MicroMemo is a new voice recorder for the iPod that captures 16-bit audio at 22 kHz and 44 kHz to the hard drive.
Recording audio has tons of uses but it’s most beneficial to anyone that attends meetings, lectures, and interviews or otherwise needs a recording of an event.
MicroMemo attaches to the dock connector of the full-size iPod and requires no software. Once attached a simple interface appears on the iPod screen that allows you to either “record” or “save” a recording.
MicroMemo includes a flexible, detachable mic and you can attach any microphone with a standard 3.5mm plug. A built-in speaker allows you to listen to your recordings immediately.
The sound quality was very good as you can hear in the following sample files:
High Quality – 44kHz, WAV, 00:23, 3.9MB, (~170kb/sec)
Low Quality – 22kHz, WAV, 00:38, 1.6MB (~42kb/sec)
MicroMemo is available now from XtremeMac for US$60 in black and white is available to pre-order.

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After I posted a note about the new See•Thru hard shell for the MacBook Pro on my ZDNet blog I received some questions about its thermal characteristics. Specifically you wanted to know how it affects the MacBook Pro’s overall thermal signature?
I posed the question directly to Speck products, who answered:

The SeeThru hard shell was engineered with a 74-slot ventilation system to facilitate the MacBook Pro’s internal cooling process. The shell is designed to allow for thermal exchange out of the heatsinks and fans of the computer. The hard shell should in no way affect the performance of the MacBook or MacBook Pro.

I have to concur that after using a See•Thru hard shell over the weekend my MacBook Pro (2GHz) temps weren’t any higher than the 160°F (highs) that I normally observe.
On a side note, I am getting extremely used to using smcFanControl to keep my MBP well under 160°F – usually 40-50°F less. Apple needs to add this type of user fan control to the OS by the time Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is released. Temperature figures as reported by CoreDuoTemp.

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Jon Nathan has released a new application called Lilt that uses the ambient light and/or the sudden motion sensors in recent Mac portables to launch apps, files, or AppleScripts. Triggering a script allows you to do some pretty cool things (several example script actions are included).
Wave your hand over the light sensors (located under the speaker grills) and play your next iTunes track. Tilt the computer back and hear the time spoken to you. The possibilities are endless.

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MiniBatteryLogger monitors your laptop’s battery. It traces the graph
of charge and amperage over time, compares your battery with other
users, logs relevant power events and alerts you with Growl
notifications.

The Battery Inspector tells you all the details about your battery:
charge, capacity (actual, maximum and original), amperage, voltage,
cycle count. It also reports the estimated times to empty and to full
charge.

MiniBatteryLoger 1.4.4

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Many people responded positively to Apple’s latest PRODUCT (RED) iPod nano and further rumors that Apple may release other products in (RED) to support the cause. Customers are becoming optimistic that the return of multi-colored nanos on 12 October could signal that Apple is going to again release more colored enclosures.
While I’m not in a big hurry to return to the Strawberry and Tangerine days of yore (although I still like Sage and Ruby) I like the fact that Apple offers black and white MacBooks and that they’re experimenting with color again in iPods.
If Apple doesn’t offer a Mac or iPod in a color you like, there is a solution: paint it. Not yourself of course, that’d be far too much trouble. Instead leave it to paint professionals like the folks at ColorWare.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

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Apple’s efforts to boost market share in the 90′s not only failed, but distracted the company away from what was the really critical problem: potential new customers had no reason to buy a Mac. Here’s how CPR from NeXT saved the company.
Read More…
Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Why Apple’s market share always been low, and why it failed to make any progress in the 90′s. Here’s an interesting look at why the Mac fell into crisis, and why the solutions of PC analysts–to be more like Dell, HP and Microsoft–didn’t work, leaving Apple to find its own turnaround strategy.
Read More…
Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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Episode 23 of the PowerPage Podcast is now available. You can either download it from the iTunes Store or directly (1:14;27, 34.6MB, AAC).
Your panel: Jason O’Grady, Rob Parker, Youngmoo Kim, Chuck Freedman and Bob Snow.
Topics include: Apple Q4-2006 Earnings, AirPort Flakiness Fixes, Core 2 Duo MBPs, Parallels and Vista RC1 and PayPal Scams.
Subscribe to the PowerPage Podcast directly in iTunes or add the Podcast RSS feed to the newsreader of your choice.
A special thank you to The Tragically Hip for letting us use their music. Check out their new album World Container.

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I’m a big fan of satellite radio and was a subscriber to XM radio for three years before switching to Sirius about a year ago.
Back in December 2004, I wrote that Apple was in talks with Sirius to discuss an iPod with a built-in satellite radio receiver. The “SatPod” would be able to receive satellite radio broadcasts from either XM or Sirius (ideally both) and even record the content to the iPod hard drive. Sources told me back then that about such a device.
Almost two years later Apple has filed for a patent which hints that a satellite radio accessory for the iPod may become a reality.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

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The latest iPod Killer from Microsoft has raised a lot of questions. RDM is full of answers! Here’s why many analysts are getting it all wrong on competition, markets, squirting and Brown.
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Contributed by: Daniel Eran, RDM

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