Low End Mac's Link Archive: January 2005
Links Around the Web
- Opinion:
Top 10 Mac failures, MLAgazine, 01.31. Do you remember Pippin,
OpenDoc, Mac TV, the Macintosh XL, MS Word 6, eWorld...?
- News: Long-time Apple
reseller closes its doors, Kasper Jade, AppleInsider, 01.31.
"...in 2003, Apple retaliated to the MACadam's lawsuit by
de-authorizing the store as an official Apple reseller."
- Advice:
Mac mini, Windows keyboard, Dan Frakes, Macworld, 01.31.
"...when you use a Windows keyboard with a Mac, the option and
command keys are switched. Enter the free DoubleCommand...."
- News:
Apple bumps PowerBooks to 1.67GHz, lowers price, Peter Cohen,
MacCentral, 01.31. New PowerBooks run faster, have more base RAM,
use faster graphics, include faster hard drives, offer an 8x
SuperDrive, and add two new features - scrolling trackpad and
motion sensing.
- Advice:
Fancy footwork with TextEdit, Nancy Carroll Gravley, Computing
with Bifocals, Mac Observer, 01.31. There's probably a lot more to
TextEdit that you'd ever realize. Here's how get more out of this
free app.
- News: Apple
software sales up nearly 40% last year, MacMinute, 01.31.
"Beyond Apple's hugely successful iPod and online music store,
software . . . has become the fastest-growing part of its
business."
- Analysis:
Apple at the crossroads, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 01.31.
"Since the iPod opened the door to the Windows market, perhaps a
sub-$500 Mac would garner a level of sales it would never have
achieved a year or two ago. It might even be profitable."
- Benchmarks: Bury the megabyte myth, a
1.25 GHz Mac mini with 512MB RAM - How fast is it?, Macs Only!,
01.31. Mac OS X 10.3 makes such good use of memory that it makes
almost no performance difference going from 256 MB to 512 MB.
- Opinion:
Hallelujah, the Mac is back, Farhad Manjoo, Salon, 01.31. "What
if the iPod's just a gateway drug? What if Apple's future is much
grander: What if Apple could become the Toyota of the computer
business?"
- Huh?: Project:
mini PC, Kevin Rose, kevin rose dot com, 01.30. Build a PC
inside a Mac mini case? You can do it, but you have to trim the
heat sink - and there's no room inside for an optical drive.
- News: Apple edges
Google as top brand, MacMinute, 01.30. "Apple has been named
the most influential brand in a survey of branding professionals,
beating out search engine Google, which held the top spot last
year."
- Advice:
Mac users sound off: Free is good, spam is not, Bambi Hambi,
Mac360, 01.29. More tips on filtering and fighting back against
spam.
- Opinion:
Unloading an older Apple PowerBook, Chris Muldrow, Free
Lance-Star, 01.29. "...oddly enough, it's already up to an amount
higher than what I thought it would sell for."
- Rights: Quicken
disables the software you paid for to force paid upgrades, Cory
Doctorow, Boing Boing, 01.29. Happy with Quicken 2002's online bill
paying? Prepare to upgrade to a newer version - Intuit is
discontinuing support for online bill paying for Quicken 2002.
- Software:
Tool for thought, Steven Berlin Johnson,
stevenberlinjohnson.com, 01.29. The power of DevonThink (Mac OS X
only) as a personalized research tool.
- Tech: My
workstation OS: FreeDOS, Lee A Spain, NewsForge, 01.29. FreeDOS
is free, works like MS-DOS (remember DOS?), and supports a broad
range of hardware. Try it on your old PC - or Mac with a DOS
card.
- History: The Steve
Jobs NeXTstep 3.0 demo, OpenStep.se, 01.28. Sound is good,
video may be troublesome (it was on my Mac), but it's amazing how
much NeXTstep sounds like OS X.
- Analysis:
Why Apple makes a one buttoned mouse, Andru, Gear Live, 01.28.
"...I would talk to someone who has never right clicked in their
life. After they first do it, they will ASK YOU EVERY TIME if they
should right click or left click."
- News: Best Buy to
sell 1.42GHz Mac mini, 512MB shuffle in stores, Brad Gibson,
Mac Observer, 01.28. "Apple Computer will begin selling its US$599
Mac mini and the $99 iPod shuffle at over 780 Best Buy stores in
the U.S. sometime in the next 30 days, the electronics retailer has
confirmed...."
Dark Side:
Regulators tell Microsoft there's plenty in a name, Alorie
Gilbert, Cnet, 01.28. EU requires Microsoft to produce version of
WinXP without any media support in antitrust settlement. Microsoft
plans to sell it for the same price a XP with Media Player.- Opinion: Dethroning
King Gillette: Is iPod the razor or the blade?, Robert X
Cringely, I, Cringely, 01.27. "Apple makes very little money from
selling songs, but it does make some profit. Apple makes a LOT of
profit from selling iPods. So the song is the razor, not the
iPod...."
- News: Apple
Spotlight patent reveals 3-year head start on Microsoft, Bryan
Chaffin, Mac Observer, 01.27. Apple first applied to patent the
Spotlight search technology on January 5, 2000. (The patent was
granted this week.)
- Spam:
What horror lurks in your Mac's email inbox?, Bambi Hambi,
Mac360, 01.27. "Even with a junk mail filter, some of the mail that
shows up is disgusting, hilarious, horrible, and ready to con you
out of your money."
- Advice:
How to make a life poster, Mike Matas, The Mike Matas Blog,
01.27. How to use iPhoto 05 to help create your own personal 20" x
30" life poster.
Rights:
RIAA files 717 new file-trading lawsuits, Grant Gross,
MacCentral, 01.27. "With the new round of lawsuits, the RIAA has
now sued more than 8,400 alleged file-swappers since September
2003."- Advice: Build your
own PVR (for free) with HackTV, Erica Sadun, O'Reilly Network,
01.26. All you need is the free HackTV software, an A/D converter
with FireWire and video pass-through, a tuner (think VCR), and some
cables.
- Benchmarks:
Performance increase in replacing a mini's hard drive, Jamie
Dresser, Other World Computing, 01.27. Alternate hard drives can
boost disk performance by 25% to nearly 50% compared to Apple's
stock hard drive.
- Opinion: Apple
website points to PowerBook G5, Tony Smith, The Register,
01.27. "Is the PowerBook G5 near at hand? A tentative clue from
Apple's own website suggests that it might be."
- Benchmarks: Mac
mini versus Cube versus iMac versus Power Mac, Bare Feats,
01.27. 3D gaming is good except at highest resolution settings, but
"The mini's 'Achilles heel' continues to be the hard drive, which
is a 2.5" notebook model running at only 4200rpm."
- Software: Opera
doesn't deserve to be forgotten, Charles W. Moore, OS X
Odyssey, Applelinks, 01.27. "...ever since the Opera 8.0 Preview 1
release came out three weeks ago, I've been using it as my number
one general surfing browser, and the more I use it the more I like
it."
- Rights: Content
vs. file sharers leaves us out, Patrick Ross, Cnet, 01.27.
"She doesn't speak for consumers like me who want digital content,
but want to pay for it. Why not?"
- News: Crooked
Microsoft worker masterminded $7m racket, John Leyden, The
Register, 01.27. Former Microsoft employee made $2.3 million profit
reselling software purchased with employee discount.
- Rights:
Eyes
on the Prize hits P2P, Katie Dean, Wired, 01.27. "A group
of file-sharing activists is practicing a little civil disobedience
of its own in order to bring the documentary series Eyes on the
Prize to a wider audience."
- News:
Congress
puts spyware on hit list, Michael Grebb, Wired, 01.27. "The
bill exponentially increases fines against abusers as well,
authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to fine violators up to $3
million per infraction."
- Opinion: If
only life were as simple as a Mac, Rainbow Rowell, Omaha
World-Herald, 01.26. "Once you get used to a computer that caters
to you, you don't understand why all computers aren't so easy - and
so pretty."
- News:
Ancient Macs make modern art, Jason Walsh, Wired, 01.26.
"British artist Richard Bolam uses HyperCard to create generative
art using ancient Mac Classics."
- Opinion: The Mac mini
experience, John Yanosko, OSNews, 01.26. A one-time Mac user
and current Linux devotee buys an Mac mini. How does it compare
with his Linux box?
- Opinion: A Linux
geek embraces Mac OS X, Jim Lynch, Extreme Tech, 01.26. "Though
I didn't have trouble adjusting to using the Finder, I think it's
potentially very confusing to people coming to Mac OS X from other
operating systems (particularly Windows users)."
- Opinion: The
State of the Mac: Things change, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
01.26. "Up until that rumor explosion in December, some things were
absolutely certain . . . Steve Jobs would never allow the company
to sell a cheap Mac or a cheap iPod."
- Dark Side:
Microsoft: Legit Windows or no updates, Ina Fried, Cnet,
01.26. Want security patches and system updates for Windows? You'd
better have a legal copy - otherwise Microsoft will block your
updates.
Rights:
Dell
joins domain name hall of shame (again), Kieren McCarthy, The
Register, 01.26. "Dellwebsites.com is just the latest in a long
line of unfair disputes and the situation will continue so long as
big companies hold sway over the Internet...."- Software: Opera,
the forgotten browser, Michelle Delio, Wired, 01.26.
"Ironically, many of the features that are now favorites among
Firefox users first appeared in Opera, such as Multiple Document
Interface, known as tabbed browsing in Firefox...."
- Apple: Apple to
honor price protection on BTO Mac mini, MacMinute, 01.26.
"Following yesterday's price drops on certain build-to-order (BTO)
Mac mini components, Apple said it will refund the difference to
affected purchasers...."
- News: Target pulls Mac mini
from online store, Katie Marsal, AppleInsider, 01.25. "We can't
offer a definite date when it will be on hand again, and because of
this, we're not able to make it available for ordering at this
time."
- Rights: Sue different: Apple
threatens insider sites after leaks, Mark Glaser, Online
Journalism Review, 01.25. "...Apple looks like it has taken a page
from the [RIAA], which has sued hundreds of music lovers for
downloading copyrighted music via file-sharing services
online."
- News: Apple drops BTO
Mac mini prices, MacMinute, 01.25. Apple cuts prices on BTO
components for Mac mini: Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme, US$99; the
1GB RAM upgrade, $325; 80GB hard drive upgrade, $50 (was $80); 8x
SuperDrive (instead of 4x), $100.
- Analysis:
The Mac mini as a road warrior machine, Charles W. Moore, Road
Warrior, Mac Opinion, 01.25. "...the Mac mini offers as close to
the laptop virtues as we've seen yet in a desktop computer, and
really represents a crossover category - the 'transportable'
computer."
- Analysis:
The iMac mini: Apples and oranges, a follow-up, Dan Frakes,
Macworld, 01.25. It doesn't matter whether Dell or Apple can be
configured for a bit less. The important point is that the Mac mini
is price competive with entry-level Windows PCs.
- History:
Bragging rights to the world's first MP3 player, Eliot Van
Buskirk, Cnet, 01.25. The first flash memory MP3 player: Saehan's
MPMan, late spring 1998. And the first hard drive MP3 player was
invented by Compaq, also in 1998.
- Rights:
Today's
Rant: Blurring the definitions of journalism, Gene Steinberg,
Mac Night Owl, 01.25. Does freedom of the press depend on the
medium of publication, the number of readers, or the age of the
writer?
- Opinion:
Gunning for iTunes, Eric Hellweg, Technology Review, 01.25.
Subscription music systems working with Microsoft to roll out
"Plays For Sure" to allow users to put rented tunes on MP3
players.
- Review: Update
6 - Sp@mX, the road to near zero spam, Macs Only!, 01.25. Spam
has been greatly reduced, but a lot of ISPs don't seem to be
following up on abuse reports.
- Software:
Sp@mX now reports 'phishers', Brad Cook, MacCentral, 01.25.
"Sp@mX traces the phishers' domains through the links included in
the e-mails and notifies their Internet service providers (ISPs) as
well as law enforcement."
- Advice:
Tricks keep Apple iPod in tune on Windows PC, Kim Komando, USA
Today, 01.24. Tips for using iTunes with Windows 2000 or XP - and
how to use an iPod with Windows 98SE and Me.
- Opinion: Macintosh
market share, Debris.com, 01.24. "It's Wintel's rapid upgrade
cycle that's been getting progressively more and more out of line .
. . not falling interest in the Mac, that's behind the
numbers."
- Opinion: A month with a
Mac, part II: The mobile experience, Anand Lal Shimpi,
AnandTech, 01.24. "All of the multitasking benefits that I
discovered about OS X . . . are even more useful on the PowerBook
because of your limited screen real estate."
- Benchmarks: Apple's new 1.25GHz Mac
mini - How fast is it?, Macs Only!, 01.24. Performance is very
good, and the base 256 MB RAM doesn't appear to be a bottleneck.
However, the hard drive is slow - as expected of a laptop
drive.
- Opinion: Many
faces of the Mac mini, Leander Kahney, Wired, 01.24.
"Positioned by Apple as an inexpensive impulse buy for Windows
switchers, the Mac mini is already being put to a wide array of
uses...."
- Tech: Intel
'Smithfield' dual-core to debut as 8xx series, Tony Smith, The
Register, 01.24. Dual-core Pentium 4 will ship at 2.8-3.2 GHz.
Regular Pentium 4 scheduled to ship at 3.8 GHz by mid-year.
- Opinion: Going
head-to-head with PC boxes, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
01.24. Will the Mac mini be appearing in Target stores soon? It
could happen....
- History: The first
Macintosh Stevenote movie: Happy 21st birthday, Macintosh!,
Bryan Chaffin, Mac Observer, 01.24. "German site Mac Essentials has
posted the video of Steve Jobs publicly unveiling the Macintosh on
January 24th, 1984."
- Review:
iWork First Look: What it is and what it is not, Jack D.
Miller, Mac360, 01.23. "Mac users who like to use Word to creat
documents and export them to PDF will love what you can do with
Pages. Graphics, photos, movies, MP3s, all just 'drop' into place
on the page."
- Review:
iLife First Look. What you'll like and won't like, Tera
Patricks, Mac360, 01.23. "The playlists are smarter and integration
of files betwen the apps is much smoother. This is not a BIG
upgrade, but it's an important upgrade."
- Software:
Mac users prefer free mac utility software, Bambi Hambi,
Mac360, 01.23. "Not only did we compile a list of the lastest free
Mac utility software, Mac users chimed in with their own free
listings."
- Opinion: PC
to Mac . . . and back, Steven L Kent, The Olympian, 01.22. "The
problems with my iMac were easily fixed. In the end, however, I
decided to return to the world of Windows."
- Review: Mac
mini, Steve Wood, Educators' News, 01.22. "...my first
impressions are that the new Mac is everything Apple advertised and
more."
- Deal: Get 10%
off Mac minis at Target, MacMinute, 01.21. Target often has
discounts for their online stores. One reader discovered he could
save 10% on the Mac mini with the right coupon.
- Software:
What's for lunch at the Mac free lunch club?, Tera Patricks,
Mac360, 01.21. "Sometimes good things are free. Take the Mac 'free'
software market."
- Rights:
Verizon
faces lawsuit over email blocking, John Leyden, The Register,
01.21. "Since 22 December, mail servers at verizon.net have been
configured to reject connections from Europe and other parts of the
world including China and New Zealand by default...."
- Advice: More
tips and hints for OS X, Nancy Carroll Gravley, Computing with
Bifocals, Mac Net Journal, 01.21. Ejecting a CD that won't mount, a
different view of the Finder, using the buddy list in iChat,
modifying the Dock, and more tips.
- Review: First
Look: Apple's Mac mini, Rebecca Freed, PC World, 01.21. "If I
were recommending a starter system to someone (who hadn't already
taken a side in the Mac versus Windows holy war), I wouldn't
hesitate to send them in the direction of the Mac Mini."
- Tech: You can't be
too thin, Paul Boutin, Salon, 01.21. AAC, Apple's default music
encoder, is better than MP3, but aacPlus is even better. Would you
believe excellent quality at 48 kbps?
- Analysis: Apple and
memory: Tossing conventional wisdom on its ear, Gene Steinberg,
Mac Night Owl, 01.21. For those who aren't power users, 256 MB may
be plenty of memory.
- Hardware:
Hands On with the Mac mini: Taking Apple's new desktop out for a
test drive, Dan Frakes, Macworld, 01.20. "...I decided to test
the 'switcher' route. I unplugged my Dell LCD, keyboard, and mouse
- I really did BMODKM, as Steve Jobs suggested in his
keynote&emdash;and connected them to the mini."
- Advice:
The Mac mini: Inside and out, Dan Frakes, Macworld, 01.20. How
to get inside the Mac mini. "Now that I've done it, it won't be
difficult to do it again, but I'm not sure I'd recommend the
procedure to some of my less-gadgety-inclined friends...."
- Opinion: Mini Me:
The new Mac mini is all about movies, Robert X Cringely, I,
Cringely, 01.20. How Apple could use the Mac mini to help launch an
online high-definition movie service.
- Opinion: Top nine
reasons the Apple Dock still sucks, Bruce Tognazzini, AskTog,
01.20. "OS X is a powerful operating system. It deserves a
top-level interface that matches."
- Analysis: Euro
Apple fans moan over Mac mini pricing, Tony Smith, The
Register, 01.20. Europeans forget about import duties and sales tax
when complaining about Mac mini pricing in Europe.
- Rights: Prominent
Internet lawyer to defend Think Secret, MacMinute, 01.20.
"Terry Gross of Gross & Belsky LLP will defend Mac news site
Think Secret from a lawsuit brought againtst it by Apple."
- Analysis: With new
Mac mini, Apple makes switching attractive, affordable, Walter
S Mossberg, Wall Street Journal, 01.20. "The mini comes with
Apple's older G4 processor, which in some ways beats the Celeron
processors used in low-end Windows PCs."
- Upgrade: Giga Designs
intros Cube VRM, dual-1.6GHz Cube upgrades, MacMinute, 01.20.
"The new G-celerator Cube 7A series dual processor upgrade uses
1.42GHz chips that run at 1.6GHz with the Cube VRM [Voltage
Regulation Module]."
- Web:
The race is on for ownership of .net, Kieren McCarthy, The
Register, 01.20. "The deadline has closed and there are officially
five companies bidding to take over the Internet's third-biggest
registry - .net."
- Analysis: Mac mini - the "just
enough" computer, Giles Turnbull, MacDevCenter, 01.19. "The
'just enough' approach will be sufficient to let the target
audience experiment with OS X and see what they think. And it has
the flexibility to be upgraded...."
- Software: A
RAW look at iPhoto 5, Derrick Story, MacDevCenter, 01.19. "For
me, iPhoto 5 represents the most exciting enhancement in the new
iLife '05 suite of digital hub applications. In fact, it's the best
revision to iPhoto yet."
- Rights:
Introducing the
iLawsuit, Matthew A Gline, Harvard Crimson, 01.19. "It seems
the obligations of the press ought generally to lie with the
public, and not with personal or corporate interests."
- Opinion: Another
Apple secret: Fewer steps, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
01.19. "In short, doing something under Windows, while sometimes no
more complicated than a Mac, will often involve many additional
steps."
- Benchmarks: 1.42GHz Mac mini versus
1.4GHz Cube and others, Bare Feats, 01.18. "The Mac mini is a
decent performer when compared to Macs with CPUs running at similar
clock speeds. Its 'Achilles heel' is the hard drive speed."
- Opinion: Can the
Mac mini really convert Windows users?, Gene Steinberg, Mac
Night Owl, 01.18. Good looks and a lack of malware - what more
could they ask for?
- Advice:
Thumbs down to thumbnails, Christopher Breen, Macworld, 01.18.
How to work around the way iPhoto burns thumbnails to CD along with
the originals.
- Advice:
Taking apart the Mac Mini (how-to disassembly video), Smash's
World, 01.18. "Somebody leaked me this video... It demonstrates how
to crack-open the Mac mini's casing, which makes all parts
available to the user via further disassembly...."
- Advice:
Run Mac OS X on a PC, Wei-Meng Lee, Windows Dev Center, 01.18.
"...how to install and run Mac OS X Panther on your PC using
PearPC, a free, architecture-independent PowerPC platform that runs
on PCs."
- Opinion:
Will there ever be a G5 PowerBook?, Charles W. Moore, Road
Warrior, Mac Observer, 01.18. PowerBook G5? We'll just have to wait
and see.
- News: 'Other' MP3
players getting widespread markdowns?, Barb Dybwad, Unofficial
Apple Weblog, 01.18. "I ventured out to . . . The Mall . . . and
noticed that, almost universally, in every electronics store I went
into . . . the 'other' MP3 players were marked down."
- Opinion: Apple's
secret: It's the packaging, stupid!, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night
Owl, 01.17. "I rather suspect most of the development time was
spent on the form of the product [Mac mini] rather than its
substance."
- News:
European Mac fans call Mac Mini pricing unfair, Jo Best, Cnet,
01.17. "Basing on the last long-term rate of exchange of U.S.
dollars to euros . . .both announced prices of the Mac mini in
Europe, 489 euros and 589 euros, respectively, are much too
high."
- Spam: Hands On Report -
Sp@mX, the road to near zero spam at week 5, Macs Only!, 01.17.
"Our spam load is not yet 'near zero' but the huge difference has
saved us an enormous amount of time and angst."
- Analysis:
Mac mini price significantly less than DIY PC, Harry Rider,
osViews, 01.14. Building your own PC from parts cost as much as the
Mac mini - but then you still need to buy Windows and
software.
- Analysis: Thinking
about the Mac mini / The Mac sweet spot, Joey deVilla, The
Farm, 01.14. "There exists a possibility that the Mac Mini could
trigger a wave of new Mac users who've known nothing but Windows
all their computing lives."
- News: HP halts orders
for Apple's iPod music players, Kasper Jade, AppleInsider,
01.14. HP wants Apple to promise price protection in the event
Apple reduces iPod prices, won't order until Apple agrees.
- Opinion: The
Macworld unknown best of show, Alan Graham, O'Reilly Network,
01.14. Five great products you might not have heard about yet from
the Macworld Expo.
- Opinion: Smaller
not necessarily better, Leander Kahney, Wired, 01.13. "The iPod
shuffle is clearly a hit, and Macworld attendees hope the Mac mini
will be also, but there are worries it may be another Cube."
- Analysis:
Mac mini: What you need to know, Jason Snell, Macworld, 01.13.
"...we've been gleaning what we can about the new $499 Mac from
loving visits on the Macworld Expo show floor and technical
discussions we've had with a few Apple officials."
- Analysis:
New iMac, iPod could bite Apple's profits, Reuters, 01.13. "Not
only do the new products carry lower gross margins, but Apple's
costs are also higher than that of other personal computer
makers."
- News: iPod shuffle:
20,000 sold in first 4 hours, Jeremy Horwitz, iPodlounge,
01.13. "... Apple's retail store in San Francisco sold 20,000 iPod
shuffle units in its first four hours of availability this week,
depleting its entire inventory."
- Rights: Casualties
mount in Apple vs customers war, Andrew Orlowski, The Register,
01.13. "It doesn't make sense for them to charge us a dollar per
song for a song in some format that disables us from using it with
anything other than an iPod or our computer."
- Rights:
Apple
sues student, Joseph M Tartakoff, Harvard Crimson, 01.12.
"Apple claims that Ciarelli and his company, The dePlume
Organization, broke the law when soliciting insider tips online
from anonymous sources...."
- Analysis:
Headless iMac, Philip Machanick, MacIntelligence, Mac Opinion,
01.12. "The Mac mini is not as crippled as the horrible
under-Performas of the 1990s. It is pretty much an eMac in a
smaller box, minus keyboard, mouse and screen."
- Opinion:
A Mac for the masses, Farhad Manjoo, Salon, 01.12. "...this
time, Jobs brought forth a new kind of Mac - a machine that comes
with every feature of the Macs of yesteryear, except one: Sticker
shock."
- Opinion:
New Apple mini looks good on paper, but hot new look still needs to
prove itself, John C. Dvorak, CBS MarketWatch, 01.12. "Once
this unit gets into the field and passes the tests of the real
world, I'll have no trouble recommending it as a machine of choice,
especially to new users."
- Analysis:
Mac mini economics: My math wasn't bad, just misguided, Jon
Fortt, Jon Fortt's Technofile, 01.12. "You end up with a computer
that costs Apple not $435, but $385 to bring to market."
- Opinion: Mac
mini and PCs that don't work, Jonathan Gennick, O'Reilly
Network, 01.12. "I see people who are so frustrated with their
dysfunctional PCs that they just shove them into a corner and
forget about them. Windows PCs are just difficult for many to keep
running."
- Analysis:
Mac mini a maxi deal? Depends what you want, M Kanellos, J
Spooner, Cnet, 01.12. "Price considerations aside, the Mac Mini is
unlike other PCs on the market. [It's] far smaller and more stylish
than 'small' PCs"
- Tech: Apple VP:
PowerBook G5 "the mother of all thermal challenges", Misha
Sakellaropoulo, Mac Observer, 01.12. Although IBM keeps improving
the G5, it's still too hot to be practical in a laptop.
- AAPL: Apple
turns $295 million profit; revenue soars to $3.49 billion, Mac
Observer, 01.12. Highest quarterly revenue and net income in Apple
history. Mac sales up 26% over a year ago, and iPod sales up
525%.
- Opinion:
Mac mini: Flat Cube, or Honey! I Shrunk the Power Mac!, Glenn
Fleishman, TidBITS, 01.11. "The Mac mini essentially cuts the lungs
out of the PC world's (and many columnists') argument about Macs
costing too much."
- News: TextWrangler: now free,
and better than ever, Giles Turnbull, O'Reilly Network, 01.11.
Bare Bones updates TextWrangler to version 2.0, turns it into
freeware.
- Analysis:
Apple iPod shuffle poised to sideswipe portable music market,
Matt Neuburg, TidBITS, 01.11. "...Apple has chosen an impressive
and surprising strategy of undercutting the competition on price: a
512MB model is just $100, and a 1GB model is just $150."
- Opinion:
iWork: I, PageMaker?, Philip Michaels, Macworld, 01.11. "This
initial impression could change once iWork actually ships on
January 22, but the program Apple touted Tuesday seemed to put more
of an emphasis on page-layout than word-processing."
- Opinion: iPod
shuffle - great software makes it possible, Derrick Story,
O'Reilly Network, 01.11. "How can Apple get away with a Flash music
player that doesn't even have an LCD screen? The answer:
iTunes."
- Advice: RSS
and tabbed browsing in Safari, Firefox, and Camino, Wei-Meng
Lee, MacDevCenter, 01.11. How to use RSS and tabbed browsing to
reduce desktop clutter on your Mac.
- Opinion:
Apple of thine eye, Jason Walsh, Micromart, 01.10. "In an age
when being both American and a corporation is increasingly viewed
with suspicion, why is this Californian computer company the
subject of such devotion for so many people...?"
- History:
Mac TV, MLAgazine, 01.10. Long before Microsoft began pushing
Media Center computers, Apple made a Mac with a built-in TV
tuner.
- Software: Sp@mX offers
anti-phishing capability, Mac support, MacMinute, 01.10.
"...Sp@mX, the company's popular software for spam source tracing
and reporting, has the added support for both Macintosh and Linux,
as well as the capability to track down ' phishers.'"
- Web: Spammers
tax DNS infrastructures, John Leyden, The Register, 01.10. Spam
tactics "are placing a heavy load on DNS servers attempting to
look-up non-existent domains."
- Software: Opera 8.0
Preview 1 Web browser for Mac, Charles W. Moore, OS X Odyssey,
Applelinks, 01.10. "With this version 8, Opera on the Mac comes a
lot closer to living up to, or even achieved, its erstwhile slogan:
'fastest browser on the planet.'"
- Opinion: Count two
sales for the "headless iMac", Steve Wood, Busman's Holiday,
Math Dittos 2, 01.09. "I think there's a very large untapped market
of potential Mac users that a low-cost Mac may bring to the
platform that otherwise would stay with bargain PCs."
- Opinion: An open
letter to Steve Jobs (or, shutting down our Apple blog), Jason
McCabe Calacanis, The Jason Calacanis Weblog, 01.08. "...just
because you make great products and unveil them with such panache
doesn't mean you should sue the press for getting the jump on
them."
- News:
Apple nixes live webcast, Satellite Feed, Slashdot, 01.07. No
live broadcast, but Apple promises to make the keynote available
online sometime after it's finished.
- Opinion:
Apple prepares to drop $500 bomb on Microsoft, Tera Patricks,
Mac360, 01.07. "Windows users are very unhappy with Windows, PCs,
and Microsoft. Yet, they stick in that rut because there's no place
to go, right?"
- Opinion: What if
Macs suddenly became popular?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
01.07. "How many Windows users are really happy with their
computers these days, what with all the pitfalls?"
- Review: Charles
Moore reviews Photoshop Elements 3.0, Charles W. Moore,
Applelinks, 01.07. "When you consider that you're getting most of
the functionality found in Photoshop CS, and probably all of it
that most of us would ever use, Elements 3.0 is a genuine
bargain."
- Opinion:
Try as I might, I can't wreck a Mac, Tom Yager, Ahead of the
Curve, InfoWorld, 01.07. "Every day I learn to do things better
(meaning simpler), and I like hanging with a platform that makes
constant progress. Moving to the Mac is one of my all-time smartest
calls."
- Opinion: Vaporware
phantom haunts us all, Leander Kahney, Wired, 01.07. Top
vaporware of the year includes 4 GHz Pentium 4, 3 GHz G5, Longhorn,
and Cherry OS.
- Dark Side: Microsoft Internet Explorer
multiple vulnerabilities, Secunia, 01.07. "Some vulnerabilities
. . . can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's
system, conduct cross-site/zone scripting and bypass a security
feature in Microsoft Windows XP SP2."
- Software: OmniWeb 5.1
final released, Charles W. Moore, OS X Odyssey, Applelinks,
01.07. "I've been using OmniWeb 5.1 betas for the past six months
or so, and I've been convinced - OmniWeb 5.1 is a great
browser."
- Tech: The free
lunch is over: A fundamental turn toward concurrency in
software, Herb Sutter, 01.07. With CPU clock speed barely
improving, multithreading and multiple cores are becoming more
important. And software needs to be written to take advantage of
that.
- Humor:
A Mac-to-PC switcher movie, Headrush, 01.06. "I think it builds
character to have to reboot your computer everyday. Sometimes twice
a day."
- Opinion: Mad for
Macs, Jason Walsh, Guardian Unlimited, 01.06. "Whether you love
them, loathe them or remain resolutely indifferent, Macs are more
of a cultural phenomenon than a computing platform."
- Software:
The best Mac file sync program. A penny a day?, Tera Patricks,
Mac360, 01.06. "ChronoSync 'remembers' your set up (passwords,
login ID's, network drive, Mac name, etc.) then sits there until
the appropriate time and does the job. Every time."
- News:
Sony PC doubles as TV, John G Spooner, Cnet, 01.06. 20"
wide-screen flat panel display, DVD player, TV tuner, and Windows
computer. $2,600. Or buy a 20" iMac G5 for $1,900 and add your own
tuner....
- Analysis: The rumor
game, John Gruber, Daring Fireball, 01.06. "...depending on
what Apple actually has to announce Tuesday morning, [Think
Secret's] recent reports regarding next week's Expo could well
prove detrimental to Apple as well."
- News:
Apple store coming to Woodland, Mary Radigan, Grand Rapids
Press, 01.06. "KENTWOOD [MI] - Woodland Shopping Center soon will
be home to a highly coveted Apple Computer Store." That's in LEM's
back yard!
- Analysis:
Laser
'marksman' should join Bin Laden hunt, Ashlee Vance, The
Register, 01.06. Register readers agree that flashing a pilot with
a laser is nearly impossible - and the beam would be too weak to
have much impact at the claimed range.
- Forum: US
CD sales increase in 2004, Slashdot, 01.06. "BBC is reporting
that CD sales rose by 2.3% in the U.S. in the year 2004 despite the
growing popularity of legal digital music downloads through
services such as iTunes."
- News: Motorola
previews iTunes phone, Matt Hicks, eWeek, 01.06. "A Motorola
executive on Thursday previewed an upcoming mobile phone that can
play music from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes store."
- Opinion: It's
official: Storage is the new chips, Andrew Orlowski, The
Register, 01.06. Computers have processing power to spare. "Now
it's the magnetic storage that defines the device."
- News: Toshiba
to ship 2GB 'phone HDD' by month's end, Tony Smith, The
Register, 01.06. Even smaller than the 1" Microdrive used in the
iPod mini, could this new 0.85" drive find its way into a lower
cost iPod mini?
- Rights: China
fearful of Net, Tim Richardson, The Register, 01.06. China sees
the free exchange of ideas as dangerous cultural aggression
threatening culture, independence, freedom, and socialism.
- Tech: One benchmark
compares NetBSD 2.0 and FreeBSD 5.3, OSNews, 01.06. Discussion
of NetBSD, FreeBSD, and Linux performance. (OS X is built on a
FreeBSD kernel.)
- News:
Jef Raskin Center for Humane Interface gets $2 million in start-up
funding, Chris Hunter, Pacifica Tribune, 01.05. "Our plan is to
work out of this office to show the world how to make computers
much easier to use."
- Software:
Free Mac apps that do much more than you expect, Jack D.
Miller, Mac360, 01.05. File Wrangler, MPEG StreamClip, and Dent du
Midi, programs that just might make your Mac more useful.
- Rights: Apple sues Think
Secret; Product rumors confirmed?, MacMinute, 01.05. "...Apple
identifies specific articles, indicating that at least parts of
those reports (such as 'headless iMac' and 'iWork') are true."
- Rights:
Lawsuit claims Apple violates law with iTunes, Reuters, 01.05.
"An unhappy iTunes online music store customer is suing Apple
Computer Inc., alleging the company broke antitrust laws by only
allowing iTunes to work with its own music player, the
iPod...."
- Rights:
Arrogance at Apple, Dan Gillmor, Dan Gillmor on Journalism,
01.05. "If the party leaking information to Think Secret had sent
it, say, to the San Jose Mercury News or New York Times, and had
those publications run the news, Apple wouldn't be suing
them."
- Rights: Plugging
leaks, John Gruber, Daring Fireball, 01.05. "...by making harsh
examples out of whoever leaked these rumors, Apple stands a good
chance of discouraging other would-be leakers from unsealing their
lips in the future."
- Opinion:
Apple lawsuit: Dangerous for free speech or PR hype?, Tera
Patricks, Mac360, 01.05. "The $500 Mac became very public knowledge
over the holidays, right? Some companies would kill to get that
kind of press without paying a dime."
- Tech:
Hitachi's big plans for iPod mini drives, Martyn Williams,
Macworld UK, 01.05. "...Hitachi's most capacious Microdrive can
hold 4GB of data, but the new drives, due in the second half of
this year, will be able to hold between 8GB and 10GB...."
- Hardware: Matias to debut
keyboard with extra Control key, MacMinute, 01.05. "Unlike the
Tactile Pro, the OS X Keyboard uses rubber dome keyswitches, for
quieter operation and tactile response." US$39.95.
- History: The
insanely great story of how the Mac was made - an interview with
Andy Hertzfeld, Derrick Story, MacDevCenter, 01.04. "At this
point it's pretty obvious that the Mac was the most significant
thing I ever worked on."
- Opinion:
Mac users sound off on $500 Mac. "Oh, The Humanity", Bambi
Hambi, Mac360, 01.04. "More importantly, at $500, Windows users
who've come to love their iPods because "they just work" will go
for a full-fledged Mac in droves."
- News:
HP unveils plans for digital home invasion, Evan Hansen, Cnet,
01.04. Another PC company is poised to enter the world of consumer
electronics. HP will follow Gateway, Dell, and CompUSA by selling
TVs.
- Huh?: Hey, my TV
just crashed!, Harry McCracken, PC World, 01.04. "I'd know that
anywhere--yup, my TV gave me an Internet Explorer error
message."
Opinion:
Apple nearly stole my $10 and other Canadian iTunes Music Store
gripes, Trent, Apple-X.net, 01.03. Why won't iTMS Canada accept
an iTMS USA gift certificate? Why is so much music unavailable in
Canada that can be purchased in the States?- Analysis:
Paul Thurrott misses the mark on the Mac, again, John Papola,
John Papola's Macinations, 01.03. "The reality is that Apple is one
of the only companies making a profit on PCs."
- Advice:
Beach ball, begone!, Philip Michaels, Macworld, 01.03. Seeing
that spinning beach ball too often when using Safari? Here are some
tips for speeding things up.
- Benchmarks: Benchmark comparison of
NetBSD 2.0 and FreeBSD 5.3, Gregory McGarry, 01.03. NetBSD 2.0
outperforms FreeBSD 5.3 in almost every test. (OS X 10.3 is built
on FreeBSD 5.x.)
- Software: New year, new
discoveries, Giles Turnbull, MacDevCenter, 01.03. Scale to
Emai, FinderPal, Personal Aide, Juristudents, and Goombah - what
they are and why you might find them useful.
- Analysis: Headless iMac
is next step in digital living room for Apple, MacMinute,
01.03. "Milunovich also said that a headless iMac could be 'the
second step for Apple moving into the digital living room (the
first was the AirPort Express).'"
- Opinion: Napster, Yahoo
say iTunes is doomed, MacMinute, 01.03. "Apple rivals say the
iTunes Music Store's 99-cent pricing is the wrong formula for
digital music, and that subscription-based models are the future."
Sour grapes?
- Opinion:
IBM: The NeXT Mac cloner?, Bryan Chaffin, The Back Page, Mac
Observer, 01.03. "According to AudioGoGo, a big part of IBM having
sold its PC division to the Chinese was to make room for Mac
clones."
- Analysis:
With the Mac, Apple has lost its way, Paul Thurrott, Internet
Nexus, 01.01. "The original Mac was going to be the computer 'for
the rest of us,' an innovative and easy-to-use all-in-one computer
with barely any expandability at all."
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