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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...."
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.
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 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...."
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."
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,
c|net, 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, c|net,
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."
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?
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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, c|net,
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,
c|net, 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."
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.
Dark Side:
News:
Rights:
Rights: