Macintosh
  Nav Menu
Site Search

Find any page
SiteMap

Feedback
[email protected]
 Info on the best personal computer available.
 Detailing a history of Macintosh greatness and advocacy.
 Free advice on Mac hardware and software.
 A wide variety of URLs for the Mac link connoisseur.

  

 Previous
2002
January–December
Next 

 

December 22, 2002

Apple has released 10.2.3, a free download for owners of Mac OS X 10.2. It's primarily a bug-fix release. It's fixed a couple of things with 10.2.2, and it does a lot of behind the scenes stuff all of which is presumably for the better. I downloaded and installed it last night, and everything continues to work fine. Some folks are reporting slight speed increases, but it seems about the same to me. Certainly it's no slower, and unless something dramatic is reported in the next few days, I'd say that 10.2 owners can safely upgrade to it by Wednesday without worry. (Dial-up users note that 10.2.3 is a 50 MB download.)

* * * * *

I've been playing with FileMaker Pro 6, Quicken 2003, and Reunion 8.02 over the course of the last month. FileMaker Pro 6 is, of course, the top-class database software that garners industry awards year after year. Having spent almost a year of my life struggling with Microsoft Access, I can't even begin to tell you how much better FileMaker Pro 6 is than Access. It's a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. It's a winning home run in the ninth inning of the World Series. It's a sponge bath from a Swedish bikini model. It's the best frickin' database program ever. It's fast, it's easy to use, and, gosh darn it, it likes me.

Quicken 2003, on the other hand, doesn't seem to like me as much. For online banking it's a step beyond Quicken 2002, but in many other respects, it's not much of a move forward. Crucially, the net worth graph in 2003 is inaccurate. I've talked with Intuit tech support about the issue, and it'll be fixed in Quicken 2004. I was unimpressed (as, frankly, was the tech support guy). Nonetheless, if you're not using Quicken or some similar program to manage your finances, I continue to highly recommend that you start. I consider it essential software.

Finally, Reunion 8.02 moves the world's best genealogy software into that happy sphere where it will run natively on Mac OS X. Regardless of your level of expertise, genealogy is made faster and easier by using Reunion. Is Reunion better than Family Tree Maker, Ultimate Family Tree, Personal Ancestral File (PAF), and Gene? Read about it. I have a hard time even imagining genealogy software that's better. Highly recommended.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

November 13, 2002

Apple has released 10.2.2, a free download for owners of Mac OS X 10.2. It's a bug-fix release, meaning there's not much if anything in the way of new features, but early reports are very promising in terms of stability. It sounds like some Hewlett Packard printer and scanner owners are having a conflict with a program called "HP Communications.app," but otherwise the upgrade has been flawless for most people. That bodes very well.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

November 6, 2002

New PowerBooks and iBook ahoy! Apple's released a bunch of speed-bumped units just in time for the holidays, and anyone looking for a solid portable machine would do well to consider the options.

The PowerBooks:

  • 1 GHz G4 with Airport card, 133-MHz system bus, 1 MB L3 cache, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB HD, ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 graphics card, 10/100/1000-BaseT ethernet, 56k modem, 1 FireWire and 2 USB ports, 15.2" display, and SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW). $2999.
  • 867 MHz G4 with 133-MHz system bus, 1 MB L3 cache, 40 GB HD, 256 MB RAM, ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 graphics card, 10/100/1000-BaseT ethernet, 56k modem, 1 FireWire and 2 USB ports, 15.2" display, and Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW). $2299.

The iBooks:

  • 700-MHz G3 with 20 GB HD, CD-ROM, 128 MB RAM, 12.1" display. $999
  • 800-MHz G3 with 30 GB HD, Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW), 128 MB RAM, 12.1" display. $1299
  • 800-MHz G3 with 30 GB HD, Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW), 256 MB RAM, 14.1" display. $1599

Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

November 2, 2002

After years of monopolistic, anticompetitive behavior, Microsoft was on Friday let off the hook. Antitrust law in the US is now meaningless. Microsoft sits a top a $40 billion pile of cash and has virtually no barriers toward doing whatever they wish in the marketplace no matter the detriment to consumers, competitors, or computer/electronics vendors. Past sins have been more than adequately documented. There is no reason to expect now that behavior will change.

I have long been passionately anti-Microsoft because their products have been either terrible (operating systems) or foisted on the consumers in an anti-competitive manner (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Windows Media Player). That a person like me who absolutely despises the company still has to use their products in order to accomplish various tasks speaks volumes about how monopolistic behavior threatens freedom.

I've already pitched Microsoft Office overboard in my workflow (I use AppleWorks) and of course I wouldn't touch a Windows OS on a dare. I will be switching from Internet Explorer as a web browser shortly. I've tried to get away from it several times, but iCab remains in beta, and the recent incarnations of Netscape browsers I've tried have had significant drawbacks. (Rumor has it that Apple is working on a browser.) There is, at this point, nothing I can do about being forced to use Windows Media Player for some functions. I continue to hate it and find it inferior to both QuickTime and Real Player, but Microsoft has locked up certain media providers—notable the NFL—so I don't have the choice to listen with anything else.

This sort of lack of choice is what Microsoft is all about, and it's against the law, but it's apparently a toothless law. Welcome to the 21st century.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

October 29, 2002

I've been asked by a reader named Robin to comment further on Mac OS 10.2's Sherlock program. (My initial Sherlock reports were on September 6 and 9.) Tellingly, I don't use Sherlock very often, usually preferring to "google" my way to an answer if I want Internet-based information. Mainly this is because Sherlock is a very slow application on my G3/500 and cable modem connection. Perhaps with a faster computer Sherlock would prove a more handy tool, but I doubt it.

Nevertheless, let's take a closer look at what Sherlock does—some of it is neat—then explore a possible alternative. There are 10 different channels in Sherlock, and each of these has a specific function. They are: Internet, Pictures, Stocks, Movies, Yellow Pages, eBay, Flights, Dictionary, Translation, and AppleCare.

The Internet channel is a poor man's Google. The results are culled from LookSmart, Best Site First, Ask Jeeves, About.com, and maybe a couple of other search engines. Sponsored links are commingled with regular search listings, and there is no way to tell what is a legitimate search result and what's been paid for. Frankly, I think the Internet channel is about as close to a waste of time as you can get. Why not just use Google? It's faster, the results are more accurate, and Google informs you which links are sponsored and which are not.

The Pictures channel is link to gettyimages archives and Lycos search engine. As long as you're looking for pictures of well-known people, places, art work, or objects, you should be able to find a few examples of what you're looking for. Anything obscure or specific and you'll be out of luck. Also note that very few (if any) of these images are royalty-free. You'll be able to use them for a school book report (under the Fair Use doctrine), but for commercial use you'll have to pay.

The Stocks channel is designed for the casual investor, and even that's being generous. My Yahoo! or Quicken.com or any number of brokerage firms offer online, customizable stock information that far exceeds the paltry display that Sherlock gives. Useful maybe for the Internet novice, but for most it's a waste of time.

The Movies channel drives me nuts. It should be incredible useful, but because none of the information it provides is cached (one of Robin's recommendations), everything takes a year and day to load. And this is on a cable modem. Imagine the poor dial-up peasantry. Nonetheless, the promise here is tantalizing, and of all the channels this is perhaps my favorite. True, it's just an improved front-end to MovieFone.com, but I prefer Sherlock's presentation to MovieFone's by a wide margin. If Sherlock were just a little more speedy (and didn't automatically start downloading the trailer to every movie selected), I'd be happy indeed.

The Yellow Pages channel is a convenient implementation of online Yellow Pages. It's very unfortunate that searches can only be done by business name and not by subject, and I prefer MapQuest's driving directions to locations. Nonetheless, Sherlock's Yellow Pages have proved useful on occasion when I need the quick business phone number. I just wish it were better than it is.

The eBay channel isn't a bad implementation for an auction display. I just hate that it's eBay-only. Well, OK, I'm also not sure it's all that much better than using eBay via a web browser, but perhaps it is. That users are limited to eBay and can't search other auction sites is a major downer, though.

I love the idea of the Flight channel. It provides useful, relevant information in an easy-to-read format. Unfortunately, it's among the slowest of all the Sherlock channels. Indeed, it's so pokey that I think it may be faster to call up the flight information phone number of the airline you're interested in. As is, the channel borders on useless simply because of speed issues. A real shame.

The Dictionary channel is actually a dictionary and thesaurus. It works well, but I usually boot up a program called Word Net instead. Nonetheless, the Dictionary channel is a solid implementation, and well worth the using in my view. In fact, I've been trying to break my habit of using Word Net, because the Dictionary channel actually provides more and better information.

I like the Translation channel, though it is obviously just a minor tool to help one decipher other languages. It's very helpful in a pinch for coming up with certain words which might elude someone, say, constructing a letter in a second language. It's less helpful in straight translation of long foreign texts. The translator isn't contextual, and to say it messes up on things is the understatement of the year.

I normally search the AppleCare Knowledge Base via web browser. The AppleCare channel doesn't look bad, and I might be tempted to give it a shot now and again, but I typically consult MacFixIt and other sources, so I'm using a web browser anyway. I'm not convinced that Sherlock offers that big an advantage in this area.

As should be obvious from the brief channel descriptions above, something is wrong with Sherlock (besides that it's mind-numbingly slow for some channels). The answer, I think, is that it is conceptually flawed. People don't want to access information in channels. What they want to be able to do is type natural language questions and have them answered. "What time does United flight 455 arrive in Portland?" is a perfect example. Currently, I go to the Flight channel, select United, type in the flight number, and type in Portland as the arrival city. That's four steps in the place of one typed sentence. A series of examples: "Who is the president of Ford Motor Company?"; "Why is the sky blue?"; "When is day light savings time?"; "Give me a list of local Mexican restaurants"; "Tell me what day it is."; etc., etc., etc. Sherlock can't answer any of these questions or commands.

So fundamentally, this is its greatest weakness: It lacks a larger vision. As currently constituted it provides little more than what is already available on the web, and usually it actually provides less information in a slower fashion than the web. Apple is missing a great opportunity to make an active, local agent program that utilizes the Internet to bring the information people want to them. Sherlock could be that program, but it'll have to be re-written from the ground up, and Apple will have to acquire a new vision for how to provide content to users. Until then, Sherlock will languish.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

October 11, 2002

The Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) adventures of the last couple days are winding down. Although I'd love to play with it some more and undoubtedly will in the future, I just don't have sufficient time right now to keep plowing through it. From the limited reading I've done I get the sense also that XML is probably the way things are headed anyway, so I may need to modify my study strategy accordingly.

* * * * *

PGP 8.0 beta has been released for Mac OS X 10.2 and if you're like me, you've really hated going for a while now with PGP support. Either that or you've hated dropping into Classic mode in order to use your old copy of PGP. Personally, I bagged PGP altogether because I wasn't willing to use the Classic version every time I wanted to send an email. I'm happy to have the option return.

Another things I can't do a lot about is people on dial-up who've probably been jonez-ing for the latest Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer. Full-screen compressed version is 29 MB, and that's enough data that the movie itself will almost be in theatres before you have it downloaded via a 56k modem. I will say this though: It's an awesome trailer to what looks to be a great second chapter to the trilogy. Available now at Apple.com's QuickTime movie trailer area and in smaller, non-full screen sizes, too.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

September 16, 2002

I've been fiddling with iCal for the past several days, and while I don't think it's yet a full-scale replacement for Palm Desktop, it certainly shows the potential to be a best of class calendar program. What makes it so is, more than anything else, the ability to publish and subscribe calendars across the Internet. Want to automatically distribute your soccer team's schedule to everybody? Publish it to .Mac or a WebDAV server and have team members and fans subscribe. Work schedules, birthdays, NHL team games, and so on. Anything that you can put on a schedule you can stick online and others can subscribe to. It's a neat, nifty, Internet-centric view of a calendar application, and this is why iCal has such great potential.

That does not mean I'm leaving Palm Desktop right away. I'll be updating both applications with calendar info for a bit and see what I like. I'm very used to Palm Desktop, and I'm not feeling ready to give it up. Apple will probably have to deliver iCal 2.0 before I'm ready to switch completely. But I can see that day coming.

* * * * *

It's been just over 10 days with Jaguar, Mac OS 10.2, and my love for it grows. Now that the settings with the Mail application are fixed, we can easily move that to the plus column. It's a great email client. The other iApps I talked about last time (Address Book, iChat, Sherlock) remain about where they were. It may take a few more weeks before I'm ready to make definitive judgments about them.

However, I am ready to say that 10.2 is an extraordinary operating system, clearly the best I've ever used. It's not quite as refined in some ways (window shading, for example) as Mac OS 9.x, but it's very, very good, and I have no qualms in recommending it assuming you have sufficient hardware horsepower and that the applications you wish to use are X-native. If so, anyone on Mac OS 8.x or 9.x should feel free to jump in. The water's fine.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

September 9, 2002 

I've had a few more days to play with Jaguar, Mac OS 10.2, and now that my problem with the Mail application is solved I'm a much happier fellow. I complained a bit about various 10.2 applications in my initial review, and given a few more days of experience, I wanted to go back and elaborate on what I said. I'll be covering the Address Book, iChat, the Mail application, and Sherlock; all the apps I zinged for being less than stellar last time.

First, the Address Book: As a test, I exported all my contacts from Palm Desktop in the Address Book. It took about an hour (I've got a lot of contacts), but the process was automated via AppleScript so I just had to do a little clean up work. I'm hoping that the forthcoming iCal calendar software will be so much better than Palm Desktop that I want to switch, because honestly full systemwide integration of contacts and calendars is a great thing. For example, the Address Book is linked to the Mail app so that if you want to send a mass email to selected contacts, it's a pretty easy task to accomplish.

The bigger problem is that I have multiple notes on a few of my contacts and the Address Book isn't currently set up with that kind of functionality. It does appear to have more flexibility than I initially gave it credit for, but you still can't add additional highly customed fields like Social Security Number, Spouse, Kids, etc. without just putting them in mislabeled address, phone, or email slots. You also can't link between contacts or notes like you can in Palm Desktop. So the Address Book continues to have a ways to go yet. For now, I may update contacts on both Palm and the Address Book (which is lame) and just use the strengths of both. Ultimately, I'm counting on the next version of the Address Book to help me retire Palm Desktop entirely.

Second, Apple's AIM instant messenger iChat: Like the Address Book, I wanted to give iChat every possible chance to impress me. I still think Fire (in beta) is a better instant messenger, but iChat is solid enough for most folks assuming they can tolerate the hideous brushed metal interface. I do like that you can add pictures of the people you're chatting with, and that it's linked with the Address Book. I certainly hope that Apple's hard at work on iChat 2.0, though, because the instant messenger default for the Mac should be one that can communicate across networks. In other words, I'd like to see ICQ, Jabber, MSN, and Yahoo networks available via iChat. Oh, and the AIM Talk features with the Voice over IP (like a telephone call across the Internet) would be great too.

Third, the Mail application: The previous version of Mail (under 10.1.x) worked fine as the rather limited email client that it was. Mail in 10.2 is faster, reorganizes mail boxes a bit more logically, and includes a junk mail filter. I had a lot of problems in the upgrade from Mail 10.1.x to Mail 10.2. For whatever reasons, the account authorization information for sending email got changed by the upgrade. This left me without the ability to send mail for a couple of days. (Dennis finally called me up and we tracked down the problem.) Now that it's working, it's fine, but Ma and Pa Kettle sitting down at their iMac in Oshkosh will be absolutely befuddled by even the notion of adjusting the settings to log into an SMTP server. So Apple's blown that part of the upgrade.

Happily, the reorganized mail boxes are, I think, a step forward, and the junk mail filter continues to work very well. I'd say that the accuracy of the filter is down right now to about 85-90 percent but a lot of that is my own fault because I didn't give it enough training time. I just stuck it on "automatic" after about a day because it was at that point filtering around 95 percent. Deprived of training and having only a limited sample of my email to base its judgments on, the filtering system's accuracy has suffered. I do anticipate a return to near 100 percent accuracy within a couple of weeks, however, and it remains one of my favorite features of the Jaguar upgrade.

Finally, Sherlock: I can't say that I've integrated Sherlock into my computing routine yet. I don't know if it's because I've not had much call for its features or if it's because it's very slow to load on my G3/500. I'm using it with a cable modem, so I don't think it's an Internet slow-down issue; I think Sherlock is just a processor intensive application. Given that, I don't know how much use it'll get; it might be faster to just grab the information from a web browser.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

September 6, 2002 

I installed Mac OS X 10.2 (aka Jaguar) late last night after backing up all the crucial bits on Trin to an external FireWire drive. Most Apple operating system installs work fine, but there have been some reports of trouble with bad 10.2 install discs. Regardless, backups = good; no backups = bad. You do the math.

This install itself took about 75 minutes. It would've been longer, but I opted to not install any of the Asian localizations or fonts. I could have cut the time down even further, but I wanted to install all the printer drivers since you never can tell what Trinity will need to hook up to and print from. Jaguar takes two discs, one for the system and one for iApps like iTunes, iPhoto and so on. Though time-consuming, it was a painless install. (My copy of Jaguar also included a third CD-ROM labeled Developers Tools. I've not explored it yet.)

I've spent a lot of today messing around with the new system and these are my initial impressions. First, as others have reported, 10.2 is noticeably faster than 10.1.x. It's not back to Mac OS 9 speed (and perhaps X never will be), but it's plenty useable, and I'm saying this based on a G3/500 PowerBook. That said, I suspect, based on my limited experience running 10.2 on a G4 dual 1-GHz, that Jaguar does not scale to faster processor clock speeds very well. Maybe this whole Quartz Extreme video engine is all it's cracked up to be, but I didn't see any evidence of it at the Apple Store in Palo Alto. Nonetheless, 10.2 is definitely faster than 10.1.5 on my Pismo PowerBook, and older Mac owners like myself can certainly rejoice at that prospect.

There's a lot of new technology in Jaguar, but I'll only touch on some of it because things like Rendezvous (instant device recognition and configuration) and Inkwell (handwriting recognition) require more hardware than I have on hand. The Windows server compatibility stuff suffers a similar fate. Like when am I ever going to hook into a Windows network? Oh, I know, some folks have to. Well, from what I hear Jaguar works pretty well playing patty cake with Microsoft's server software.

Other parts of Jaguar are cool. The new fonts are professional, the Universal Access stuff for the disabled is magnificant, and the new desktop and screen saver control panels are pretty. The revamped calculator has more features than I can list and also does currency, weights and measures, and other conversions. The Finder still isn't the cat's meow IMHO, and I still think the dock sucks, but everything is getting a lot more usable and a lot more fun in the OS side of life. There are issues (namely the awful metadata snafu) but by and large these are power user problems, and occasional at-home Mac person will be perfectly contented with what X serves up in the OS.

I don't know if the same can be said for the bundled applications. While iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie are major league arguments for the adoption of Macintosh for home users, other applications fall short. I'm not usually a "glass is half empty" kinda guy, but I am about these apps: Address Book, a sparse implementation of a contact manager; iChat, a limited AOL instant messaging client already eclipsed by epicware's Fire; Mail, a descent enough email program whose 10.2 version has given me numerous problems; and Sherlock, a wholly revamped pseudo-browser for organizing information (and an almost total ripoff of a third party product called Watson).

The Address Book integrates nicely with iChat, and the merits of a database-drive information system overlaying the OS are readily comprehensible. The Address Book just doesn't do it very well yet. Customization is difficult if not impossible in most circumstances, and Palm Desktop—a free download which I've used as a contact manager/calendar program for years—runs rings around it. Address Book is a version 1.0 product, and it seems it. It'll be a bit before I migrate any contact information.

iChat suffers similarly. It's got a couple of nifty ideas particularly along the lines of integration with the Address Book, but Fire beats it hands down as an instant messenger. (Be sure to upgrade to the latest version of Fire, by the way, because Jaguar breaks earlier ones.) If nothing else, Fire deserves kudos just for not using that awful brushed metal look that Apple's been increasing pushing onto their apps (like the Address Book and iChat). More importantly, though, Fire is a Rosetta Stone of instant messenging services, connecting to Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Jabber, and ICQ. Fire's not fully featured yet—its file sharing is actually weaker than iChat's—but on the whole I'm fairly sure I'll be with it until iChat hits at least version 2.

God what to say about the Mail application. I want to love the stupid thing, but it just doesn't work for me. It's a terrific app in a whole lot of ways, not the least of which is an adaptive spam filter which you train what is and what isn't spam and then let it loose to filter all your incoming spam into a junk drawer. In my limited experience, the junk filter is correct about 95 percent of the time. We'll see how it goes as it learns. Unfortunately, I have more serious problems: I cannot send email except through my .mac account email address. Everything works under 10.1.5, but nothing will send under 10.2 even though receive email is fine. I've tried repeatedly to fix this problem and troubleshoot it, and I'm not presently sure what the solution is. I only know that either I solve this soon or I'm done using the Mail app. I can't afford not to be able to send email, no matter how much my friends might wish otherwise.

Sherlock has been rewritten from the ground up. The brush metal interface disaster is gone, but in doing so they've so blatantly ripped off a third-party program called Watson, that most Internet discussions about Sherlock focus less on its merits and more on just how big a shaft Apple's given the shareware authors. That debate aside, Sherlock looks like it will be pretty handy. You can search the Internet like before, of course, but now you can also look for pictures, research stocks, look up movies playing at the local cinema, check through the online yellow pages, look at items on eBay, check airline flight schedules, search an online dictionary and thesaurus, translate languages, and peruse AppleCare articles. You can do all of this via web browser, of course. Sherlock just makes it more convenient. Too bad it wasn't Apple's idea first.

At the end of the day, the big question is: Do I upgrade? Jaguar is $129 ($69 educational price), and that's a healthy chunk of change. I'd say for those folks who are coming from Mac OS 8.x or 9.x and are ready to upgrade to X, Jaguar is a great entry point. Other than the Mail application, I have no qualms about saying that X will perform well for you, and you'll probably never look back to the old Mac system except to run the occasional Classic application.

Because Apple didn't give 10.1.x users an upgrade price, 10.2 is much harder to recommend for them. Jaguar is faster and better in many respects, but it's evolutionary not revolutionary. At minimum, for 10.1.x users, I think waiting until Apple releases 10.2.1 is advised. Jaguar's a good upgrade, but I don't know that it's a $129 better than 10.1.5. I might be tempted to wait until 10.3 to be honest.

I'll report on Jaguar again after I've had more time to play with it.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

August 26, 2002

My graphite Airport Base Station gave up the ghost earlier today after several days of intermittent functionality. Up until a couple of days ago everything was fine, then the little lights started blinking red and yellow instead of green. After an hour with Apple Tech Support they decided to ship me a new one, which works for me just fine.

In an unrelated note, I ordered Jaguar and expect to have it installed in the next week or so.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

August 15, 2002

I visited the Apple Store in Palo Alto today and had the opportunity to play with lots of neat Apple toys. What follows are random comments on things I saw:

  • The Store itself is in a great location and seemed to be doing great business. I don't know if other stores are doing comparably well, but if so, it bodes well for Apple's retail store initiative.

  • I played extensively with Jaguar, Mac OS X 10.2. It was very difficult to judge the speed compared to 10.1.5 since I played with it mostly on the new dual 1-GHz G4 towers. Nonetheless, it did not seem faster to me in performing various tasks. That may be because these machines lacked some of the hacks and tweaks which I've applied to Trinity in order to be more productive, but the significant speed increase I'd hoped for in the OS seemed to be nonexistent.

  • That is not to say that Jaguar is without its virtues. The Mail.app's junk mail filter alone may be worth the price of admission. Though you can turn it off, the filter starts in training mode where it "learns" what you consider junk mail. (You can also specifically set up rules which tell the program what you consider junk mail.) Then when such email arrives it's automatically thrown into a junk mail folder where you can quickly scan it, make sure everything there is junk, and trash it at your leisure. If you're feeling daring you can have the filter trash things right out, but I wouldn't recommend that without a few weeks in learning mode.

  • Apple's new AOL Instant Messenger client, iChat, appears to be a winner. In other words, it has the logging function I was looking for. It only handles AIM (as opposed to other instant messengers like Fire which will handle other protocols like Yahoo! and MSN), but for what iChat does it looks like it does very well.

  • The new 10.2 Address Book appears to be a perfectly serviceable contact manager with LDAP support, but as of yet the system lacks iCal, Apple's pre-announced calendar program due in September, so it's only half done in my opinion.

  • There are some other nice touches in the OS, like Sherlock 3, and ultimately it's the direction everyone is heading, but what would help me more than anything else I think is for Kensington's MouseWorks to make an application menu available for the Orbit trackball I use. The dock is function as an application switcher, but it's a lot slower than the way I used to do it under Mac OS 9.

  • The new dual-G4 machines where not as impressive as I'd hoped. They are blazingly fast Photoshop runners and the hardware expandability is impressive, but they were not significantly faster in many OS-specific tasks than my PowerBook G3/500. They were faster, of course, but my expectations were that they'd be a lot quicker than they were, and I didn't see evidence of this except in using Photoshop, where they were easily much faster than machine I'd ever seen. What I suspect is that Jaguar isn't nearly as tweaked to take advantage of dual processors as one might hope. Or maybe I was running the wrong tests. Subjectively anyway I wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped I'd be. (Note that some online testing sites are reporting that the new machines are no faster than the QuickSilver G4s they replaced at the same megahertz. Given all the internal changes with the new models, I hoped for more.)

  • I had another minor letdown about the new iPod in that I prefer the tactile sensation of the spinning wheel as opposed to the unmoveable solid state version in the new 10- and 20-GB versions. Other than that and the price, the iPods continue to kick butt.

  • Tony Hawk is a really fun game. =)

Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

July 23, 2002

Apple's share price has plunged with the rest of the stock market, closing today at $14.47. Given that cash on hand equates to about $11.50 a share (Apple has approximately $4.3 billion in cash and short-term securities), I can't fathom that the rest of the company, its intellectual property, and prospects for growth aren't worth at least $3. Sure, they don't pay a dividend, but they're innovative as all-get-out, and when the economy turns around I expect Apple to be one of the companies leading the way.

* * * * *

I've had the chance now to reflect on Apple's MacWorld NY 2002 announcements so I thought I'd offer up a little commentary.

I think Jaguar will be the version of Mac OS X that I can recommend to everyone. Not having played with it yet, I can't know for sure, but I strongly suspect that it will be fast and robust enough to be suitable for the mainstream. Plus by the time it's released, but major Mac-based applications will have been re-written or upgraded to run native—Quark Xpress being the obviously exception, but that's Quark for you. Education customers take note: Mac OS 10.2 education pricing is $69. Regular retail is $129.

Apple has made an MPEG-2 plug-in for QuickTime 6 available for $19.95. I'm not thrilled because it's something that they promised for free during the beta stages, but I suspect the MPEG licensing group had them over a barrel. At least the MPEG-4 stuff in QuickTime 6 is awesome.

I've played a little with iTunes 3, and though I've not spent enough time with it to know if it's a solid winner, the first appearances are good. Among other things I like having the ability to rate songs. And of course the free price tag rocks.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

July 17, 2002—MacWorld NY 2002 

Apple started shipping QuickTime 6 on Monday. It lacks the long-promised MPEG-2 codec, so I'm none-too-happy about that, but the MPEG-4 stuff looks good and the ACC audio codec rocks. It's another $29.95 for the Pro version, but most people will presumably just want the free player.

* * * * *

Apple announced a quarterly profit of $32 million, or $.09 per diluted share. Revenues were $1.43 billion and gross margins were 27.4 percent. They shipped 808,000 Macs during the quarter. The continue to hold $4.3 billion in cash and short-term securities. Given this economic climate, I'd rate that as a pretty good performance. Once the economy turns around, I think Apple will be very well positioned.

* * * * *

OK! Nothing like a 6 AMwake-up to remind one of that storied month of World Cup games. Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote starts at 9 AM EST, so that's what we get here on the west coast. Onward....

Steve starts by highlighting the new Switchers campaign, an advertising series that I like a lot. I think it's exactly the right move for Apple to be making. Steve says that there have been about 1.7 million visitors to the switchers site and of those 1 million were on Windows. He notes that there is a new product coming out by third-party to automatically move files from PC to Mac. Plug in a USB cable and it'll move everything right over. Funny, I had that idea for a product last night. Looks like somebody else thought of it too, and before I did.

Apple now has 31 stores operating, garnering about 100,000 visitors a week. That's over 5 million visitors per year. The newest retail store, Apple SoHo, opens tomorrow. Called Station A, this 32nd store is an old converted Post Office. Steve shows off some of the architecture and highlights the store. It looks fantastic. Almost makes me want to visit New York. Almost.

Undoubtedly responding to Microsoft's complaints (whiners), Steve says that there are 2.5 million active users of Mac OS X. Apple projects 5 million active users by end of year. All Macs have booted X by default since January, and of these 77% of users keep X as the default. I can see why. I have no desire to return to Mac OS 9.

Steve there are 3500 native X applications today, including Maya 4.5 which will be announced at the show. Maya on the Mac is now 25 percent of their business in 9 months. Another app, WarCraft III, came out for Mac 2 weeks ago in a simultaneous release for Mac and PC. Steves says that's their goal with all the top games. Steve notes that Adobe Photoshop Elements was just released, and highlights how it will link with iPhoto so you can edit in PS Elements and automatically send image back when you're done.

Rob Glazer of Real takes the stage. Real One player announced today in beta for X. Yeah, like I care. Maybe Real has improved their codec or something, but I'll take QuickTime over Real any day. (Of course I'll take Real over Microsoft given that choice.)

Steve announces Jaguar, Mac OS 10.2, which includes over 150 major new features:

  • Apple is the number one supplier of Unix in the world, and 10.2 includes UNIX updates like FreeBSD 4.4, LDAP, etc. That's great, of course, but since so much of X is open sourced, power users could have already upgraded this stuff for free.

  • Increased Windows connectivity. Not a big deal for me, but probably pretty useful for a whole bunch of folks.

  • Multi-threaded Finder: The Finder improvements should yield some big speed increases, and some rumor reports I've read concerning the betas say that the speed increase gets X running on machines at about Mac OS 9 speeds. So if 9 runs well on what you have, 10.2 should run just as well.

  • Phil Schiller demo time! Return of spring-loaded folders (hurray!). Spring-loaded folders works in column view as well. Integrated search in each finder window; looks pretty fast and potentially very useful. Desktop pictures can be set to display as a slide show at selected intervals. Neat!

  • Universal access for disabled users. Includes really nifty zoom option.

  • QuickTime 6 is built into Jaguar. Over 1 million downloads in 36 hours, which includes yours truly. Includes MPEG-4. (I'm watching via MPEG-4 stream right now, and it's the best stream of a MacWorld I've ever seen.) Phil demo-ing QT6. Includes an AAC comdec for compressed music; about a tenth of the data file size and sounds virtually indistinguishable from AIFF. Need to build support for ACC into the iPod if you ask me. Now showing off MPEG-4 clip v. uncompressed video. No way to do a qualitative comparison from here, but this MPEG-4 stream out of MacWorld is terrific.

  • Sherlock 3 completely re-written. "Internet services for the rest of us," says Steve. Search stocks and track them, find movies and see local listings, search eBay and track auctions, finds images on the internet, yellow pages channel like an advanced MapQuest or something. Steve could be right about this. Sherlock 3 looks really, really good.

  • InkWell from the Newton. Handwriting recognition in the OS. Write in any application without having to train the application to read your writing. Makes me want to buy a Wacom tablet. I'm sure that Wacom is thrilled with this OS addition for just that reason.

  • Steve announces the Apple-created technology called Rendezvous. Rendezvous automatically discovers other devices over an IP network with zero configuration. Demo-ing an automatic stream between computers. One computer reconizes the other, auto configures using Rendezvous, and starts auto sharing files (in this case MP3s). Impressive technology. Steve says they'll be building Rendezvous into various apps (like iTunes). Rendezvous will be an open standard. Epson, HP, and Lexmark have adopted Rendezvous and will be building it into their network printers. Cool technology!

  • Mail.app dramatically improved. All-mailbox searching (thank god), sophisticated rules for auto sorting (thank god), better support for multiple accounts (thank god), and an advanced junk mail filter (THANK GOD). Junk Mail filter learns as it goes. I sure hope it works as advertised. Threads highlighted. Integrated search. Excellent! Quicktime video plays inline. Junk mail filter starts in training mode so it learns what you consider junk mail. Later you switch to auto mode where it automatically sends things to a junk mail folder. Nice update.

  • Address Book upgraded. Now a system-wide database for storing contact information. Full LDAP searching. Integrated with iTools. Bluetooth support integrated into Jaguar, so Bluetooth cell phones can be dialed via Address book. May be the end of using Palm Desktop for me, at least as a contact manager.

  • iChat: AIM-compatible messenger. Mac.com email address as screen name or AOL screen name. Rendenvous in iChat can build automatic buddy lists. Drag and drop file sharing. No mention of voice over IP (AIM's Talk feature) or message logging. Without the latter, I'm staying with Fire. I must have my logging!

Mac OS 10.2 will list for $129 and be on shelves August 24. Up-to-date program for new Mac OS buyers or Macintosh hardware buyers from now until then so they'll get 10.2 for $19.99. Apparently no upgrade pricing for current X users, which is a major bummer. $129 for an OS upgrade? Dunno about that one. Gonna have to think it through. If I was coming from Mac OS 9, sure thing. From 10.1.5...there's a little hesitation on my part.

Steve talks iTools: Mac.com email, iDisk, Homepage. 2.2 million members. Now the bad news. Come September 30 iTools is going away. End of free services (since nobody else is offering free net services any more either I suppose this isn't that unexpected.) iTools will be replaced by .mac (pronounced "dot-mac"). Email: IMAP, POP, Web-based. iDisk: 100 MB—5x more than present— and really fast when used in conjunction with 10.2. It also has password protection, iPhoto hosting, backup software, and anti-virus software online. Pricing $99 annual membership. $49 for the first year for current iTool subscribers. I'm sure I'll do the first year at $49. Not sure that $100 a year is such the deal, though.

Steve introduces iCal, new calendaring software. Possible to share iCal calendars over the internet. Or on .mac. (Dave's calendar distribution problems solved! Hehe.) Calendar subscriptions possible over Internet. Calendars over iChat possible. Shipping in September. Free! Bye-bye Palm Desktop.

Steve turns to the Digital Hub concept. Software includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes. Over 4 million iPhoto copies out there. Very popular, and why not? As free software goes, it's great. Better than what Canon shipped with my PowerShot S300 even. Wish it did QuickTime VRs, though.

Steve mentions that iTunes + iPod = Grammy for Apple, a first in the computer business. There are 14 million copies out there of iTunes. iTunes 3 launched today. Music can be rated 1 to 5 stars by the user. Playcounts for songs included so you know how many times you've listened to something. Sound check will keep all songs at the same volume level. Support for audible.com for audio books and spoken word stuff. Smart playlists allow you to create rules and create playlists based on those rules. Cool! Only for X. Free today!

Steve says that the iPod has been a giant hit. Lower prices coming today. 5 GB iPod now $299. 10 GB iPod now $399. 10 GB version now also 10 percent thinner and with a new solid state scroll wheel. 10 GB version also has door on FireWire port, comes with a remote and case with belt clip. All bundled with the 10 GB version. 20 GB iPod introduced. Includes all the 10 GB stuff. Price $499.

New software on the iPods. Browse by music genres and composers. Playcounts, which transfer back and forth between iTunes. Smart playlists. New menu structure on iPod. Contact info on iPod. Calendars on iPod sync-ed with iCal! Sweet! Clock on iPod. Very nice update! Ship in August. Accessories for existing iPod owners = $39. iPods for Windows introduced today. Same three models at same prices available late August. The iPod now has a lot of the contact manager and calendar functionality of the Palm devices in addition to being the world's best portable MP3 player. I want one. Hehe.

Apple introduces iSync, a new app to sychronize your digital life. GPRS cell phones, Palm Pilots, and iPods—iSynch syncs all these devices to common calendars and contacts automatically via Bluetooth and SyncML (an open standard). Adds the cell phone to the digital hub. .mac will synch work and home computers. "Mac to mobile." Runs on 10.2, available in September. Free!

Apple's hitting home runs on the software side. Terrific stuff as far as the digital hub goes. I'm gonna have to buy this stuff (oh darn) just so I can sell it to people as part of my consulting business. Outstanding work.

Finally Steve talks iMac. Says that 50% of all iMacs sold are the high end SuperDrive models. Price on that one drops to $1799. Introduces a 17" landscape display. Same viewing real estate as a 19" CRT. 1440 x 900 pixels, 64% more pixels than 15" iMac. Graphics powered by nVideo G-Force4. 800-MHz G4. $1999. Shipping in two weeks. Looks good!
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

June 15, 2002 

I've upgraded to Adobe GoLive 6, and I am using in presently to create this update. Whatever its additional features, I bought it because it was carbonized to run natively under Mac OS X. GoLive 5 works via Classic, but I won't kid you: It is not a pleasure to use being as slow as it is. GL6, in contrast, feels fairly snappy.

I won't have a full report on GL6 for at least a few days yet. I don't know how it works fully, and I've not tried any of the new features. I will say that at least initially my impression is very favorable.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

June 10, 2002

For the first time in years, I'm not using Eudora as my email client. I'd been using Eudora since version 2-something and upgraded through the years until I hit Eudora Pro 4.3. I stopped upgrading at that point since I didn't think that version 5 added anything all that spectacular for the $40 upgrade cost.

With Trin's recent move to Mac OS X, it became important to me to switch my email software to something X-native. That's because one thing you learn quickly is that old OS 9.x programs will still work, but native applications are faster, more stable, and better integrated with X. Given how often I check email, a native email program was essential.

I still like Eudora a lot, but having looked at Apple's free Mail.app for Mac OS X, I was willing to explore abandoning Eudora. Now that I've used Mail.app for a day or two, I won't be going back, and I suspect that Eudora for Mac's days are numbered. Eudora's filters work a little better than Mail.app's equivelant "rules" but otherwise I see no advantage. In fact, I'd call them roughly equal right now, and I think the prospect of Apple improving Mail.app significantly in future revisions of the OS is pretty good. (Here I'm thinking of tighter integration with the Address Book as one example.)

* * * * *

Apple opened a new advertising campaign today. The very direct focus is on switching PC users to Mac users, and at least initially I think it's a very wise move. Other than games (for which I recommend a console like PlayStation 2 anyway), I don't think there is a single area in which the PC has a lead over the Mac. Done well, this campaign might be just the right thing to substantially grow Apple's marketshare, and at the very least I think it's worth a shot. As you might expect, I think the Mac is so much better than any PC on the market in viritually every respect that I can't fathom anyone buying a PC for all but very specific, limited tasks.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

  

June 8, 2002 

I swapped out hard drives last night, and Trinity is now running Mac OS X 10.1.5 by default. Note that I upgraded to 10.1.5 from 10.1.4 a couple days ago, and I've seen no issues with it, though I wouldn't really know at this point what an issue might look like. Certainly I can say that I've observed nothing serious from doing the update, and from what I've read it sounds like if you're running 10.1.1 through 10.1.4 you should feel free to update.

Having played with X a little more over the course of the last few days, it's easier now for me to make an assessment of it. First, some positives: It's an absolutely beautiful OS. The Aqua interface is just very easy on the eyes, and that alone makes it fun to explore the system. Since I first installed X on an external drive a few days ago, I have wanted to move to it as my primary OS. Despite its flaws, this fact alone speaks volumes about just how good I think this OS. (After using Windows XP in a store for 5 minutes I knew it was nothing more than warmed over and prettied up Windows 95. I have no desire to ever use it, and not just because I detest Microsoft, though that too.) Mac OS X is, on the whole, pretty, fun to use, and powerful.

That doesn't, however, mean it is without flaws. The Classic implementation through which X runs Mac OS 9 applications is weird. You can't readily tell if the Classic layer is running, so you have to remember if you've launch an OS 9 application already or you'll have to wait while Classic boots up. Once Classic is running it works well enough, though it's obviously slower than just booting into OS 9 directly. Every application I've tried has run, though I've not tested everything. Some, notably earlier versions of Virtual PC, do not work, and the user will need to boot directly into OS 9 in order to use them.

I am not a fan of the Dock. As an interface element it tries to do too much, and the result is that it does almost nothing well. As a launcher, it only displays icons until the user mouses over the icon. Then it displays help text. That means unless you've memorized your icons, what's in the launcher isn't immediately obvious. That's dreadful human interface behavior.

The Dock also operates as a holder for minimized windows and applications. Compared to pop-up windows and especially window shades, the Dock is very inefficent at reactivating minimized items, and that's half the procedure. I hope Apple fixes this for their next major revision of the OS.

Finally, X is missing an application menu. The Dock tries to serve this function as well by putting little black triangles under active application icons. Compared to 9's application menu which allows for instant recall of what's active and instant switching between applications, the Dock is very poor. Not only is it difficult to tell what's active (because you have to look at a bunch of icons, remember what they are, and then sort those with a black triangle from those without), it's also a pain to switch. Under 9, I can get an active apps list instantly and switch in less than a second. The current form is a major productivity killer.

I'm not crazy with the operation of the Finder, either. There are some interesting ways to view files, and some of these are improvements on the traditional OS 9 way of opening folder after folder to get where you want. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a way to set the Finder windows to a specific view and have it hold for the next time it's opened.

On the upside, the under the hood functions are amazing. The Sleep function now operates fantastically well. About 2 seconds to go to sleep, about 4 seconds to wake up. That's signficantly faster than under OS 9. Files and folders are better organized under X than 9, but part of that is that the Unix-underpinnings require that. Some might be annoyed by this, but I'd say it's a net advantage. Significantly, I've had no crashes of X whatsoever, and in fact, no application crashes either. That feels very, very nice.

So am I ready to recommend X 10.1.5 to everybody? No. I don't think there are enough native applications available, and the Dock continues to be clunky. That said, Mac OS 10.2 (code-named "Jaguar") is due in late summer, and I'm betting that will the one. We'll see.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

June 4, 2002 

I installed Mac OS X 10.1.4 on a 32 GB external FireWire hard drive yesterday afternoon. The drive, an IBM TravelStar, seems to lose connectivity to the Pismo PowerBook on restarts. In other words, the drive boots into X just fine if the computer has been shut down first, but on any restart of the computer I get a forever spinning beachball cursor. At this point I don't know if this is a PowerBook issue, a Mac OS X issue, or an external FireWire hard drive issue. It's the sole annoyance in an otherwise very easy and very pleasant upgrade/install experience.

Mac OS X, in its 10.1.4 incarnation, is functional, attractive, and, other than my aforementioned restart problem, reliable. I am not of fan of the Dock, sort of a combination application switcher, alias holder, and launcher that resides by default at the bottom of the screen. My understanding is that there are plenty of third-party replacements, though, so I don't see this as a major issue.

The rest of the system seems to work well, though obviously my testing is limited. X has a number of nice additions—address book, email application, etc.—bundled with the system, and a variety of substantial "digital hub" applications like iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie which are free or low-cost from Apple. Some of the former lack polish (and will be substantially reworked and improved in Mac OS X 10.2 due late summer 2002), but the latter applications are quite impressive.

Collectively it's a system that shows a lot of promise and would be worth the upgrade now if 10.2 wasn't so soon on the horizon. As it stands I think the Mac OS X upgrade to seriously consider will be 10.2, and unless Apple somehow uncharacteristically botches the update, anyone with an X-compatible machine will want to consider moving to X.

I've not had much time to play with it, so I'll talk more about Mac OS X's Classic emulation later.

* * * * *

Apple announced today that their eMac, a 17" CRT G4 iMac made especially for education customers, will be sold in the retial channel as well. Prices start at $1049, which is pretty decent for a 700-MHz G4—a machine which should run Mac OS X pretty well.

Apple also announced a preview release of QuickTime 6, a good upgrade to one of the best technologies out there. It's a free preview and it operates until October 2002 at which point a full final release should be available. QuickTime 5 users can sort of take it or leave the preview, but if you're new to QuickTime, I say grab it. It's a fantastic technology.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

May 20, 2002 

Apple unexpectedly revved its iBook line today, increasing processor speed and adding a much faster video sub-system. Powered by 600- and 700-MHz G3 processors, the new iBooks also feature a x2 AGP ATI Mobility Radeon with 16 MB of SDRAM. This is reportedly sufficient to run Quartz Extreme, the video acceleration part of the upcoming Mac OS X upgrade. One would like to see some performance metrics first, but if it'll run Quartz Extreme the new iBooks may be a great value even if they are G3 and not G4-powered.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

May 4, 2002 

This is my report from the Mac Business Expo held in Portland, Oregon on May 2. For the first time, I took Trinity (PowerBook G3/500) with me for note-taking purposes. That means my notes from the keynote and the seminars are extensive, but I have almost no personal recollection of what was said. It may sound strange, but when I'm typing dictation, the brain shuts down and I become something of an extension of the machine. This isn't uncommon from what I've read on the subject; indeed, the term for it is the internalization of technology. So let's see what I can pull from my notes.

The keynote speaker, John Brandon, is Apple's Vice President for Channel Sales to the Americas and Asia Pacific. In other words, he's a sales guy. You can disregard most of his answers to technical questions because if he didn't read it in the marketing materials, he won't know the answer. (He didn't say this himself, I'm just giving you my take on who he is.)

Brandon started with competitive computer industry metrics as of April 1, 2002:

Apple Gateway Dell Compaq
Cash $4.4 billion $1.2 billion $3.9 billion $3.9 billion
ST & LT Debt $300 million n/a 500 million $2.3 billion
Net cash $4.1 billion $1.2 billion $3.4 billion $1.6 billion
Net cash per share $11.53 $6.6 $1.3 $.93
Share price $24.46 $6.53 $27.14 $10.42

Fairly impressive stuff in financial terms, and one of the reasons why Apple stock was such a screaming "buy" when it was sitting in the mid- to low-teens.

Brandon declined outright to talk about future directions for Apple, which is fine. There's a competive advantage to keeping cards close to the vest, and Apple's probably right to do so. Instead he focused on Apple's innovation and solutions, meaning things like the iPod, Airport, Mac OS X, and having great applications (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) right out of the box.

"The result is almost everything Mac fans could wish for: a gorgeous, easy-to-navigate and virtually crash-proof operating system that makes previous attempts look like hand-cranked antiques." —David Pogue, NY Times

Brandon highlighted the revised Titanium PowerBook G4s and said that Apple had shipped some to the show so attendees could play with them. The specs are good, but I didn't bother messing around with them since outside of faster processor and accelerated video card these are essentially the same machines as before. Hurray for the upgrades, but they're not revolutionary. Nonetheless:

$2499
667-MHz, 1 MB L3 cache, 256 RAM, 30 GB HD, Airport ready, 32 MB video memory, combo drive

$3199
800-MHz, 1 MB L3 cache 512 MB RAM, 40 GB hd, airport card, 32 MB video card memory, combo drive

Brandon turned his attention then to Mac OS X and stated very plainly that we should expect news on this front from the World Wide Developers' Conference (WWDC) which starts Monday, May 6 in San Jose. Brandon there are currently 3500 native applications shipping for Mac OS X, that they're seeing 80 to 100 more every week, and that this represents a two-fold increase since 10.1 was introduced.

Since Mac OS X is based on Unix, a very stable, very robust operating system which powers roughly 75 percent of the Internet, Apple has seen a large and increasing migration from Linux users and Unix administrators. Brandon also came out with this interesting tidbit: Since last year, Apple's fastest growing market segment is government. Apparently agencies are interested in Mac OS X because Unix is secure and Windows is swiss cheese when it comes to security holes.

After the Brandon keynote, Dave and I headed to a Unix in X seminar given by an Apple guy. It was a good overview but not particularly quotable or interesting for the every day Mac user. Nonetheless, here's some of the verbage: X is built on top of BSD 4.4 Unix. This BSD variant is called Darwin, and contains all the standard Unix applications, utilities, and tools (including multiple shells, ssh, Apache, Perl 5.6, Java 2, C/C++, Objective C, and gcc). This stuff is open source, so the developer community (meaning the geekiest of the geeks) is very engaged when it comes to involvement; there is already a lot of ported Unix software that runs without problem under X (including X11, Tex, the Gimp).

Interestingly, the speaker said point-blank that the next major revision of the Mac OS X (10.2, code-named Jaguar) would ship in June. So even if nothing in the proceeding paragraph made sense to you, that last tidbit should.

Finally, we attended a session on network management of Mac OS X clients given by John Cambra, a senior systems engineer at Apple. Sadly, what we got we not what was advertised. This was really more of an extended sales pitch for Apple Remote Desktop (a really cool product for network admins). Very disappointing, but Cambra did say that "9.2.2 is the last version of OS 9 that Apple will ship." That's a very remarkable statement coming from a senior systems engineer, and probably as good a recommendation as one can get for upgrading to 9.2.2.

There is wide-spread belief that systems not running X should stick with 9.1 (an assessment with which I happen to agree), but clearly if 9.2.2 is the end-all of the Classic Mac OS line, those considering an upgrade to X should probably make the switch. Personally, I will probably move Trinity to Mac OS 9.2.2 in the next several days.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

April 29, 2002 

Apple introduced a revved PowerBook G4 along with an interesting eMac machine for education. The former is the same eye-popping Titantium PowerBook G4 enclosure but with either a 667- or 800-MHz G4 processor and an enhanced video subsystem. This this new subsystem will allow for greater screen resolutions among other things. There are some other under-the-hood improvements, but this is a model revision, not replacement. Looks like a good advancement, though.

The eMac can be best described as a 17" CRT iMac G4/700. It's an education-only machine, though I suspect it would be popular outside of education if the flatpanel iMac G4s weren't so stonecold awesome. I don't know the educational marketplace nearly as well as the consumer one, but my inclination is to think that Apple knows what they're doing here and that the eMac will pay dividends in terms of increasing their educational marketshare.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

April 23, 2002 

Apple in conjunction with The Computer Store will be hosting the Macintosh Business Expo in Portland, this year on May 2. Dave and I are again planning what's becoming an annual pilgrimmage. (So if you attend, we may see you there!)

Like previous years, there will seminars, pavillions, a keynote speech by an Apple dude, and so on. Admission is free, but parking at the Oregon Convention Center usually runs about $5. Well-worth your time if you want to learn about doing more stuff with your Mac.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

April 17, 2002 

Apple reported profits of $45 million (11 cents a share) on $1.5 billion revenue, all slightly above estimates. The company continues to hold $4.3 billion in cash and short-term securities. Gross margins fell a bit to 26.9 percent since the mix of sales tended to favor consumer machines like the iMac and the iBook. Despite component shortages which restrained sales, Apple shipped 813,000 Macs during the quarter including 220,000 flat-panel iMacs. CFO Fred Anderson projected good but not great results for next quarter with momentum increasing as the domestic and world economies rebound and as more people are introduced to Mac OS X and its UNIX underpinings. Already, a number government agencies and scientific/research companies are intrigued.

Speaking of which, Apple released Mac OS X 10.1.4 this morning. It improves both security and compatibility, but adds no significant features. Mac OS X 10.2, code-named Jaguar, will be demoed at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) hosted by Apple in May.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

March 21, 2002—MacWorld Tokyo

Not a lot of major announcements coming out of Tokyo. Apple introduced the 10 GB iPod I've been hoping for, but at a rather untenable price of $499. Geez, what am I, the Bank of NY? $500 for an MP3 player? Apple's been selling 5 GB iPods like hotcakes, so they can obviously charge whatever they want for either model, but the dollars aren't leaving my wallet until the 10 GB device drops at least $100. Even then I dunno.

Apple released some new iPod firmware which allows for users to important contact database information (name and phone number type stuff) on the iPod for easy reference. It doesn't take the place of a Palm Pilot, but it's a neat little bit of additional functionality at no extra charge.

What will carry an extra charge, however, are all the new G4 iMacs. Component costs have skyrocketed in recent months, and Apple faced the unenviable choice of removing features or raising prices on the iMac. They chose the latter, and now all iMacs will cost $100 more. I suspect that most consumers will understand Apple's position and that it won't end up mattering all that much. It's just kind of a bummer.

Less of a bummer would be Apple's forthcoming Bluetooth short-range wireless implementation. Apple will sell a $49 USB device that will allow any Mac OS X Mac to connect wirelessly with any Bluetooth device, typically cell phones, PDAs, and the like. Bluetooth is a nascent technology, and I expect that Apple's adoption of spark the same industry-wide interest that Apple push of USB, FireWire, and 802.11b (Airport) did. Apple's an industry leader (usually THE industry leader), and where it goes technologically, a lot of PC vendors (hi Dell!) follow.

Apple also introduced a 23 inch high definition, all-digital flat panel LCD display which will undoubtedly be, as Steve Jobs claims, "the best computer display on the planet." It's also $3500, so start saving those pennies.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

March 11, 2002

One thing that really drives web surfers nuts is the number of ads they're forced to see. Not only are they frequently annoying, if you're on a dial-up connection they can really slow things to a crawl for you. Well, allow me to offer a solution in the form something called a Hosts file.

Here's the way a Hosts file works: If you go to your TCP/IP Control Panel, you'll see that you have the ability to select a Hosts file for use by the system. (TCP/IP User Mode, accessed under the Edit menu, must be set to either Advanced or Admin to see this option.) What a Hosts file does is to route specific TCP/IP requests wherever you like.

For example, let's say that you want your web browser to point to www.yahoo.com whenever you type www.excite.com. Using the CNAME command, you'd enter a line in the Hosts file that reads "www.excite.com CNAME www.yahoo.com" and that'd take care of it.

Now there's no particular reason you'd want to do the above, but what if you took the various ad servers around the net and pointed them to, I don't know, say, nowhere? Well, not only would you not have to view any more ads from the offending servers—all that will show up is a graphical X indicating that the image couldn't be loaded—you'll also also speed up your web browsing for the same reason.

In case you're thinking that you now have to go and type up all the ad servers around the net, fear not. Somebody's done it for you and provided instructions on how to set up the whole thing. Even better, you can always edit the Hosts file and add new ad servers to the list.

I've been trying this out for a couple of weeks now, and given this testing I'm prepared to say that I think it's a dandy start to taming the glut of advertising on the web. I've not figured out the solution to spam yet (other than national legislation), but a person's gotta start fighting the battle somewhere. Using a Hosts file is a worthwhile beginning.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

February 25, 2002

Those turkeys at Adobe have gone and created several reasons for me to give up all my hard-earned cash. Photoshop 7 (with ImageReady 7—what happened to versions 4-6?), GoLive 6, and LiveMotion 2 are all out of beta and up for sale. Notably, each one is Mac OS X native, and that's spells happiness. I'm not exactly sure how I'll work it into the budget, but I'm planning to buy each of the aforementioned upgrades shortly.

Speaking of upgrading, I've added a Proxim Skyline 802.11b PCI card to Zeke. That frees Zeke from his tether to the LAN, allowing him to both print and surf the web wirelessly. Later on, when I add another computer to the mix, Zeke will easily move upstairs to Erin's office and retain full printing and Internet capabilities. I've not had time to play with Zeke's Airport-compatible card other than to verify that it works, but really, how much playing does one need to do? 802.11b is terrific. Plug it in and it works. It's just like a hardwired connection, just no messy cabling headaches. I'm now planning to rearrange my office later this week.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 29, 2002 

Apple announced the speed-bumped QuickSilver G4 Tower machines yesterday and they're pretty sweet. Priced right and everything:

  • 800-MHz G4, 256k on-chip L2 cache, 133 MHz system bus, 256 MB RAM, ATI Radeon 7500 video card, 40 GB hard drive (@ 7200 RPM), CD-RW, 2 FireWire/4 USB ports. $1599.

  • 933-MHz G4, 256k on-chip L2 cache + 2 MB L3 cache, 133 MHz system bus, 256 MB RAM, nVidea GeForce4MX video card, 60 GB HD (@ 7200 RPM), SuperDrive (CD-RW & DVD-RW), 2 FireWire/4 USB ports. $2299.

  • Dual 1-GHz G4s, 256k on-chip L2 cache + 2 MB L3 cache, 133 MHz system bus, 512 MB RAM, nVidea GeForce4MX video card, 80 GB HD (@ 7200 RPM), SuperDrive, 2 FireWire/4 USB ports. $2999.

All systems ship with MacOS 10.1 & 9.2, QuickTime, iMovie2, iDVD 2, iPhoto, iTunes 2, DVD Player, Graphic Converter, Snapz Pro, and more. They also come with Apple Pro Keyboard and optical Mouse.

Education prices on the above machines are $1503, $2161, and $2819, but even without those discounts Apple has priced things to move. One can rightly question the value of the low-end model compared to the high-end iMac, but the mid- and high-end models kick serious butt. The Dual 1-GHz machine may not be worth the premium over the 933 model, but it's sure incredibly tempting.

For education customers more interested in value, Apple also has a 733-MHz G4 for $1252, a price that can be dropped to $1178 if you're willing to lop off some RAM and the modem. That's also an incredible deal, and one I'll be seriously considering if I decide I need a machine sooner rather than later for audio work.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 17, 2002

Bill Gates announced a major strategy shift for Microsoft yesterday, one in which security and privacy are emphasized over new features. Gates called the new paradigm for Microsoft "Trustworthy computing," currently an oxymoron on the Windows platform.

Indeed, despite suffering from a graphical user interface of incredibly poor design, the Windows operating system has in recent years mostly been taken to task for its lack of security especially compared to Linux, Unix, the MacOS, and frankly, just about any other operating system ever written.

Microsoft has ignored security and privacy considerations for years, so don't think for a second that Gates would suddenly get religion unless these things were beginning to cost the company money. For once the needs of consumers and the needs of Microsoft may dovetail. We'll see.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 16, 2002 

Apple announced today that they made $38 million in the fiscal quarter on revenue of $1.38 billion. The company shipped 746,000 Macs during the quarter, and now has cash and short-term securities on hand of $4.4 billion.

* * * * *

Looks like attendence news from the recent MacWorld wasn't as bad as I thought. Reports have 87,890 attendees this year, down only slightly from last year's record 93,000. That's even up from two years ago when there were 85,000 people. Definitely fewer vendors this year, though, on the order of 20 percent from what I've read. Of course this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas showed an even worse attendance drop off.

But another bright spot is that 81,000 individual viewers tuned in for the keynote, nearly double the previous high. Interest in the Mac platform seems to still be vibrant, and once we get past the tough economic times, things are looking very positive.

* * * * *

My friend Joe expressed this idea to me a few months ago about getting a bunch of guys together and, instead of playing QuakeWorld until the trackball and keyboard left stigmata marks, actually developing a game together over the course of a weekend. Frankly, I thought it was a swell notion, cataloging it mentally with other neat ideas like world peace, curing cancer, and winning an Olympic gold. Getting a bunch of guys together to do something creative ranks right up there with my favorite things, but professional game software companies spend months coding their stuff, and how much free time do any of us have to learn about C++? So call me the skeptic.

It turns out Joe may have the last laugh. Ambrosia Software, long-time makers of the Mac's best shareware games, have just released the Coldstone Game Engine, a $49 game development application. At first glance, this looks like exactly the software needed to fulfill Joe's vision. There's a demo available, so if ya'll would kindly download it and see what you think, I'll be eager to get your input. I really didn't think such a thing would be possible, but if it is, and we can implement "Joe's Game Programming Holiday Weekend," sign me up baby. I'm there.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 14, 2002—MacWorld SF 2002 

Here's a wrap-up on various products and such from MacWorld SF 2002.

First, some items from the keynote address:

  • Over 125,000 iPods sold from from Nov. 10 to Dec. 31

  • 40 percent of CPU sales at Apple Stores are to non-Mac owners

  • The 27 Apple retail stores saw 800,000 people in 2001

  • The state of Maine has purchased 36,000 iBooks. That's one for every 7th and 8th grader in the state, plus one for every teacher.

  • MacOS X now has 2500 native applications available

Academics and non-profits can download the 4D database software for free at http://www.4d.com/academic.html. I have no idea how 4D compares to FileMaker Pro (which I love), but the price is right for those who qualify.

Another neat freebie is a download of Kiplinger's TaxCut, a Turbo Tax for Mac competitor, available at http://store.taxcut.com/macworld. This free offer lasts only until the end of January. (Password is OSX.)

The X-based Account Edge by MYOB looks like a very worthy successor to the late, lamented QuickBooks Pro which Intuit dropped back in 1997 (and which I still use). For small business owners, Account Edge will be the only full-featured viable solution that runs native under X.

CMS exhibited a range of small, relatively inexpensive FireWire drives designed for automatic backup. A user simply plugs in the drive, and it automatically backs up the data from the main drive. It can even do this across a network. This plug-in and do nothing sort of ease of use makes it ideal for users who are less than technically proficient.

FileMaker Pro 5.5 demos great particularly when combined with FileMaker Mobile 2.0. Basically you can sync your databases to Palm Pilots and such and carry those around instead of a PowerBook or iBook. That's pretty swell, especially for long business trips.

* * * * *

Dave's got MacOS X 10.1 installed and running on his B&W G3/300, and what little I saw of it looked very nice. It's visually much more engaging than any other operating system I've seen. It did seem a little slower for tasks, though I'd guess not more than 10 to 15 percent on most X-native things (and some things are faster).

For running non-native apps, Dave just leaves the Classic emulator running and launches are pretty transparent. Most of these apps are noticeably slower, but then again, you've got an OS 9 layer on top of an X layer which is built on top of a Unix layer (not to mention the graphics layers and so on). So some slow down is bound to happen.

For most users, I'm still not recommending X yet. When 10.2 hits in the spring, I think it'll be a case of "anyone who wants to should," but until then, I think only people who like to mess with their computers should apply. Ultimately, an increasing number of applications will be X-only, so many people will be forced to upgrade. I think that's a few years off yet, though.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 9, 2002—MacWorld SF 2002 

I spent yestday at MacWorld SF 2002 so you wouldn't have to. Here's my report:

As I've done the past few years, I took the 8:18 AM CalTrain from Mountain View to San Francisco. Unlike previous years, there were no MacWorld shuttle buses running between the train depot and the Moscone Center. It wasn't a huge inconvenience to me, but computer geeks aren't the most physically fit folks in general, and hoofing it five downtown blocks between locations is a bit of strain—especially after the show when you're loaded down with all the free crap the vendors are giving out.

After arriving at Moscone, it was a snap to pick up the badge holder required for entry. For better or for worse, the long lines of previous years weren't there. Indeed, one of the striking elements of the show was the lack of vendors and attendees. In terms of size this show still utilizes both the North and South Exhibit Halls, but one is about 85 percent of capacity and the other maybe 70 percent. Last year I'd estimate that it was closer to 90 and 80, and the year before that I'd say 95 and 90. (At the same time, last year's attendance broke records.) Whether this is a long-term declining trend for the show and, more crucially, for the platform isn't something I'm able to ascertain. Given the events of September 11 and the nation's sorry economic climate, one could argue that it's a success just to have the show go on.

But while it was disappointing not to see more vendors, the ones who showed brought some neat stuff. Significantly, a great number of applications are now MacOS X-native. This bodes well, and the time for the switch to X is rapidly approaching for many people. Most business environments could make the switch today, in fact, since FileMaker and Microsoft Office both run on X. Content creation pros will need to wait longer (at least until Adobe Photoshop gets there), and the average consumer is probably somewhere in the middle. The time draws near, however.

Anyway, all that aside, here's some of the stuff that caught my attention at the show. Everything that follows is in no particular order and it doesn't represent a complete list of all the goodies.

Apple's iMac G4 (or whatever they've decided to call it) is spectacular. If it's not a home run, it's at least a triple. Not only is it exceedingly attractive (though not in the same archetypal way as the original iMac design), it looks even better in person than in photographs. It's designed to be a digital hub. Plug in your iPod, digital camera, digital camcorder, printer, scanner or whatever, and go. Since it ships with iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, and iPhoto (not to mention Quicken 2002 Deluxe, Otto Matic (a game), and AppleWorks 6), your basic consumer can create all kinds of personalized multimedia very readily. The $1799 version which is currently shipping comes with a SuperDrive (aka CD-RW/DVD-R), and a year ago that was a $1000 item in and of itself. Presently it's still a $500-$600 stand alone product. It's pretty simple to add either an Airport card or additional RAM to the iMac. I haven't a clue (nor did any of the Apple dudes) how to get to the hard drive if a user ever wanted to replace that. I'm sure it can be done, but it's not obvious how.

The iMac's speed with MacOS X is pretty good. There are occasional slow-downs if you try to multitask too heavily, but in normal usage I'd think the 700- or 800-MHz G4 will handle things just fine. Interestingly, the iMac also has a fan now because the G4 gives off too much heat for convection cooling alone to be effective. Given the din of the Expo I couldn't tell how loud or quiet the fan is, but for what little it's worth, standing right next to the thing and listening for it I couldn't hear it.

The bright and crisp 15" LCD monitor is on an arm that swivels, and it will pan and tilt up and down and left and right. The arrangement looks top-heavy, but the base and arm are weighty enough that it would take quite a whack to tip one of these things over. The one complaint I have with the iMac (and the reason I don't consider it an unqualified home run) is that the VGA out port only supports video mirroring not a dual display extended desktop. Why this is I have no idea, because the graphics card in the thing has 32 MB of RAM and plenty of power to run two monitors. On the plus side, the LCD's native resolution is 1024 x 768, but it also looks great in 800 x 600 and 640 x 480 (though much of that is a function of MacOS X).

In summary, this is a superb Macintosh. It's attractive, powerful, and user-friendly. The $1799 price tag is high for a consumer machine (Apple will apparently continue to sell $799 and $999 CRT-based iMacs), but it's frankly an incredible bargain. If I didn't need a dual display and PCI slots for my web design and music production work, I'd buy one of these without thinking twice.

To a lesser extent, Apple also revised the iBook. Price drops are always welcome, so kudos to Apple on that one. The iBook has been the best selling portable ever for Apple, so at $100 less it is even more of a bargain. I'm not sure what to make of the high-end 14.1" LCD model. The best thing about the iBook is its portability, and one takes a huge wack in that regard by upping the screen size (the resolutions don't improve either; things just appear larger on screen). Personally, I'd opt for the Combo drive 12.1" LCD model if I were buying an iBook. The low-end model is actually the best deal, but I like my portable DVD playing. If you can do without that, save the money and the buy least expensive one.

I had the opportunity to play with Apple's free(!) iPhoto software. Simply put, it rocks. You can import digital photos straight from the camera, do basic editing (including red eye removal, cropping, and changing to black and white), organize all your images, and publish your collection(s) to web, video, slide show, or paper. Utterly brilliant work by Apple in taking a complex process (aptly termed the "chain of pain" by Steve Jobs) and making it so easy that almost anyone can do it. iPhoto only works with MacOS X, but otherwise this really couldn't be better.

Interestingly, there were a lot of attendees at the show walking around listening to iPods. Apple claims to have already sold 125,000 of these gizmos, and given that they make at least $200-$250 per iPod (since the Apple employee price on the iPod is $200—a number I got chatting it up with an Apple guy), that's got to be a happy thing for their bottom line. I still want a 10-GB version, though.

Adobe introduced carbonized versions of a number of their applications, including GoLive 6.0 and LiveMotion 2. I sat through a demo of GoLive 6, and, hey, sign me up. There are all kinds of user interface enhancements and a lot of good group collaboration features. Don't know how much use I'll get out of the group stuff, but the UI changes should speed a number of web design tasks considerably.

One thing that was very cool about this MacWorld was the number of games on display. I don't really know why, but the Mac game market has expanded dramatically in the last couple of years and if there's an area where I'd say that MacWorld has improved over last year (and the year before), it's games. I didn't have a chance to look at them all but Spiderman, Harry Potter, Giants, IceWind Dale, Vampire: The Masquerade, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Evo 2 all looked inviting.

Evo 2 was one of particular interest to me. The first Evo has been fantastic in single player mode but chokes like a dying horse in LAN or Internet play. When it works it's fine, but more often than not, the whole thing collapses. I asked some very pointed questions about whether or not the networking code had been improved, and the short answer is that nobody here knows. The Mac port is based on Windows code from Terminal Reality, and MacSoft—who are producing Evo 2—did not produce the original Mac Evo port. Frankly, Evo 2 looks great, but unless you're contented with single player action, I wouldn't buy it yet.

If you're a G3 or G4 tower owner, you might want to check out Apple Skinz. These colorful designs stick over the sides of your machine to give it an impressive custom-painted look for only $50. I don't know how difficult the install process is for these things, but the final results looked magnificent. You can even design your own skinz.

OK, well, I experienced this weird electro-shock therapy gizmo which is purportedly useful for treating sports injuries, headaches, muscle strains, etc. You attach a couple of electrodes and then ramp up the juice until you feel it. Weird sensation to have your muscles contract without your brain actually sending the signal. Dunno if I'd say it worked, but at $250 I'd really need to be sure before I plunked down the cash. Sorry, they didn't have a web site, so I can't give a link. (Two other points: When I was coaching at St. Francis we had a similar device in use by the school nurse/sports trainer. Second, I have no idea what they were doing at MacWorld. As far as I could ascertain, this thing had nothing to do with Macs.)

I talked with a lot of music people, and I either need to buy Toast with Jam (CD Mastering software) or Peak 3.0 (audio sample editing software). Unfortunately, I need the full versions of both, and Toast comes with Peak LE, a limited version of Peak, and Peak 3.0 comes with a limited version of Toast. Might just have to buy both at full-price, which is a bummer.

I checked out the Waves line of Digital Performer plug-ins. Pro stuff at a pro price ($1300). Dunno if I'm gonna do that or not, but if I do, it won't be at the show. I didn't come here with a $1300 budget.

Well, that's my Day One report from MacWorld SF 2002. I'll be attending again on Thursday, and I should have another, smaller report that evening or Friday.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 7, 2002—MacWorld 2002 

Most of the wild speculation didn't come to fruition, but what did was plenty good:

  1. LCD iMacs. G4(!) chips now power the line, a move that was wholly unexpected. Prices roll in at $1299, $1499, and $1799, making these puppies the bargain of the year thus far. The 15" LCD display provides the screen real estate of a 17" CRT according to Apple literature. The speeds, 700- and 800-MHz G4s, are much faster than what was anticipated. The SuperDrive (CD-RW/DVD-R) makes its first appearance in the consumer line, on the $1799 model. Very, very sweet product, and I expect Apple will sell boatloads of them.

  2. iPhoto. A basic photo editing and catalog program bringing the same level of simplicity to digital photography editing that they've brought to MP3s with iTunes, DVD creation with iDVD, and digital video with iMovie. Very slick from the sounds of it, and free for the downloading. Note that it's MacOS X-only, though.

  3. Revved iBooks. Prices dropped $100; low-end now has CD-RW, mid-range gets Combo (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) drive. High-end gets a 14.1" screen! (Poor Trinity is not quite eclipsed by the $1799 high-end iBook, but it's getting close. On the next revision, I think the consumer machines will best Trin's capabilities.)

I'll have more info posted tomorrow night after I'm able to attend the show and go-hands on with the new iMac and iPhoto. Stay tuned.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

January 4, 2002 

Everybody's making WAGs as to what they think will be announced at MacWorld SF 2002 on Monday, so by all means count me in:

  1. LCD iMacs. I called the introduction of LCD iMacs a "no-brainer" for MacWorld NY six months ago. Obviously, it was a "no-brainer"—just not the kind I meant. Well, this time it's really a no-brainer. My god, there's no way Apple would stiff me twice (is there?). So I'm thinking a $999 CRT iMac with 600-MHz G3, 24x CD-ROM for the cash-strapped school district types, and LCD iMacs at $1299, $1599, and $1799 for the rest of us. The differences between the models? 750-MHz, 800-MHz, and 850-MHz G3 processors, plus CD-RW, CD-RW+DVD-ROM, and SuperDrive. Hard drive sizes will also scale appropriately.

  2. G4 Towers. Apple will speed bump the line to 1-GHz and 1.2-GHz, and in the high end offer a dual 1.2-GHz. All price points stay the same as current ($1699, $2499, $3499). The SuperDrive comes with the mid-range and high-end models.

  3. GigaWire. A high speed replacement for FireWire (also FireWire compatible), Apple will put GigaWire ports on all new machines excluding the low-end iMac. GigaWire will also have some Airport-based capability, but I'm not sure exactly how that'll work. (This is all guess work, anyway.)

  4. iPhoto. Apple will introduce a basic photo editing program bringing the same level of simplicity to digital photography editing that they've brought to MP3s with iTunes, DVD creation with iDVD, and digital video with iMovie.

  5. Just for kicks: Apple will announce a Nintendo GameCube emulator. Every GameCube game will run native on a Mac. (Game Cube is based on the PowerPC chip, so it's not completely far fetched.)

  6. Some other iPod-like, digital lifestyle device. I don't think it's a PDA like a Palm Pilot, but I confess I really don't know what it is. I've been banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what it could be, and the best thing I can come up with is a TV-Mac device that acts like a Tivo but operates wirelessly over an Airport network. Either that or a device which allows free telephone calls via the Internet. I don't know what the "thing" is, but given the hype—much of it Apple-generated—it's gotta be something big.

I'll be traveling down to San Francisco and attending MacWorld next week. I will attempt to post nightly hands-on reviews of all the stuff Apple introduces. Stay tuned.
Archives | Mac FAQ | Mac Links | top 

 

 

Unless otherwise noted this web site and its content, including all graphics, text, audio, and video, are
© 1997–2001 by Ty Davison. All rights reserved.