Low End Mac's Link Archive: April 2005

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Links Around the Web

• Review: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, John Siracusa, ars technica, 04.28. "Tiger includes updates that are at least twice as significant as any single past update."
• News: Apple releases SuperDrive update for Power Mac, eMac, MacMinute, 04.28. "...software 'delivers updated SuperDrive firmware to improve reliability when accessing DVD and CD media'" - for Power Mac G5 (2004) and eMac (2004).
• Opinion: The value of your legacy portable?, Garrison Gunter, O'Grady's PowerPage, 04.27. "...what do you do with that old ibook/pbook that just isn't worth getting rid of?"
• Rights: Dutch plans for iPod tax could kill MP3 industry, The Register, 04.27. Netherlands preparing to place a steep levy on digital music players because they could be used for piracy, could add $200+ to 60 GB iPod.
• Analysis: Paul Thurrott re-raises specter of Apple switching to Intel, Bryan Chaffin, The Back Page, Mac Observer, 04.27. "My long standing analysis of this issue is that there are too many barriers to Apple switching to Intel, and that there aren't enough benefits to doing so."
• Oops: Amazon leaks dual 2.7GHz Power Mac G5 details, MacMinute, 04.26. With retail partners like this - not to mention those who shipped Tiger a week early - who needs rumor sites?
• Analysis: The Apple price myth: Will they ever learn?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 04.26. A comparably equipped $399 Dell system ends up costing $945, so how can Consumer Reports call the Mac mini expensive?
• News: Belkin USB 2.0 hub doubles as iPod shuffle dock, Larry Angell, iPodlounge, 04.26. Unlike other USB 2.0 hubs, Belkin's new one has a dock so you can charge and sync your iPod shuffle. US$30.
• OS X: 50 random observations on Mac OS 10.4 'Tiger', Chris Biagini, Assorted Geekery, 04.25. Lots of interesting tidbits, including, "TextEdit can export to valid HTML or XHTML, with embedded, inline, or no CSS. Really."
• OS X: iChat 3.0 users can now talk to MSN Messenger users, übergizmo, 04.25. "The iChat 3.0 Instant messaging (IM) that's bundled with Mac OS X Tiger allows iChat users to communicate with other IM platform, such as MSN messenger." Hooray for standards!
• Rights: French court bans DRM for DVDs, Boing Boing, 04.23. Man sues after being unable to dub a DVD he owned to VHS. Private copying is considered and a consumer right in France.
• OS X: Uptime without restarting, Charles W. Moore, OS X Odyssey, Applelinks, 04.25. "I've gone more than three months without rebooting my WallStreet PowerBook in daily but light duty use, but I think my previous record in OS X was 21 days."
• Review: Newer Technology RoadTrip! 87.9 FM transmitter, Jeremy Horwitz, iPodlounge, 04.25. US$15 FM transmitter plugs into car's lighter socket, sounds great, uses an essentially unused frequency.
• Hardware: Mac mini Mini Dock, Forever Geek, 04.22. "Well it took a little while, but someone finally made a [USB 2/0/FireWire] hub/external hard drive to match the Mac Mini perfectly."
• Humor: It's pretty much my favorite operating system, Forever Geek, 04.22. Favorite operating system? Why, Mac OS 10.8 'Liger" of course! Gosh.
• Oops: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) arriving in users' hands, MacFixIt, 04.22. "Apparently someone at PCMall decided it was OK to unleash the Tiger early - I received my copy of Mac OS X 10.4 today at my office."
• Advice: A (near)-complete list of Mac keyboard shortcuts, Nancy Carroll Gravley, Computing with Bifocals, Mac Observer, 04.22. "Some people prefer to use a keyboard to execute commands rather than a mouse."
• Virus: Virus pits itself against music pirates, Dan Ilett, c|net, 04.22. Nopir.B worm spreads via peer-to-peer networks, attempts to delete all MP3 files, legal or not. Windows only, of course.
• Analysis: Apple mythology and desktop security, Paul Murphy, CIO Today, 04.21. If security concerns have you looking for a new OS and Microsoft Office compatibility is important to you, "switching to Macs actually offers you the best of all possible worlds."
• Web: Hackers learn to 'think different', Gene J Koprowski, CRM Buyer, 04.20. Speculation that hackers will be able to compromise Mac via Firefox security holes. Talk about a small target....
• News: Apple shareholders face green protest, Jonny Evans, Macworld UK, 04.20. "According to the campaigners . . . by 2008 the US will have '10.5 million old Macs needing recycling or disposal'."
• Virus: Sober worm shakes Windows security, John Leyden, The Register, 04.19. "Sober-N is the fourteenth incarnation of a worm first seen in October 2003." There seems to be no end to this!
• Analysis: Adobe and Macromedia: Bad news for online tools, Nico Macdonald, The Register, 04.19. Adobe gains some great Web-oriented software - long an Adobe weakness - but will they continue to develop Macromedia's apps?
• Huh?: What's up with the transparent window in Safari?, Laurie Duncan, Unofficial Apple Weblog, 04.18. "My question is... WHY???? No seriously - what purpose does [a transparent browser window] serve?"
• Advice: A fix for broken Java after 10.3.9 upgrade, Mac OS X Hints, 04.18. "The workaround is to reinstall the latest Java update [26MB download]. However, OS X won't allow you to install it without a bit more work."
• History: TidBITS anniversary: looking back over 15 Macintosh years, Adam C. Engst, TidBITS, 04.18. "...we wanted to take a trip back through the last 15 years of Macintosh models, looking briefly at the models that meant the most to us from each year so you can see just how far we've come."
• Opinion: Anticipating your favorite features, Gene Steinberg, The Tiger Report, Mac Night Owl, 04.15. Smart Folders feature "is going to change the way many of you organize your Macs."
• Dark Side: Survey shows admins avoiding SP2, Slashdot, 04.15. "AssetMetrix is cited in the article as reporting that fewer than 24% of over 136,000 Windows XP PCs in 251 North American corporations even had SP2 installed."
• Hardware: Which iPod do I have? Guide to iPod differences, iPodGear, 04.14. How to tell 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation iPods apart.
• Rights: Online Freedom of Speech Act introduced in House, Slashdot, 04.14. "...Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) introduced [legislation] to exclude the Internet from the definition of 'public communication' in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002."
• Opinion: Mac OS X Tiger time: What you'll really like, Bambi Hambi, Mac360, 04.13. "Amazingly, Tiger appears to be a greater leap forward than Panther was to Jaguar."
• Opinion: So how many Mac minis did Apple sell last quarter? Don't ask!, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 04.14. How well is the Mac mini selling? Does the eMac still have legs? Apple isn't telling.
• Review: Apple Mac mini 1.42 GHz, Eric Schwarz, SchwarzTech, 04.14. "Overall, the Mac mini is a great choice for anyone who is on a tight budget, doesn't need lots of power, or wants a small, space-saving computer."
• News: Independents make stand against combined music chart, Macworld UK, 04.14. Independent musicians call UK's combining of retail sales and downloads unfair to small labels. Solution: Work with Apple instead of complaining.
• News: Apple iTunes sales tally passes 350 million, Tony Smith, The Register, 04.14. "...if Apple continues selling songs at this rate of growth, it's on its way to passing the billion-song mark before the end of 2005."
• News: Majority of taxpayers now file online, Macsimum News, 04.14. "Sixty-eight percent of people have either filed their taxes online or are still planning to do so...." If only the IRS would allow us to e-file for free.
• Deal: Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger family pack - 5 client, Amazon.com, 04.14. Five-user Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) family pack - US$199.99 shipped plus US$50 mail-in rebate.
• OS X: Tiger: The upgrade path clarified, Charles W. Moore, OS X Odyssey, Applelinks, 04.13. "Tiger requires a minimum of 256MB of memory and is designed to run on any Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G5, G4, or G3 processor and built-in FireWire." But what about Pismo?
• Opinion: The ultimate low end Mac with high cool factor, Bambi Hambi, Mac360, 04.13. "Hands down, Apple's Mac mini with Mac OS X Tiger owns the low end."
• Review: Son of the USB 2.0 hi-speed flash drive roundup, Matt Woodward, ars technica, 04.13. All USB 2.0 flash drives are not created equal. ars tech looks at read/write speed, construction, and price for 10 vendors.
• Upgrade: OWC intros Mac mini upgrades with 72-hour turnaround, Mac Observer, 04.13. OWC offers US$99 overnight shipping both ways. Upgrades include 1 GB RAM, faster SuperDrive, several hard drive options.
• News: Firefox draws 2.6 million surfers in March, Dinesh C Sharma, CNET News, 04.13. "Firefox has come on like gangbusters since last year, and now holds approximately 5 percent of the browser market."
• Opinion: The Tiger roars at Longhorn, Microsoft Monitor Weblog, 04.12. "For Microsoft, the loss in mindshare is greater risk than any potential shift in marketshare."
• OS X: Will your 'Book be orphaned by Tiger?, Charles W. Moore, Road Warrior, Mac Opinion, 04.12. "According to reader reports on MacInTouch and Slashdot, OS 10.4 Tiger may not support Macs that shipped without a factory DVD drive...."
• Advocacy: Call to Apple: Open source AppleWorks!, Benjamin Horst, osOpinion, 04.12. "...Appleworks itself is still available from the Apple Store, yet it hasn't received any major developer attention in years."
• Rights: Free speech? Company rights? Who wins?, Dennis Sellers, Macsimum News, 04.12. "IF employees leaked info, violating non-disclosure agreements and possibly California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act, all parties who knowingly participated were wrong."
• Opinion: Leaving Eden: My experience at Apple Computer, Eric Gruber, Grubesteak, 04.11. Thoughts on six months working in an Apple retail store.
• Analysis: HP remains No. 1; Apple, not Sun, bright, SiliconValley.com, 04.11. "The Cupertino company is now shipping more than four times as many iPods as Macintosh computers."
• News: Gateway, Microsoft reach antitrust settlement, Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News, 04.11. "Microsoft has agreed to pay Gateway a total of $150 million over four years, as part of an agreement to settle antitrust claims brought by the computer maker, the two companies said Monday."
• Advice: Should you fix your iPod or replace it?, Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl, 04.11. Replacing a dead hard drive can be costly - but it may also cost less than replacing your current iPod.
• Review: Moneydance eases a tax burden, Jeff Carlson, TidBITS, 04.11. Quicken on the Mac is simply deficient in some areas. Moneydance gives Mac users features that Quicken has on Windows but not on the Mac.
• Rights: Apple vs. the press, Scott Rosenberg, Salon, 04.11. "The applicability of the newsgatherers' privilege is determined . . . by the reporter's functional conduct in gathering information with the purpose of disseminating widely to the public."
• Analysis: Losses to file sharing greatly exaggerated, Ken 'Caesar' Fisher, ars technica, 04.10. "Michael Geist . . . has written a brilliant rebuttal to the Canadian Recording Industry Association's claim that P2P piracy is costing the Canadian music industry billions."
• Advice: Speeding up Safari [and NetNewsWire], Ranchero Software, 04.09. "I spent a few minutes cleaning out the cookie jar, and&emdash;amazingly enough&emdash;Safari's a lot faster. I haven't seen the beachball of death since I cleaned up the cookies...."
• Analysis: What, exactly, is a blog?, Ken 'Caesar' Fisher, ars technica, 04.09. "A weblog, web log or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic time-stamped posts on a common webpage." Discuss.
• Huh?: Man arrested for using $2 bills at Best Buy, morons.org, 04.08. "Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender, since the bill itself is not often used."
• Advice: Security through obscurity, easement, flikr, 04.08. "I didn't have a way to lockdown my new Mac Mini, but I did have an old Dell case I wasn't using anymore. After gutting the drive bays, it was almost a perfect fit."
• Spam: Nine-year sentence for spammer, Wired, 04.08. "A Virginia judge sentenced a spammer to nine years in prison Friday in the nation's first felony prosecution for sending junk e-mail...."
• News: Apple signs 'widescreen iBook' contract, Tony Smith, The Register, 04.08. "The news that Apple may be preparing widescreen iBooks plays to recent suggestions that the company will shortly begin branding certain . . . Macs as HD models...."
• Analysis: The state of my Mac, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 04.08. "My 700 MHz G3 iBook is now into its 28th month of flawless service." And the ancient Pismo and WallStreet keep working nicely, too.
• Opinion: Quest for the silent laptop, Charles W. Moore, The PowerBook Mystique, PowerBook Central, 04.07. "One of the things I love about my iBook is that its little 20 GB hard drive is whisper quiet, even after 27 months of fairly intensive use. It is definitely the quietest laptop...."
• Tech: New, cheap battery outshines alkalines, David Pogue, c|net, 04.07. Panasonic's Oxyride AA and AAA batteries claim to outlast alkalines - and cost less. But how well do they test?
• Web: Net outage strikes Comcast, Scott Ard, c|net, 04.07. "Comcast, the largest provider of broadband Internet access with 6.5 million customers, suffered a general outage Thursday evening." We know!
• Advocacy: Making the leap, Rob Carrigan, Newspapers & Technology, 04.07. How one publisher migrated their Macs - including three 233 MHz G3 desktops - to Mac OS X 10.3 and InDesign.
• OS X: It depends on what the meaning of the word 'replace' is, John Gruber, Daring Fireball, 04.07. "...when the Finder replaces a folder or file, it should move the replaced items to the Trash instead of instantly nuking them."
• Advice: Maximizing the life of the G4's battery, J D Biersdorfer, New York Times, 04.07. "...Apple recommends fully discharging and charging the battery at least once a month."
• Virus: Proof-of-concept Mac OS X Trojan horse, Damien Barrett, mrbarrett.com, 04.06. "When you log in as an administrator on your Mac OS X 10.3 system, there's a five minute window where sudo is enabled, allowing you to perform any admin-level tasks without reauthenticating."
• OS X: Braindead Finder behaviour, Matthew Mullenweg, Photo Matt, 04.06. New Mac user is confused because when the Mac replaces a folder, it replaces it. For some reason, Windows merges when you tell it to replace....
• Review: URL reminder, Dan Frakes, Mac Gems, Macworld, 04.06. "...URLwell is specifically designed for temporary URLs - those you just want to check once."
• Advocacy: 10 features Longhorn needs, Brad Wardell, winCustomize, 04.05. It sounds like the author want Longhorn to be a lot like Mac OS X....
• Rights: Microsoft's army of lawyers was no match for a kid from Kent State, Denise Grollmus, Cleveland Scene, 03.30. Student sells unopenned copies of WinXP, Office on eBay when unable to return them for refund. Microsoft sues - and loses.
• Tech: Reports: Flash media market to explode; prices to plummet, Brad Gibson, Mac Observer, 04.05. Flash memory prices could drop by over 50% this year. Maybe a 2 GB iPod shuffle at US$149 for Christmas?
• Rights: U.S. blogger thwarts Canadian gag order, Declan McCullagh, c|net, 04.05. In Canada, it's illegal to report on certain court proceedings, but that hasn't stopped one American from covering "Adscam" on his blog.
• News: Giga Designs offers first 2 GHz G4 upgrade, Mac Observer, 04.05. Upgrade works in AGP Power Macs, runs 1.6 GHz 7447A CPU at 2.0 GHz. US$499.
• Analysis: Mac or PC, no longer a problem, Mark Kellner, Washington Times, 04.05. "The migration of applications - and file formats - between the Microsoft Windows world and that of the Apple Macintosh and even the open-source Linux community is a welcome change...."
• News: Best Buy stores now selling Mac minis, MacMinute, 04.04. "Following our report earlier today on Best Buy stores planning to carry the Mac mini, several MacMinute readers note that they have already seen the low-cost computer at the retailer."
• Rights: Despite claims, Apple could honor warranties, Dave Gussow, St Petersburg Times, 04.04. Apple tells Mac and iPod owners that they can't sell AppleCare in Florida, but the truth is they choose not to file the necessary forms with the state.
• Review: Laptop USB speaker systems compared, Dan Frakes, Playlist, 04.04. Want better sound from your laptop? Playlist reviews four USB speaker systems, and their top choice is the least expensive.
• Rights: San Francisco attempts to regulate blogging, Slashdot, 04.03. "The San Francisco Board of Supervisors [announced] yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission...."
• Analysis: DVD profit margins double that of VHS, Ken 'Caesar' Fisher, ars technica, 04.02. Selling DVDs is far more profitable for movie studios than selling VHS.
• News: BTI intros Tunestir iPod FM receiver/transmitter/remote, iPodlounge, 04.01. iPod-sized triple-function device gives 3G/4G iPods FM radio, FM transmitter, and remote control. US$69.95.
• Analysis: Where's the FireWire?, Grant Buckler, ITBusiness.ca, 04.01. "Let's be clear: Apple didn't drop FireWire support from iPods. The company simply stopped including a cable...."
• OS X: Will Tiger deliver speed improvements? Our tests reveal the answer, Lisa Swanson, MacNETv2, 04.01. After using the Tiger beta, going back to Panther made the author's PowerBook feel sluggish. Is Tiger really faster?
• Humor: Tiger Woods signs long-term deal with Apple Computer as Mac OS X 'Tiger' spokesperson, MacDailyNews, 04.01. "'It is always important that I align myself with the best brands in each product category,' said Tiger Woods."
• Software: Battle of Web Page editors: Free, great, strange, Bambi Hambi, Mac360, 04.01. "Here's the tale of a Free Web Page Editor, a Great Web Page Editor, one of the oddest Web Page Editors, I've ever seen, and a quick review of all the others (except those not on the list)."
• Opinion: OS war? OS war!? Ahahahaaa, Paul Thurrott, Windows IT Pro, 04.01. "In other words, Tiger will sell a few million copies and do absolutely nothing to change the Mac's market share, which is now less than 2 percent...."
• Opinion: Computers vs. thinking?, Charles W. Moore, Applelinks, 04.01. "Does your computer help you work more efficiently and productively, or does it just make you think you do?"
• Advice: Break up audiobooks, Mac Hints and Tips, 04.01. "I download audiobooks from iTunes, but the files are too big to burn to a CD. Is there a way to break apart the file?"

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