FLAC on the Mac – A brief summary of digital audio file formats

This article covers the most common digital audio file types. I discuss why they were developed, how they’re used, and their advantages and disadvantages. Then I explain how best to preserve and protect a music collection from physical loss, or loss of compatibility with current hardware and music players.

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Secure Better, Not Harder – Part Two – Secure Passwords

When you keep your software up to date, back your data up regularly, and maintain constant vigilance, the next big security challenge is passwords. There are two distinct problems to be solved: how to create good passwords, and how to store them. I’m going to tackle these two problems separately, one per article, starting with the thorny question of what makes a good password.

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Are We There Yet? – WWDC Perspective 2015

Here we are with another Apple WWDC Keynote under our belts and we are all trying to take in, evaluate and ponder what Apple has shown us. Once again the many keynote speakers took to the stage and zipped (mainly) through a myriad of new services and features that we can all look forward to trying and hopefully enjoying ourselves a little later in the year.

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Survival Straps – Energizer or Expose?

Having trouble sleeping? Feeling stiff from too many hours sitting in front of a computer? How’s your energy level these days? What if I told you everything will be better if you tie a piece of parachute cord around your wrist and wear it as a bracelet for a few days?

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Is it time for Apple to be split up?

Every time a company gets very big, the question arises as to whether it is time to split the company up. The question has been brought up about Microsoft for years. Tim Cook has even alluded to the idea in the past, when mentioning the Macintosh business was bigger than many whole companies and that if Apple split its three divisions, they would each be Fortune 500 companies by themselves.

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Do Apple’s Education Announcements Pave the Way for the ePad?

Apple’s January 19th education event brings the iPad to the forefront as an educational tool to replace textbooks and classroom computers.  Apple is once again focusing on the K-12 education market, a market it dominated in the early 1980’s with the Apple II.  But is the iPad really the device Apple is focusing on here?  Or is there another device in Apple’s future that this event is paving the way for?  I think Apple needs a new device, I call the ePad.

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Day Two: The Show Opens

Thursday started with the traditional MyMac.com breakfast at Mel’s Diner. From there, we walked to Moscone West and set up camp in the media room. Again, copious quantities of lukewarm Starbucks coffee and a selection of soft drinks were available.

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Macworld | iWorld Day One

I got in to San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon following a lovely flight. I had accumulated a sufficiently large number of miles thanks to traveling a great deal for my former employer, and decided to cut the final cord by cashing in these miles to make the flight from West Palm Beach (Florida) to San Francisco sitting in the relative comfort of the first class cabin. Frankly, the seats, wide and recliney as they were, were still somewhat uncomfortable on a long cross-country flight.

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Golden Ears?

MyMac.com’s very own John Nemo dared me to blog by sending me a link to an article in the New York Times about someone who wanted to build a music server, one of the very highest possible quality. He wanted to rip his CDs at full, uncompressed resolution, and use a fairly high-end digital to analog converter in the playback stream in order to extract the very best from his music collection.

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