The Mac Disciples

From The Unofficial Apple Weblog: Two-thirds of premium PCs sold at retail are Macs

2/3 is 66% aka .666

I think I need to find my crucifix and rosary. Does anyone have any garlic handy?

For so long we have waited and hoped for the coming.

My brothas and sistas; the time draw near!!!

Prepare ye the way!

AT&T limiting iPhone sales to one per customer

That’s right! New iPhones are around the corner!

Actually there are three new Get A Mac ads! So stop what you are doing, turn and face Cupertino and watch all three before you go back to your life.

I personally enjoyed the “Pep Rally” of the three new ones. But who doesn’t love cheerleaders, right?

I’m looking for some input and experience in regards to FTP clients on the Macintosh. I’ve been a CyberDuck user for a few years now. Its gotten better and better. I recently spent the 15 day trial on Transmit and the new Flow. I really like Flow!

What do you like and why?

Thanks,

Wanted to point out a nice story from Saul Hansell at The New York Times entitled “How Apple Is Preparing for an iPod Slump“. It’s an analysis piece of comments made by Apple executives speaking on a conference call Wednesday afternoon and the first quarter reports on Apple sales.

Mr. Hansell’s third point is the one I have been most interested in:

Third, and perhaps most significantly, Apple’s entire adventure with the iPod is helping it sell computers, although the magnitude is impossible to calculate. Apple sold 2.3 million Macs in the quarter for $3.5 billion. That is an increase of 51 percent by units and 54 percent by dollars. Not so bad when the economy is more than a little shaky.

I work in a public school and just 3 years ago I ran into many students who referred to the Macs that dominate our district as “stupid”. Upon discussion with them I would find the same thing. They had a Windows computer at home and that is what they preferred. Asking them what they could not do with the school Macs the discussion would quickly turn back to name calling and their comfort level. No substantial reason to hate.

Today that has all changed. Many students are walking the halls with an iPod of one generation or another. In fact, during a recent Psychology class I helped with, where each student was required to bring in a song for the rest of the class to listen to and record their emotoinal response to, 16 students had iPods, 1 had a Zune, 2 students brought CDs and 2 students loaded YouTube on a laptop and played their song of choice from the web. Unscientific, I admit, but a random sampling non-the-less.

I rarely hear a student who thinks the Macs are “stupid” anymore. In fact, I regularly have students visit now asking me questions about buying one for college. And more and more of them are coming in from home with the students suggesting that more parents are open to the idea of buying a more expensive Mac than the dirt cheap Windows computers they see.

Is the day of Epiphany for Apple coming soon? Or has it already happened and history just needs to hail the moment?

The rumors continue to fly wildly about in regards to the coming of a iPhone enabled with 3G support. Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog reports that 3G technology has the potential of matching Wi-Fi speeds and that the base model may be $399.00 in price.

Of course this is all speculation at this point. If AT&T doesn’t throttle the bandwidth then 3G potential will make many people happy. And at the price point suggested by the article above then its guaranteed that sales will at least match the current sales as all current iPhone owners will buy a 3G equipped iPhone. Which is good for Apple. Weather it’s good for AT&T or not is all up to AT&T. Will they throttle or will they allow it’s full potential?

If they open it up wide then I will be getting an iPhone! Praise be to the wisdom of AT&T and thank Steve Jobs!

Prophesy has been fulfilled. His Steveness said it would happen. And it has indeed come to pass.

A true disciple of all that is truth and beauty would know better than to ever doubt providence.

I honor the place where Apples products and my wallet come together.

This past week at CanSecWest our beloved Macintosh got Pwn’ed in 2 minutes into day 2. What is worse is that Microsoft Vista didn’t get go down until day 3.

CanSecWest PWN to OWN 2008 is a contest where 3 laptops are put up for the main purpose of unearthing new vulnerabilities within these systems so that the affected vendor(s) can address them. Ubuntu Linux, Microsoft Vista, and Macintosh OS X laptops are available for others to attempt to gain control and read a specific file from the hard drives.

On day 1, they could only be accessed remotely be cross-over cable. No one was able to gain access of any of the 3 OS’s. That’s very reassuring! It suggests that a base loaded OS for all are safe from attacks on the internet.

On day 2, the access changed and the attacker can use and default client-side apps. The Mac went down 2 minutes into the day due to an exploit in Safari. Sad day for Apple and for me!

On day 3, third party apps were added to the configuration and Vista went down due to a flaw in Adobe Flash.

But Ubuntu remained safe throughout the competition.

The one thing this seems to indicate is that the Mac is not as safe as we keep telling others. Hopefully Apple gets there stuff together and regains our trust. We also learned that Vista is not XP. Microsoft has come a long way. But be careful where you surf to. The Internet is a dangerous place! Lastly we are reassured that Linux, at least Ubuntu anyway, is as safe as it has always been.

Pardon me while I go and meditate to The Steve and pray!

Although I think the world needs to find peace with itself and Mac Users with PC Users, I think this is pretty close to strait up life…

Hate it when that happens!