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March 2005 News Archive

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Copyright 2005 by Bill Fox All rights reserved.
Last Updated: Mar. 31, 2005

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[3/31]
Spotlight on Innovation--High-Performance Video in Mac OS X Tiger: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. One of those new technologies in Tiger is QuickTime 7. QuickTime 7 seamlessly leverages the latest graphics advancements of Mac OS X. Learn about QuickTime 7's own rendering pipeline and how you can use the power of the new Visual Context together with Core Video, Core Image and OpenGL to create amazing video applications. Also, learn how to directly access the core media technologies to customize your own powerful rendering pipelines. Check out the details that will be covered at WWDC 2005 on this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]



[3/31]
Apple Pro Tip of the Week--Sidebar Printing: To create a Sidebar printer, click on the Desktop Printer and press Command-T. This adds the Desktop Printer to your Sidebar. For more details, see this Apple Web page. [Dana Baggett]



[3/31]
QuickerTek, Inc. Debuts Mac mini 5.5dBi Airport Antenna: QuickerTek has further extended their line of wireless Macintosh products by announcing a new omni-directional antenna for the entire Mac mini line. The new Mac mini Antenna offers 5.5dBi of RF power, which means that wireless networking distances can be as much a three times further than when using the stock antenna. The suggested retail price is $80. [Bill Fox]



[3/31]
BeLight Offers iPod mini in April Fool's Day Contest: BeLight Software, developer of Mac OS X business productivity software, announces April Fool's Day Contest on the most original, funny or unusual story or sample of business cards. The best one will be chosen by the judge, Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus, and its owner will be awarded with an iPod mini. Two runner ups will get boxed editions of Business Card Composer for free. To take part, participants need to send their stories or samples to press@belightsoft.com from March 31 until April 21, 2005. The Official Rules are located on this BeLight Web page. [Bill Fox]



[3/31]
HP to Integrate iPod Dock in Desktop Computer: HP will include a place to hold an iPod dock in its Media Center m7000 desktop computer. This shows that HP is still interested in the iPod and beats Apple at integrating an iPod into a comnputer. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/31]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Three Hot Deals Retailers:

MacMall has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including MacAlly Podwave Portable iPod Stereo Speaker System, Kodak EasyShare CX7300 3.2MP Digital Camera, Kingston 2GB Elite Pro CompactFlash Memory Card with $20 mail-in rebate, Evov 17" Flat Panel LCD Display, Griffin iTrip FM Transmitter for iPod with Dock Connection, and much more.

Apple's Clearance Section of Hot Deals, dedicated entirely to end-of-life and clearance Mac and Mac OS X products from all of your favorite retailers, boasts some newly added offers, including Epson L-410 Digital Camera, Microsoft Optical USB Mouse by Starck, Nikon D-100 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera Body with $200 mail-in rebate, M-Audio Oxygen 8 25 Key MIDI Controller, and much more.

Ramjet has super low prices on RAM upgrades for your Mac, including 2GB DDR Kit for Power Mac G5, 1GB DDR Kit for Power Mac G4, 512MB PC-2700 Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB PC-2700 Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB DDR DIMM for Mac mini, 512MB DDR DIMM for iMac G4, and much more.

[Bill Fox]



[3/30]
Details on WWDC 2005 Special Events Posted by Apple Developer Connection: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. Included are a large number of special events: Reception, Tuesday Lunch Session with Tim O'Reilly, Stump the Experts, Apple Design Awards, Brown Bag Lunches with O'Reilly, Late Night Labs and the Apple Campus Bash. Check out the details on the Special Events at WWDC 2005 from this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]



[3/30]
Sp@mX v4 Adds Capability to Filter for Spam Before Downloading Your Email: Hendrickson Software Components (hsc) announced today that Sp@mX, which conducts spam source tracing and reporting, has the added the capability to filter email. Starting with version 3.3, Sp@mX users have been collecting data about the spam that they were receiving in a central database on the hsc server. Sp@mX version 4 uses this data to filter email that is in the users email server inbox, so that they can process it using Sp@mX without having to download it to their desktop email inbox. With this offering, Sp@mX now provides a more comprehensive anti-spam solution. It will filter a user's email so they don't have to see the spam, and report the source of the spam along with any "spamvertized" URLs so that their spam level is dramatically reduced. Reporting the spamvertized URLs also gives Sp@mX a powerful anti-phishing capability. Check out Sp@mx v4 at hsc's Web site. The client version is $19.95,

We have not used v4 yet but it looks like a great capability. One of our biggest problems with spam is its sheer volume, taking large amounts of our time to download. Hopefully, v4 eliminate this annoying problem. We have used v3 to cut our spam load from over 4000 per week to about 1300 per week. [Bill Fox]



[3/30]
April Brings iLife '05 Demo Days to CompUSA: Discover how iLife ‘05 simplifies and expands your creative ability to work with photos, movies, DVDs, and your music. Attend one of CompUSA's free demonstrations every Saturday at noon in April and see how fast and easy it is to create, organize and share your digital memories. Click here for complete details, schedule and to find a participating CompUSA location near you. Not available in all stores. [Bill Fox]



[3/30]
Griffin Announced iVault, iPod Shuttle Armor: Griffin Technology, Inc, announced the iVault aluminum case for the iPod Shuffle. Griffin, in collaboration with designer Greg Gutierrez, has created a stunning enclosure that incorporates maximum protection with an elegant design.

Machined entirely out of aluminum, the iVault safely encloses your iPod Shuffle, while still allowing total access to the control wheel, audio jack, on switch, USB port, and LED. The front and back halves of the case are joined together by 4 small screws, so your iPod Shuffle is guaranteed to be secure. Lightweight yet strong, the iVault and the iPod Shuffle together weigh less than 1.5 ounces.

The iVault also has it covered when it comes to style. Every edge of the iVault is rounded and beveled for unique industrial design and for the perfect feel when in use - you won't want to put it down. The iVault comes in four distinctive colors: silver, blue, red and purple. Customize your iPod Shuffle in a way that will make iPod mini owners envious, and give it a suit of armor at the same time.

The price for the Griffin iVault is $29.99 and it is scheduled to begin shipping in May of 2005. [Bill Fox]



[3/30]
Apple Posted Revised Security Update 2005-003 (Server) v1.1: It is available via the System Preferences Software Update preference pane or as a standalone updater. Apple pulled the server version of the security update shortly after it was posted due to unexpected problems. This updater is a reissue. Here is the Read Me file information:

About Security Update 2005-003 (Server) Delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users.

This update includes the following components:

AFP Server
Bluetooth Setup Assistant
CoreFoundation
Cyrus IMAP
Cyrus SASL
Folder permissions
Mailman
Safari
Samba
SquirrelMail

[Bill Fox]



[3/30]
O'Reilly Released Firefox Hacks: Firefox Hacks by Nigel McFarlane (O'Reilly, 398p, $24.95) explains how to customize Firefox's deployment, appearance, features, and functionality--delivering techniques, tools, and strategies for making the most out of Firefox's flexibility. Readers will learn how to:

  • Make Firefox look different with skins, extensions, and themes
  • Integrate Firefox with other tools, and safely migrate Internet Explorer bookmarks, history, passwords, and other data
  • Browse anonymously, turn off caching, stomp on cookies, or flush and clear absolutely everything
  • Install, use, and customize extensions, widgets, toolbars, and plug-ins
  • Increase security by stopping all secret network activity, fine-tuning ports and sockets, digitally signing content, dropping security blocks, and more
  • Play with preferences, install fonts and character support, govern image and ad display, and otherwise tweak the standard browser window
  • Power up web pages with XML, using Mozilla SOAP, XML-RPC, and WSDL services, as well as MathML, SVG content, Xpath, and XSL

[Bill Fox]



[3/29]
Spotlight on Innovation--Apple's New Core Image Technology in Tiger: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. One of the new technologies in Tiger is Core Image. Core Image, an innovative new Mac OS X Tiger technology, provides high performance, floating-point image processing services. By harnessing the tremendous pixel processing power of the GPU or Velocity Engine, Core Image performs complex per-pixel imaging operations at blistering speeds to create spectacular visual effects and transitions. Code along as we show you how to add image processing to your own application using any of 100 built-in effects, or create your own custom algorithms and deploy them as Image Units. This is a must-experience session for developers of image enhancement software, video effects systems, color management solutions, and scientific visualization packages. Check out the details on what will be covered at WWDC 2005 on this Apple Web page.



[3/29]
Mozilla Offers Bounty on Security Bugs: If you find a security bug or hole in one of Mozilla Foundation's products, you can get $500 for each one. Michael Krax, from Germany recently found five and was awarded $2500. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/29]
Apple Training Series: GarageBand 2 Released by Peachpit Press: Now that you can record eight simultaneous tracks with it, GarageBand 2 really does turn your Mac into a full-featured recording studio. To start taking advantage of it immediately, you (and your band-mates) may want to take a close look at this Apple-certified guide from composer and master trainer Mary Plummer (who's also an Apple Certified Trainer). Through 20 hours of step-by-step lessons coupled with ample visual aids and loads of real-world tips, this book/DVD combo offers a complete, self-paced course in all aspects of GarageBand 2. Apple Training Series: GarageBand 2 by Mary Plummer (Peachpit, $29.99 SRP, 448p). [Bill Fox]



[3/28]
Mozilla's Camino Web Browser Reached 0.8.3-RC: On Friday, the Mozilla Project's Mac OS X Cocoa-Native web browser Camino reached the release candidate for v0.8.3. The final version may come out on Tuesday. Last week saw new versions of Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird as well. Here is where to get Camino 0.8.3RC. The look ahead to versions 0.9 and 1.0 is located on this Web page. [Dana Baggett]



[3/28]
Apple Live Webcast on Tuesday--Third-party HPC Solutions for Mac OS X: On Tuesday, March 29th at 10-11:15 a.m., Apple will be joined by representatives from companies who develop their software or hardware for the platform to talk about their products. The webcast is for general audiences interested in high performance computing. For more details, check out this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]



[3/28]
Next Generation DVD Formats May Unite: Most of the hardware/device DVD manufacturers, including Apple, support the so-called Blu-Ray format based on blue laser technology while most of the content providers support the HD DVD format. According to recent announcements, the Blu-Ray group under Sony's leadership may be willing to compromise to get a single unified format for the next generation DVDs. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/26]
Naked DSL Internet Suspended by FCC Ruling: Many people get DSL without a local phone line, especially in states that have utility commission rules forcing the telcos to provide DSL service separately from a local phone line and to offer it to competitiors as well. On Friday, the FCC suspended the states' naked DSL rules at the request of BellSouth who argued that state-by-state rules will stifle DSL internet service development. Naked DSL is used primarily by cord cutters, those who have only cell phone service. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/26]
New Sony PSP Headphones Look Familiar? Sony's new PSP game machine has white headphones as accessories that look very similar to Apple's iPod ear bud headphones. See image. More... [Brian Nakamoto]



[3/26]
Apple iPod Camera Connector Shipping in Canada: From reader Jeff Hubert, "Hi Bill, I just wanted to let you know that I ordered one of the ipod camera connectors from Apple Canada on March 22, '05 and was told that it would ship in 1 to 3 weeks. It actually shipped in 2 days!" Remember that it only works with the iPod photo. [Bill Fox]



[3/26]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Two Hot Deals Retailers:

CDW|MacWarehouse has great deals on cool Mac products, including the Canon Digital Rebel XT Camera with FREE 256MB SanDisk CF Memory Card, Sony CyberShot T33 Digital Camera, Microsoft Office 2004 Standard Upgrade, Samsung SyncMaster 910T Flat Panel LCD Display, Logitech MX1000 Wireless Mouse, Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 8750 9-Ink Photo Printer, and much more.

J&R has great prices on top quality Mac products, including Roxio Popcorn, Allume StuffIt Deluxe 9, AddLogix FireWire/USB Car Charger for iPod, Aspyr Media Leave the Lights On Pack, Brother DCP-7020 Digital Copier/Laser Printer/Color Scanner, Canon GL2 MiniDV Digital Camcorder, Contour Design iPod Case, Intuit TurboTax State 2004, Epson Stylus CX-4600 All-in-One Printer/Scanner/Copier, and much more.



[3/25]
Brief Hands-On Report--Unofficial G5-Optimized Firefox 1.0.2 Released: On the heals of Mozilla's release of Firefox 1.0.2, Neil Lee released an unofficial G5-optimzed version. According to the author, here are the differences from the official Firefox 1.0.2 release:

  • There is a different application icon (unofficial builds like this cannot use the official Firefox icon)
  • Includes the “pretty” form widgets by Kevin Gerich
  • Chock full of speed and swagger - well, in theory, at least. I haven’t done any benchmarks because I’m a lazy ass.
  • Creates world peace, enhances sexual prowess, improves overall muscle tone, and imbues user with the brilliant wit of Dorothy Parker. Or not.

It can be downloaded from his Web page.

We installed it on our dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 and it works fine, with one exception, and runs faster than the official but not G5-optimized version. The exception is the import bookmarks function under the File menu but we think the issue may be due to something that is covered by an NDA and not the application. The G5 version also readily accepts our favorite Firefox theme, Nautipolis 1.0.5 by Alfred Kayser. [Bill Fox]



[3/25]
O'Reilly Published Apache Security: Ivan Ristic's new book, Apache Security (O'Reilly, US $34.95), tackles the subject exhaustively, providing a valuable new resource for those charged with keeping their servers secure. Written for system administrators, programmers, system architects, and web security professionals, Apache Security covers the full range of web security topics, with detailed recommendations for all aspects of securing both the 1.3 and 2.0 version of Apache. When read sequentially, the book examines how a secure system is built from the ground up, adding layer upon layer of security. However, since each chapter was written to cover a single subject in its entirety, readers can also go directly to specific issues that interest them. [Bill Fox]



[3/25]
Apple iPod Software Update 2005-03-23 is Out and available for download via the System Preferences Software Update pane. iPod software update 2005-03-23 delivers iPod software 1.1 (for iPod with color display)

  • Support for optional iPod Camera Connector for importing and viewing photos directly on iPod
  • Updated slideshow transitions

Unfortunately, we don't have an iPod photo to check out the update for you. [Bill Fox]



[3/25]
Apple's iPod Camera Connector is Out--Just for iPod Photo: Using the handy $29 accessory, you can download images directly from your camera to your 30-, 40- or 60GB iPod photo. You can immediately view the photos on iPod’s crisp color display. Or quickly create a slideshow — complete with transitions — using iPod photo software 1.1 that just came out (see above article). And once you get your iPod back home, it’ll take you just seconds to add your new photos to your growing photo collection.

According to Apple, [t]he iPod Camera Connector requires an iPod photo and a supported camera or media reader. Other iPods, including iPod mini, iPod with Click Wheel, and iPod shuffle, are not supported with the iPod Camera Connector. This looks like a good job for a third party! [Bill Fox & Joe Sacco]



[3/25]
iTunes Music Store Free of Malware Affecting MP3 Music Downloads: The bad guys are at it again. They are injecting all sorts of malware in music and video files downloaded off the internet from music services and file sharing services. The malware includes viruses, adware, spyware etc. Apple iTunes Music Store may be one of the only if not only, place to get safe music files. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/25]
Sun Java Web Start Security VulnerabilityPublished--Fixed in Security Update 2005-02: Sun just published "Security Vulnerability With Java Web Start" which, according to Apple, has already been fixed for Mac OS X in Security Update 2005-002. Macs that have already installed Security Update 2005-002 do not need to re-install it. Here are the details:

Available for: Java 1.4.2
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0418
Impact: Updates Java to address an issue in Java Web Start that allows an untrusted application to elevate its privileges Description: A vulnerability in Java Web Start allows an untrusted application to elevate its privileges. For example an application may grant itself permissions to read and write local files or execute local applications that are accessible to the user running the Java Web Start application. Releases prior to Java 1.4.2 are not affected by this vulnerability. Further information is available in Document ID 57740 from Sun's security Web site.

Security Update 2005-002 may be obtained from the Software Update pane in System Preferences, or as a standalone updater at Apple's Software Downloads Web site. [Bill Fox]



[3/25]
Gefen Released New DVI Booster: Gefen today announced the release of its DVI Booster, a small unit that corrects video signal degradation that occurs over stretches of DVI copper cables used to extend a display away from its high definition source. High definition video transmitted through DVI cables can break down beyond 15 feet in distance and all DVI copper cables experience this problem when used at resolutions of 1080i or higher. According to Gefen, their DVI Booster for $249 guarantees a 100 percent accurate reproduction of the image at any resolution. [Bill Fox]



[3/25]
MaxUpgrades Announced the MaxSleeve for Apple Powerbooks and iBooks: The MaxSleeve is an impact resistant sleeve for PowerBooks and iBooks that provides shock protection. It’s made of Visco-Elastic Memory Foam and envelopes the whole 'Book. There’s foam padding throughout the entire surface. The MaxSleeve has a two-zipper pull design and a closed zipper type. The zippers don’t come in contact with the laptop. The MaxSleeve is designed to be slipped into a notebook bag or briefcase. The MaxSleeve runs $23.50-27.99 depending on the model of 'Book. [Bill Fox]



[3/24]
Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" Leak Case Settled by Apple: Mr. Doug Steigerwald, a member of the Apple Developer Connection (ADC), was accused by Apple of leaking an early version of Tiger over the internet using a file sharing service, BitTorrent. Members of the ADC receive copies of Apple's software under development to test with the member's software and to report any bugs to Apple. Signing a strict non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Apple is required for membership in the ADC. The case has been settled for unspecified monetary damages and a public admission of guilt. Mr. Steigerwald's statement is,

As a member of Apple's Developer Connection program I received a pre-release version of Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" software, which I promised to keep confidential. Instead, I disseminated it over the Internet, and thousands of unauthorized copies of Apple's software were illegally distributed to the public.

Mr. Steigerwald is 22 and a recent college graduate looking for a job. He is also the subject of a criminal investigation on the same issue which he hopes will be ended.

This seems like a satisfactory end to one of the recent cases that Apple has brought against those who Apple alleges have violated their NDAs or have been the publisher of information resulting from an NDA violation. [Bill Fox]



[3/24]
Brief Hands-On Report--Mozilla's Firefox v1.0.2 is Out and available for download. Firefox, an open source Netscape derivative, is the Mozilla Foundation's standalone web browser that is rapidly increasing in popularity. Firefox is our main backup web browser but it will probably be replaced by Mozilla's Quartz-native Camino when it matures sufficiently. The release of Firefox 1.0.2 along with the prior releases of Thunderbird 1.0.2 and Mozilla 1.7.6 completes the suite of updates of Mozilla's software that we mentioned last Friday were coming out this week.

We downloaded v1.0.2 and installed it on our hard drive. We used it for surfing most of the web pages that we frequent and saw no problems. [Bill Fox]



[3/24]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Five Hot Deals Retailers:

The Apple Store has updated it's selection of great deal products such as Apple Certified iMac G5s starting as low as $1,099, along with low prices on Apple Certified Power Mac G5s starting as low as $1,299. You will also find sale priced products such as an iPod photo (60GB w Dock and carrying case) for only $479, and much more. But hurry; supplies are limited and sure to go fast. All details available under the "Special Deals" tile.

ClubMac has great deals on essential Mac products, including Harman Multimedia JBL OnStage AC Powered Speaker System for iPod, Princeton 19" LCD Display with Built-in Speakers and a $100 mail-in rebate, Symantec Norton SystemWorks 3.0 with a $50 mail-in rebate, Intuit QuickBooks Pro 2005 with a $100 mail-in rebate, Roxio Toast Titanium 6 with a $20 mail-in rebate, and much more.

B&H Photo and Video has fantastic prices of superb products for your Mac, including Canon EOS Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR with Canon 18-55mm EF-S Lens, Nikon CoolPix 5900 5.1MP Digital Camera, LaCie 8x Porsche Designed Double Layer External DVD Burner with Roxio Toast 6 Titanium, Canon Pixma MP760 Photo All-in-One Inkjet Printer, Extensis Portfolio 7 for Mac, and much more.

MacConnection has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including an entry to win a FREE iBook when you purchase Microsoft Office 2004 Standard or Pro Editions (full or upgrade versions), Apple 20" Cinema Display, DLO iBoom for iPod and iPod mini, Canon i9900 Photo Printer, QuarkXPress 6.5, Macromedia Studio MX 2004, and much more.

Publishing Perfection has great deals on a variety of design and print products for your Mac, including Comnet FoldUP 3D 1.5, Cables To Go 5-Port USB 2.0 PCI Card, Extensis Suitcase X1, Human Software Automask 4.6, MicroTek ScanMaker i900, SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1GB USB 2.0 FlashDrive and much more.

[Bill Fox]



[3/24]
Tonight on the Mac Night Owl LIVE--Linzmayer and Tolbert: This week on the internet radio show, co-hosts Gene and Grayson Steinberg will visit with Owen Linzmayer, author of Apple Confidential 2.0 to discuss the latest goings on in the hallowed halls of their favorite fruit company. Also appearing is Jeff Tolbert, author of two books on Apple's GarageBand. This looks to be one of the more interesting of MNOL's shows. Tune in at 6-8p PT (9-11p ET). [Bill Fox]



[3/23]
PowerPage and AppleInsider Filed Appeal to Decision Permitting Apple Subpoena: On March 11, California Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg ruled against the protective order sought by Jason O'Grady, Monish Bhatia and Kasper Jade. They had filed to prevent Apple from enforcing a subpoena of the email of one of the Mac Web sites, O'Grady's PowerPage, and ultimately all of their records. Apple wants to find out who leaked information that Apple claims is protected under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The Mac Web sites filed their appeal yesterday. Their appeal is based on an alleged violation of their First Amendment right to free speech and Apple's failure to complete an exhaustive investigation of its own employees before obtaining the subpoena. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/23]
iPod Shuffle Tops in Sound Quality: Bill Machrone's latest article in April's PC Magazine, "Shuffle's Got a Secret," includes some interesting audio test results that illustrate the Shuffle's impressive audio performance relative to other MP3 players, including a 3Gen iPod and old and new iPod minis. The tests use Apple's standard earbuds. The full article doesn't seem to be online yet. But here is the ranking noted on Mr. Macrone's blog:

  1. iPod Shuffle
  2. Zen Micro
  3. Dell DJ 20GB
  4. 15GB iPod (3rd Generation)
  5. iPod mini (Original)

He also tested a new iPod mini but did not rank it since the tests were not complete. Its audio response is much improved over the original.

His blog also graphed the audio response of each digital music player. It's neat seeing Apple mentioned so much in the "PC" mags. [Brian Nakamoto]



[3/23]
Apple Published New Article Optimizing OpenGL Data Throughput on Mac OS X: Apple has built a highly optimized and fully modern implementation of OpenGL into the very heart of Mac OS X. OpenGL has two general types of data, vertex and texture. Vertex data defines information used in vertex processing while texture, or image, data defines inputs to fragment processing. This Apple Developer Connection article describes the general concepts of OpenGL optimization as well as the best ways to handle static and dynamic vertex data on Mac OS X. [Bill Fox]



[3/23]
PocketMac Released Safari Scrapbook--Save History as a Database: PocketMac released Safari Scrapbook, the first tool to automatically collect the Safari web browser users' history into a searchable database. Every night, PocketMac Safari Scrapbook will save the text and content from the day's history into a form the user can search later. Safari Scrapbook is $17.95. More... [Bill Fox]



[3/23]
FREE Envision Web Show of the Week--American Memory Collection: This week's Envision Web Show of the Week is of the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection. This amazing collection includes thousands of historically and culturally important images with over 100 distinct themes. The Collection itself also has an interesting history. If anything typifies what the Web is all about, it's this collection. The Envision Web Show of the Week can be downloaded from the Show of the Week Web site. Previous Shows of the Week are available in the Show of the Week archive. [Bill Fox]



[3/23]
Mozilla 1.7.6 Final and Thunderbird 1.0.2 are Out: Mozilla Foundation released the final edition of the maintenance release version 1.7.6 of the Mozilla web browser and email client suite. Here are the release notes.

Mozilla also released the standalone email client Thunderbird v1.0.2, noting that there was no version 1.0.1. Here are the release notes. [Dana Baggett]



[3/22]
Brief Hands-On Report with Details--Mac OS X 10.3.8 Security Update 2005-003: Late yesterday afternoon Apple released security updates for the client and server edition of Mac OS X 10.3.8. They are available via the System Preferences Software Update pane or as standalone downloads. So far there are no updates for Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2.x). According to the Read Me files,

Security Update 2005-003 delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users. This update [client and Server editions] includes the following components:

AFP Server
Bluetooth Setup Assistant
CoreFoundation
Cyrus IMAP (Server Only)
Cyrus SASL
Folder permissions
Mailman (Server Only)
Safari
Samba
SquirrelMail (Server Only)

Here are the explicit details on the security enhancements:

AFP Server
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0340
Impact: A specially crafted packet can cause a Denial of Service
against the AFP Server
Description: A specially crafted packet will terminate the operation of the AFP Server due to an incorrect memory reference. Credit to Braden Thomas for reporting this issue.

AFP Server
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0715
Impact: The contents of a "Drop Box" can be discovered
Description: Fixes the checking of file permissions for access to "Drop Boxes". Credit to John M. Glenn of San Francisco for reporting this issue.

Bluetooth Setup Assistant
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0713
Impact: Local security bypass when using a Bluetooth input device
Description: The Bluetooth Setup Assistant may be launched on systems without a keyboard or a pre-configured Bluetooth input device. In these cases, access to certain privileged functions has been disabled within the Bluetooth Setup Assistant.

Core Foundation
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0716
Impact: Buffer overflow via an environment variable
Description: The incorrect handling of an environment variable within Core Foundation can result in a buffer overflow that may be used to execute arbitrary code. This issue has been addressed by correctly handling the environment variable. Credit to iDEFENSE and Adriano Lima of SeedSecurity.com for reporting this issue.

Cyrus IMAP
Available for: Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2004-1011, CAN-2004-1012, CAN-2004-1013, CAN-2004-1015,
CAN-2004-1067
Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in Cyrus IMAP including remotely
exploitable denial of service and buffer overflows
Description: Cyrus IMAP is updated to version 2.2.12 which includes fixes for buffer overflows in fetchnews, backend, proxyd, and imapd. Further information is available from http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/download/imapd/changes.html

Cyrus SASL
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2002-1347, CAN-2004-0884
Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in Cyrus SASL including remote
denial of service and possible remote code execution in applications
that use this library.
Description: Cyrus SASL is updated to address several security holes caused by improper data validation, memory allocation and data handling.

Folder permissions
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0712
Impact: World-writable permissions on several directories allowing
potential file race conditions or local privilege escalation
Description: Secure folder permissions are applied to protect the installer's receipt cache and system-level ColorSync profiles. Credit to Eric Hall of DarkArt Consulting Services, Michael Haller <info@cilly.com>, and <root at addcom.de> for reporting this issue.

Mailman
Available for: Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0202
Impact: Directory traversal issue in Mailman that could allow access
to arbitrary files
Description: Mailman is a software package that provides mailing list management. This update addresses an exposure in Mailman's private archive handling that allowed remote access to arbitrary files on the system. Further information is available from http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/security.html

Safari
CVE-ID: CAN-2005-0234
Impact: Maliciously registered International Domain Names [IDN] can
make URLs visually appear as legitimate sites
Description: Support for Unicode characters within domain names
(International Domain Name support) can allow maliciously registered domain names to visually appear as legitimate sites. Safari has been modified so that it consults a user-customizable list of scripts that are allowed to be displayed natively. Characters based on scripts that are not in the allowed list are displayed in their Punycode equivalent. The default list of allowed scripts does not include Roman look-alike scripts. Credit to Eric Johanson <ericj@shmoo.com> for reporting this issue to us. Further information is available from http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301116

Samba
Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.8, Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2004-0882, CAN-2004-0930, CAN-2004-1154
Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in Samba including remote denial of
service and possible remote execution of arbitrary commands
Description: Several security vulnerabilities were addressed in recent Samba releases. Security Update 2005-003 installs Samba version 3.0.10 to provide these fixes. Further information is available from the Samba security site located at http://www.samba.org/samba/history/security.html

SquirrelMail
Available for: Mac OS X Server v10.3.8
CVE-ID: CAN-2004-1036, CAN-2005-0075, CAN-2005-0103, CAN-2005-0104
Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in Squirrelmail including
cross-site scripting and html injection
Description: SquirrelMail 1.4.4 addresses several security issues including various cross-site scripting exposures and the possibility of using webmail.php to include web pages from remote servers. CAN-2005-0075 is an issue fixed in SquirrelMail 1.4.4, but which does not affect the default configuration of Mac OS X Server since register_globals is not enabled. Further information is available from the SquirrelMail security site located at http://www.squirrelmail.org/changelog.php

We downloaded and installed both the client and Server editions on several PowerBooks and Power Macs (G5s and G4 Cubes) and a Mac mini with no apparent problems. [Bill Fox & Dana Baggett]



[3/22]
Apple Posted New Article Developing with Core Image: From creating new solutions for print, photography, scientific visualization, and film post-production to enhancing your application's user interface with innovative and effortless visual effects, Core Image performs the heavy lifting that enables the next generation of imaging applications. Core Image works with Image Units coded into Mac OSD X 10.4 that seem like photoshop filters. More... [Bill Fox]



[3/22]
Get Off Your Bott $25 Rebate Program from QuickerTek: QuickerTek announced a $25 rebate when Dr. Bott antenna customers trade it in for a new QuickerTek 27dBm Tranceiver. QuickerTek has three models of the Transceiver to meet the wireless needs of Apple PowerBook users as well as Power Mac G5 and G4 desktops. The rebate is sent via check once the Dr. Bott antenna is received by QuickerTek. Customers must include the antenna and dated proof of purchase of a QuickerTek Transceiver. More... [Bill Fox]



[3/22]
TechRestore Has iPod Drive Upgrades: TechRestore, Inc. announced today that they have launched a new iPod hard drive upgrade program. They claim that the new service provides a fast and hassle-free method for iPod owners worldwide to increase their music and storage capacity in full-sized iPod models. The flat-rate iPod hard drive upgrade service starts at $119 (1G 5-10GB and 3G 15-20GB upgrades) which includes all overnight shipping charges, parts and installation. More... [Bill Fox]



[3/22]
Mozilla's Camino Web Browser Gets New Support Site: Camino is the Mozilla project's Quartz-native web browser for Mac OS X. The Web site is CaminoBrowser.org. According to Samuel Sidler,

"The pages have been completely revamped with up-to-date information, useful and easy-to-read support pages, and, of course, pretty pictures. Months of effort have gone into creating a truly excellent site. While the product pages will remain hosted at mozilla.org, our new website will be the home of the project and all support/development information as well as up-to-date news and information."

We hope that Camino will get more attention and catch up to Firefox in the near future. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/21]
Details Now Posted--WWDC 2005 is In-Depth, Hands-On and Comprehensive: Apple just posted the first details of the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005 June 6-10 at San Francisco's Moscone West Conference Center. Details are now available on nearly 90 of the more than 140 information-rich conference sessions. There will be presentation sessions, hands-on sessions, hands-on labs and feedback forums.

The sessions are oriented in five tracks:

  • Application Technologies
  • Development Tools
  • Enterprise IT
  • Graphics and Media
  • OS Foundations

There's something for everyone. Check out the new details. [Bill Fox]



[3/21]
Mozilla 1.7.6 Release Candidates are Available: While Mozilla 1.8 development has been cancelled in favor of the standalone We browser Firefox and email client Thunderbird, the combo Mozilla 1.7 is still being developed. Release candidates of Mozilla 1.7.6 are available for download from Mozilla's Web site. Firefox 1.0.2 and Thunderbird 1.0.2 are scheduled to be oput this week, possibly Mozilla 1.7.6 as well. [Dana Bagtgett]



[3/21]
Schedule-It's Price Reduced by 30%: Schedule-It is a small desktop application that automates the way you use your Mac. Automatically open documents, launch applications, play iTunes playlists and set alarms using an easy-to-set schedule. Easily set multiple events for weekdays, weekends, individual days or any combination thereof. Schedule-It is available for download and evaluation prior to purchasing. Schedule-It' new price is $6.79. [Bill Fox]



[3/19]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Five Hot Deals Retailers:

MacZone has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including Micsoft's Office 2004 Standard Upgrade with FREE Wireless Desktop Elite Keyboard and Wireless Optical Mouse, Sony 16x Double Layer DVD±R USB 2.0 External Drive, NEC AccuSync LCD51V 15' TFT Flat Panel Display, LaCie Porsche Design 160GB External FireWire Hard Drive, Canon PowerShot AS 10 3.2MP Digital Camera, and much more.

AudioMIDI has fantastic deals on a wide range of audio products for your Mac, including IK Multimedia SampleTank 2 with FREE Amplitude, Celomony Melodyne Uno, Native Instruments Komplete 2, Presonus Firebox Portable FireWire Interface, and much more.

O'Reilly has exclusively Hot Deals discounts for many of it's most popular Mac titles, including Running Mac OS X Panther, The Best of The Joy of Tech, Mac OS X Unwired, Mac OS X Panther Hacks, 2nd Edition, Office 2004: The Missing Manual, and much more.

Publishing Perfection has great deals on a variety of design and print products for your Mac, including Dedicated Digital akHD Feline, Gluon ProPack Quark XTensions, Pantone Color Cue, SanDisk 512MB CompactFlash Memory Card, Microtek ScanMaker 1700 Flatbed Scanner, and much more.

Ramjet has super low prices on RAM upgrades for your Mac, including 2GB DDR Kit for Power Mac G5, 512MB DDR Kit for Power Mac G4, 512MB PC-2700 Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB PC-2700 Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB DDR DIMM for Mac mini, 1GB DDR DIMM for iMac G5, and much more.

[Bill Fox]



[3/19]
The Many Things You Can Do With An iPod: An iPod (and iPod mini) does a lot more than just deliver excellent digital music. It delivers audio books, podcasts (like radio broadcasts), photos, dictated notes, calendaring, contact listings, games and other things from third parties like software and attachments. Even the inexpensive iPod Shuffle does many of these things. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/18 Updated]
Brief Hands-On Report--Apple Updated iWork Applications Keynote and Pages: Yesterday afternoon Apple released updaters for Keynote to v2.0.1 and Pages to v1.0.1. As of publication time, the updaters were only available via the System Preferences Software Update preference pane. Expect to find standalone updates at Apple's general support software download Web page or at Apple's iWork Web page. According to the vague Read Me files with the updaters,

Keynote 2.0.1 addresses isolated issues that may have affected reliability for some customers.

Pages 1.0.1 addresses isolated issues that may have affected reliability for some customers and resolves an issue related to deleting complete pages.

We installed both updates with no problems. Limited use of both updated applications revealed no problems. [Update--Both applications need to be in a folder named "iWork" in the "Applications" folder for Software Update to find them and present the updaters.] [Bill Fox]



[3/18]
Griffin Ships New iPod FireWire Cables--Dock400 and Dock800 Models: Apple's newest iPod photo and iPod mini come with only a USB 2.0 cable, so customers with computers that lack USB 2.0 ports will need a FireWire 400 cable for fast music and file transfers. Griffin's Dock400 cable is the solution. Dock800 is a dock-to-FireWire 800 cable for communicating with and charging iPods using the FireWire 800 port on recent Macs.

Both the Dock400 and Dock800 cables are 48" long, use Apple-approved connectors and can be used with Apple's iPod dock, or plugged directly into the iPod. The Griffin Dock400 Cable costs $14.99 and the Griffin Dock800 Cable is $19.99. They are immediately available from Griffin's Web site. [Bill Fox]



[3/18]
Thornton Academy Provides iBooks for Maine's High Schoolers that attend the private school. The Maine iBook program provided iBooks to every seventh and eighth grade student and their teachers plus added AirPort wireless networking to each middle school. Maine adopted a voluntary program for high school leaving it up to individual school districts to adhere to the program on their own budgets. Many high schools opted in but many did not. Thornton Academy, a private academy in Saco, joined the iBook program buying 400 for its seniors. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/18]
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2 and Thunderbird 1.0.2 are Coming Soon: Release candidates for both applications are available from Mozilla for public testing.

Testers have been asked to focus on a few areas in particular, including drag and drop, iframes in XUL windows, the state of the lock icon when navigating to named anchors on secure pages and bookmarked pages in the sidebar.

The new versions are likely to be out next week if no major problems crop up. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/17]
Book Early and Save--WWDC 2005 Special Hotel Rates are Available: Apple has negotiated special hotel rates for WWDC 2005 attendees at the Renaissance Parc 55, Hilton San Francisco, and The W Hotel San Francisco. To book a room at the special rate, just contact your preferred hotel before the reservation cut-off date and provide the "Group/Conference" code. [Bill Fox]



[3/17]
New Voices for Mac OS X: Cepstral announced that its high quality Text-to-Speech (TTS) software voices are available for Mac OS X. Cepstral offers 18 voices in 6 languages. David, the newest voice, is optimized for reading news and browser content. The voices integrate 100% with Apple's Speech Manager which can utilize multiple voices. Cepstral TTS voices are free to try, and $30 to purchase. All the voices are available for download from the company's Web site. [Bill Fox]



[3/17]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Three Hot Deals Retailers:

MacMall has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including Kingston 128MB DataTraveler II Usb 2.0 Flash Drive, Altec Lansing inMotion Portable iPod Speakers, MacAlly PodSuit mini, Hewlett Packard PSC 1315 All-in-One Printer, Evov 17" LCD Display with Built-in Speakers, Sony CyberShot DSC-W5 5.1MP Digital Camera, Viking 1GB Secure Digital Memory Card with $20 mail-in rebate, and much more.

Apple's Clearance Section of Hot Deals dedicated entirely to end-of-life and clearance Mac and Mac OS X products from all of your favorite retailers, boasts some newly added offers, including Ramjet 128MB SDRAM DIMM for Power Mac G3 B&W, Digital Media Preflighting Print Files with PreFlightPro, Dr. Bott ExtendAir Direct WiFi Wireless Antenna, Epson L-410 Digital Camera, Human Software X-File Photoshop Plug-in, and much more.

Sweetwater has fantastic deals on a wide range of audio products for your Mac, including M-Audio DX4 Reference Speakers, Bias Soundsoap, AKG K55 Headphones, Steinberg Cubase SE, IK Multimedia Amplitude Live, M-Audio FireWire Solo, M-Audio Keystation Pro 88, and much more.

[Bill Fox]



[3/17]
FileMaker Pro 7 Big with Ad Agencies: According to FileMaker, Inc., the world’s leading advertising agencies have selected FileMaker Pro 7 database solutions to help manage their creative and business processes. Among these leaders are Deutsch Inc., JWT, Lowe, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy and TBWA\Chiat\Day. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/17]
Tonight on The Mac Night Owl LIVE--Biedny and Landau: This week hosts Gene and Grayson Steinberg will enter "The David Biedny Zone" for an hour of provocative commentary. You'll also hear from Ted Landau, founder of MacFixIt and author of numerous books. Tune in at 6-8pm PT (9-11pm ET). [Bill Fox]



[3/16]
The Apple Developer Connection Published Making Medical Imaging Collaborative: OsiriX Combines Open Source with Key Apple Technologies: Medical imaging research is complex, time-consuming and often very expensive, with a wide range of standards, equipment and software available. Worse, medical researchers can find themselves unable to share data easily with colleagues—something that they need to do constantly in order to improve understanding for diagnosis and treatment.

Two enterprising medical doctors addressed this problem and came up with a Macintosh-only solution called OsiriX that is changing how many in the field examine and share scanned images, medical image data and visualizations. It’s powerful, fully integrated with many Apple applications and hardware, and it’s open source, so others can contribute to the expansion and refinement of the tool.

Where comprable tools are proprietary and cost six figures, OsiriX is freely available for download and use, and its users are writing plug-ins that expand its capabilities. This new ADC success story is about OsiriX, what it does and how the authors managed to integrate so many key Apple technologies into a free application. [Bill Fox]



[3/16]
Two Big Mac Games are Shipping This Week from Aspyr:

Doom 3 --

The ruins of an ancient Martian civilization have unlocked the secrets to teleportation, and the UAC will stop at nothing to harness this world-altering technology. As part of a marine detachment sent to protect the facility, your duty seemed simple enough…until the invasion. Now, in an epic clash against pure evil you must fight to understand who is with you, who is against you, and what must be done to stop this nightmare from reaching Earth.

True Crime: Streets of LA --

Drive, fight and shoot your way through a massive array of unpredictable missions. With stealth techniques, vicious martial arts moves and impressive new weapons, as Nick Kang you experience the gritty, seedy underbelly of a vicious Los Angeles crime wave. Cruise the city taking down or harassing the scum of the streets. Bust drug dealers and prostitutes, shakedown informants and confront gang members to get the job done.

Both are $49.99 and should be in retail stores later this week. [Bill Fox]



[3/16]
Public Service--Look Out for Evil Twin Wi-Fi Hotspots: Bogus hotspots designed to get credit card and other personal information are a growing problem for those used to logging on frequently to wireless Wi-Fi networks in public places, like airports or Starbucks. It's easy to spoof a legitimate service like T-Mobile's from a nearby hacker's laptop. There are several steps that can be taken to reduce the odds of getting badly burned, such as having a credit card dedicated to online purchases that can be monitored easily and closed quickly. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/16]
Samsung Announced Faster and Denser RAM in Sample Production Runs: Samsung Electronics announced sample production of the next-generation memory module for servers and workstations - a fully buffered, dual in-line memory module (FB DIMM) based on DDR2 technology. The FB DIMM sharply boosts memory density and bandwidth of registered DIMMs to improve data processing.

An Advanced Memory Buffer (AMB) chip has been added to each memory module to enable the use of high - and low-speed interfaces. The buffer can generate speeds from 3.2Gigabits per second (Gbps) to 4.8Gbps. The FB DIMM can attain a maximum speed of 4.8Gbps that is double the speed of a DDR2-400 registered DIMM, when utilizing DDR2-800 components.

The new FB DIMM also increases system efficiencies as board design is facilitated due to minimal circuiting. In addition, it prevents errors from occurring in conventional server systems when the number of memory modules exceeds two per channel. With FB DIMMs, servers can increase density levels eight-fold as the DIMM retrieves and stores data in a serial process.

Samsung's 512MB and 1GB FB DIMM samples comply with existing industry (JEDEC) standards. [Bill Fox]



[3/16]
FREE Envision Web Show of the Week--Macworld 2005 Digital Art Gallery: This week's Envision Web Show of the Week is of works from the Macworld 2005 Digital Art Gallery, recently posted to the Macworld site. The Art Gallery was sponsored by Open Door Networks and will soon be touring to a number of museums throughout the country. The Envision Web Show of the Week can be downloaded from the Show of the Week Web site. Previous Shows of the Week are available in the Show of the Week archive. [Bill Fox]



[3/15]
O'Reilly Released IPv6 Network Administration: The next generation networking IP protocol, IPv6, is here and will be implemented over the next couple of years, replacing the current IPv4 protocol. IPv6 took a decade to design. It greatly improves networking efficiency and adds enough IP addresses for decades of population growth. IPv6 Network Administration by Niall Richard Murphy and David Malone (O'Reilly US $44.95) takes a practical approach, focusing on the needs of network and system administrators, but is also of use to anyone who needs to understand the technology. [Bill Fox]



[3/15]
Marc Moini Released Smart Scroll X v1.2: Smart Scroll was a great utility for classic Mac OS. Now, following in the steps of the classic Smart Scroll, Smart Scroll X brings new scrolling options and enhancements to Mac OS X:

  • Grab Scroll lets you scroll by clicking and dragging anywhere in a window. Currently for Cocoa applications.
  • A "High Gear" for your scroll wheel, so you can have super-fast scrolling when you need it.
  • Universal Scroll Keys to scroll without having to reach for the mouse. Scroll keys are the same in every application, giving you fast & dependable scrolling right from the keyboard.
  • Live scrolling for FileMaker Pro 7, live scrolling and proportional thumbs for AppleWorks 6.

Version 1.2 brings the following changes:

  • New Grab Scroll feature.
  • New "High Gear" feature for scroll wheels.
  • Live scrolling for FileMaker Pro 7.
  • Scroll keys now work with Ragtime, NetLogo and probably also the majority of CFM and Java apps.
  • Scroll keys now work with Mozilla's other themes (besides Classic).
  • Fixed an incompatibility which would crash Retrospect 6.0 on launch.
  • Turning Smart Scroll X off now properly disables live scrolling in AppleWorks (previously, you had to remove Smart Scroll X to disable live scrolling).
  • Various fixes and improvements.

Smart Scroll X 1.2 has a free trial and is $15 for single user license. It requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later. [Bill Fox]



[3/15]
Brief Hands-On Report--PangeaVR v1.0.1 Released by Pangea Software--Source Code Also Released: PangeaVR 1.0.1, a FREE web browser plug-in, brings OpenGL rendering to QuickTimeVR for great image clarity and smooth panning. The PangeaVR plug-in is entirely free, and is only available for Mac OS X. Pangea also released the source code to the plug-in and they are encouraging programmers to port it to other platforms. Version 1.0.1 of the PangeaVR plug-in is available for immediate download this Web page. After you download and install PangeaVR, check out the QuickTimeVR images on these Web pages 1, 2, 3, 4.

We installed PangeaVR on our Power Mac G5 with 30" monitor. The near full-screen VR rendering is absolutely amazing, even on a 30" Cinema Display--clear, sharp and fluid! [Bill Fox]



[3/15]
Why No Viruses for Mac OS X--It's Not the Number that Counts according to this article. It's basic to the design of Mac OS X as a "locked down" operating system, yet one with a remarkably easy to use interface. Read about the datails in this eCommerce Times article. [Dana Baggett]



[3/15]
Students May Apply Now for Scholarships to Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2005: The Apple Developer Connection is now accepting applications for student scholarships to attend the annual Worldwide Developers Conference. This opportunity is available exclusively to ADC Student members, who are enrolled part-time or full-time at a college or university, have a student identification number, and are at least 18 years of age.

This year's conference will be held in San Francisco, California, June 6 through June 10, 2005. Winners of a student scholarship receive a free Student E-ticket to the conference and access to special events during the conference week. The regular WWDC E-ticket price is US $1,595. The application deadline is April 22nd. [Bill Fox]



[3/14]
Hands-On Report--Add AirPort Extreme to Your Mac mini: We bought a base 1.25GHz Mac mini for $499 from the San Diego Fashion Valley Apple Store when they were first available on January 22nd. Here is our review written after 30 days of use.

Our base Mac mini came without AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless capability. Only base Mac mini's were available from the Apple Stores at the time of their release and the stores did not have the kits necessary to install AirPort or Bluetooth. But since we already had an extra AirPort Extreme card, we figured that we could just install it for wireless networking. Wrong! When we cracked open the Mac mini's case we found that it was not a simple matter to just plug in the card like in other Macs. The mezanine board that the card plugs into was missing along with an AirPort antenna. So we have been using our Mac mini wired to our network.

About 10 days ago we discovered that the missing parts could be bought online from a third party. The mezanine board was $47 and the antenna was $24. With sales tax and overnight shipping the total was $92. If you do this and have to buy an AirPort Extreme card, the cost rises significantly by another $79 plus tax and shipping.

If we had ordered AirPort Extreme via CTO and waited for our Mac mini to be delivered, the cost would have been only $79. Also, we wouldn't have had to use our extra AirPort Extreme card. Apple charges just $99 for a CTO Mac mini with both AirPort and Bluetooth, options we highly recommend. We do not know how much it costs to have AirPort Extreme installed as a retrofit by the retail Apple Stores.

Okay, let's not cry over spilled milk and get to work....

Installing AirPort Extreme is not difficult. One can get a PDF file from Smash's Web site that shows the details.

First, one cracks open the Mac mini's case using a very thin and tapered putty knife, Apple's official Mac mini case-opening tool. While Apple recommends a 2" model, we use a 4" model because it frees each side of the case with one insertion each. The opened Mac mini with the parts we plan to install are shown above. The only part(s) missing are the tiny screws needed to hold the mezanine board in place and some kapton tape. To our dismay they didn't come with our antenna and mezanine board order from CGNUSA.com. A moderately intensive local search failed to locate either but we didn't let that stop us.

Second, one removes upper the fan/drives assembly by removing three tiny screws with a #0 jeweler's philips head screw driver, freeing the power button cable from its kapton taping and lifting the assembly off the motherboard. We also removed the RAM chip to give us more working room. The photo at right shows the exposed motherboard, the AirPort Extreme card and antenna plugged into the mezanine board and one of the tiny screws that held the upper right corner (as looking from the front) of the fan/drives assembly on the motherboard. We are going to re-purpose (love that word) the latter to hold down the mezanine board. One can also see the antenna cut out in the top case at the upper left of the photo.

Third, one assembles the AirPort card and antenna on the mezanine board and secures it into place. One is supposed to use kapton tape to hold the card on the board but it seemed pretty secure to us. We don't plan to play catch with our Mac mini. The assembled mezanine board snaps into its motherboard connector with ease. Then the tiny re-purposed screw is used on the upper right corner (again looking from the front) to hold the mezanine board in place.

Fourth, the fan/drive assembly is replaced, with the Airport antenna coming up through the rear slot and making sure the drive interconnect board is fitted properly into its motherboard slot. The two remaining retaining screws are replaced, the RAM chip is replaced and the kapton tape that holds the power button wires is replaced.

Fifth, the AirPort antenna is snapped onto the retaining post on the upper rear of the fan/drives assembly (see photo above right). The Mac mini's top case has a hole cut through its metal shielding right over the area where the antenna sits.

Finally, the Mac mini's top case is replaced.

We started up our Mac mini and it gets excellent AirPort reception, four-to-three bars up to about 20 feet from the AirPort Express in the same room and three-to-two bars up to about 40-50 feet away through walls. After several days use our Mac mini's AirPort connection is still working fine.

For those who wish to add AirPort wireless networking themselves to their base Mac mini, it is not difficult. The workaround to not having kapton tape and screws seems to work fine, at least if one does not move their Mac mini around much. If we locate a source of the screws and kapton tape, we'll revise this article accordingly.

One last note, demand has driven up prices of the parts from $47 to $59 for the mezanine board and $24 to $29 for the antenna. We recommend first checking with your local retail Apple Store "genius" on the cost of them retrofitting your Mac mini with AirPort, now that parts are available. [Bill Fox]



[3/14]
Doctors to Use iBook and iSight for Medical Consultations: MyMD Inc. is equiping 1,000 of its 4,000 subscriber physicians with an iBook and iSight so they can use iChat video conferencing for consulting with patients over the internet. MyMD, which provides technology for online medical consultations, is giving the physicians the Apple equipment for free. MyMD charges $3.99 per minute for online medical consultations, $2 of which goes to the physicians. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/14]
LCD Panel Makers and Equipment Makers Like Apple Sued by Guardian and Honeywell for Patent Infringement: Guardian, a glass company in Michigan, and Honeywell International have sued major manufacturers of LCD flat panels for patent infringement. Also included are companies that use LCD panels in their products, including Apple Computer. Samsung, the maker of Apple's LCD panels, has signed a license agreement with Honeywell as a result of the suit. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/12]
Commentary--Apple Wins Right to Pursue Subpoena for PowerPage's Email from Nfox.com in Search of Company Leak(s): In a self-described narrow ruling that came out Friday afternoon, California Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg ruled that Apple may pursue its subpoena of PowerPage's email from PowerPage's ISP, Nfox.com, by ruling against the protective order sought by Jason O'Grady of PowerPage, Monish Bhatia of MacNN and Kasper Jade of AppleInsider who sought to quash Apple's subpoena.

Apple filed suit against up to 25 John Doe's on December 13, 2004, for violating a company confidentiality agreement by leaking information on a product under development, a so-called breakout box code-named "Asteroid". PowerPage and AppleInsider had posted verbatim information from a confidential Apple briefing document on the product. Apple was authorized to subpoena copies of PowerPage's email, maintained by ISP Nfox.com, seeking to find out whom among Apple's employees leaked the information. O'Grady, Bhatia and Jade then filed for a protective order to quash the subpoena based on California's so-called "shield law" protecting journalists from being found in contempt for refusing to reveal their sources under qualifying circumstances.

In ruling against the protective order, Judge Kleinberg side-stepped the burning issue of whether or not O'Grady, Bhatia and Jade are, in fact, bona fide journalists. He wrote,

"But even if the movants are journalists, this is not the equivalent of a free pass. The journalist's privilege is not absolute. For example, journalists cannot refuse to disclose information when it relates to a crime."

He then weighed the public interest in Apple's rights under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act and in the web sites' rights under the shield law using the five-part "Mitchell Test" and found greater public interest on Apple's side noting,

"...an interested public [in Apple's forthcoming products] is not the same as the public interest [like disclosures of wrongdoing by a whistleblower]."

He nailed their coffin shut by noting that O'Grady, Bhatia and Jade had failed to even address what public interest there is in disclosing Apple's ostensibly stolen trade secrets as specifically requested by the court.

What happens next? Possibly an appeal by O'Grady, Bhatia and Jade. They have seven days to file one. If there is no appeal or the appeal is lost, Apple will be free to serve its subpoena on Nfox.com and to do so with other subpoena's directly on Powerpage, MacNN and AppleInsider. Will Apple do this? Some have appealed to Apple to cease (see this Mercury News article) but it's hard to believe that Apple would quit after having gone this far. It's looking like a leaker's days at Apple may be numbered.

What negative effect does this ruling have on journalists who use the internet as their medium? Since Judge Kleinberg avoided the real journalist issue, there is no effect that we can see. The ruling is consistent with advice on this topic that we received years ago. That is the main reason why we have always thought that rumor web sites were making things up, much like a palm or crystal ball reader, for entertainment.

Of course, we feel sincere compassion for Jason O'Grady, Monish Bhatia and Kasper Jade. As fellow members of the Mac press corps, we know two of them personally, maybe all three since Kasper Jade is a pseudonym. Their stress must be enormous and it will have a lasting effect on them even if they ultimately prevail. We can only hope that the stress is lifted by some means as quickly as possible. [Bill Fox]



[3/12]
Feral Released Commandos Battle Pack Demo: The Commandos Battle Pack demo is now available from Feral Interactive according to a note they sent us. You can download your mission briefing and demo materials from this Feral web page. [Bill Fox]



[3/12]
Apple Revised the Offerings from a Hot Deals Retailer:

The Apple Store has updated it's selection of great deal products such as Apple Certified Power Mac G5's starting as low as $1,299 along with low prices on Apple Certified iMac G5 17" and 20" models. You will also find sale priced products such as an iPod photo (60GB w Dock and carrying case) for only $479, and much more. But hurry; supplies are limited and sure to go fast. All details available under the "Special Deals" tile.

[Bill Fox]



[3/12]
Peerflix--Legal Peer-to-Peer Trading of Movie DVDs: For $0.99 you can trade an existing owned movie DVD for another that someone else puts up for trade using the clearinghouse Peerflix.com. It's perfectly legal because no copying is involved like with many movie peer-to-peer download services. Peerflix just started at the end of last year and claims 10,000 titles are in its sharing catalog as compared with 35,000 in Netflix's inventory that it loans out for a monthly subscription. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/11]
Mozilla Application Suite Ends at v1.7.x--It's Official: According to the Mozilla Foundation, all development of the integrated Mozilla web browser, email client and news reader has ended at the current version 1.7.x. This has been done to continue developing the standalone Mozilla Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client and news reader. While there have been beta versions of Mozilla 1.8 (latest 1.8b2), there will be no further development. However, there will still be maintenance releases of v1.7.x with 1.7.6 due to come out shortly. One of our staff uses v1.8b2 and is quite satisfied with it. More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/11]
Online Consumer Spending Grew By 14 Per Cent to $1.8 Billion Last Year: Acording to an AP story, the biggest category was online dating services but it grew by only 4.4 per cent. The fastest growing category was entertainment (largely digital music) which grew by 90 per cent. Other big percentage gainers were sports (38%) and games (22%). More... [Dana Baggett]



[3/11]
Clone X 2 OS X--Competitor to Carbon Copy Cloner Emerges from the French company Tri-Edre. Clone X is a disk copy utility for Mac OS X. It features the copying of an entire disk to another disk or to a set of CDs or DVDs. Copies are fully functional. Clone X provides restoration features as well and the creation of a bootable CD. Clone X 2 costs 69 Euros ($92.52) for a downloaded version. We use Tri-Edre's excellent Tri-Backup application. More... [Bill Fox]



[3/11]
G-PLAY Personal Media Player-USB Out March 23 from FireWire Depot: The G-PLAY stores and plays digital media files. It stores files from many video formats including MPEG 1, MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 (DivX, etc.). G-PLAY also plays your personal DVD movies (ISO format) as if they were playing from the original DVD at full quality and with full DVD functionality (with menus, fast forward, pause, etc.). G-PLAY supports popular music formats including WAV and MP3 and also plays JPG digital photo files. G-PLAY hooks up to any TV, monitor, VCR, cable or satellite box that supports composite, S-video, SCART RGB, YPbPr or VGA. G-PLAY supports stereo analog, SPDIF digital audio and compressed Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS pass through. It is operated by an infrared remote controller. There is an 80GB and 100GB model starting at $329. G-PLAY holds up to 20 full quality DVD movies, over 100 DivX videos, up to 25,000 songs and over 1,000,000 VGA quality digital photos. More... [Bill Fox]



[3/10]
Apple CEO Steve Jobs Makes MEDIA 100 List: While flipping through the mountain of trade magazines that contribute to landfill, we noticed that Steve Jobs made MEDIA magazine's MEDIA 100, which is introduced as:

Some are eclectic, others simply electric. In a business where everyone wants to know what the other guy or gal is up to, here's our 2005 list of people we're scratching our heads over.

Aside from Jesus, Einstein, and Jimi Hendrix, these are the 100 people we'd (MEDIA magazine) most like to have lunch with. Heck, we'll even pay.

[...]

Steve Jobs, CEO Apple--For spinning iPod gold and investing in the digital music category

[...]

The iPod is also featured on the March cover as part of the cover story: There's more to that iPod than you think. The new Trojans (for delivering multimedia in ways unthought-of) [Brian Nakamoto]



[3/10]
Apple Developer Connection Published Developing with Core Image: Take advantage of the power of modern graphics hardware and learn how to create your own graphics plug-ins, or Image Units, with Core Image, the framework in Tiger for ultra-fast high-precision image processing. Today's GPUs have amazing computational power that opens up new opportunities for developers, because video cards can now efficiently perform per-pixel processing that previously was bound to the CPU. Core Image compiles image processing programs—or kernels—at runtime, globally optimizing across multiple kernels and taking advantage of the GPU whenever possible. From creating new solutions for print, photography, scientific visualization, and film post-production to enhancing an application's user interface with innovative and effortless visual effects, Core Image performs the hard work that enables the next generation of imaging applications. The new article is available on this Apple web page. [Bill Fox]



[3/10]
Brief Hands-On Report: Photoleap--Distribute Your Photos Easily and Quickly: Here's a brand new service that started last month--Photoleap. It works with Mac OS X or Windows. On the Mac, PhotoLeap is integrated with iPhoto 4. Otherwise, just drag and drop digital photos on the Photoleap application and they show up as thumbnails. Click send and Photoleap distributes them to recipients that you've chosen using their email address. If a recipient does not have Photoleap, they get an email instead noting that they can download Photoleap for free and get the photos sent them. The free version allows one to distribute up to 25 photos per message and 2 megapixels in size. There's also a $29.95/year version and a $499.95 professional version of Photoleap.

We downloaded a copy. During installation a dialog box told us that we do not have iPhoto 4 installed (correct, we have version 5.0.1) but there will be a plug-in for iPhoto 5 shortly that allows integration with iPhoto. The registration process sent us an email and the link included has to be clicked to confirm our email address before Photoleap will work. We did so and it led us to a page to download the 10-page user guide PDF file. After completing the registration process, we sent a number of photos out as a test. Photoleap worked quickly and easily in drag-and-drop mode. [Dana Baggett & Bill Fox]



[3/10]
O'Reilly Released QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual: Many small- and medium-sized companies use QuickBooks for their accounting tasks. Mastering the program allows one to not only manage everyday bookkeeping but also to boost sales, control spending, perform more efficiently, and much more. Bonnie Biafore's new QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual (O'Reilly, US $29.95) shows readers how to do just that. The book offers clear explanations and step-by-step instructions for every QuickBooks feature as well as relevant advice (and plenty of real-world examples, complete with screen shots) on solid accounting and bookkeeping. [Bill Fox]



[3/10]
Two New Books on Network Security from Syngress Publishing:

Aggressive Network Self-Defense ()--provides security professionals and forensic specialists with invaluable information for finding and prosecuting criminal hackers. The book demonstrates controversial network strike-back and countermeasure techniques and shows readers tightly guarded secrets to find out who is really attacking them over the Internet.

Intrusion Prevention and Active Response: Deploying Network and Host IPS ($49.95)--shows readers how to automate responses to intrusions and master buffer overflow prevention technologies. The book covers all major intrusion prevention and active response systems including Snort Inline, SnortSAM, PaX, StackGuard, LIDS, FWSnort, PSAD, Enterasys Web IPS, and mod_securit.

[Bill Fox]



[3/10]
Tonight on The Mac Night Owl LIVE--Macworld's Snell and Breen: This week on the popular internet radio show co-hosts Gene and Grayson Steinberg will feature Macworld Editorial Director Jason Snell and author Christopher Breen. Tune in tonight at 6-9pm PT (9-11pm ET). [Bill Fox]



[3/10]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Two Hot Deals Retailers:

J&R has great prices on top quality Mac products, including UbiSoft's Myst IV: Revelation/Myst III: Exile Bundle, Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, Antec Notebook Cooler, Altec Lansing IM3 Speaker System for iPod and iPod photo, H&R Block TaxCut Premium 2004, Canon Elura 6.5MP MiniDV Camcorder, Epson Stylus RX500 Multifunction Device, and much more.

Publishing Perfection has great deals on a variety of design and print products for your Mac, including Clanbadge's Celtin Knot Filled Style, Dedicated Digital akHD Feline 3D, Digital Media Preflighting Print Fiiles with FlightCheck, Gluon ProPack QuarkXPress Xtensions, SanDisk 512MB CompactFlash Card, Microtek ScanMaker i700, and much more.

[Bill Fox]



[3/10]
Macworld Expo 2005 SF Official Attendance Up by 11 Per Cent: Yesterday, IDG announced the official attendance figures for January's Macworld Expo in San Francisco at just shy of 36,000. This represents an increase of 11 per cent from 2004's attendance of just over 32,000. More... [Bill Fox]


[3/9]
The Game Developers Conference Running This Week at the San Francisco Moscone West Conference Center. The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the official trade event "by game developers for developers" of computer, console, mobile, arcade, online games, and location based entertainment.

The GDC attracts over 10,000 attendees and provides educational, networking, and business opportunities for game development professionals driving the $9 billion video game industry. The conference features over 300 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts. In addition, the GDC expo showcases all of the game development tools, platforms and services. The conference also includes the seventh annual Independent Games Festival, where new, unpublished games compete for the attention of the publishing community.

Check out the tracks and lectures being given this week on this GDC web page. [Bill Fox]


[3/9] Things to Come--Sharp Produces New TFT 3D LCD Laptop: While not yet available on Apple's PowerBooks, Sharp, Inc., has produced some great 3D LCD technology that hopefully will find its way into them some day soon. Here is Sharp's description of the TFT 3D LCD technology used its new, second generation Actius AL3DU 15" laptop:

Sharp’s 3D LCD Technology uses a secondary LCD as a parallax barrier. This LCD is switchable, and when off, the display acts the same as a normal 2D LCD monitor.

When the barrier display is switched on, the light passing through the primary TFT LCD is directed, such that odd pixel columns are focused towards the left eye and the even pixel columns are focused towards the right eye. When the software displays a 3D image, the 2 different perspective views are shown to each eye and the brain fuses these into a realistic 3D view.

Sharp's 3D LCD technology does not need blue/red or shutter glasses but it needs software especially written for it. The technology is likely to be big in medical, CAD, oil exploration, chemical and game software. According to Sharp, using a special Nvidia chip the games Call of Duty, Halo and Unreal Tournament 2003 (and many more) are compatible and must look terrific. The new 3D screens do not come cheap. The 15" 3D LCD monitor is $1499 and the new Actius AL3DU 15" laptop is $3499. More... [Bill Fox]


[3/9]
Retrospect Driver Update v6.2.102 Released by Dantz for Mac: A new Retrospect Driver Update (RDU) has been released for use with Retrospect 6.0, the backup application for Macintosh. To download the update and read a list of changes, visit the following Dantz web page. [Dana Baggett]


[3/9]
FREE Envision Web Show of the Week--Snow Crystals: This week's Envision Web Show of the Week is of an astounding array of snow crystals from a site at Caltech university. Open Door Networks credits the folks at TidBITS for submitting this show. Be warned, however, that the author said the site "shot the next hour completely out of my day." It's that astounding. The Envision Web Show of the Week can be downloaded from the Show of the Week web site. Previous Shows of the Week are available in the Show of the Week archive. [Bill Fox]


[3/8]
Brief Hands-On Report--Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Update 11.1.1. The update is available via the Microsoft AutoUpdate application or as a standalone updater from this web page. According to Microsoft's AutoUpdate note,

This update addresses several issues with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Visual Basic for Applications in Office 2004.

And according to Microsoft's press release, the update...

...includes improvements to Excel add-in calculation, increased PowerPoint and Word 2004 stability, additional support for device drivers and enhanced appearance of imported graphics.

Update 11.1.1 applies to

...[t]he English and Japanese versions of Microsoft Office 2004 Standard Edition, Office 2004 Version Upgrade, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition, Office 2004 Professional Edition, Word 2004, Excel 2004, and PowerPoint 2004. Microsoft is currently developing French, German, Italian and Swedish versions of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.1.1 Update.

We downloaded and installed the update on our copy of Office 2004 with no problems. We opened several Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, then changed and saved them with no issues. [Bill Fox]


[3/8]
Apple Revised the Offerings from a Hot Deals Retailer:

CDW|MacWarehouse has great deals on cool Mac products, including Canon's ZR200 MIniDV Camcorder, Samsung SyncMaster 710N 17" Flat Panel Display, LaCie Big Disk Triple Interface 400GB External Hard Drive, Griffin iTrip mini FM Transmitter, Altec Lansing inMotion iMmini Portable Speakers for iPod mini, Allume StuffIt Deluxe 9, Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 8450 8-Ink Color Printer, and much more.

[Bill Fox]


[3/8]
From the Dark Side--Microsoft Loses One, Wins One with U.S. Justice Department: After settling its case with the DoJ's Antitrust Division, which many obervers saw as a big M$ win, Microsoft lost a battle for the DoJ's officially supported word processing software to rival Corel. WordPerfect will continue to be the DoJ standard at $40 per seat or roughly $2+ million nper year. M$ sells $billions worth of Office so its not a really big loss. In addition, DoJ urges its employees to turn away from Netscape and use M$ Internet Explorer. It looks to us like Microsoft is still a winner at the U.S. DoJ. [Dana Baggett]


[3/7]
Apple to Live Webcast Two Seminars in March--Mac OS X App Performance and HPC Solutions: According to Apple, both seminars are for general audiences.

Mar 10, 2005 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM--Maximizing Mac OS X Application Performance. In this webcast, you'll learn the basics of optimization, including how and why every developer should turn a critical eye to the code they've just written.

Mar 29, 2005 10:00 AM - 11:15 AM--Third-party HPC Solutions for Mac OS X. Apple will be joined by representatives from companies who develop their software or hardware for the platform to talk about their products.

[Bill Fox]


[3/7]
Samsung Develops 82" TFT-LCD Display Panel--World's Largest: ...and you thought Apple's 30" Cinema Display was a monster. The resolution of the 82" panel is only HDTV level but it portends things to come. Samsung makes Apple's LCD panels for Apple's Cinema Displays so, one day in the not too distant future, Apple's 30" Cinema Display will be dwarfed by larger models. More... [Bill Fox]


[3/5]
Post-Macworld Update on Elgato's Products--EyeTV Wonder, EyeConnect & EyeTV 500: Elgato Systems showed off some great new products at Macworld 2005 SF. Here is their current status:

EyeTV Wonder--Elgato is now shipping EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0 in North America. The jointly developed analog TV tuner from Elgato and ATI Technologies is the perfect way to watch TV on your Mac. It handles uncompressed video at 240 MBit/sec with ease, includes on-demand recording as well as remote programming via the free electronic program guide, TitanTV. EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0 has a built-in 125-channel analog TV tuner transferring raw, uncompressed video directly to your Mac, and delivering superior quality TV. It has a suggested retail price of only $149.00 and EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0 is Elgato's first fully complementary product for the Mac mini.

EyeConnect Public Preview is available. EyeConnect, the Macintosh market’s first commercially available media streaming software is based on Universal Plug and Play Audio/Video standard (UPnP AV). EyeConnect enables digital music, video, or photo content, including EyeTV recordings, iPhoto photos, iTunes songs and movies stored on a Macintosh, to be played on a broad variety of UPnP™AV certified devices. The public preview of EyeConnect version is available from this web page.

EyeTV 500, exclusively available on the Mac, is the only fully featured high-definition digital TV recorder in the entire PC industry supporting digital unencrypted cable as well as digital terrestrial reception. EyeTV 500 allows Mac users to enjoy interference-free crystal-clear HDTV in remarkable digital picture and sound quality. Watch HDTV via free–to-air digital HDTV (ATSC) or unencrypted digital cable TV (Clear QAM) on the Mac.

[Bill Fox] 


[3/5]
Ejay Mix Mac Coming to the Mac in April: Ejay Mix Mac is the first of the best-Ejay music creation series to appear on the Mac. Enter a new dimension of music making with Ejay Mix Mac and put together your own hits on 48 tracks in a matter of minutes with more than 10,000 royalty-free samples to select and remix as well as 18 instruments and effects to select. It will be available in April from the online Apple Store for $39.95. Its PC cousins Dance 6 and HipHop 5 are reviewed here. [Dana Baggett]


[3/5]
Washington Apple Pi AMUG Kicks Off Sunday Software Clinic This Sunday: Sunday, March 6th will mark the debut of regularly scheduled "Software Clinics". These are modeled on WAPi's ever-popular Tuesday Clinics, which focus mainly on solving problems with hardware and file systems. The doors will open at 1 pm and remain open until about 4 pm, depending on the workload. WAPi members (only) are free to bring questions about using the software on their computers. The focus will be on system components, application programs, and utilities. If you have a laptop, bring it, otherwise they will use the classroom computers for demonstrations.

As with the Tuesday evening Clinics WAPi asks for a modest donation. Unlike the Tuesday Clinics, members may donate TIME as well as CASH. The WAPi has many needs for small bits of volunteer labor, and Clinic users may exchange some of their time for that of the people who are helping them.

Clinic users must recognize that the folks providing the help are probably not experts in arcane applications. Most of the helpers are, however, skilled at navigating menus and Help files to extract full benefit from the applications at hand. The spirit here is "Helping Users to Help Themselves."

While this first meeting will be "free form" WAPi asks that potential users of future software clinics register by sending an e-mail at least three days in advance. Washington Apple Pi is the Greater Washington DC Area AMUG. [Bill Fox]


[3/5]
Judge Preliminarily Ruled Against Mac Web Sites on Apple Subpoena Appeals: Apple filed a subpoena for the email of a Mac web site O'Grady's PowerPage from their ISP and applied for subpoenas for the Mac web sites O'Grady's PowerPage and AppleInsider in order to discover who passed them information that Apple claims are trade secrets protected by California law. The web sites in question published the information about a product that Apple supposedly has under development. The web sites through their Electronic Freedom Foundation attorneys asked the court to quash Apple's subpoenas but the court has preliminarily stated, according to News.com, that it will let the subpoenas stand. A final ruling is expected next week. More....

Apple's lawyers have argued that the Mac web site writers are not real journalists and are therefore not due the legal protection afforded a journalist's sources under California law. According to News.com, Apple's lawyer argued that "They were simply fencing stolen information by publishing it verbatim." We think this is rather extreme but lawyers frequently take extreme positions in arguing cases. It's always a wonder to us that courts, judges or juries, can make rational decisions when faced with two opposite and "off-the-map" sets of arguments.

It is our hope that the court will affirm or side-step as unnecessary to the case the relatively thorny issue of online journalism being real journalism. [Bill Fox]


[3/5]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Two Hot Deals Retailers:

B&H Photo and Video has fantastic prices of superb products for your Mac, including Casio Exilim EX-P505 5MP Digital Camera, Kodak EasyShare Z740 5MP Digital Camera with Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock Series 3, Canon Elura 90 MiniDV Camcorder, Lexar 1GB 32x Secure Digital Card, Microteck Scanmaker i700 Office Edition Flatbed Scanner, Monster Cable iSpeaker Portable Speaker for iPod, and much more.

O'Reilly has exclusively Hot Deals discounts for many of it's most popular Mac titles, including Mac OS X Unwired, Inside .Mac, Mac OS X Panther Hacks, 2nd Edition, Office 2004: The Missing Manual, AppleScript: The Missing Manual, and much more.

[Bill Fox]


[3/4]
The Apple Developer Connection Published Developing Java Applications on Mac OS X with Eclipse: Eclipse has quickly become one of the most popular and widely used tools for Java development, and it runs great on Mac OS X. You can learn how to get started working with Eclipse on Mac OS X from this hands-on technical article. Developing Java Applications on Mac OS X with Eclipse explains how to build a sample Java application, add a project, modify Eclipse to your work style, and get an SWT application up and running. [Bill Fox]


[3/4]
Federal Anti-Phishing Act Introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy: The federal anti-phishing law would establish high penalties for those who set up bogus web sites and send phony emails that ask one for their personal information. The penalty could be up to 5 years in the slammer and a $250,000 fine. Most other law deals with fraud and can only be enforcfed after someone is actually defrauded. More... [Dana Baggett]


[3/4]
Symantec Patented Its Security Technology: Symantec was granted a patent for some of its virus detection mechanisms. The technology is called "data-driven detection of viruses" and it is used in much of Symantec's security applications. More... [Dana Baggett]


[3/3]
Merriam-Webster Released Search Tools for Mozilla Firefox: Five separate tools are available which allow you to search Merriam-Webster's online dictionary and thesaurus, each in a different way. The tools are available from this Merriam-Webster web page. Not all of the tools work with the Mac version. We installed the "Right(Control)-Click" tool. [Dana Baggett]


[3/3]
Security-Patched New RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X Version is Out: It is available via the update feature on the application or as a standalone new version (v10.0.0 Build 331) from this Real Networks web page. For the free version click the blue button on the upper right. We had version 10.0.0 Build 188 installed. According to this eWeek article, independent research outfit Secunia rates the flaws as "highly critical." Here are the details from Real. [Dana Baggett]


[3/3]
Apple Revised the Offerings from Four Hot Deals Retailers:

Apple's Clearance Bargains section of Hot Deals, dedicated entirely to end-of-life and clearance Mac and Mac OS X products from all of your favorite retailers, boasts some newly added offers, including Digital Media's Print Preparation for QuarkXPress, Microsoft Optical USB Mouse by Starck, Clanbadge Celtic Knot 3D Style, IK Multimedia Sonik Capsule: Studio Drums, and much more.

MacZone has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including Microsoft Office 2004 Standard Upgrade with FREE Wireless Desktop Elite Keyboard, LaCie Porsche Design 160GB External FireWire Hard Drive, Targus 3-Compartment Leather Notebook Case, Planar PL1910M 19" Flat Panel LCD Display with Speakers, Canon PowerShot AS10 3.2MP Digital Camera, Epson PictureMate 4"x6" Personal Printer, and much more.

Office Depot has fantastic deals on essential products for your Mac, including PNY Attaché 128MB USB 2.0 Portable Flash Drive, Hewlett Packard 1012 Monochrome LaserJet Printer, Epson Stylus C64 Color Inkjet Printer, Sony h.ear MDR-J10 Stereo Headphones, and much more.

Ramjet has super low prices on RAM upgrades for your Mac, including 2GB DDR Kit for Power Mac G5, 1GB DDR Kit for Power Mac G4, 512MB PC-2700 Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB PC-2700 Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB DDR DIMM for Mac mini, 1GB Kit for iMac DV, and much more.

[Bill Fox]


[3/3]
Flat-Rate LCD Screen Service form TechRestore: TechRestore, Inc began offering a flat-rate LCD screen repair service for PowerBook and iBook laptops. The new service provides a fast and hassle-free method for PowerBook and iBook owners that experience a screen failure due to mechanical issues or accidental damage. The LCD screen repair program has a 24-hour turnaround time and flat-rate pricing that includes all shipping, parts and installation. The flat-rate LCD repair service price starts at just $399 for iBooks and $499 for G4 PowerBooks, which includes all overnight shipping charges, repair parts and installation. [Bill Fox]


[3/3]
Apple Legal Front in the News Again--Former Executive Sues: Tim Bucher, former Senior VP for Macintosh Hardware, who was fired last December is suing Apple for compensation and punitive damages, claiming his firing was illegally predicated on a medical condition. More... [Bill Fox]


[3/3]
From the Dark Side--Intel's "Concept" Entertainment PC Looks Like...Drum Roll...Apple's Mac Mini: Here are photos from CNet. Now, why aren't we surprised? It seems that Intel's "concept" = copy Apple, just like Microsoft's "innovation" = copy Apple. More... [Bill Fox]


[3/3]
Macs Still Huge in Some Enterprise Fields: According to New York-based TrendWatch figures citied by Computerworld, some 83% of graphic designers, 77% of corporate design departments and 65% of advertising agencies rely on Macs. Publishers also depend on Macs. Apple's relatively inexpensive and easy-to-administer Xserve servers are expected to take more ground in the enterprise arena as well. More... [Dana Baggett]


[3/2]
FREE Apple Online Seminars--Complete Current Schedule: Here is a complete list of Apple's free online seminars available 24/7. They are designed to be no more than 40 minutes in length:

A Blueprint for Tiered Storage. Steve Duplessie, recognized independent expert on storage technology, discusses the practicalities of tiered storage & set-up of a solution that works.

Biotech is in our DNA. Michael Athanas, Ph.D., of The BioTeam will show how to install a fully provisioned informatics cluster on one or more Xserve servers using iNquiry.

Color Management for Your Digital Workflow. This free online seminar helps demystify color management and gives you the knowledge you need to incorporate it into your workflow.

Color Management: From Input to Edit and Print with Mac OS X Panther & ColorSync. Join Steve Upton, industry consultant on color, as he gives you an overview of color management from displays to applications and output.

Computational Clusters for Bioinformatics. Elizabeth Kerr, Ph.D., Director of Science and Technology Markets at Apple, moderates this informative webcast discussion of the Apple Workgroup Cluster.

Desktop Management Made Easy with Apple Remote Desktop 2. Join Apple Product Mgr Nader Nafissi to learn why Apple's new, easy to use desktop management software is the essential tool for any Mac system administrator.

Developers win with Mac OS X - Reap the rewards. Built on a rock-solid UNIX core and standards-based technologies, Mac OS X is hailed as the world's most advanced operating system.

Getting Started with High Performance Computing (Apple). On-demand rebroadcast of the Dec 16, 2004 webcast discussion of the high-level concepts of high performance computing, issues & obstacles, and more.

Guitarists and the Mac: A Conversation with Pat Metheny. Join Pat Metheny in this free online seminar and learn how the Mac can help you take your music to the next level.

Improve Your Presentation Skills. Watch this free online seminar and find out how to improve your presentation skills.

Information Lifecycle Management. Steve Kenniston, an Enterprise Storage Group analyst will offer insights as to how to manage vast amounts of data while keeping your overhead low.

Mobile Field Editing with Journalist Dr. Bob Arnot. Join Dr. Bob Arnot to learn how the Mac can help you become a more successful storyteller and videographer by editing video on-the-go using tools from Apple.

Optimize Your Creative Workgroups with Mac OS X Server, Xserve, and Xserve RAID. Join Brent Haley, Apple senior marketing manager for design and print, and learn how you can remove barriers to creativity while streamlining mundane IT tasks.

Perfect Color Starts Here. With Apple Cinema Displays. Join the Apple Cinema Displays product manager to learn how adding an Apple display to your creative system can boost your color-viewing experience.

Perfectly Focused - Digital Photography on Mac OS X. This seminar will show you why you should take the plunge to digital--and how to get started with your own digital photography workflow on Mac OS X.

Unwire Your Business. Take this free online seminar and find out how Apple's wireless and mobile solutions let you take your computing environment with you wherever you go.

We have viewed many over the past few years and find most of them to be excellent. We recently viewed three: Desktop Management Made Easy With Apple Remote Desktop 2, Improve Your Presentation Skills and Unwire Your Business. [Bill Fox]


[3/2]
Review--Mac Mini vs Cheap PCs: CNet reviewed the Mac mini against several cheap PCs. CNet rated the $599 eMachines T5026 better than the Mac mini. The Mac mini came in second of five.

But check out this comparo on the Mac vs PC Systems Shootout web site. Charles Gaba compares Apples to...er...Dells and the Mac mini is the clear winner at a comparable price point of $597 vs $596. [Dana Baggett and Bill Fox]


[3/2]
VueScan Now Supports PDF File Creation: Users of VueScan, the near-universal Mac OS X scanner driver, can now create single and multi-page PDF files in one step, directly from the scanner, without needing any other application. VueScan is available from Hamrick Software. [Bill Fox]


[3/2]
FREE Envision Web Show of the Week--Mars: Europe's Mars Express sent back some amazing images from the Red Planet last week. Just put this week's Web Show of the Week ("Mars montage") in the background and watch as the views come in (it takes a little while for the first "transmission"). The Envision Web Show of the Week can be downloaded from the Show of the Week web site. Previous Shows of the Week are available in the Show of the Week archive. [Bill Fox]


[3/2]
Apple Supports Grokster and StreamCast in File-Sharing Suit: The music and movie industries have appealed their case against Grokster and StreamCast to the U.S. Supreme Court according to this AP article. The music and movie industries are trying to overturn a district court finding that Grokster and StreamCast are not responsible for illegal use of their file-sharing software Morpheus. Also joining in supporting Grokster and StreamCast are many computer scientists and musicians. [Dana Baggett]


[3/1]
Australia's Apple University Consortium Offers WWDC 2005 Scholarships--Apply by March 23rd: The AUC is offering scholarships to students and faculty to attend Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2005. According to the AUC,

To be eligible to obtain a scholarship you should be a full time staff member or student of an AUC Member University, have a background in programming (Mac, UNIX or Windows), QuickTime and digital media or work as an IT Manager with responsibility for Macintosh deployment on campus.

Successful scholarship recipients in 2005 will receive a WWDC E-Ticket as well as a financial subsidy to assist in covering the cost of:

  • Return economy airfares to USA from Australia.
  • Return economy domestic airfares as required to point of departure from Australia.
  • Twin-share Accommodation for 7 days in San Francisco.

Check the AUC web site for application details. [Dana Baggett]


[3/1]
iPod AudioBook of Boston Macworld Expo '04 Keynote Panel with Jef Raskin: We noted yesterday that Jef Raskin, "Father of the Macintosh" to many, died on Saturday at the age of 61. At last summer's Macworld Expo in Boston, a panel moderated by David Pogue adressed the history of the Mac. On that panel were such Mac development notables as Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, Jerry Manock and Jef Raskin.

Jef Raskin was at his irascible and provocative best. An audio (mp3) file of that panel session has been made available for download from this Macworld web page--scroll to the link near the bottom. The file can be imported into iTunes (drag and drop onto the Library song list) as an AudioBook. Then, it can imported into an iPod through a usual update. [Bill Fox]


[3/1]
Hangman Pro v2.0.3--A Word Game--is Out from Space-Time Associates: Hangman Pro (the successor to Hang3000) is a colorful, educational, non-violent word-guessing game, with dozens of built-in categories of words, unlimited custom word lists, hinting, digitized sounds, speech, timed games, a new photo feature, and much more. [Bill Fox]

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