TidBITS

If you like buying music on CD, Amazon’s new AutoRip service gives you digital downloads of your purchased music, as long as the CD is among the 50,000 albums eligible for the service. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Jeff Porten continues to ferret out the best and the britest (sic!) at CES, with products ranging from USB 3.0 display drivers and iPhone camera lenses to Bluetooth-enabled forks and brainwave-driven cat ears. Really. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Want to rip your DVD collection, but are held back by the daunting task of converting video and adding metadata for your entire collection? iFlicks makes the job a snap. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Jeff Porten continues on his journey to CES, stopping off for food and gadgets at the Pepcom Digital Experience, yet another press-focused event before the real thing starts. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Doug Kaye and Phil Windley spent a decade listening to and sharing ideas about information technology at ITConversations, the earliest network of podcasts. They closed up shop in December 2012. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

CES started with a press preview event, and once again, Jeff Porten was on the ground for TidBITS, nosing out products that are both weird and wonderful. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Seeing duplicate entries in the Open With submenu when you try to open a document with something other than its default application? There’s an easy fix. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Notable software releases include Carbon Copy Cloner 3.5.2, Airfoil 4.7.5, SpamSieve 2.9.6, BusyCal 2.0.2, Typinator 5.4, and BBEdit 10.5.1. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Some companies, such as GE, are unexpectedly shifting manufacturing from China to the United States. Although Apple isn’t mentioned in an article in The Atlantic about the trend, the reasons for the shift are undoubtedly Apple-inspired. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Fed up with Apple’s misbehaving Podcasts app? Josh Centers outlines five alternatives and why they may, or may not, be for you. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

2012 was a watershed year for Apple’s security efforts. While dealing with significant challenges, the company made strong advances, setting the stage for strong security for years to come. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Although reports are still anecdotal and we have no explanation as yet, we recommend holding off on the iOS 6.0.2 update to avoid potentially significant battery drains on the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

For years, Google has offered Google Sync for syncing iOS calendars, contacts, and mail. Except for those who have paid Google Apps accounts, that option is going away. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Prepared solely for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, the iOS 6.0.2 update hopefully improves Wi-Fi connections. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

As is our tradition, we’re taking the last few weeks of the year off to spend time with family and friends, so look for the next email issue of TidBITS on 7 January 2013. But we’ll continue posting new articles to our Web site, and TidBITS Talk will also continue apace. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.