Top Links: February 2005

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Low End Mac's Link Archive: February 2005

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News: Finally, BlackBerries speak Macintosh, Arik Hesseldahl, Ten O'Clock Tech, Forbes, 02.28. "But finally there is a program that gets the Mac and the BlackBerry together. It's called PocketMac BlackBerry...."
Advice: Cleaning house in iTunes, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 02.28. A couple of neat utilities that can help find the names of untitled tracks and missing metadata.
History: Who can really take credit for the Mac?, Arik Hesseldahl, Forbes, 02.28. "Whenever you point and click and drag an icon around on a computer screen, you are doing so thanks to Jef Raskin, a pioneering computer engineer...."
Opinion: The Mac mini: Will it grow sales or cannibalize them?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.28. How Apple could make up for some lost profits by offering low-cost 15" and 17" flat panel displays.
News: Jef Raskin dies, Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS, 02.27. "Raskin is widely acknowledged as the person who created many theoretical underpinnings of modern personal computing...."
Opinion: osViews' March 2002 interview with Jef Raskin, Kelly McNeill, osViews, 02.27. Raskin on skins: "In the case where an interface is well designed, any change that an amateur is likely to create will only make the interface worse."
Opinion: OS X Backup sucks, Alderete, Aldoblog, 02.26. Apple's "free" backup utility that uses a .mac account is easy to set up but has some real drawbacks when you use it regularly.
Review: Firefox 1.0.1 is available for the Mac with security fixes - brief hands-on report, Macs Only!, 02.25. Includes instructions for applying speed-up modifications for broadband users.
Analysis: Is Apple finally getting a hand on pricing?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.25. The common view has been that you pay more to buy Apple hardware, but that's no longer the case.
Dark Side: Microsoft closes activation loophole, N Mook, D Worthington, BetaNews, 02.24. "...customers who purchase Windows on a new PC will not be able to activate, nor reinstall their operating system without first calling Microsoft." That's right - a phone call.
News: Firefox gets major security makeover, Ryan Naraine, eWeek, 02.24. "The Mozilla Foundation late Thursday rolled out a major security update to fix several known cross-site scripting and domain-spoofing vulnerabilities in the upstart Firefox browser."
Analysis: The New iPods: The great FireWire cable controversy, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.24. The new iPods only ship with a USB cable - not FireWire. That helps keep the cost down, but a lot of Mac owners may be disappointed.
Education: Tables turn in campus Mac vs. Windows feud, Daniel Holevoet, Yale Daily News, 02.23. "According to Yale Information Technology Services' registration records, nearly 20 percent of University students and 33 percent of faculty choose Macs over Windows PCs."
Opinion: The mouse factor: How many buttons do you need?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.23. "My favorite feature, however, is not the second button, but the scroll wheel, which clearly smoothes the process of navigating through a page."
News: Apple simplifies iPod lineup; drops 40GB iPod, Mac Observer, 02.23. B&W 20 GB iPod remains at US$299. 40 GB model discontinued in favor of color-screened iPod photo.
News: Apple updates iPod mini with 4GB & 6GB starting at $199, Mac Observer, 02.23. Gold iPod mini dropped from line, 4 GB model reduced to US$199, 6 GB model US$249.
News: Apple revamps iPod photo; 30GB for $349, Mac Observer, 02.23. New, slimmer 30 GB iPod photo, US$349. 60 GB iPod photo reduced to US$449.
News: Apple releases iPod Updater 2005-02-22, MacMinute, 02.23. "...the update brings iTunes 4.7 support and the Shuffle Songs and Music items into the Main Menu of older iPods with dock connectors, touch wheels or scroll wheels."
Review: Apple's new $499 Mac mini after a month of use, Macs Only!, 02.22. In short, it's a terrific computer for its target market, 256 MB is enough memory, and the stock hard drive is a decent performer.
News: Oz Mac sales double - IDC, Macworld UK, 02.22. Not double, but "Apple saw nearly 50 per cent more sales of Macs to Australians in the fourth quarter of 2004, according to IDC figures."
Opinion: Is Apple's portable engineering losing its innovative edge?, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 02.22. "...the most innovative portable computer idea from Apple since the TiBook isn't a laptop at all, but rather the new Mac mini."
Rights: Lexmark suffers second knock back in DMCA case, John Leyden, The Register, 02.22. Federal appeals court refuses to consider reimposing Lexmark's injunction against firm that makes parts for after-market toner cartridges.
Analysis: Is there a Cell processor in Apple's future?, John Rizzo, eWeek, 02.22. "It would be fairly easy to recompile Mac OS X to run on Cell, but optimizing the OS would be a lot of work."
Dark Side: The search tool that at my computer, Michael S Malone, ABC News, 2004.05.20. iSearch goes well beyond the usual Windows spyware and adware - it complete takes over Internet Explorer and isn't easy to remove.
History: Top 10 Apples, Michel Munger, MLAgazine, 02.21. Seven computers, two operating systems, and one program that helped define Apple.
Tech: Computer vulnerabilities given unified rating system, Celeste Biever, New Scientist, 02.21. "A consortium of software and security companies has come up with the first unified language for rating the vulnerabilities that plague computer operating systems...."
Review: Headphones for iPods - Part 2 ($50-250), Natasha, Apple Legal, 02.21. Grado SR80: "Simply put, this is $200-300 sound for $80-95."
Web: The return of the pop-up ad, Slashdot, 02.20. "...it turns out that the pop-up advertisers (what's the proper denigrating term here?) have finally defeated the pop-up blocking functionality found in many browsers."
Opinion: Napster service leaves some music fans cold, WCCO, 02.20. Napster misses the biggest market of all for online music - iPod owners.
Rights: Class action lawsuit against Apple derailed, Macs Only!, 02.19. Suit dismissed because one lawyer in the firm filing the suit is also part of the class covered in the suit.
Dark Side: Gartner takes Microsoft to task, Munir Kotadia, CNET News, 02.18. "Microsoft's overriding goal should be to eliminate the need for (antivirus) and (anti-spyware) products, not simply to enter the market with look-alike products at lower prices."
News: Class action lawsuit filed against Apple, MacNN, 02.18. "A new class action lawsuit . . . alleges that the company has engaged in acts of unfair and unlawful business practices, breach of contract, and misappropriation of trade secrets."
Review: Charles Moore reviews BurnItAgainSam 1.45, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.18. Shareware app lets you replace files with newer version on CD-RW, append files to CD-R without creating multiple desktop icons.
Rights: House to enact anti-spyware law, Slashdot, 02.18. "...the U.S. House of Representatives has readied the aptly acronymed Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act (SPY ACT) for law."
Opinion: Switching to a Mac - ain't ever going back, Charles Cooper, Cnet, 02.17. "...I am finally through with that soul-stomping repository of bad karma known as my PC. And after chucking the machine down the dumpster, I won't ever look back...."
Review: Apple Mac mini: Smaller, more stylish - and cheaper than a PC?, Tom's Hardware Review, 02.16. "Its very compact dimensions, its near-silent operation and the low power draw of roughly 20 W make its rivals from the Windows world look like amateurs."
Review: Headphones for iPods - Part 1 ($25-50), Natasha, Apple Legal, 02.14. "...it may escape you that one of "the best kept secrets" in this price range is the performance of Koss PortaPros...."
Upgrade: FastMac intros 'Mini-to-the-Max' upgrade program, Brad Cook, MacCentral, 02.14. FastMac offers faster, dual-layer SuperDrive; 512 MB and 1 GB RAM upgrades; 4200 and 5400 rpm 100 GB hard drives for Mac mini.
Rights: Apple's subpoenas challenged in court, Declan McCullagh, Cnet, 02.14. "The subpoenas should not be permitted because Internet journalists deserve the full protection of the First Amendment that their traditional brethren have long enjoyed, the lawyers said...."
Spam: How to stop junk e-mail: Charge for the stamp, Randall Stross, New York Times, 02.13. "Do not despair. We can now glimpse what had once seemed unattainable: stopping the flow [of spam] at its very source."
Analysis: How Apple saved the music biz, John Naughton, Guardian Unlimited, 02.13. "...the significant thing to note is that it was a computer manufacturer and not a record company that cracked the problem of providing legal music downloads."
Advocacy: Why you shouldn't be using passwords of any kind on your Windows networks, Robert Hensing, Robert Hensing's WebLog, 2004.10.18. "So here's the deal - I don't want you to use passwords, I want you to use pass-PHRASES. What is a pass-phrase you ask?"
Advice: Pimp my Mac, M Uli Kusterer, zathras.de, 02.12. Step-by-step guide to upgrading a Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio) with a faster CPU and a SuperDrive.
Opinion: How old is old?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Hardware Report, Mac Night Owl, 02.11. "To him, his iMac, now over six years old, had plenty of mileage left, and I tended to agree."
News: PC makers want to license Mac OS - Jobs, Karen Haslam, Macworld UK, 02.11. "Apple has to fight off three of the biggest PC companies, sick of the security bugs that plague Windows, wanting to license the Mac operating system."
Benchmarks: Browser speed comparisons, How to Create, 02.11. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera - which is fastest on the Mac? on Windows? on Linux?
Advice: Simple hack for two-finger scrolling on older PowerBooks and iBooks, Macs Only!, 02.11. "Daniel Becker posted a hack that activates two-finger scrolling on supported pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks on OS X 10.3."
Advocacy: Opera to MS: Get real about interoperability, Mr Gates, Hakon Lie, The Register, 02.11. Last week Bill Gates got interoperability religion - or did he? Hakon Lie points out myriad ways Microsoft doesn't support interoperability.
Opinion: Napster executive: "It's stupid to buy an iPod!", Tera Patricks, Mac360, 02.11. There must be over 10 million stupid people out there then, because that's how many iPods Apple has sold.
Software: A long winding road out of beta, Paul Festa, ZDNet, 02.11. "Once considered the final stage of software development, beta versions are taking on a life of their own, as companies tinker endlessly with their products in public."
Advice: The fairly complete Mac mini switcher's hardware guide, Chris Seibold, Apple Matters, 02.10. "While the switching process can be as simple as hooking everything up to your new Mac there can be a lot of complicating factors to consider."
Benchmarks: Apple's Mac OS X 10.3.8 update - How fast is it?, Macs Only!, 02.10. "...our preliminary tests indicate that the largest performance improvement is in the ATI and Nvidia OpenGL drivers...."
Tech: The Cell, Philip Machanick, Macintelligence, Mac Opinion, 02.10. Thoughts on what IBM, Sony, and Toshiba have done right and wrong with the new Cell processor.
Rights: Judge slams SCO's lack of evidence, Slashdot, 02.10. "The judge is saying that SCO hasn't presented any information or evidence by which they can make a reasonable claim of copyright infringment."
Review: Monochrome laser printers, James Galbraith, Macworld, 02.10. Four low-cost laser printers from Brother, HP, Lexmark, and Oki.
Web: iPodlounge drunk with success, Leander Kahney, Wired, 02.10. "...the site is a one-stop shop for those looking for iPod add-ons."
Dark Side: Symantec Antivirus may execute virus code, Slashdot, 02.10. Because of the way it works, Antivirus could execute malicious program instead of catching it. Update available.
Web: Shady web of affiliate marketing, Ryan Singel, Wired, 02.10. "Affiliate marketing, a system in which a business pays a commission to those who drive paying purchasers to its website, is responsible for much of the spam that clogs inboxes...."
Software: SpamSieve gains faster Entourage processing, more, MacCentral, 02.10. SpamSieve gains faster message processing with Entourage, improves accuracy through better HTML and header processing, adds more standard blocklist rules for non-Latin character sets, more.
News: Macs dominate Amazons' computer desktop sales, Dennis Sellers, Macsimum News, 02.09. Eight of top 20 models Amazon sells are Macs - #1, Mac mini 1.25 GHz; #2, Mac mini, 1.42 GHz, #3 17" iMac 1.8 GHz; #5, 20" iMac G5....
Opinion: Would you rather buy or rent music?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.09. "...if you want to copy those tracks to a CD, the pricing plan is similar to Apple's. You pay a fee per track or per album."
Advice: Mac mini maxi, aeberbach, AppleTalk, 02.08. Building a Mac mini into a PC enclosure and creating the adapters that let you use 3.5" hard drives.
Oops: G3 iMac, eMac incompatible with iPod shuffle, Macworld UK, 02.08. "Because of its design, iPod shuffle cannot be connected to the USB ports on the side of iMac G3 and eMac computers - it will not fit." Solution: a dock or USB hub.
Tech: Introducing the Cell - Part I: the SIMD processing units, Jon "Hannibal" Stokes, ars technica, 02.08. New PowerPC architecture has 4 GHz CPU working with 8 assistant CPUs and will find its way into Playstation 3 and computer workstations - maybe even Macs.
Opinion: What will the next generation iBooks be like?, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 02.08. The iBook design is nearly perfect, but we may see speed bumps or wide screen displays in the future.
Software: Shareware on the Mac: What it is, what it is not, Tera Patricks, Mac 360, 02.08. The shareware scene is changing. Prices are going up. So is selection.
Advice: Upgrading an old iMac to Mac OS X, William Porter, TidBITS, 02.07. Preparing a pair of 2001 iMacs for OS X and then getting Jaguar up and running on them.
Spam: MCI 'makes $5m a year from spam gangs', John Leyden, The Register, 02.07. Lots of interesting information about spammers, spam software, and infected Windows spambots.
Analysis: Napster's bad math, Jason Snell, Macworld, 02.07. "...the reason they're promoting subscriptions is because they're more profitable than Apple's 99-cent download operation."
Tech: New IBM, Sony PowerPC chip cracks Moore's Law, Macworld UK, 02.07. "Cell" chip based on PowerPC architecture, up to 10x faster than current CPUs, could show in in workstations as well as Playstation 3.
Benchmarks: Apple Mac mini with a 60GB 7200RPM drive - how fast is it?, Macs Only!, 02.07. "In summary, the Mac mini is significantly faster with the 7200RPM Hitachi 60GB drive (model 7K60)."
Analysis: Here is the real megahertz gap!, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.07. "When it comes down to it, the real megahertz gap is measured by productivity, and here the Mac wins hands down."
History: The original Mac mini, Michel Munger, MLAgazine, 02.05. Long before the Mac mini, Apple's small, inexpensive Pippin failed to set the world on fire.
Analysis: Why I can't switch to a Mac, Colin Nederkoorn, Pintmaster, 02.05. No Microsoft Outlook for Mac, and Entourage just doesn't cut it. No version of Microsoft Access at all. Microsoft "has a death grip on the businesses of the world."
Opinion: Picking out a new laptop, Chris Muldrow, The Free Lance-Star, 02.05. "My wife is shocked that I bought a computer with a smaller screen than hers - her iBook has a 14-inch screen."
Advice: Moore's omnibus guide to free POP3 email services - 2005 edition, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.05. Sixteen free POP3 email services.
Benchmarks: Review: Mac mini and "siblings", Rob Art Morgan, Bare Feats, 02.04. 1.42 GHz Mac mini holds its own against the iMac G5/1.6 GHz in almost every CPU benchmark, lags in video performance, benefits by upgrading to a faster hard drive.
Review: Burn your CDs over and over. Burn It Again, Sam, Alex Kayhill, Mac360, 02.04. Shareware program lets you keep adding files to an already-burned CD-R, read them on Macs or PCs, and it doesn't create a desktop icon for each session.
Rights: "I sue dead people...", Eric Bangeman, ars technica, 02.04. Latest round of RIAA lawsuits include a grandmother who didn't even own a PC - and died in December 2004.
News: FBI shuts down unclassified e-mail system, Yahoo! News, 02.04. Suspecting a security breach, FBI shuts down fbi.gov website, email server. Interesting note: FBI contracts a private company to run their server. Maybe they don't trust their own expertise...
Opinion: Laptop replacement vs. repair, Arik Hesseldahl, Ten O'clock Tech, Forbes, 02.04. "I don't know what the typical lifespan is for a laptop computer, but I'm betting it's not long."
Advice: Moore's omnibus guide to mac email clients - 2005 edition, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 02.04. Choose from 19 different email programs - one may be just right for you.
History: Office of education decides to retire old Mac, Erin Mayes, The Union Democrat, 02.04. Calaveras County Office of Education to retire it's last Mac, a 1994 Power Mac 8100, and be 100% Windows.
Rights: Google loses trademark case in France, Stefanie Olsen, Cnet, 02.04. "Both lawsuits have hinged on Google's signature keyword-advertising system, Adwords, which pairs text ads with related search results."
Advocacy: I want a lighter PowerBook!, David Sklar, MacDevCenter, 02.03. To make the PowerBook even more portable, how about a version without a built-in optical drive....
Analysis: On becoming a consumer-oriented company, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.03. "...Apple is having trouble boosting sales of Macs to its traditional market segments. At the same time, sales of lower-profit consumer products are going through the roof."
Advice: CD-R vs. CD-RW: A teaching tool, Damien Barrett, mrbarrett.com, 02.03. A simple way to explain the difference between CD-R and CD-RW to the average user.
Advice: Schedule HackTV with iCal, Erica Sadun, MacDevCenter, 02.02. How to use iCal and AppleScript to make HackTV record on a schedule.
Apple: Patent 'hints at Apple home entertainment device', Macworld UK, 02.02. "Apple has filed a patent . . . for 'a method of controlling transmission of data from a computer to a video client via an interface device'."
Dark Side: Confessions of a Microsoft employee: iPods rule, Bambi Hambi, Mac360, 02.02. Microsoft employees seem to love Apple's iPod, but a lot are using Sony headphones or even carrying a Dell DJ to disguise that at work.
Huh?: Hide your iPod, here comes Bill, Leander Kahney, Wired, 02.02. "[Microsoft] Employees are hiding their iPods by swapping the telltale white headphones for a less conspicuous pair."
Tech: PowerBook G5 ways off, possibly 2006, Mac Observer, 02.02. "...Apple is looking not just at sticking the 64-bit processor in a portable package, but providing a solution as light and elegant as current PowerBooks."
Tech: Apple on G5 PowerBook: Not so fast, J G Spooner, D Becker, Cnet, 02.02. "The computer maker is well aware that Mac fans want a G5 PowerBook, and technically, the company could offer one now."
Dark Side: Windows authentication: reasonable and gentle, Mark Burnett, The Register, 02.02. "Microsoft is providing greater value for those who have genuine copies of Windows and potentially increasing the risk of those who don't."
Software: Mac HTML Web page editor shootout: Many choices, Tera Patricks, Mac360, 02.02. "No one editor does everything I need to create HTML web pages, so I use a few."
Rights: Apple restricting DVD region-changes - voluntarily!, Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing, 02.01. Although the DVD consortium allows resetting the region switch tracker five times, Apple refuses to do it for their customers.
Analysis: How much computing power do you need?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 02.01. "...any Mac you buy these days can, when properly outfitted, run quite a huge range of software with great performance."
Analysis: PowerBooks get a speed bump and more, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 02.01. "Aside from the anaemic clock speed boost, this upgrade was about what I was anticipating for the PowerBooks, with a couple of nice surprises thrown in."
Advocacy: RSS will change how you handle news, browsing, Tera Patricks, Mac360, 02.01. "I'm scanning hundreds and hundreds of articles on the web each day and it takes me less than half the time I used before."
Web: UK targets scammers in month-long campaign, Tim Richardson, The Register, 02.01. Top scams include lottery scams, premium rate phone numbers, many variants of the 419 Nigerian fraud, and matrix schemes. Beware.

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