By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

I installed Mountain Lion on a MacBook Pro 13" on Saturday evening but it nearly didn't work as the user had somehow allocated the Mac's hard disk fo Time Machine backups. When I clicked on the install, the disk icon which showed as a green Time Machine disk remained greyed out and the installer refused because it was for backing up. In System Preferences I turned off the backup which changed the disk icon to the normal grey one, but it was not until I found the property list (.plist) file for Time Machine and trashed that, that things worked. The installation went fine then.

A lot of people did download the new version of OS X and among others AppleInsider reports that there was some 3.2% penetration after 48 hours.

Just to remind anyone reading this, there is a way to make a boot disk or rescue flash drive. I did it last year for Lion and when I installed the latest version of OS X on the 13" Mac on Saturday, reminded myself using an item by Topher Kessler on the steps to take. The essential file is now on my computer and I will be updating some external media this week.

I did have what appears to be a Kernel panic, on Saturday evening on my own machine. I quit one app and when I tried to reopen it, I missed and started an old MotoGP app which wanted to access a download. I declined, Quit, and the screen went all grey. Something had happened I was told -- that much was clear -- and the computer would restart in 5 seconds.

The restart was slow but pretty much everything came back up as it had been before the sudden event, apart from TextEdit, which tried hard but kept going grey and displaying a gearwheel icon as if it were trying to retrieve something. I fixed it by quitting and reloading the files I wanted.

Apart from the annoyance (for me and others) about missing RSS feeds in Safari and the lack of a really workable option thus far there were a couple of other items reported, like one local user reporting that with Safari 6...if you search in the omnibar, it won't change to URL of the Google search page.

An inconvenience for me was because I use multiple desktops: graphics in number 2, iTunes in number 3 and so on. Almost all had been re-allocated so using the Options item in the Dock menu, I re-shuffled them to what I wanted.

I found that another really useful function has gone: use of the option key and a two-finger scroll to zoom the screen. This was really useful when showing text on a projector to a class of students: I could bring up the exact words I needed full screen which made it easy for them to take notes. There is a zoom that works with the pinch, or a double-tap with two fingers but this does not work with everything. Does anyone who removes this stuff actually use Macs in a real situation? I also see that as well as the camera icon that appears when taking screen shots, the Trash icon is new as well. Were these two changes needed?

I noted last week that Software Update now goes straight to the Mac App Store and to add to the integration, there is now an item for App Store in the Apple menu, just below the Software Update item.

There are bound to be more changes, but overall it seems to be working well.

A new feature on the Mac is Dictation although this has been available for a few years via a 3rd party solution. One of their recommendations was that a good quality microphone should be used and Alan Henry on Lifehacker also feels that this leads to better results. He details how to get the best results.

Dictation is a new System Preferences item and on my Mac it starts when I press the Fn key twice. A little icon with a microphone appears and when finished I press the Done button. A Siri-like 3 dots flashes and the sound is sent to Apple for changing to text.

My results so far have been a little hit and miss. What I say is recorded properly but sometimes there are errors.

Related to this is the enhanced voice synthesis that is now available in OS X, Michael Rose reports. I noticed that "Fiona" was updated the day after I installed Mountain Lion, but apparently several other voices were improved too. With the dictation there is now speech to text, but as mentioned in the article, there are text to speech facilities which I have used on on a number of occasions.

There were a few related updates and downloads at the end of last week and one of these was the iOS app for iTunes U which Jeff Gamet reports has improved note taking when viewing or listening to lectures. Leanna Lofte had some more on this and writes that the update has improvements that will allow teachers (and virtually anyone) to create courses for the iPad. There is a slight catch with putting the information on iTunes U, but she explains how we might get round that.

Last week we carried an item about Apple attending the first Black Hat conference, officially at least. Bryan Chaffin reports that Dallas De Atley, head of software platform security at Apple, presented on the topic of security and iOS but did not anser any questions and was ushered out quickly at the end.

I thought we would run this Cassandra column with no rumours, but AppleInsider has information on the alleged next iPhone. There are photos too. These show the nice new back and the rumoured small connector at the bottom with the earphone link alongside. That would mean my iPhone would spend most of its time upside down as I tend to put it in my pocket when listening to music. The only botom connector Apple used was on the iPad nano which was supposed to be worn. Check out the Home button too.

Half and Half

But since Motorola has been claiming for some time that Apple wants to infringe rather than take a license, this clarification on Apple's part, in a publicly-accessible filing, is useful. Google (Motorola) now needs to go fishing for a new red herring.

Apple is buying a mobile security company Poornima Gupta and Sinead Carew report for Reuters. AuthenTec is a developer of fingerprint sensor technology used in mobile phones in Japan for authentication of mobile payments and this could be part of its strategy for mobile-wallet services. The price is about $356 million, but the article notes that the move to buy a public company is unusual for Apple. But there are other things involved in the deal, like patents and the point that Samsung is a customer of AuthenTec, while also noting that Google and Samsung have been sniffing around.

However, this purchase is already being investigated by the lawyers who are thinking about class action lawsuits, Mikey Campbell reports, because AuthenTec's board of directors purposely undervalued the company in the sale to Apple.

Also being investigated is Zynga, the company that shot to fame with the Facebook games like Farmville and which made its money through in-app purchasing: if you want your farm or restaurant to prosper, you need to buy virtual goods and these cost real money. Michael McWherter relates that the stock dropped value considerably this week after a poor financial report, but that just before the figures became public, certain directors dumped some 43 million shares.

While Apple has had a roller coaster ride with patents of late, there are reports that it is vying with Google to buy the patents that Kodak has as that company tries to sell off the family silver, but Mikey Campbell reports that Cupertino is trying to make this work by entering into a partnership with Microsoft, which seems to me pragmatic: working in conjunction is much better than battling through the courts. Another look at this came from Matthew Panzarino on The Next Web.

There was another rumour about Apple investment at the weekend when several sites, including AppleInsider reported that Cupertino may have been sniffing around Twitter. There is already a neat little arrangement between the two and Twitter has a lot more integration with iOS these days. But investing hundreds of millions? This is something new. However, Tim Carmody on The Verge suggests that this hype may be investors trying to push the price up.

I see we are still getting the PayPal warnings that the account is being closed/deleted/suspended and the like. I had a couple this weekend and both contained a form (apparently) that needed Java to operate -- one clue -- while the list of recipients, all with the first name "graham" was another clue. I checked. My account is open, intact and there is even something in there. The only thing was that Safari had not remembered my password. Never mind, I had. And please feel free to click on those buttons at the side.

The mail actually came from a SMTP (send mail) server at cybercity.dk (212.242.43.251) which belongs to Telenor, who currently own a good part of the local DTAC carrier, and the address is shown as Copenhagen, Denmark, having been sent by user uf7 whoever that may be and one I had earlier came from uf4 so this is probably some automated service. This is not PayPal. The mail probably came from another country and was bounced.

Other Matters

I saw some information on this in Twitter, but in Market Currents on Seeking Alpha, there is a short confirmation that Google now admits that the data secretly collected when it was using Street View -- but denied this completely at the start -- and which it promised to dump, still has user data from the UK. Google stole and lied again.

I expect that with Britain's recent record on data, they will be handing it all over to the government.

A chapter closes in Finland this week as the last Nokia phone was made there as the factory shut and there are lots of people now out of work. Alex Wilhelm reports that not only Finland, but there are closures in Mexico and Brazil as production is shifted to Asia. I hope the NYTimes is following this; or perhaps we will see a Mike Daisey production of "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Elop".

Only the lucky hermits among us missed the start of the London Olympics this weekend. While I tried to lay low I saw a few clips of the opening, such as the Olympic torch -- clever that -- and the poignant sight of Muhammed Ali. I missed it but Edward Moyer reports that Tim Berners-Lee (the www creator) also took a bow and lit up the stadium by sending a Tweet, "This is for everyone." I avoided parachuting actors portraying Bond and the Queen: no wonder she looked so glum. And then on Saturday, I had planned to watch the Formula One qualifying which was scheduled in the small print guide the local TV company sends out, but instead was treated to pedal cyclists being chased up Box Hill by more sensible guys on BMW motorcycles.

Although I turned this off in disgust (all credit to the guys themselves puffing up the hill) there was apparently intermittent signal output and Simon Sharwood reports that the IOC blames Twitter: the number of Tweets interfered with the GPS units and the BBC were unable to follow the event properly. I would have thought something like this might have been anticipated: you cannot now put that genie back in the bottle, so asking users not to Tweet is not an option.

While TrueVisions fail to provide scheduled programs ruining my night and wasted my time again (I accepted there was only the race itself on Sunday and none of the associated programming -- I could live with that) by making sure I was in front of my TV for something that was not going to happen. There are enough complaints by locals upset that True did not provide football -- another sport I detest -- when the contract with UEFA did not allow it to be shown on the free channels True carries as a courtesy, so not providing advertised programming is just as bad.

So I sent a Tweet to a local lady on one of those committees: "what about True not showing programs that ARE scheduled. The Olympics is getting on the way of my choices: I sit and wait but ...." She has been to the forefront on getting a "must carry" clause passed to make sure the football will be on Thai channels in the future, but failed to respond to this consumer's Tweet.

The US is having another problem in that the NBC is recording all the Olympic programming then saving it up and rather than running it live -- including the opening ceremony -- show the run of the mill programming much to the annoyance of a lot of people over there

So, many people are taking the footage and putting it on YouTube, to the annoyance of the Olympic organisers who are milking this for all it is worth: MacDonalds being one of the official sponsors of the games in London and causing embarrassment for the Mayor of London who put down critics which has led to an embarrassing backlash Mark Sweeney reports on The Guardian. To the chagrin of others, Mike Butcher reports that the Olympic organisers are issuing takedown notices to YouTube for unauthorized content that is available - or was.

Local Items

With the cowardly killing of 4 soldiers at the weekend, which was widely circulated on YouTube, Facebook and other sources, it was not a surprise to see that arrests were made according to Wattana Kamchu and Panya Tiewsangwan of the Nation. There is more to come.

This sort of cold-blooded killing does not reflect what I know of my Muslim friends and students from the South.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.