Update: We got a chance to speak with group leader Daniel on video, who let us in the gang’s desire to break the world record for waiting in line, as well as some… er, broad political ideas. We also learned that the baby probably won’t be forced to stay outside of the Apple Store all week. See it for yourself in the clip after the break!

[Via GearDiary]

The first people in line are a man, his wife and their young child. According to GearDiary, the couple told security that they’re trying to set a record for time waiting in line and possibly having a baby waiting with them. Police are allowing the 10 people to wait in line and currently have no plans to use barricades.

GearDiary has posted some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

[via MacNN]

The next step is the Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC), which builds upon the ACSP certification for those who support and administer Mac OS X Server 10.5. As with the ACSP certification, there’s a text for those who prefer self-learning, a class, and a sample exam. You must pass both the ACSP and ACTC (Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.5) exams to reach this level of certification.

If you are truly a Mac god, then you can amaze your friends and force your boss to give you a raise by becoming an Apple Certified System Administrator. Once again, the ACSA builds upon the previous certification. You’ll need to pass five exams to be an ACSA — the ACTC (Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.5 and Mac OS X Support Essentials 10.5), Mac OS X Directory Services v10.5, Mac OS X Deployment v10.5, and Mac OS X Advanced System Administration v10.5). The ACSA certification is targeted towards “full-time professional administrators and engineers who manage medium-to-large networks of systems in complex multiplatform deployments.”

It’s highly recommended that you attend the Apple classes for the ACTC and ACSA certifications, since you get a lot of hands-on experience in setup and troubleshooting of complex situations. Of course, none of this is cheap. The classes run about $500 a day at Apple Authorized Training Centers, and to be an ACSA you’re going to go through a whopping 19 days of class. Plus, you must take (and pass) five exams at $200 each. That’s about $10,600 that either you or your employer will need to spend. Is it worth it? Definitely. You’re going to show prospective or existing employers that you really do know your stuff. This is also comparable to what it would cost you to get various other certifications (i.e., Cisco, Windows System Admin, etc…).

Once you have at least the ACSP certification in hand, you can become a member of the Apple Consultants Network. This gives you the opportunity to interview with local Apple stores; if accepted, they may provide customers with your business cards for work that needs to be performed on the customer’s site. There are a lot of other benefits, such as being able to legally use the Apple logo on your business cards and website, and taking advantage of special promotions and discounts. The ACN program isn’t free ($395 for Basic membership or $695 for the Plus membership), but it can pay for itself quickly with a few referrals. That extra $300 for the Plus membership provides you with quarterly hardware discounts up to $800, Apple NFR software at a highly discounted rate or for free, depending on the package, and access to a hardware pool for demos.

Stay tuned for the next installment of this series, when I’ll talk about the Pro Application certifications.

Once that’s done it’s just a matter of backing up your original iPhone to iTunes 7.7 and then restoring that backup to the new iPhone 3G. This should transfer all your saved SMS messages as well as email accounts, notes, etc. Once that’s done you just need to erase the old iPhone with the new secure erase option.

[via Daring Fireball]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6HuXJy1J_w

Nate True, iPhone developer extraordinaire and friend of Apple (but who isn’t, really), has sold off his Tap Tap Revolution game to a company called Tapulous, and they’re renaming it Tap Tap Revenge and are going to try selling it in the iPhone’s (and iPod touch’s) App Store. The game isn’t much tweaked from its jailbroken incarnation, but there is a chaotic two-player mode, seen above, that could be a lot of fun. I’ve never played the original version, so I have no idea what’s up with the shaking, but it looks like it incorporates some accelerometer fun as well.

If you’re a super TTR fan, Tapulous tells us that they’ve got a wallpaper to download on their site right now, and that more videos will be coming out over the weekend, so stay tuned. All these games are looking terrific, but of course the one thing we haven’t heard confirmed from any of them is when and if they’ll be showing up on the App Store. That, it seems, is up to Apple. It doesn’t matter how many games you’ve got ready to go — if Apple doesn’t have them set for download right away, both the devs and iPhone owners will miss a nice opportunity.

[tapulous]

[DearCupertino]

The article is only available in German so far.

Axel Springer owns Bild and Bild am Sonntag, tabloid-style dailies (not unlike The Sun in the UK or the New York Post in the U.S.) and several magazines sold under the Bild brand. The company currently uses large-scale publishing solutions from WoodWing Software and CCI, both of which support Mac clients.

In a video message to employees, CEO Matthias Döpfner cited ease-of-use, appearance, and total cost of ownership in the reason to switch. Employees can start buying and using Macs and iPhones this month, though the entire organization will be migrated over the course of a year or two. Thanks Alex, Rouven, and bimbum for the tip (and the help with the German)!

heise

On this long weekend (for some of us), how about some outdoor activity? TrailRunner updated its route planning software for runners, bikers, and hikers that works with your iPod nano and Nike+ sport kit.

TrailRunner 1.7 is the latest release of the software, which can now import workout data from the Garmin ForeRunner 50, and from nikeplus.com. It also improves the diary history chart.

This new version is 4.3MB, Leopard-only, and donationware. (Version 1.6 still runs in Tiger.) It’s also available in French and German.

[trailrunnerx]

Currently, there are only two iPhone events scheduled out of the over 30 planned events. It is a nice change to see that the iPhone will not “steal the show” in Europe like it does at Apple conferences in the US. You can see all of the details, exhibitors, and scheduled events on the Apple Expo website.

As we noted earlier, Apple will not be attending this year’s Apple Expo.

[apple-expo]

• Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for Intel
• Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for PowerPC G5
• Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for PowerPC G4

Neil Lee has been offering custom builds of Firefox for many years now. They can make Firefox run a bit faster and smoother on older Macs. You can download them for free (though donations are accepted) from the BeatnikPad website.

[via IGM]