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The Low End Mac Link Archive, July 2003
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External news links are listed below by the date of publication
with the most recent articles listed at the top, older ones below
them. Other monthly archive indexes are linked on the right. Links
were correct when originally posted. However, we cannot guarantee
that these links are still active.
Analysis: G5 benchmarking
controversy still simmers, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
07.31. "Maybe Apple was a little selective in past benchmarks, but
it seems to have bent over backwards making its G5 versus Intel
iron comparison as fair and as detailed as possible."
Rights:
New
details emerge about iTrip's UK ban, Dennis Sellers,
MacCentral, 07.31. UK law prohibits use of short-range radio
transmitter that lets iPod users around the world listen to tunes
on FM radio.
Opinion: Free
long distance and free TV, Marc Zeedar, Less Tangible, Mac
Opinion, 07.31. "Audio Instant Messaging is just like the
telephone, only free. Even better, there is no phone
number...."
.mac: .Mac
members get Marble Blast, Peter Cohen, MacCentral, 07.31. One
more benefit of your .mac subscription - a free game you can play
on your Mac.
Upgrade: OWC's
optical media upgrades for TiBooks & Cubes, Applelinks,
07.31. OWC releases slot-loading internal $380 SuperDrive and $200
Combo drives for PowerBook G4 (titanium) and Power Macintosh G4
Cube.
Software:
iPhoto has a new Buddy, MacUser UK, 07.30. "...the utility
allows you to create more than one iPhoto library and in any
location either on your hard drive, a server or an iDisk."
Free.
Opinion:
Why iTunes has bands on the run, Charles Haddad, Byte of the
Apple, BusinessWeek, 07.30. "Online services such as Apple's put
consumers in control of what they buy, not artists."
Opinion: Poll:
10.3's metal gets brush-off, Macworld UK, 07.30. Users divided
on Aqua vs. brushed metal. Best suggestion: "Apple should make
interface choices a system-level option, so people can choose Aqua
or brushed-metal."
Software: iChatUSBCam 1.0
for iChat AV released, MacMinute, 07.30. "Ecamm Network has
released iChatUSBCam 1.0, a utility that allows the use any
QuickTime compatible video source for video conferencing in iChat
AV, including USB webcams...."
Macinschool: Why I'm
not sure I want Macs in my classroom, Noah Kravitz, PowerBook
Central, 07.29. "Are iBooks and G4s worth the extra cost to schools
that are already starved for funding?"
Dark Side: Redefining
Microsoft, Frank Catalano, Seattle Weekly, 07.29. "...Microsoft
has trouble whenever it tries to grow outside of this core
competency. The failures are 'disappeared' from Microsoft's
official history...."
Oops: BuyMusic
customers can't transfer songs to MP3 players, Bryan Chaffin,
Mac Observer, 07.29. "The newest problem to beset the would-be iTMS
competitor is that customers who have downloaded songs from the
service can't transfer them to the MP3 players that BM says it
supports."
Opinion: Down and
out on the Web, Del Miller, Abacus, Mac Opinion, 07.29. "How do
we finance the content that we value so much if the audience isn't
willing, for whatever reason, to pay for it?"
Opinion: So what kind of Mac
do you own?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 07.29. "If you told
me, for example, that you had an iMac, I'd have to ask you a few
more questions to learn which one."
Rights:
Telemarketers sue over do-not-call list, CNN, 07.29.
"Telemarketers expanded their legal challenge to the government's
do-not-call list, suing a second federal agency over the
call-blocking service for consumers...."
Opinion: Macworld Expo New
York's ill-advised age policy, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 07.28.
Children 12 and under no longer welcome at Macworld Creative Pro -
not even 7-week-old infants in front carriers.
Low End: Apple Cube:
Alive and selling, Leander Kahney, Wired, 07.28. "...there's a
thriving trade in aftermarket upgrades, and dedicated owners are
going to extreme lengths to keep their much-loved machines
current."
Dark Side: Napster 2.0 by
Christmas, Jan Libbenga, The Register, 07.28. "Napster 2.0 is
being built from the ground up to reflect the essence of
independence and innovation that the brand is known for," but it
will only work with Windows.
Software: iCame, iSaw,
iConquer[ed], Ron Carlson, Insanely Great Mac, 07.28. Latest
version of iConquer, an OS X only "Risk" clone, add support for
Internet play.
Advice:
Storing home folders on a separate partition, M. Christopher
Stevens, Other World Computing, 07.27. Stuck booting OS X from an 8
GB partition on a larger drive? Moving user folders to another
partition is one way to free up some space.
Web:
The
most successful online launch in history, Vin Crosbie, E-Media
Tidbits, 07.25. "...89% of millions of Americans who signed up on
the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's national 'Do Not Call'
anti-telemarketing registry chose to register online, rather than
by phone...."
Opinion: Mac
or PC: There is simply no comparison!, Del Miller, Difference
Engine, Mac Opinion, 07.25. "When I look around at what the bulk of
the computing public actually uses their computer for, I see
absolutely no reason why a significant portion of them couldn't
switch to the Macintosh..."
Web:
BuyMusic.com blocks Mac access, MacMinute, 07.25. "Thank you
for visiting BuyMusic.com. In order to take full advantage of
BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System
using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher."
Analysis: TV tuning a
'must have' for computers, Peter Cohen, MacCentral, 07.24.
"Computer-based TV tuners have gone from novelty to '"must have"
capability,' according to Jon Peddie Research."
Spam:
Aussies
to nix spam, John H. Farr, Applelinks, 07.24. "New Australian
legistlation . . . will require that commercial emails arise out of
an 'existing customer-business relationship.'"
Rights:
Music-sharing
subpoenas target parents, Fox News, 07.24. "Parents, roommates
- even grandparents - are being targeted in the music industry's
new campaign to track computer users who share songs over the
Internet...."
History: AOL,
eWorld and an LC 580, John Ward, Vectronic's Apple World,
07.23. "Apple history consists of a long string of events in which
the company failed to move on emerging markets that it correctly
identified years before its competitors."
Advice:
Eliminate wireless interference, MacMegasite, 07.23. "If you
find that you frequently lose the connection to your airport base
station, it's possible that a cordless phone or other device is
interfering with it."
Analysis: BM Vs.
iTMS: Is anyone home at BuyMusic.com?, Darla Sasaki, Mac
Observer, 07.23. BuyMusic.com - no search tool, few 79¢
tracks, inconsistent pricing, and albums that cost more than
collected tracks.
Opinion: Mac OS X: Migration
is complete, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 07.23. "...I
suspect that most of the owners of older Macs who are interested in
moving to Mac OS X, and have the hardware to support the move, have
already done so."
Low End:
Penny-pinching PowerBook, Michael J. Norton, O'Reilly Network,
07.22. Portability on a budget - debating the PowerBook Duo 280c
vs. the much faster and very affordable PowerBook 1400.
Low End: G4
Cube dusted off, given new life, Mark Kellner, Washington
Times, 07.22. "Instead of consigning this 'relic' to the scrap heap
or a page on eBay, I thought it might be interesting to see what
upgrades work best."
Opinion: Buymusic.com
to take on iTunes Music Store, others, Ken "Caesar" Fisher, ars
technica, 07.22. For a start, you don't buy the music, can't move
it to another computer, and may not be able to burn CDs from the
music you license.
News: Nikon D2H preview,
Phil Askey, Digital Photography Review, 07.22. New US$3,500 Nikon
digital SLR creates 4 MP images at up to 8 shots per second,
especially designed for sports photographers.
Opinion:
Still no new 'Books, and battery management issues, Charles W.
Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 07.21. "...battery reliability
has been a problem, particularly, it seems, under OS X, in which
the battery management routines apparently leave much to be
desired."
Opinion: PowerBook is rugged
on the road, Mike Wendland, Mac-Mike.com, 07.21. "I'm back from
a 281-mile bicycle ride called the Michigander and about the only
thing that worked perfectly was my Apple PowerBook G4 12-inch
laptop."
Tech:
PowerPC 970 redux: Dialogue and addendum, Jon "Hannibal"
Stokes, ars technica, 07.21. More details on the PowerPC 970 from
two engineers involved with the project.
Advice:
Scheduling your Mac, Jon Gales, Power User Monday, MacMerc,
07.21. "The Unix utility Cron is built into OS X, and can automate
most anything."
Advocacy:
Why I want a Pentium Mac, David Coursey, ZDNet, 07.21. "Many
people who would otherwise buy a Mac don't do so because the
machine won't also run Windows. Sure, there's the Virtual
PC...."
Hardware:
DVD-R is the most compatible DVD format, CDR-Info, 07.20. DVD-R
(used by Apple) rated nearly 97% compatible. DVD+R (promoted by MS)
rated only 87% compatible.
Analysis: The power of
QuarkXPress: How can one application mean so much?, Gene
Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 07.20. "Without a Mac OS X version of
their chosen desktop publishing application, there's little
incentive to buy new Power Macs, since the ones they have work just
fine, thank you."
Opinion: Jeffrey
Zeldman talks Apple, Apple Matters, 07.19. "People who choose
Macs consider the experience of using a computer to be as important
as the fact that a computer lets them get work done."
Forum:
Single vs dual CPU?, MacFixIt, 07.18. Good discussion of where
dual processors will be beneficial - and where they won't.
Benchmarks: Acard's 4 channel Ultra
ATA-133 hardware RAID, Bare Feats, 07.18. "What's the fastest 4
drive combination, ATA-133? FireWire 800? or Ultra320 SCSI? And if
cost is a factor, what's the best buy?"
Dark Side:
Judge OKs
$1.1 billion Microsoft deal, Declan McCullagh, c|net, 07.18.
Friday's ruling "the largest recovery of a monopoly overcharge ever
achieved in the United States and the largest recovery ever
achieved under the antitrust laws of California."
Hardware: IBM servers
to pair Linux, new PowerPC chips, Daniel Drew Turner, eWeek,
07.18. Quad processor PowerPC 970 server expected to sell for
$3,500. (Same CPU used in Power Mac G5.)
Hardware: D-Link
offers USB 2.0/FireWire combo hub, Peter Cohen, MacCentral,
07.18. "The device combines four USB 2.0 and three FireWire ports
to enable users to simultaneously connect a large number of
different peripherals through a single hub."
Rights:
DirecTV
dragnet snares innocent techies, Kevin Poulsen, The Register,
07.17. If you've ever bought a smart card programmer, DirecTV wants
to sue you for piracy - even if you don't use their services.
Opinion: It's
time to move to a Power Mac, John Ward, Vectronic's Apple
World, 07.17. All-in-one Macintosh fan finds himself more and more
attracted to Power Mac G5.
Hardware: Matias
recreates "the best keyboard Apple ever made", Applelinks,
07.17. "Matias has announced today the release of its Tactile Pro
Keyboard, built from the same premium mechanical keyswitch
technology Apple used in its original Apple Extended
Keyboard...."
Spam: Spam
report #37, John H. Farr, Applelinks, 07.17. "By rough count
I'm now getting about 120 spams per day. I say 'rough,' because I
now delete them every hour...."
Rights:
Upload a
file, go to prison, Katie Dean, Wired, 07.17. "A new bill
proposed in Congress on Wednesday would land a person in prison for
five years and impose a fine of $250,000 for uploading a single
file to a peer-to-peer network."
Rights: DirecTV dragnet
snares innocent techies, Kevin Poulsen, The Register, 07.17. If
you've ever bought a smart card programmer, DirecTV wants to sue
you for piracy - even if you don't use their services.
Opinion: Why
Macs are a bargain, Garry Barker, Sydney Morning Herald, 07.17.
"Quoting a report produced by Sophos, a virus consultancy and
software firm, Macworld UK states that just 0.16 per cent of the
viruses reported to the company were Mac-specific."
Rights:
Congress
mulls prison terms for KaZaA users, Thomas C Greene, The
Register, 07.17. "...House Hollywood sock puppet Howard Berman
(Democrat, California) is now sponsoring legislation that would
jail people who trade as little as one MP3 on the Internet."
AAPL: Apple
revenue highest in 11 quarters, Dennis Sellers, MacCentral,
07.17. "Overall, laptop and iPod sales soared, iMac sales dropped,
and Power Macs flatlined."
AAPL: Apple
reports $19 million profit, Jim Dalrymple, MacCentral, 07.16.
Not big, but it is a profit - and better than analysts expected at
that.
Dark Side: Microsoft
lands Homeland Security contract, John H. Farr, Applelinks,
07.16. "Sensate observers will no doubt note the irony of
hacker-friendly Microsoft technology bearing responsibility for the
citizenry's physical security...."
Hardware: Voodoo offers
laptop with upgradeable graphics, Tony Smith, The Register,
07.16. Idea for Apple: "US-based notebook maker Voodoo has released
what it claims is the first mobile PC with a modular, upgradeable
graphics sub-system."
Web: AOL kills
Netscape, Andrew Orlowski, The Register, 07.16. "When AOL
bought Netscape, the browser that created the revolution had market
share parity with Microsoft's Internet Explorer."
Hardware: Telly:
The home entertainment server, Interact TV, 07.16. Idea for
Apple: A networkable entertainment computer that's a digital video
recorder, MP3 and other file server, and can burn CDs and
DVDs.
Review: Cooler
Master ATC-620-SX1 and BX1 cases, Dan's Data, 05.03. Apple
could take a hint from this enclosure when designing a desktop PC
or a digital hub computer for home entertainment. Clever
design.
Opinion: Mac OS X
apps ranked by category, Rob McNair-Huff, Mac Net Journal,
07.15. One man's take on the best (and worst) OS X applications
available today. Very informative.
Apple:
Apple airs new Power Mac G5 commercial, MacMinute, 07.15. "A
new Apple television ad for the Power Mac G5 began airing today,
which features a Mac user literally being 'blown away' by the new
system."
Advocacy: Bringing the Apple
to the masses - An alternative theory, Eugenia Loli-Queru,
OSNews, 07.15. "So, how do we bring Macs closer to these PC
price-concious consumers you ask? Well, Apple will have to spin off
a new brand."
Spam: The destruction of our
e-mail system, Gene Steinberg, The Spam Report, Mac Night Owl,
07.15. "I get 700 pieces of junk mail every single day, and the
explosion only gets worse."
Analysis:
The good, the bad, and the Avie, John Gruber, Daring Fireball,
07.14. "The general perception is that Mac OS X isn't just good,
but that it's good and getting better."
Web: PDF:
Unfit for human consumption, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, 07.14.
"PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online
presentation."
Advice: Write
yourself a discount, Steve Wood, Busman's Holiday, Math Dittos
2, 07.14. How affiliate programs can make you money and save you
money.
Opinion: Crisis
of quality?, David K. Every, iGeek, 06.10. "I'm thinking the
whole purpose of AppleCare was to get that money out of me, and
then think of excuses why it wasn't covered."
Rights:
How to
infuriate the RIAA and stay enragingly legal, Charlie
Demerjian, The Inquirer, 07.12. How to create an "on demand"
Internet radio network that adheres to the law and will drive the
RIAA bonkers.
Analysis: Software
development and being a sharcropper, Tim Bray, The Web's the
Place, 07.12. If you're developing for the Mac or Windows, you're a
sharecropper - and the owner can evict you at any time.
Analysis: A
Switch campaign of a different kind, MacFixIt, 07.11. Why
people are sticking with Mac OS 9, and what will make the Mac OS X
shift happen.
Rights: Hackers
hijack PC's for sex sites, John Schwartz, New York Times,
07.11. Online porn industry infecting Windows PCs, has hijacked
over 1,000 systems with broadband, used the to send spam, host
online porn pages. Macs and Unix machines unaffected.
Hardware: televio
- TV on your Mac, Televio, 07.11. TV tuner with remote plus
composite video input to Macs with free PCI slot, OS X.
US$149.
OS X: iChatUSBCam public
beta, ecamm, 07.11. Got iChat and a USB webcam? iChatUSBCam may
let you use them together.
Advocacy: How many
buttons?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 07.11. One mouse
button or two? What about scroll wheels? Why not let the market
decide, Apple.
Tech: The
G5 and Apple's future: It's all in the details, Del Miller, Mac
Opinion, 07.10. How the G5's memory bus, permute engine, and even
cooling system put Apple ahead of the rest of the computing
world.
AAPL: Pixar
hits all-time high, AAPL consolidates below US$20, Robert Paul
Leitau, Apple Stock Watch, Mac Observer, 07.10. "Apple reached new
52-week highs on Monday and Tuesday before consolidating just below
the US$20.00 per share marker in Wednesday trading."
Opinion:
Why laptops shouldn't replace desktops, David Coursey, ZDNet,
07.09. Laptops are great, but what if yours is stolen - or you
forget to bring it to work one day?
Dark Side: Critical
flaw affects all Windows versions, John H. Farr,
Applelinks, 07.09. "At first believing it to be just more of the
same, we weren't even going to mention it until we noticed that
every version of Windows ever produced is vulnerable."
Dark Side: Microsoft patches
holes in Windows, Ian Fried, c|net, 07.09. "Because the
security hole can be exploited without any action on the part of
the user, Microsoft described it as critical, the highest rating in
the software maker's four-level system."
Tech: Analysis: x86 vs.
PPC, Nicholas Blachford, OSNews, 07.09. Enlightening discussion
of Pentium vs. PowerPC families - and why PPC offers more computing
power per MHz while using less electricity.
Opinion: Some Mac OS 9 users
will never be satisfied, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 07.09.
"Change comes hard for some people. Apple could make Mac OS X run
twice as fast as Mac OS 9 on a Bondi Blue iMac, and it probably
wouldn't matter. It's just too different...."
News: The RAM is ready,
even if the PowerBook isn't, Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac,
07.08. "Samsung has announced its 1GB DDR400 SO-DIMM modules, which
are destined for high-performance portable computers."
News: Apple cuts
keyboard, mouse prices to $49, Think Secret, 07.08. New prices
already reflected at Apple store. Speculation is that wireless
mouse, keyboard may be coming soon.
News: Apple cuts
keyboard, mouse prices to $49, Think Secret, 07.08. New prices
already reflected at Apple store. Speculation is that wireless
mouse, keyboard may be coming soon.
Review: Mozilla
1.4 mini-review, Charles Moore, Applelinks, 07.08. "Mozilla 1.4
is very fast. I continue to maintain that it's faster than Safari,
at least on a dial-up connection...."
.mac: Renew .Mac,
get The Sims or EverQuest free, Peter Cohen, MacCentral, 07.08.
"If you're looking for a way to get a free copy of hit games like
The Sims or EverQuest for Mac, consider renewing your .Mac
membership."
Analysis: The Mac software
report: First Microsoft, now Adobe, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night
Owl, 07.08. "...it's a matter of dollars and cents. Clearly Adobe
wasn't selling enough [copies of Premiere] to justify a Mac
version."
Spam:
Michigan's proposed spam law called toughest in U.S., Slashdot,
07.07. "Traditionally, when a business specifically solicits
business in a state . . . it is held to have submitted to personal
jurisdiction in that state."
Spam:
It's
way past time to stop e-mail spam, Desiree Cooper, Detroit Free
Press, 07.07. "On Monday, the [Michigan] Legislature presented Gov.
Jennifer Granholm with a bill that would be the most stringent
anti-spam law in the nation."
Advice: Improving your
Mac's colour, Keith Cooper, TidBITS, 07.07. The importance of
calibrating the ColorSync profiles for your display and
printer.
Tech: AirPort 3.1
supports third party 802.11g PC Cards, TidBITS, 07.07. "Owners
of pre-AirPort Extreme PowerBooks with PC Card slots can now
connect to higher-speed AirPort Extreme networks using third-party
802.11g cards."
OS X: Reflections on a
month of iBooking in OS X, Charles Moore, Applelinks, 07.07.
"Since I shifted to the iBook for production a month ago, I think
I've only booted into OS 9 once, and that was just for a few
minutes...."
OS X: Mac OS X 10.3
Panther will not be a 64-bit OS, Tony Smith, The Register,
07.07. Panther will be mostly a 32-bit operating system - but able
to tap into some PowerPC 970 64-bit abilities.
Low End: Macs wear well in
Maine's judicial courts, Macs Only!, 07.07. Courts in Maine
have been using Macs since 1985. One SE/30 and several 7200s remain
in daily use.
Analysis: Fake
benchmarks and other nasty subjects, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night
Owl, 07.05. "It's time for the requisite reality check: Apple has
been very upfront about how it tested its G5 against the
competition."
History: The
Macintosh and desktop publishing, John Ward, Vectronic's Apple
World, 07.05. Until PageMaker unified the Mac, Postscript, and the
LaserWriter into a desktop publishing system, the Mac was going
nowhere.
Benchmarks: Hitachi 7200RPM notebook
drive versus the rest, Bare Feats, 07.04. "If you're looking
for a 2.5 inch wide, 9.5mm thick notebook drive for your PowerBook
or portable FireWire case, this is as good as it gets."
History:
The more things change..., Larry Magid, PC Answer, CBS News,
07.04. From 20 years of writing about the PC industry: "I rarely
get excited over a new computer, but Apple's Macintosh has started
a fever in Silicon Valley that's hard not to catch."
Benchmarks:
NASA benchmarks the new G5 Power Mac, Slashdot, 07.04. G5/2.0
with OS X tested against P4/2.66 running Linux, holds its own in
overall performance, offers more MFLOPS/MHz. What does it all
mean?
Opinion:
iTMS: Are those sour notes I hear?, Vern Seward, Just A
Thought, Mac Observer, 07.04. "Before iTMS came along, buying
albums was a crap-shoot; you buy it for the hits but you hope there
is other music on the album that you'll like."
Advocacy: What about an Apple
wireless keyboard and mouse?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl,
07.04. "...the first thing that came to my mind when Apple unveiled
the flat-panel iMac last year was the lack of wireless input
devices."
Analysis: Is
Apple lying?, Marc Zeedar, Less Tangible, Mac Opinion, 07.03.
"The bottom line is that every system is going to have peaks and
valleys. It will be faster at some tasks than others."
Analysis:
Why IBM needs Apple, Philip Machanick, Macintelligence, Mac
Opinion, 07.03. Apple's success with the G5 is the best way for IBM
to recoup their $3 billion investement.
Opinion: The graying of Mac
OS X, Gene Steinberg, The Panther Report, Mac Night Owl, 07.03.
"...I'm talking of the way that Apple has apparently toned down
Panther's interface to make it less jarring, particularly to folks
who found the original Aqua a little too much eye candy."
Review: Old Fart's
Guide to the Macintosh, Gary Coyne, Applelinks, 07.03. "The
intended focus of this book is on people who grew up before
computers became a way of life."
Opinion:
How Apple spells future: i-P-o-d, Charles Haddad, Byte of the
Apple, BusinessWeek, 07.02. Mac market share is minuscule, but the
iPod owns half the MP3 market.
Web: The future
of MacInTouch, Ric Ford, MacInTouch, 07.01. "...it has become
clear that the current business model for MacInTouch is not viable
over the long term without some adjustment."
Opinion:
What are the prospects for G5 PowerBooks?, Charles W. Moore,
Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 07.01. "...I will be surprised to see
any G5 laptops from Apple before at least mid-2004."
Tech: IBM confirms
PowerPC 750GX 'Gobi' spec, Tony Smith, The Register, 07.01.
Next generation G3 has twice the cache (1 MB!), will allow iBooks
to go beyond 1 GHz.
Opinion: Has the fallout
begun?, Gene Steinberg, The Panther Report, Mac Night Owl,
07.01. "The demise of C&G doesn't auger well for small software
companies."