s latest and, in many ways, most significant move in thinking differently and changing the world.

Apple is now harnessing the burgeoning wireless networks to seriously challenge some entrenched technology – Microsoft and Google for just two – by showing there is an easier, more efficient way.

Apple has an advantage because MobileMe can do it by wireless as well as online. But, before the end of the year, in the US, if not elsewhere, Google will respond to the iPhone challenge with Android. Progress.

MACFILE

Is the growing popularity of the Mac likely to make it more vulnerable to the evil and, these days probably criminal, purveyors of viruses, internet robots, electronic Trojan horses and other kinds of malware?

A couple of weeks ago a virus watch outfit called Intego announced that it had found two Mac Trojans likely to do damage. It said that one, "PokerGame", pretended to be a free card game but could steal your data, passwords and get control of your computer to propagate more malware. The other malware interfered with AppleScript.

If you remember your Greek mythology you will know that the Trojan takes its name from the wooden horse used by the Greeks to infiltrate and lay waste to Troy. In short, Trojans look neat but have nasty things inside. The Trojans’ mistake was to think the horse was a gift.

So, while we can say that no Macintosh viruses are at work on the internet, Trojans are not viruses and are there to trap unwary users. They don’t do damage if you don’t open them and let the nasties out. There are hundreds of them in the PC world, many purporting to be free videos on online porn sites.

While no one discounts the dangers to Macs, the feeling is that provided people use common sense and trash stuff they don’t recognise, the risk is pretty low.

9 Basic Tips to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing

You should have heard about affiliate marketing, it is one of the low cost ways to make money on the Internet. Anyone can earn income through affiliate marketing regardless of their experience in internet marketing, as long as they have the passion and patience to learn and work on affiliate marketing.
This article will provide you 9 important basic tips for succeeding in affiliate marketing.
1. Select a specific niche. Make sure that there are affiliates already making money in the niche as this indicate that the niche is profitable. Then join affiliate programs that are offering products or services appeal to the niche market. It is suggested not to join too many affiliate programs at the beginning to avoid losing focus.
2. Do research and investigation on the affiliate programs before joining them. You should only join rewarding and reliable affiliate programs. The products must be targeted to your niche market and in good quality so that you are able to promote and sell them with less refund rate.
3. You can promote affiliate products without a website. But, it is highly recommended that you build a niche website with interesting content focuses on promoting your affiliate products.
4. Create a budget for your marketing campaigns. Know clearly how much you want to spend on promoting your website and affiliate programs.
5. Traffic and conversion are the keys to generate affiliate commission. You will need to spend most of your time to learn and work on these two aspects. So, be prepared to work hard.
6. Your potential buyers often need supporting information before buying an item. You may write reviews about your affiliate products and ‘how to’ articles with your affiliate links included in the content. This is one of the effective ways to direct your visitors to your merchant’s site and make a purchase.
7. For long-term profit in affiliate marketing, you have to build a list. Some of the methods you can apply to grow a list are offer free gift, free newsletters, free e-courses and participating in a give away event. When you have a opt-in email list, you can regularly contact your target prospects and recommend your affiliate products to them.
8. Your credibility is important. You should often send helpful and interesting information to your opt-in list subscribers. Provide your real name and an email address on your website so that the potential prospects know there is a real person behind the website and contact you anytime when they have question.
9. Most affiliate programs allow you to recruit affiliates under you (sub-affiliates). You will earn more commission if you grow your own network of sub-affiliates. If you have found a few hard working sub-affiliates, you can expect to share a steady commission from the affiliate sales generated by them.

Source : make money

Apple Launches iPhone v2.0 OS

The launch of the iPhone 3G has everyone excited, but what about those few who decided to stick with the original? Fear not, for v2.0 (OS) is now available for download from Apple.

However, as great as it may be that a few of the 3G’s goodies will now be incorporated into your first-gen iPhone, Apple has stated that should you install the v2.0 OS into your existing handset without backing up your data (for which you can use iTunes) you’ll lose all of it.

The update procedure is fairly simple. Connect the handset to the PC, open up your iTunes application, and simply click on the update button that appears in the iPhone menu in iTunes. Do remember to back up your data first. The final step is to just sit back and wait.

According to reports, a few users have had some issues with the update, but hopefully those will be rectified by Apple ASAP.

You can download the update file here.

Source: Tech2

Nokia N5320 GSM/WCDMA Cellular Phone

Nokia N5320 GSM/WCDMA Cellular Phone w/ BT FCC Approved — Another phone from Nokia has been approved by the FCC. This time, its the Nokia N5320, a GSM/WCDMA Cellular Phone. The 3G N5320 was described in Nokia’s press release as sporting dynamic design and offers dedicated media and N-Gage gaming keys, up to 24 hours of playback endurance and up to 8GB of internal storage capacity and Nokia’s Say Play technology facilitating voice controlled playlists. Nokia describes the N5320 as sporting the most fresh, stylish designs on the market. Nokia’s N5320 cell phones will become available in the third quarter of 2008 and will retail for around €220 and €160 respectively. via: press[Link to story]

Ten Free Mac OS X Programs that Make the PC to Mac Switch a Breeze

With more and more attorneys adopting Macs throughout their offices every day and the business world raving about the cost effectiveness of Mac OS X, today Macs are an accepted and feasible alternative to Windows in the legal community. Having recently made the switch to a Mac myself, I’ve put together a list of the top ten free Max OS X programs that made switching from a PC to a Mac a breeze.

1. Quicksilver
Quicksilver is a program launcher that uses simple commands to rapidly bring up any program, file, folder, or website. Quicksilver learns what files and programs are most often accessed and adapts so that those items are pulled up almost instantaneously when the user starts typing the name of the item in the Quicksilver interface.

For example, in screenshot below, I pulled up the Quicksilver interface with a single keystroke and then by typing in “ex” brought up Excel. Using the tab key I was able to bring up specific commands such as the option to open a specific excel document, move a document to another folder, or email a specific file. Quicksilver is very intuitive and allows users to execute specific commands so quickly that using the built-in OS X dock to open a program seems slow by comparison.

2. Anxiety

Anxiety brings the iCal task list to your desktop. It provides easy access to your to-do list so that tasks can be added or marked as complete without opening your full calendar. Anxiety stays in sync with iCal and disappears when not in use.

3. Caffeine

OS X has a great power saving feature built-in: after a short period of inactivity the screen automatically dims. Caffeine allows you to turn this feature on and off with a single click so that presentations can be run without interruption. It also prevents your Mac from going to sleep or starting the screensaver.

4. Growl

Growl provides unobtrusive notification messages from various programs that run on OS X, including Adium, Firefox, and iTunes. They simply pop up as semi-transparent notifications on the top right corner of your screen and then disappear.

5. Adium

Adium is by far the best instant messaging program I have ever used. You can seamlessly send messages to your friends using various protocols including AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and MSN Messenger. Adium also supports tabbed conversations so you can keep all your conversations in a single window.

6. Smultron

While there are a number of free text editors available for OS X, my favorite is Smultron. Smultron allows you to have multiple documents open at the same time in an easy-to-use tabbed interface. Another popular free text editor for OS X is TextWrangler while users who want a word processing application with features closer to what Word or Pages offers, Bean is worth checking out.

7. Skim

Skim is a PDF reader that is cut above Preview, the default viewer in OS X, because of Skim’s enhanced markup capabilities. You can easily add notes, highlight portions the document, and quickly jump from one marked-up section to the next through a convenient side panel. Skim also allows you to create presentations and then run the presentations using the Apple Remote.

8. VLC
VLC is media player that supports most modern digital video formats including the DVD format and various streaming protocols. Installing VLC will save you the trouble of having to find a compatible player every time you need to play a new media format.

9. iStat Menu

One of my favorite features in Vista is the pop-up calendar that is displayed when you click on the time in the taskbar. iStat Menu brings that feature to OS X. It also allows you to display multiple time zones, open your iCal calendar, and add additional menus that display everything from the temperature of your Mac to the remaining space on your hard drives.

10. Rachota

Rachota allows users to track the time spent on various projects. Rachota can also summarize how much time was spent on each project and provide helpful time-maximizing tips.