Ducan Riley’s former writer for TechCruch now has the new and wonderful website The Inquisitr and I would say one of their first big scoops if it turns out accurate. They claims to have someone whispering in their ears  some very specific details on the upcoming 3G iPhone. Interesting to note that their source claims that “The iPhone to be launched in June will support an enhanced camera that supports video.”

I wanted to introduce you to The Inquisitr and what better way to do it then with an Apple relelated story. No matte what, Ducan is one of the most prolific and talented writer on the internet and you should subscribe to the rss in my opinion.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post showing you my new Vaja iPhone Case. I had this case made and it was a bit over $100.00 U.S. They take about 30 days to make and are very nice indeed.

This has been a great case, with fabulous design and until just a few days ago craftsmanship. I noticed that the stitching on one of the sides was coming off (see picture). I wrote to Vaja and was given approval to return the case. They are going to make me a new case but it looks like I will have to wait again. I am surprised that a case of this price would have this issues. Vaja assured me that this is very rare and that I should be satisfied with the new case.

I am writing this to let you know the whole story. This was not a review unit I paid full retail. So I’ll follow up once I get the new case.

Dale one of the principles over at Brave New Code introduced me today to their latest product WPtouch.

Dale also customizes the templates for Typical Mac User Podcast web site. So what is WPtouch?

Simply put, WPtouch is a complimentary theme installed as a plugin on your WordPress blog or website that will format your content with this Apple-inspired, full-featured theme when your visitors are using an iPhone or iPod touch.

So if you have an iPhone or iPodTouch you can now see the Typical Mac User site in a new interface that is perfect for the iPhone. It literally took me six minutes to add this plugin to my Word Press and it just worked. No BETA here. Of course if you are using those devices and prefer to see the site in the normal way you can do that too. Great job Dale

Here is what my site looks like using WPtouch.

Well one day ahead of the rumor sites Apple refreshed its iMac Desktops with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn mobile processors, as well as a new powerful graphics card that beats anything previously used in the Apple desktops.

Starting at just $1,199, the new iMacs also include 6MB L2 cache, a faster 1066 MHz front-side bus, and 2GB of memory standard in most models (expandable to 4GB).

If you want to go for the gusto, then get the new 24-inch Extreme configuration offers a 3.06 GHz Intel processor with a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics card with 512MB of video memory.

iMacs are absolutely gorgeous machines and these new models with available upgrades make this one great solution for many people whether new to the Mac family or long time users.

After taking a long time to decide what shirt company to use for the TMUP shirts, I picked Spreadshirt. I’ve washed my shirt that I got from them 10 times and it’s still looks great.

So yes it’s time to open the Typical Mac User TeeShirt shop. Please pick what works for you and buy at your own risk. I cannot be responsible for anything having to do with the sale of these shirts. So pick from the products I’ve selected or make your own using the logo.

Thanks for everyone who showed interest in buying one of these. Now you can go for it.

by: David Sparks, associate editor from macsparky.com and hopeless slacker

Back when Victor was crazy enough to have me share the microphone on his live show, we spoke at some length concerning the state of screencasting software.  At the time I explained my interest in ScreenFlow and my thoughts that they would eventually “get it right.”  Well the folks at Vara Software have now made me look very smart with the release of version 1.1.  The new version addresses many of my complaints with the 1.0.   Most importantly the export process is better and faster. (Yay lossless and Apple TV formats.)  There are also some very nice new bells and whistles including markers, audio waveforms and a bucketload (yes, bucketload) of small tweaks that make the production end of things easier and faster.  I’ve been using the various beta builds of version 1.1 for about a month and even published a few screencasts using it.  Don’t take my word for it though.  Head over to Varasoftware and check it out.

Plasq software is one of my favorite software companies. They get it right and they make everything they do functional and with lots of iCandy. Today they released Doozla which I showed you guys during the macworld videos.

Doozla is a full screen children’s drawing application, featuring simple free-hand drawing and color tools, webcam & tablet support, entertaining color-in templates and inspiring background images. Doozla requires Mac OS X 10.4.6 or above and costs USD$24.95. Check it out, try and and see for yourselves.

Today on my RSS feeds I noticed that you can get 1Password for 42% off. Wow go check out this link with all the details. I love 1Password and at this price it’s hard to pass up.

Adobe today announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta, The are doing a public preview
of the improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release.

Apparently Lightroom 2.0 beta will provide more functions for people with dual-monitors, as well as localized dodge and burn correction. I’ll talk more about this in a future show.

Perhaps even more promissing it will be the first Adobe application to support 64-bit for
Mac OS X 10.5 Intel Macs. There is also a free beta trial being offered.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta is available as a 30-day trial for
free download on Macintosh and Windows platforms at
http://www.labs.adobe.com/downloads. Existing Lightroom 1.0 customers
will be able to test the beta for an extended period until Aug. 31, 2008
and can invite friends to take part in this trial period. Recommended
system requirements are Macintosh OSX 10.4, 10.5 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or G5
or Intel-based processor, or Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise, Intel Pentium 4
processor, 1 GBRAM and a 1024×768 resolution screen.

One of my listeners Reinaldo, also know as EagerDragon over at the AppleInsider Forums, wrote to me and posted a comment on this web-site stating that nowhere on Apples web-site do they proclaim to provide official support for using an AirPort Extreme with an external drive as a way to do backups with TimeMachine. I tended to disagree with Reinaldo, and asked him to post his comments, as differing opinions are always encouraged here.

Today he updated me with a link to a post over at AppleInsider Forums where he makes the same statements, shortly followed by another post by “Taylorman” who claims that he spent three hours talking to Apple Support about this issue and was told over and over that. . .

“while some rumor sites claim that Apple supports this functionality, and that some people seem to be able to accomplish it- Apple in no way supports or claims to provide wireless backup functionality through Time Machine through anything other than TimeCapsule.”

Again, to see the full comments go here (their comments are comments 16 and 18).

What is Apples position on this. Well, Apple hasn’t called and I can’t find any reference to it on the net, however over at the AirPort Extreme Apple web-site they say the following . . .

” The AirPort Extreme lets you turn your external USB hard drive into a drive you can share with all the users on your network. It’s called AirPort Disk, and it’s a simple and convenient way to share files among everyone in your family, office, or class.”

I have searched the Apple web-site to see if there is any evidence of Apple supporting the use of the AirPort Extreme along with an attached drive as a TimeMachine (like the TimeCapsule does). I have found no such evidence.

The question then becomes does Apple support TM writing to sparse bundles on a NAS? We know that you can indeed use the AirPort Extreme for this purpose. Associate Editor George Starcher from this blog has done it successfully (both on a wired and wireless network).

The fact that Apple does not want to spend time, support hours, money, and effort to “officially” provide phone or other support for the AirPort Extreme does not surprise however. With so many different brands of hard-drives, routers etc; why would they want to provide this support?

To me that does not mean the AirPort Extreme can’t do it, or that people should not do it (at their own risk).

I think that it is our responsibility to report what functionality we find in devices like this that does work.

I want to thank Reinaldo for his interest in the subject and for providing a differing opinion on this subject. The fact remains that there is no official documentation that I have seen that supports that Apple does or does not provide support for this function.