The Steve Jobs Soundboard

Now you can create your very own Steve Jobs keynote, thanks to a soundboard with 50 of the great man’s utterings.

Made by a Japanese website, the soundboard includes gems like:

“But there is one more thing.”

“We think video is the wrong place.”

“Do you have an iPod?”

“It scrolls like butter.”

“We have this rotating Apple sign on the top, which is popular in Tokyo.”

Unfortunately, the site is slow and may be having server problems. It doesn’t appear to be loading the entire soundboard. I get only 6 phrases, including a very tinny and disappointing, “Hi, I’m Steve.”

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Moving to WordPress — And A New RSS Feed

Later tonight I’ll be moving the Cult of Mac blog to WordPress, which means there’ll be less outages, less spam and less squinting at the teeny weeny type.

The blog is currently run on b2evolution, which has some nice features and has been pretty straightforward to use, but unfortunately has a serious spam problem. B2evolution is not much good managing comments and attracts a ton of spam. It’s the number one problem b2evo users complain about, and maddeningly, there’s no easy fix.

In addition, the b2evo developer community is small and there’s not many plugins and extras keeping it current. It’s also a hackers’ system. If you’re happy tinkering with code, this system’s for you. But I’m not, and it isn’t.

WordPress, on the other hand, seems to be a very slick. It’s mature and flexible and it’s going places. It’s 20-times more popular than b2evo, and already I’ve benefetted from a fantastic B2evo-to-WP import script, and a lot of easy-to-follow setup tutorials — the kind of stuff that popularity brings.

The big problem is the old RSS feed, which will no longer work.

The new RSS WordPress feed can be found here, though it may be an hour or two before it’s working:

http://cultofmac.com/?feed=rss2

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Get Real Audiophile Sound From an iPod

It is possible to get audiophile quality sound out of an iPod, but probably not from Apple’s iPod Hi-Fi boombox, says technologist Tim Bray.

“I gather that on stage today, Mr. Jobs freely flung about the word ‘audiophile’ while pitching the new iPod Hi-Fi. Well, I’m one of those: wrote for the mags, have gear from obscure British manufacturers, turn off a fridge thirty feet away to listen. I’ll look forward to giving the Hi-Fi a listen. It seems fantastically dubious that something 43 cm wide, with a listed bass floor of 53Hz (the bottom string on a bass is 42Hz), weighing 6.6kg, and costing $349, could actually produce ‘audiophile’ sound.”

Bray, Sun’s Director of Web Technologies, suggests instead plugging in a good pair of in-ear canalphones. Bray recommends Etymotics or Shure. I have a pair of Xtrememac FS1, which have heartier bass than the Shure or Etymotic. But Bray says most important of all…

… get your music off CDs and use lossless compression. The D/A in an iPod is really not bad at all; if you send all of the music through it and play it through first-class transducers, you’ll be happy.

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All the Web’s Free iPod Porn

Anna of iPorn Directory (definitely not safe for work) writes via email:

“I wanted to let you know that I’ve started a new site (totally free) that indexes all of the web’s free iPod porn — http://www.iporndirectory.com.

There are videos and links to podcasts, etc. as well as reviews and ratings of each site.

I started this site for fun, after getting my video iPod and finding out how difficult it was to find porn in mp4 format!”

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Post Traumatic Apple Event Disorder

The Joy of Tech on Steve Jobs’ unfun products event yesterday in a cartoon entitled, “Post Traumatic Apple Event Disorder.”

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StevesOutfit.com

Stevesoutfit is a website where you can buy a wardrobe just like Steve’s — all three items of it.

The site is an Amazon affiliate with links to a black St. Croix shirt, a pair of Levi 501s, and New Balance 991 sneakers.

The best part? The email link at bottom right that says, “Click here to sue.”

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Apple Buys Huge Data Center — For iFlix Perhaps?

Apple has bought a giant data center in Newark, Calif., the San Jose Business Journal reports:

The 107,000-square-foot facility, originally conceived for communications company MCI WorldCom before getting mothballed after its 2001 completion…

… Data centers generally house computing, data-storage and networking equipment assisting in Web-based services and transactions.

… Apple, with Mr. von Thaden’s assistance, also just signed deals for the entire 116,830-square-foot office complex at 10400-10450 Ridgeview Ct. in Cupertino. This includes about 56,315 square feet leased directly from property owner Grosvenor International (represented by Brad Martin and Rich Hardy of Cushman & Wakefield) and 60,515 subleased from IBM (represented by CBRE’s Frank Friedrich, Don Lonsinger and Doug Beck).

A datacenter this size seems like overkill for .Mac. Perhaps it’ll house Apple’s widely-expected iFlix online movie store?

Photo shows an XServe RAID cluster at University of Wisconsin, courtesy of alienRAID.org.

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iFixit Guide For MacBook Pro

iFixit has published a disassembly guide for the new MacBook Pro.

iFixit publishes a series of Fixit Guides for Apple laptop owners who want to fix their own machines. iFixit makes the guides in the hope customers will buy the spare parts from them. The guides are exceptional — well illustrated and very clear.
IFixit’s CEO Kyle Wiens writes:

We made some notes in the Guide about new and interesting things. Here’s the highlights:

* All major parts are new, and not backwards-compatible with
PowerBooks. This specifically includes the hard drive (SATA 9mm), and
the SuperDrive (4x Matsushita 9.5mm vs the previous 8x 12.7mm drive).
* I think Apple’s using Intel’s 945PM chipset (see

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/85.1.16.html)

* Apple is using an Intel SATA controller
* The processor is soldered on, so it will be more difficult to
upgrade than the socketed Intel iMac
* The RAM is new, PC2-5300 DDR2
* Speedy 667 MHz bus and 2MB cache on the Core Duo
* The case is easier to get into than the PowerBook G4 15’.
Replacing some parts, like the hard drive or superdrive, will be easier.
Others are about the same, like the keyboard and display.
* Airport and bluetooth are on two separate cards again (they were
previously combined)
* Apple put temperature sensor boards on the heatsink and lower case
assembly:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/85/images_large/46.jpg

* iSight, infrared, and bluetooth are all USB.
* The internal case design is different from the PowerBook G4, but
not extensively so. I can tell it was inspired by a combination of the
15’ and 17’ designs.

I’m curious to see what people come up with off the part numbers on
the inside chips. We posted hi-res photos of the logic board:
Logic board top
Logic board bottom

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How to Fake a Video iPod

The skeptical commentators at MacShrine were right: the picture of a video iPod posted to every website on the Net last week is as phony as a three-pound note.

Proof? This video at YouTube, which shows how the image was constructed step-by-step.

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Will Kevin Rose Strike Again?

On the eve of Macworld, who totally nailed the products Steve Jobs unveiled? Was it Think Secret, or Mac Rumors?

No. It was Kevin Rose, founder of Digg and a former presenter of the Screen Savers TV show.

The night before Jobs unveiled the intel iMac and the MacBook Pro, Rose had it all, including the pissy iPod FM radio/remote.

Rose also claimed to have been tipped off to the iPod nano two days before his Jobness pulled it from his hat.

Will Rose and his secret tipster bag Apple’s “fun products” event on Tuesday morning?

Photo of Rose and friends at Macworld pinched from Leo Laporte.

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