As a reader of TMO and a listener of our podcasts, especially Mac Geek Gab, you see and hear us write and talk a lot about the various press events we attend. Many of these – Pepcom, ShowStoppers, and CES Unveiled – are very similar in nature. They’re like a trade show, with a few key differences. First, every vendor has basically the same-sized table at which to present their offerings. There are no big booths and no overly-flashy signs or anything of the sort. Everyone’s logos are well-presented, but mostly its about the products. The reason for this is the second key differentiator: all of the attendees are members of the media. There are no distributors there, no general consumers looking around, no aimless tire-kickers. Everyone is there to report about what they see. And, as you know, that’s what we do. With one exceptIon: we’ve never reported about what we see in general. We always show you specific things, but have never intentionally given you a glimpse of the event itself. Here, today, we change that with a look around inside CES Unveiled 2017, just about 15 minutes after the doors opened. Oh, and yes, there’s food. Yummy, tasty food. Enjoy!
Dave Hamilton
Dave Hamilton co-founded both The Mac Observer and <a href="https://www.backbeatmedia.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank">BackBeat Media</a>, and he is producer and co-host of the <a href="https://www.macgeekgab.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank">Mac Geek Gab Podcast</a>. He has worked in the computer industry since the early 1990s, doing time as a consultant, trainer, network engineer, webmaster, and programmer. He has worked on the Mac, all the various Windows flavors, BeOS, a few brands of Unix, and it is rumored he once saw an OS/2 machine in action. Before that he ran some of the earliest Bulletin Board Systems, but most of the charges have since been dropped, and not even the FBI requests that he check in more than twice a year. Dave's reachable for paid consulting at <a href="https://www.davethenerd.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">DaveTheNerd.com</a> and you can find links to him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ here, too.
Articles by Dave Hamilton
Belkin Announces Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System
Linksys, a brand known for some of the earliest wireless routers, today joins the the market of mesh Wi-Fi providers with their own mesh offering called Velop. Shown here at the CES 2017 Unveiled event, Belkin’s Linksys Velop is a welcome entrant to the home mesh wireless market with a unique tri-band solution that allows for completely dynamic assignment of each unit’s three 2×2 radios. Velop can work in point-to-point, mesh, star, line or tree configurations, choosing whichever is best or most-appropriate for the current wireless environment. Each radio in the system is automatically mapped to the best configuration, and Ethernet backhaul is automatically detected and supported, as well. In a market that’s becoming quite crowded, I find the Velop an interesting contender, combining some of the better aspects of both the eero and NETGEAR Orbi platforms, priced exactly the same as the eero. Units are available for pre-order today in three ($499), two ($349) and one-unit ($199) packages and will start shipping on January 15th. We’ll be getting units to test and will report back with our findings, adding them to our existing mesh Wi-Fi coverage.
For Geeks Only: Hey Alexa, Tell Sonos to Play Stevie Wonder in the Kitchen
Sonos and Amazon jointly announced their Alexa integration earlier this year and the world rejoiced. Voice control of your Sonos system is one of those holy grails. The integration is expected to be available at some point in 2017. But I’m an impatient geek so, while I’m waiting for official support to be available, I spent an hour yesterday getting this working using freely-available open-source tools. You can do this, too, and I’ll walk you through what you’re doing and how to get started.
Fake News and Snatched iPhones – TMO Daily Observations 2016-12-05
The UK police got unlocked access to a suspect’s iPhone but, unlike the FBI earlier this year, they didn’t have to ask Apple to hack it. Interestingly, though, the FBI did something very similar to the UK police a few years ago. Listen to hear more. Then it’s on to how Apple might just be our last hope to save the integrity of the internet. John Martellaro explains!
Uber Sees You When You're Sleeping…Around – TMO Daily Observations 2016-12-02
“I’ll be watching you” is a line that might make Sting look a lot more prescient after you hear this episode. Uber and Waze want to know where you are even more than they used to, and Apple wants to put drones in the air over your roads and in front of your homes, at least for a little bit. It’s a brave new world. Our advice: don’t go outside without pants on.
Apple's Tribes and Cloud Services – TMO Daily Observations 2016-12-01
There is a long history of tribes discussing, analyzing and, yes, chastising Apple. That’s more true today than it ever has been… or is it? How much of the past reflects in the future? Those very same tribes often talk about Apple’s need to increase the amount of free iCloud storage provided to each user. Are they right? Join TDO today as John Martellaro, Adam Christianson and Dave Hamilton discuss!
TMO Daily Observations 2016-11-30: Offline Netflix and AirPods Alternatives
Netflix is now beginning to allow offline viewing for some content and Tim Cook suggests that he anticipates AirPods will ship in the next few weeks. John Martellaro and Kelly Guimont join Dave Hamilton today to chat through all this… and more, including a few recommendations for AirPods alternatives that you can buy today.
Podcasters: How to Log Chapter Timestamps with Keyboard Maestro
Many podcasters – and especially podcast listeners – have come to appreciate having chapters in podcast episodes. Putting chapters into a show can be a real chore for podcasters, though, especially for a show that’s recorded live. For all the podcasts I host, I employ a few Keyboard Maestro macros that, used together, allow me to have an internal clock running that simply pastes the existing timestamp wherever my cursor is. Here’s how I do it… and a download link to the macros I’ve already created for you!
Mesh Deals for Black Friday through Cyber Monday: Sonos and eero
Seems that I’m a sucker for a well-made mesh network, likely because “well-made mesh” means “it’s simple and it works without you having to mess with it.” Or, said another way, “mesh not mess.” Ok, enough of that, on to the deals, shall we? These are from two companies that traditionally do not offer discounts, and they’re only good through Monday, so snap them up while you can.
Wi-Fi Mesh Systems Compared: eero, Orbi, AmpliFi
The future of home Wi-Fi is mesh networking, a new approach to consumer wireless networks that includes smart management and multiple radios designed to handle the load of today’s gadgets. If you’ve been fighting with range extenders and other solutions to broaden your Wi-Fi coverage and keep your streams alive, you can now stop all that silliness and blanket your home with Wi-Fi. The future is here, and that future is mesh networking.
TMO Daily Observations 2016-11-16: Why is $feature Missing from Apple TV?
Today it’s time to look at Apple TV and ask one tough question: why don’t we get $feature on Apple TV? Good thing we’re geeks and we understand variables, too, because for this episode $feature = array(“4K Output”,”Amazon Prime Video”,”Netflix Inside of TV App”); Listen and hear what John and Dave have to say about all this… then send us your feedback and let us know!
Apple’s HomeKit Security vs. ioT Botnets – There’s Only So Much Apple Can Do
The recent botnet attacks have called into question the security of all our various internet of Things (ioT) devices, and rightfully so. One of the regular chimes I hear in our Apple-centric universe is, “HomeKit is secure, it must be the answer.” Unfortunately, HomeKit is only built to secure HomeKit, not everything. More must be done.
The Benefits of a 32GB Mac For Average Users
I didn’t think the difference between 16GB and 32GB would matter for my every day use. Sure, I’m a geek, but I’m not involved in graphic design or video editing. In the course of a normal day I don’t really run any pro apps. When I upgraded my 2014 27″ Retina iMac from 16GB to 32GB a few months ago, however, I experienced a dramatic shift in my computing life. No longer was my Mac paging out to swap all the time, no longer were apps slow to launch, and no longer was I regularly pushing against the limits of my Mac’s RAM.
Apple Releases iOS 10.1.1 with fix for viewing Health data
On Monday morning Apple pushed out iOS 10.1.1 via Software Update. The release notes are short and sweet:
This update fixes bugs including an issue where Health data could not be viewed for some users.
Check Settings > General > Software Update on your iPhone or iPad to download.
Existing Home Routers Could Be Used to Stop DDoS Botnet Attacks
There has been much written about how Friday’s DDoS attack was made possible by a security hole present in various internet of Things (ioT) devices. The lingering question is: how do we prevent this from happening again? The answer might be sitting right there in your home.
Phish's "Big Boat" Contains a Song Recorded Entirely on an iPhone
Today Phish released “Big Boat,” their 13th studio album, and it turns out one of the songs was recorded entirely on keyboardist Page McConnell’s iPhone. From Alan Paul, writing for the Wall Street Journal:
[Producer], Bob Ezrin gave the band members specific instructions: Learn and play 10 folk songs, then start writing, beginning with a folk song. Mr. McConnell’s effort, “Things People Do,” not only made the final cut, but the version included is his demo. Phish made multiple versions of the song before agreeing that nothing topped the original low-fi version, recorded on Mr. McConnell’s iPhone, sitting atop a Wurlitzer piano in his living room.
You can listen to “Big Boat” and, more specifically, “Things People Do” on Apple Music, of course.
iOS 10: Print to PDF With and Without 3D Touch
One of the new features in iOS is the ability to natively print to PDF, similar to what you can do with macOS. It’s relatively simple, but not necessarily obvious. It involves getting the print preview up on the screen, and then switching to share mode in order to generate a PDF. We’ll show you the steps!
Install Secure XFINITY WiFi Profile On Your New iPhone
Comcast provides free Wi-Fi for many its customers where available. Like most free wi-fi, though, it’s unencrypted. Wanting to allow their users to have secure connections, Comcast now offers a WPA-secured “XFINITY” network in many places. To connect you either need to know the password – something Comcast won’t tell you – or you need to install a profile on your iPhone that has the password baked in. We’ll show you how to do the latter!
TASCAM Users: Don't Upgrade to macOS Sierra Yet
As has become unfortunately typical from TASCAM, macOS Sierra-compatible drivers for much of their audio hardware are not yet available. Previous years have seen a three-to-six month wait after the release of each new build of OS X for TASCAM to finally put out even preliminary public beta drivers.
TL;DR: if you use TASCAM audio hardware, don’t upgrade to macOS Sierra yet. Check back around Christmas. Maybe.
New TiVo BOLT+ Now Includes 6 Tuners and 3TB Storage
On Monday TiVo announced their BOLT+ DVR, enhancing the company’s flagship line with a sleek, black unit that includes six tuners and 3TB of recording capacity. Six tuners may seem like a lot until you think about how the current TiVo paradigm works: you have the BOLT+ (or BOLT, or 4+ tuner Roamio) on one TV connected to cable, then you have TiVo Minis at all your other TVs. You only pay a subscription fee for your main device, and each of the Minis can stream live or recorded shows from the host. The trick is, each active Mini occupies one tuner of the host device when in use. Six tuners begins to make a lot of sense if you have even 2 or 3 TVs in action at any one point in time. TiVo is really the only company who is properly addressing the whole-house media viewing solution this way, and it truly makes life a lot simpler. TIVo’s new BOLT+ is priced at $499.99 and will be available online and at brick-and-mortar retail on Thursday, September 15th.
iOS 10 GM Adds "Announce Calls" Feature
Rolled out to to developers last week, the iOS 10 Golden Master release (Version 10.0.1 14A403) includes a new Announce Calls feature in Settings > Phone. When enabled, your phone will begin ringing as usual and then your ringtone’s volume will duck down while Siri announces the name or number of the caller. You have the option to set this to Always, Headphones & Car, Headphones Only or Never. If set to Always, it will announce through your iPhone’s speaker only when the Ring/Silent switch is in Ring mode. iOS 10 will be available for all users tomorrow, Tuesday, September 13th.
Sonos's Future: Opening Up Control to Alexa and Third-Party Apps
On Tuesday, wireless speaker manufacturer Sonos summoned the press to Manhattan to show off some new software features they’ve been working on and, in doing so, painted a picture of a more open Sonos experience. Demonstrating Amazon Alexa voice control and Spotify app integration, Sonos showed a not-too-distant future where customers have the ability to control their Sonos products in a variety of new ways without sacrificing any of the existing benefits of the Sonos platform.
Seeing a Folder's Size in the Terminal
Mac Geek Gab listener Daryn is interested in seeing the size of both files and folders when using the Terminal. We’ll help him utilize the ‘du’ command to glean that information, and then we’ll talk about how to do that in Recovery Mode where ‘du’ isn’t readily available.
Three Ways to Free Up Space on your iPhone and Remove Old App Data
Recently on Mac Geek Gab the topic of phantom app data has come up, mostly in the context of how one can remove it. This data can be from deleted apps, temp files from existing apps, or sometimes even data that iTunes has downloaded for temporary storage. Over the course of the past few episodes we’ve found three ways to delete this data.