Slashdot Mirror

mcwetboy writes "Calendar publishing with iCal requires a .Mac membership or a WebDAV server. Most ISPs and hosting companies don't offer WebDAV -- or at least mine don't -- but you can run WebDAV under Apache on your Mac, and publish calendars and share them among a local network or among multiple users of a single computer. Already two different tutorials explaining how to do this have appeared on the Web: this one at Mac OS X Hints and this one courtesy of Shawn Wall. I'm sure Slashdot readers could offer even more suggestions." I set up mod_dav for the first time within an hour of downloading iCal the other day, with help from this article. Now, if only iCal weren't really slow and buggy ...

mcwetboy writes "Calendar publishing with iCal requires a .Mac membership or a WebDAV server. Most ISPs and hosting companies don't offer WebDAV -- or at least mine don't -- but you can run WebDAV under Apache on your Mac, and publish calendars and share them among a local network or among multiple users of a single computer. Already two different tutorials explaining how to do this have appeared on the Web: this one at Mac OS X Hints and this one courtesy of Shawn Wall. I'm sure Slashdot readers could offer even more suggestions." I set up mod_dav for the first time within an hour of downloading iCal the other day, with help from this article. Now, if only iCal weren't really slow and buggy ...

analog_line writes "Apple is firing a shot across the bow of Quark with a new promotion bundling Adobe InDesign 2.0 with every new PowerMac G4 (that is, the towers). News.com has a story on this as well. I say go Apple. Hopefully this will either get Quark to release their Mac OS X version of XPress or start the process of killing them off once and for all." I really liked QuarkXPress a lot when I used it extensively back in the version 3 days. It'd be a shame if it they lose out on Apple's new platform. But as a capitalist, I say, let the best product win!

Magnus Olsson writes "Apple announced at Apple Expo in Paris, that they are dropping the ability to boot into Mac OS after January 2003. It will still be possible to access Mac OS via the Classic environment under Mac OS X." Apparently, eWeek was right, and the final nail is being driven. So, where's mol for Mac OS X?

Freezebot writes, "Apple released his new iApp today, iCal. iCal is a calendar manager, which allows you to share your calendars online with your colleagues, family and friends, through your .Mac account. It is a free download." It also works with any WebDAV server. Friendly Canuck adds, "However, iSync is nowhere to be seen. I thought the whole point of iCal was syncing with other devices. Oh well."

Freezebot writes, "Apple released his new iApp today, iCal. iCal is a calendar manager, which allows you to share your calendars online with your colleagues, family and friends, through your .Mac account. It is a free download." It also works with any WebDAV server. Friendly Canuck adds, "However, iSync is nowhere to be seen. I thought the whole point of iCal was syncing with other devices. Oh well."

WCityMike writes "This switch document for developers details the interface differences between Microsoft Windows and the Aqua interface used in Mac OS X. Written on a layman's level, it actually makes for pretty interesting reading!"

Etcetera writes "Apple has released their Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) Technote chock-full of useful information about the API and technical changes in Jaguar. Interested parties will find lots of neat stuff in here... including the idea of storing kernel panic info in NVRAM and writing it to a logfile on reboot."

Etcetera writes "Apple has released their Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) Technote chock-full of useful information about the API and technical changes in Jaguar. Interested parties will find lots of neat stuff in here... including the idea of storing kernel panic info in NVRAM and writing it to a logfile on reboot."

Snuffub writes "According to MacCentral, Apple announced during an interview today that they would be releasing Rendezvous, their implementation of the zeroconf standard, under an open source license. I can't see this as being anything but great news for everyone involved -- the community gets a mature implementation of an emerging technology, and Apple benefits as more devices are created to support Rendezvous. For everyone interested, you'll be able to download the source from Apple's site in a couple weeks." uglyhead69 adds: "The article is light on details and doesn't mention what license will be used, but it's probably safe to assume that it's the APSL."

Snuffub writes "According to MacCentral, Apple announced during an interview today that they would be releasing Rendezvous, their implementation of the zeroconf standard, under an open source license. I can't see this as being anything but great news for everyone involved -- the community gets a mature implementation of an emerging technology, and Apple benefits as more devices are created to support Rendezvous. For everyone interested, you'll be able to download the source from Apple's site in a couple weeks." uglyhead69 adds: "The article is light on details and doesn't mention what license will be used, but it's probably safe to assume that it's the APSL."

Jeff Paradiso writes "If you want a Mac tablet make it! Using an original iBook, a touch screen from Troll Touch Touchscreen, a bigger Hammer, and a heat gun you can make it. Kids don't try this at home." Will this work with Inkwell? And Riscx writes "Thought a few of you would like to see puter modifications I did to a Mac G4. Enjoy." Mmmm, blue.

rsilverman asks: "I recently bought the 23" Apple Cinema Display, which I am using on my TiBook, and I'm loving it! Now, I would like to also connect it to my Intel box running Win2k (perhaps ultimately using a digital video switch box). I thought this might be relatively simple -- I went out and bought an AGP video card with the same chip set as is in some Macs, the nVidia GeForce Ti, and it listed the monitor's highest resolution as supported. No go. Tried the Radeon 7500 -- also no go. The monitor backlight powers up, but no picture. Then I read some more, and judging from what I was able to find (and don't really understand), the monitor's resolution (1920x1200) is near the edge of what can be done using the DVI standard. Does anyone out there know more about this? Got it working?"

"Cards tend to support that resolution and higher only with analog signalling, not digital. I've seen claims that it can be supported using some kind of non-standard timing ('pushing data during the blanking interval'), which I assume is a driver issue. Then there's 'dual-link DVI' -- using two of the usual DVI data links in parallel (still over a single connector, just using more pins). The Apple specs do not mention whether the monitor is single- or dual-link. At the moment, my best bet appears to be the 3DLabs Wildcat VP or III cards (one of which supports dual-link). However, they're very expensive, and I'm still not sure it will work."

I am a bitter old man. I hate change. Mac OS -- not Mac OS X, which is a different OS -- in its various iterations has been my OS of choice for over 15 years, and I have not looked fondly on the day that streak ends. But that day may very well be at hand. I like Mac OS X v10.2 enough that it may soon become my primary OS. From the day Apple acquired NeXT, and Rhapsody was announced, I was excited about the prospect of a "modern operating system" (read: Unix) that would look and act like my beloved Mac OS. But as Mac OS X started to become a reality, it became clear that this was not going to be Mac OS. It was going to be MacNeXT.

Oh, it wasn't entirely un-Mac-like. But it was different enough that I wasn't comfortable in it. I love Mac OS because of its ease of use and applications and interface and all of the little things. I sit in front of this darned computer for most of my waking hours, and if I am not comfortable with it, then it's no good. Life is too short.

Mac OS X v10.0 was a disappointment to me, and many loyalists to Mac OS. Many things in the interface just didn't work at all, or as well as, they did in Mac OS. Many still don't work right, including cmd+arrow keys to open and close arrows in Finder windows (half works: cmd+opt+arrow should open or close all hierarchical folders) and in dialogs with progress bars, such as file copying (doesn't work). The file dialogs, stuck in a column view, are, in my opinion, a glaring design flaw. In many places in the OS, you can't merely hit "return" in an active dialog to select the default button (if there is a default button at all), or "escape" to cancel.

But these problems were just the beginning. In 10.0, performance was bad, even on G4s. This improved significantly in 10.1, but Mac OS v9.2 still seemed faster. The entire Mac OS X UI -- while eminently "lickable," like no OS before it -- was tiring to look at. Anti-aliasing made things harder to read, especially on LCDs, even with the unnaturally large fonts in the Finder; many of the UI elements, including the aqua ones, often distracted the eye.

But in 10.2 (Jaguar), much has changed. The aqua elements are sharper, crisper ... perhaps shinier. Many of the UI elements, such as the Dock, are more subdued. The Finder has more options for changing the appearance of elements such as font size. Gosh, complaining about font size sounds petty, but darnit, it is so much nicer to look at.

The cursors are improved: the busy cursor has gone from an ugly rainbow pinwheel to a cute rainbow pinwheel (and how long before Steve makes it monochrome?). The arrow cursor has a better outline around it. The I-bar cursor still needs work; I lose it on dark backgrounds. In Mac OS, that cursor would change from dark to light when it passed over something dark.

Similarly, I also now lose my selection box in the Finder; in previous versions of Mac OS X, a selection box in a white space would appear grey. Now it is white, and invisible. Oops.

But while in the Finder, one of my old favorites is finally back: multiple Get Info windows. If you select multiple items at once, you still get the single window with all the items, but you can at least now open many Get Info items for individual items, one at a time. And you can get the old behavior of a single floating window ("Inspector") by holding down Option.

I still can't copy the content of a text clipping in the Finder. That's just insane. Open the clipping. Read it. Cmd-c to copy the contents to the Clipboard. This is a no-brainer.

It's all of these little touches that make a significant difference in whether I can comfortably use the OS on a daily basis. And for the first time ever, despite the problems that still exist, I am mostly comfortable.

And man, is Jaguar fast. Everything is just more responsive. Previously, clicking on UI elements would begin a delay that isn't there anymore. It's noticeably quicker. Even Classic seems quicker, despite the fact that Mac OS is no longer included with Mac OS X.

But I still can't do everything in Mac OS X, even with Classic. My UMAX (*spit*) scanner won't work, and likely never will; I use it seldom enough that it's probably a better use of my time and money to boot into Mac OS to use it, for now. I am having trouble getting reliable fax software to work, so I booted into Mac OS to use FaxSTF last weekend (I was going to install the 10.0 installer I have and then the Jaguar update when it comes out, but 10.0 won't install at all on Jaguar, so I am probably out of luck with that, though I am keeping my eye on Cocoa eFax, too).

But most important to my comfort is that all of the apps I know and love from Mac OS -- BBEdit, Interarchy, DragThing, Mozilla, Eudora -- work natively in Mac OS X. The operating system exists to host applications. They are the reason I use the computer. I want the same apps, and, thankfully, I have them. Further, much of Mac OS is still there, like QuickTime, AirPort, Keychains, AppleScript, and Internet Config (although this works somewhat oddly in some cases, and there's not much of a UI for it).

But the big question is: why should I use Mac OS X? If I am just trying to recreate Mac OS, why not just stick with Mac OS?

There are two answers. The first is a single word: Unix. I don't need to describe in detail why Unix is a Good Thing to Slashdot readers, but I will say that XDarwin and fink are two of the most important features of Mac OS X, and having a stable operating system is a joy. The stability of Mac OS certainly was pretty good -- ignore the hypocrites who used to praise Mac OS but now decry it -- but it can't match Mac OS X. That I can put my laptop to sleep, and wake immediately, and still have many TCP/IP connections open, is incredible to me.

The second answer is that new features are added to Mac OS X to make it too compelling to ignore.

The i* software suite -- iChat, iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iCal, iSync, iProbablyForgotSomething -- are in many cases some of the best products to hit personal computing in many years. iMovie and iDVD are leaders in their niches. iTunes was a bit flat in its earlier versions, but gets more compelling in its feature set every year. iChat is actually a nice chat client: unobtrusive, mostly well-integrated into the system and Address Book, and easy on the eyes (it's also a little buggy; expect a few crashes). iPhoto is a nice beginning, but really needs better features for more flexible exporting of image metadata to be well-used. iCal and iSync aren't yet released, but by all accounts look very promising: how long before I ditch my PDA, or at least Palm Desktop's contacts and calendar apps?

Then there's Rendezvous -- the "zero configuration" networking -- which is only beginning to get significant use, but is sure to be a staple of many applications for years to come. Despite having some problems with printer sharing (making a comeback, finally) via Rendezvous -- I mistakenly had some computers on my network with a 255.0.0.0 subnet mask while others were 255.255.255.0, and this was enough to throw it off -- it requires zero configuration once you're configured properly.

Sherlock is now finally its own separate beast, with Find integrated into the Finder (imagine that!) and no longer is it scraping web pages, but it is enabled with web services goodness.

All of these features and more are only available in Mac OS X. If you want them, you need to switch.

Still, some things simply don't work in Mac OS X v10.2. The upgrade went smoothly, but various third-party apps, and even some Apple programs, had trouble. My chosen replacements for the Dock -- DragThing and LiteSwitch X -- both needed updates (Proteron says LiteSwitchX update should be available any day now). WeatherPop needed updating. WirelessDriver -- a serious boon to PowerBook G4 users who need to work more than 20 feet from a wireless base station -- no longer works, and it's not been updated in many months.

Apple Remote Desktop 1.0.x doesn't work; you'll need to run Software Update to get version 1.1. Unfortunately, even the new version only half-worked for me; the client side seems fine, but the Admin app says it is not installed properly. I wanted to just uninstall the whole thing and start over, but there is no uninstall option, that I could find. So I deleted all the files that the Installer installs, and then tried to reinstall, and the Installer says it is already installed. So now I have nothing, and I can't change it.

I thought for awhile that Apple's ScriptMenu didn't work, too; it was still sitting in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/ where I had left it, but it was not launching. I searched for ScriptMenu on the discs and hard drive for information or a replacement, and on Apple's site, but found nothing. I was later informed the name had been changed from "ScriptMenu" to "Script Menu": the replacement was in the /Applications/AppleScript/ directory. Oops.

fink has a few problems, as one might expect with an OS update that sees a move from gcc2.9 to gcc3.1. Most of the things I tried worked fine without recompiling, including XFree86. But xterm and bash broke because of dependencies relating to the change gcc3.1, and manconf (a wrapper for Mac OS X's man) broke, because the Jaguar man doesn't accept the -C option to specify a configuration file. The workaround is to install fink's man, or at least remove /sw/bin/man in the meantime. The fink team is working to resolve the issues, and updates are forthcoming. An update for xterm is available on the XonX page.

SSHAgentServices, which sets an ssh-agent for the entire login session, stopped working; but the author of SSHPassKey, which I use to provide the ssh password to GUI apps, said he would integrate ssh-agent services into the next version of his application. Some of TinkerTool was obsoleted by 10.2, as Apple has added some of those preferences into their UIs, things like Terminal transparency, and what to do with newly mounted CDs and DVDs, so there's a new version available.

Currently, SharePoints doesn't work. This configures NetInfo to allow you to share arbitrary folders with any users via file sharing. So now I don't have a reasonable file server, unless I want to give everyone admin access to see all the volumes on the machine. But the author says he has discovered the problem, and a new version is forthcoming. This makes me quite happy.

There's also the long-standing and unresolved problem of AvantGo not working with Mac OS X. It's amazing that this is still broken.

I'm not making any firm commitments, but I am using Mac OS X as my primary OS right now, and it's the least painful it's ever been. That's more of a compliment than it seems. But there's enough that doesn't work, enough that's raw -- especially with third-party software -- that I'd recommend people who don't like pain to wait at least a few weeks, if not a month or so, to allow all of the issues to be worked out, tech notes to be published, and workarounds to be posted.

yoshiaki writes "Mac OS X Security Update 2002-08-23 includes updated components (OpenSSL, Security, & SunRPC) for Mac OS X 10.2, which provide increased security to prevent unauthorized access to applications, servers, and the operating system. Mac OS X Security Update 2002-08-23 is available at the Apple Knowledge Base." This appears to me to be similar to the update of a few days ago, but for 10.2 instead of 10.1.

Snaggy writes "Nitrozac and I wanted to celebrate the release of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar in geeky style, so we designed the ultimate Jaguar pizza! Here's what we did, and how you can make one too... The Jaguar Genius Pizza! enJoy!" If you are the kind of person who thinks this is a good idea, you'll probably want to go to "100 Minutes of Jaguar" tonight at 10:20 p.m., at an Apple Store near you. I'm going.

Snaggy writes "Nitrozac and I wanted to celebrate the release of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar in geeky style, so we designed the ultimate Jaguar pizza! Here's what we did, and how you can make one too... The Jaguar Genius Pizza! enJoy!" If you are the kind of person who thinks this is a good idea, you'll probably want to go to "100 Minutes of Jaguar" tonight at 10:20 p.m., at an Apple Store near you. I'm going.

hype7 writes "The reviews on Apple's new Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" are starting to come through. The New York Times (free reg required) heaps on the praise: 'Mac OS X 10.2 is the best-looking, least-intrusive and most thoughtfully designed operating system walking the earth today.' MacCentral is positive: 'From what I've seen Jaguar is leaps and bounds ahead of Mac OS X 10.1 in both speed and functionality.' MacWorld has also chimed in: 'for most users, there are a lot of important improvements in this upgrade: performance boosts, improved printing, and interface enhancements will be immediate benefits. And over time, Mac OS X 10.2's new technologies (including Quartz Extreme and Rendezvous) will make the update even more valuable.'"

sg3000 writes "A friend asked me a question about setting up shared address books with Mac OS X, but I have no idea how to solve this. He wants to set up an address book that can be accessed by different user accounts on the same Mac or by different Macs in the same household. This would be useful for having a single place to put contact info for family and friends. His first thought was to move the Entourage user folder to the Shared folder in Mac OS X and just move aliases of that folder to each of the users' folders. This way when they open Entourage they would see the same address book and both can make changes to it. The downside? Well, you're stuck with Entourage, it will work only on a single machine, everything is shared between the users (all contacts not just a subset, calendar, email, to-do list, etc) and it won't work with other mail clients. I know with the new Mac OS X 10.2, you can share calendars between people using iCal. Is there some way to do this with the new address book for Jaguar too? Since 10.2 is basically shipping now, you can throw NDAs and caution to the winds!"

"My solution was to set up a FileMaker Pro database and put the file in the Shared folder. The downside is you couldn't do a simple lookup from the email compose window like you can with the integrated address book.

So finally I thought, what if you set up an LDAP server running on one Mac in the house, and then just set up your email clients to access those. Easy, except other than what I just described I know nothing about LDAP.

LDAP looks like it's a lot more than the shared email list that you see in a mail client. And I couldn't find an LDAP server for Mac OS X. It looks like OS X Server has something but that's overkill; we're talking about sharing addresses among five people, tops. Mac OS X has something called Directory Setup that looked kind of right, but Google returned no info on how to do this."

liquidbrains writes "With 'Princess Mononoke' fresh in our memories, the number one highest grossing film in Japan -ever- is coming to the US. Thanks to Disney and Pixar's John Lasseter, who has supervised the dub, we can soon expect a fine English adaptation of animation master Hayao Miyazaki's latest masterpiece, 'Spirited Away'. See the trailer here." Reader thefalconer writes "It seems that Apple has just released the very first trailer to X-Men 2 on their website. From what I've seen this movie looks like it's going to rock! Too bad I have to wait for May of next year!"

liquidbrains writes "With 'Princess Mononoke' fresh in our memories, the number one highest grossing film in Japan -ever- is coming to the US. Thanks to Disney and Pixar's John Lasseter, who has supervised the dub, we can soon expect a fine English adaptation of animation master Hayao Miyazaki's latest masterpiece, 'Spirited Away'. See the trailer here." Reader thefalconer writes "It seems that Apple has just released the very first trailer to X-Men 2 on their website. From what I've seen this movie looks like it's going to rock! Too bad I have to wait for May of next year!"

liquidbrains writes "With 'Princess Mononoke' fresh in our memories, the number one highest grossing film in Japan -ever- is coming to the US. Thanks to Disney and Pixar's John Lasseter, who has supervised the dub, we can soon expect a fine English adaptation of animation master Hayao Miyazaki's latest masterpiece, 'Spirited Away'. See the trailer here." Reader thefalconer writes "It seems that Apple has just released the very first trailer to X-Men 2 on their website. From what I've seen this movie looks like it's going to rock! Too bad I have to wait for May of next year!"

Prozy.G3 writes "Mac OS X Security Update 2002-08-20 includes updated components (OpenSSL & Security) which provide increased security to prevent unauthorized access to applications, servers, and the operating system. Mac OS X Security Update 2002-08-20 is available either through the Software Update application (System Preferences) or at the Apple Knowledge Base." According to the Knowledge Base, it is for Mac OS X 10.1.5; are these components already in Mac OS X 10.2, or is another update forthcoming?

EelBait writes "I'm surprised that few people have picked up on this, considering how much noise was made when Software Base Station was unavailable on previous versions of Mac OS X. But, as I was reading through the 'and more' section of the list of new Jaguar features, I came across the AirPort Software Base Station item. You'll need to scroll down to the Networking section. You'll also see things like IPv6, IPsec, PAM, and Active Directory." Bringing back this and USB Printer Sharing are two of the many good things about 10.2.

benh57 writes "Apple today announced the new Power Mac G4 towers with new faces, running at dual-867MHz (US$1,699), dual-1GHz ($2,499), and dual-1.25GHz ($3,299). All are running DDR, the two higher end models at 166MHz FSB with Radeon 9000, the low end at 133 w/GF4MX." Check it out at The Apple Store, and keep your eyes peeled for an appearance on the Power Mac G4 site.

benh57 writes "Apple today announced the new Power Mac G4 towers with new faces, running at dual-867MHz (US$1,699), dual-1GHz ($2,499), and dual-1.25GHz ($3,299). All are running DDR, the two higher end models at 166MHz FSB with Radeon 9000, the low end at 133 w/GF4MX." Check it out at The Apple Store, and keep your eyes peeled for an appearance on the Power Mac G4 site.

Walter Weeks writes "This afternoon Apple has released the much anticipated iPod Software Update 1.2. This update adds a slew of features and updates such as iCal support, a digital clock, sound check, restructuring of the menu hierarchy, and more! Currently, it is not available for Mac OS 9 nor via Software Update, but you can get it on Apple's iPod site." It also has the promised audible.com support. Now that I have a web browser in my phone and a calendar in the iPod and contacts in both, maybe I can get an iPod and sell the Palm. If only the phone or iPod had AvantGo ...

mcwop writes "Apple announced the release of a free FireWire SDK for embedded devices. The kit is not OS-dependent. Is this a response to the release of USB 2.0 or is Apple simply trying to keep a steady stream of FireWire devices coming? What effect will this have on FireWire b? What are the effects on the Open Source community developing FireWire interfaces? Time will tell. Nonetheless this is an interesting development."

mattvd writes "Apple has posted Security Update 2002-08-02. According to the release notes it 'includes the following updated components which provide increased security to prevent unauthorized access to applications, servers, and the operating system: Apache v1.3.26, OpenSSH v3.4p1, OpenSSL v0.9.6e, SunRPC, mod_ssl v2.8.10.' As usual, Apple has mirrored the MD5 checksum for the update at a secure server."

mattvd writes "Apple has posted Security Update 2002-08-02. According to the release notes it 'includes the following updated components which provide increased security to prevent unauthorized access to applications, servers, and the operating system: Apache v1.3.26, OpenSSH v3.4p1, OpenSSL v0.9.6e, SunRPC, mod_ssl v2.8.10.' As usual, Apple has mirrored the MD5 checksum for the update at a secure server."

CrezzyMan writes "From this post on the Newtontalk.net mailing list: Some of you may be interested to know that in the Inkwell section on Apple's website the following original text (straight after the keynote): 'Based on the Newton's 'Print Recognizer'-widely considered to be the world's first genuinely usable handwriting recognition solution-Inkwell's handwriting recognition is highly accurate and extensively tested' has been changed to: 'Built on Apple's Recognition Engine - Inkwell's handwriting recognition is the best in the industry.' Steve must really hate the Newton..." I'd be more likely to consider Inkwell a good technology if I knew it was from the Newton, but I was an actual Newton user. Most people erroneously think the HWR in Newton OS was bad (thanks to The Simpsons!).

MaxVlast writes "Macintouch is reporting that Apple is extending the Mac OS X Up-to-Date and Mac OS X Server Up-to-Date programs to include Jaguar Server upgrades for just $19.95 in response to intense criticism. This is good news to people who just bought an expensive XServe with expensive Mac OS X Server who don't very much want to pay the full upgrade price." Apple also added that people who bought Mac OS X 10.1 retail, by itself, can get an upgrade if purchased July 17 or later.

MaxVlast writes "Macintouch is reporting that Apple is extending the Mac OS X Up-to-Date and Mac OS X Server Up-to-Date programs to include Jaguar Server upgrades for just $19.95 in response to intense criticism. This is good news to people who just bought an expensive XServe with expensive Mac OS X Server who don't very much want to pay the full upgrade price." Apple also added that people who bought Mac OS X 10.1 retail, by itself, can get an upgrade if purchased July 17 or later.

x180 writes "Those goofy hackers over at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in San Diego this week have, in a spate of fun, put together a series of Switch ad spoofs for the geeky ones. Writes Rael Dornfest in his blog, 'You've no doubt seen Apple's fabulous Switch campaign commercials. But what of the others? The geeky ones. The scripters. The sysadmins in their server cages. The command-line jockeys. Those through whom the source flows openly.' See the stories of hackers chucking Emacs in favor of Vi, leaving Perl to explore Python, and leaving the familiar home of Unix to play with XP." These, of course, aren't the only switch parodies. Their numbers are Legion.

SpillerC writes "The requirements for the newest version of Shake (cross-platform: Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Irix) will require a three-button mouse on the Mac. Are there any other Apple-produced applications (Apple owns Shake) that require a three-button mouse? Will Apple release its own three-button mouse now?"

drc writes in that MacSlash notes that, according to the Apple gcc3 list, "The gcc3 project has been 'closed' for Jaguar, meaning that at this point there is almost no chance that there will be any further changes to the compiler that ships with Jaguar." If you really want to play, break out CVS and get to it.

micah_lanier writes "From Software Update: The Disc Recording Update delivers additional iTunes and Finder support for a number of LaCie, EZquest, and Iomega CD-R devices. For a specific list of supported devices, visit the Apple CD-R Compatibility site."

dtype writes "Now we can begin to see where some of Apple's latest purchases are heading. Shake 2.5 for Mac OS X was announced today. It is notable that the Mac OS X version costs half as much as versions for other operating systems, and that current customers have the option of doubling their current number of licenses at no cost by migrating to Mac OS X." Mac OS X 10.2 will be required, so add $120 to the cost of each license, too. It's still a bargain at just over $5,000, though.

Anonymous Coward writes "EverQuest is coming to a Mac near you, as reported on GameSpot. Sony is planning to release it on Mac OS X sometime next year. You can also find details on Apple's website. Scott McDaniel, vice president of marketing for Sony Online said 'Combine the power and stability of Mac OS X with Apple's outstanding desktop systems and you've got an incredible gaming environment that'll take full advantage of EverQuest's huge and seamless 3D world.' (sounds good to me =)"

Aqua_Geek writes "Also announced was Mac OS X Server 10.2. From Apple's PR site: '"Jaguar" Server introduces more than 50 new features, including powerful new NetBoot and NetInstall network management tools, based on Apple's new LDAPv3 Open Directory architecture that simplifies user and computer management for business, education and government customers.'" The price is $500 for 10 clients, and $1000 for unlimited clients.

Steve Jobs today announced at the Macworld Keynote that Mac OS X 10.2 will be available August 24 for $129. "That's less than $1 for each major feature," he quipped. Updates will be available in some cases for $19.99. Also introduced were iTunes 3, iPod updates, iChat, iCal, iSync, a 17" iMac, and a lot more. Many of the new features have been mentioned here before, including QuickTime 6, spring-loaded folders, integrated Finder searching, better Windows integration, new Address Book, new Mail, Rendezvous, iChat, and Sherlock 3.

The Address Book is now system-wide, accessible from many applications, and even has Bluetooth integration. Jobs dialed his cell phone via Address Book, and then when someone called him back on that phone, the computer popped up with the caller's name in Address Book. He had the option to pick up the phone or reply with a short text message.

iSync is a new system for synching your contacts and calendars with GPRS cell phones, Palms, and iPods; so Palms and cell phones are now a part of the digital hub. The iSync program shows you connected devices, and allows configuration of what to sync, and when. The demo showed a complete sync of an address book on the computer to the cell phone, again over Bluetooth. iSync will also allow integration with .mac to update your contacts and calendars between multiple computers, and will be available as a free download in September.

The Mail app now has much better searching and spam filtering, and inline QuickTime (no, that won't be abused ...).

Rendezvous will allow such things as automatic accessing of other's playlists in iTunes, accessing USB printers on the network, and more, with "zero configuration" (I hope there is some configuration, so I can opt in or out of such things). Epson, HP, and Lexmark will have Rendezvous-compatible printers. Jobs didn't mention any way to share USB printers between Mac OS and Mac OS X.

iChat, the new instant messaging program, and iCal, the new shared calendar program, can work with the $100-per-year .mac subscription, or with the free AOL IM account and any web server. iChat will use Rendezvous for finding local users, and shared calendars can be sent via iChat or mail. iCal will ship in September, as a free download.

Sherlock 3 has been completely rewritten, using Internet services (SOAP? XML-RPC?) instead of trying to parse HTML. The demo showed movie listings with embedded trailers, eBay searches with intelligently organized information and pictures, Google image searching, and a Yellow Pages search that knows your ZIP code and sorts by distance, and shows directions and maps.

iTunes 3 is out today, with new features such as rating songs, keeping track of how often songs are played, playing back all songs at the same volume, integration with audible.com, and "Smart Playlists" with rulesets so they are automatically populated (e.g., "25 most played songs", or "500 MB of songs where playcount is 0", to play songs you've never listened to). It is only available for Mac OS X, and requires registration with an email address.

For the iPod, Apple lowered prices on the 5GB and 10GB models ($299, $399), and introduced a 20GB model ($499). The 10GB and 20GB have a solid state scroll wheel, a door to protect the FireWire port, a remote control, and a case. The playlist counts, Smart Playlists, and audible.com integration sync between the iPod and iTunes. Sound volume check has also been added to the iPod. The new 10GB model is 7.692 percent thinner than the previous version.

Also added to the iPod, in addition to the contacts, is calendars, synched with iCal, so it can really act as a PDA for most people. Jobs also announced Windows versions of iPod, synching with musicmatch and including a FireWire 6-to-4 pin cable.

The new iMac has a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900, with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, G4/800, and 80GB hard drive.

Jobs also noted that there are 2.5 million Mac OS X users, that 77 percent of owners of new Macs keep Mac OS X as the primary OS, and that they estimate there will be 5 million Mac OS X users by the end of the year, representing 20% of all Mac users using the new OS in the first 24 months.

Apple showed some new ads in the "Switch" campaign, including a student who lost her paper on Windows, a student whose CDs get messed up in his bag (although they didn't point out that he can use iPod under Windows now), and a comedian who ended his commercial with, "My name is Will Ferrell ... and I'm a porn actor."

Steve Jobs today announced at the Macworld Keynote that Mac OS X 10.2 will be available August 24 for $129. "That's less than $1 for each major feature," he quipped. Updates will be available in some cases for $19.99. Also introduced were iTunes 3, iPod updates, iChat, iCal, iSync, a 17" iMac, and a lot more. Many of the new features have been mentioned here before, including QuickTime 6, spring-loaded folders, integrated Finder searching, better Windows integration, new Address Book, new Mail, Rendezvous, iChat, and Sherlock 3.

The Address Book is now system-wide, accessible from many applications, and even has Bluetooth integration. Jobs dialed his cell phone via Address Book, and then when someone called him back on that phone, the computer popped up with the caller's name in Address Book. He had the option to pick up the phone or reply with a short text message.

iSync is a new system for synching your contacts and calendars with GPRS cell phones, Palms, and iPods; so Palms and cell phones are now a part of the digital hub. The iSync program shows you connected devices, and allows configuration of what to sync, and when. The demo showed a complete sync of an address book on the computer to the cell phone, again over Bluetooth. iSync will also allow integration with .mac to update your contacts and calendars between multiple computers, and will be available as a free download in September.

The Mail app now has much better searching and spam filtering, and inline QuickTime (no, that won't be abused ...).

Rendezvous will allow such things as automatic accessing of other's playlists in iTunes, accessing USB printers on the network, and more, with "zero configuration" (I hope there is some configuration, so I can opt in or out of such things). Epson, HP, and Lexmark will have Rendezvous-compatible printers. Jobs didn't mention any way to share USB printers between Mac OS and Mac OS X.

iChat, the new instant messaging program, and iCal, the new shared calendar program, can work with the $100-per-year .mac subscription, or with the free AOL IM account and any web server. iChat will use Rendezvous for finding local users, and shared calendars can be sent via iChat or mail. iCal will ship in September, as a free download.

Sherlock 3 has been completely rewritten, using Internet services (SOAP? XML-RPC?) instead of trying to parse HTML. The demo showed movie listings with embedded trailers, eBay searches with intelligently organized information and pictures, Google image searching, and a Yellow Pages search that knows your ZIP code and sorts by distance, and shows directions and maps.

iTunes 3 is out today, with new features such as rating songs, keeping track of how often songs are played, playing back all songs at the same volume, integration with audible.com, and "Smart Playlists" with rulesets so they are automatically populated (e.g., "25 most played songs", or "500 MB of songs where playcount is 0", to play songs you've never listened to). It is only available for Mac OS X, and requires registration with an email address.

For the iPod, Apple lowered prices on the 5GB and 10GB models ($299, $399), and introduced a 20GB model ($499). The 10GB and 20GB have a solid state scroll wheel, a door to protect the FireWire port, a remote control, and a case. The playlist counts, Smart Playlists, and audible.com integration sync between the iPod and iTunes. Sound volume check has also been added to the iPod. The new 10GB model is 7.692 percent thinner than the previous version.

Also added to the iPod, in addition to the contacts, is calendars, synched with iCal, so it can really act as a PDA for most people. Jobs also announced Windows versions of iPod, synching with musicmatch and including a FireWire 6-to-4 pin cable.

The new iMac has a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900, with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, G4/800, and 80GB hard drive.

Jobs also noted that there are 2.5 million Mac OS X users, that 77 percent of owners of new Macs keep Mac OS X as the primary OS, and that they estimate there will be 5 million Mac OS X users by the end of the year, representing 20% of all Mac users using the new OS in the first 24 months.

Apple showed some new ads in the "Switch" campaign, including a student who lost her paper on Windows, a student whose CDs get messed up in his bag (although they didn't point out that he can use iPod under Windows now), and a comedian who ended his commercial with, "My name is Will Ferrell ... and I'm a porn actor."

Steve Jobs today announced at the Macworld Keynote that Mac OS X 10.2 will be available August 24 for $129. "That's less than $1 for each major feature," he quipped. Updates will be available in some cases for $19.99. Also introduced were iTunes 3, iPod updates, iChat, iCal, iSync, a 17" iMac, and a lot more. Many of the new features have been mentioned here before, including QuickTime 6, spring-loaded folders, integrated Finder searching, better Windows integration, new Address Book, new Mail, Rendezvous, iChat, and Sherlock 3.

The Address Book is now system-wide, accessible from many applications, and even has Bluetooth integration. Jobs dialed his cell phone via Address Book, and then when someone called him back on that phone, the computer popped up with the caller's name in Address Book. He had the option to pick up the phone or reply with a short text message.

iSync is a new system for synching your contacts and calendars with GPRS cell phones, Palms, and iPods; so Palms and cell phones are now a part of the digital hub. The iSync program shows you connected devices, and allows configuration of what to sync, and when. The demo showed a complete sync of an address book on the computer to the cell phone, again over Bluetooth. iSync will also allow integration with .mac to update your contacts and calendars between multiple computers, and will be available as a free download in September.

The Mail app now has much better searching and spam filtering, and inline QuickTime (no, that won't be abused ...).

Rendezvous will allow such things as automatic accessing of other's playlists in iTunes, accessing USB printers on the network, and more, with "zero configuration" (I hope there is some configuration, so I can opt in or out of such things). Epson, HP, and Lexmark will have Rendezvous-compatible printers. Jobs didn't mention any way to share USB printers between Mac OS and Mac OS X.

iChat, the new instant messaging program, and iCal, the new shared calendar program, can work with the $100-per-year .mac subscription, or with the free AOL IM account and any web server. iChat will use Rendezvous for finding local users, and shared calendars can be sent via iChat or mail. iCal will ship in September, as a free download.

Sherlock 3 has been completely rewritten, using Internet services (SOAP? XML-RPC?) instead of trying to parse HTML. The demo showed movie listings with embedded trailers, eBay searches with intelligently organized information and pictures, Google image searching, and a Yellow Pages search that knows your ZIP code and sorts by distance, and shows directions and maps.

iTunes 3 is out today, with new features such as rating songs, keeping track of how often songs are played, playing back all songs at the same volume, integration with audible.com, and "Smart Playlists" with rulesets so they are automatically populated (e.g., "25 most played songs", or "500 MB of songs where playcount is 0", to play songs you've never listened to). It is only available for Mac OS X, and requires registration with an email address.

For the iPod, Apple lowered prices on the 5GB and 10GB models ($299, $399), and introduced a 20GB model ($499). The 10GB and 20GB have a solid state scroll wheel, a door to protect the FireWire port, a remote control, and a case. The playlist counts, Smart Playlists, and audible.com integration sync between the iPod and iTunes. Sound volume check has also been added to the iPod. The new 10GB model is 7.692 percent thinner than the previous version.

Also added to the iPod, in addition to the contacts, is calendars, synched with iCal, so it can really act as a PDA for most people. Jobs also announced Windows versions of iPod, synching with musicmatch and including a FireWire 6-to-4 pin cable.

The new iMac has a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900, with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, G4/800, and 80GB hard drive.

Jobs also noted that there are 2.5 million Mac OS X users, that 77 percent of owners of new Macs keep Mac OS X as the primary OS, and that they estimate there will be 5 million Mac OS X users by the end of the year, representing 20% of all Mac users using the new OS in the first 24 months.

Apple showed some new ads in the "Switch" campaign, including a student who lost her paper on Windows, a student whose CDs get messed up in his bag (although they didn't point out that he can use iPod under Windows now), and a comedian who ended his commercial with, "My name is Will Ferrell ... and I'm a porn actor."

Steve Jobs today announced at the Macworld Keynote that Mac OS X 10.2 will be available August 24 for $129. "That's less than $1 for each major feature," he quipped. Updates will be available in some cases for $19.99. Also introduced were iTunes 3, iPod updates, iChat, iCal, iSync, a 17" iMac, and a lot more. Many of the new features have been mentioned here before, including QuickTime 6, spring-loaded folders, integrated Finder searching, better Windows integration, new Address Book, new Mail, Rendezvous, iChat, and Sherlock 3.

The Address Book is now system-wide, accessible from many applications, and even has Bluetooth integration. Jobs dialed his cell phone via Address Book, and then when someone called him back on that phone, the computer popped up with the caller's name in Address Book. He had the option to pick up the phone or reply with a short text message.

iSync is a new system for synching your contacts and calendars with GPRS cell phones, Palms, and iPods; so Palms and cell phones are now a part of the digital hub. The iSync program shows you connected devices, and allows configuration of what to sync, and when. The demo showed a complete sync of an address book on the computer to the cell phone, again over Bluetooth. iSync will also allow integration with .mac to update your contacts and calendars between multiple computers, and will be available as a free download in September.

The Mail app now has much better searching and spam filtering, and inline QuickTime (no, that won't be abused ...).

Rendezvous will allow such things as automatic accessing of other's playlists in iTunes, accessing USB printers on the network, and more, with "zero configuration" (I hope there is some configuration, so I can opt in or out of such things). Epson, HP, and Lexmark will have Rendezvous-compatible printers. Jobs didn't mention any way to share USB printers between Mac OS and Mac OS X.

iChat, the new instant messaging program, and iCal, the new shared calendar program, can work with the $100-per-year .mac subscription, or with the free AOL IM account and any web server. iChat will use Rendezvous for finding local users, and shared calendars can be sent via iChat or mail. iCal will ship in September, as a free download.

Sherlock 3 has been completely rewritten, using Internet services (SOAP? XML-RPC?) instead of trying to parse HTML. The demo showed movie listings with embedded trailers, eBay searches with intelligently organized information and pictures, Google image searching, and a Yellow Pages search that knows your ZIP code and sorts by distance, and shows directions and maps.

iTunes 3 is out today, with new features such as rating songs, keeping track of how often songs are played, playing back all songs at the same volume, integration with audible.com, and "Smart Playlists" with rulesets so they are automatically populated (e.g., "25 most played songs", or "500 MB of songs where playcount is 0", to play songs you've never listened to). It is only available for Mac OS X, and requires registration with an email address.

For the iPod, Apple lowered prices on the 5GB and 10GB models ($299, $399), and introduced a 20GB model ($499). The 10GB and 20GB have a solid state scroll wheel, a door to protect the FireWire port, a remote control, and a case. The playlist counts, Smart Playlists, and audible.com integration sync between the iPod and iTunes. Sound volume check has also been added to the iPod. The new 10GB model is 7.692 percent thinner than the previous version.

Also added to the iPod, in addition to the contacts, is calendars, synched with iCal, so it can really act as a PDA for most people. Jobs also announced Windows versions of iPod, synching with musicmatch and including a FireWire 6-to-4 pin cable.

The new iMac has a 17" widescreen display at 1440x900, with an NVIDIA GeForce4 MX, G4/800, and 80GB hard drive.

Jobs also noted that there are 2.5 million Mac OS X users, that 77 percent of owners of new Macs keep Mac OS X as the primary OS, and that they estimate there will be 5 million Mac OS X users by the end of the year, representing 20% of all Mac users using the new OS in the first 24 months.

Apple showed some new ads in the "Switch" campaign, including a student who lost her paper on Windows, a student whose CDs get messed up in his bag (although they didn't point out that he can use iPod under Windows now), and a comedian who ended his commercial with, "My name is Will Ferrell ... and I'm a porn actor."

iAryeh writes "I was recently at the Apple Store in Cincinnati and they were passing out flyers that said: 'You're invited to join us at the Apple Store to view the keynote presentation by Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs.' I guess they are going to present this on the large screen television. This sounds like a better idea than watching the small stream from QuickTime." Apparently it won't be on TechTV this time around, which is mostly just fine with me, since they didn't show it live anyway, but instead paused the keynote for commercials (understandable) and commentary (totally incomprehensible).

firegate writes "A lot of people have been thrilled since the release of Apple's Open Source Darwin Streaming Server. Unfortunately, to stream live video, you previously had to buy a product called Sorenson Broadcaster (Win/Mac). Apple has now released a tool called QuickTime Broadcaster which accomplishes the same task, except this product is free. From what I understand, this application is a scaled-down version of Sorenson's Broadcaster. Apple has only released a Mac OS X version of the program for now, so I guess that we PC guys will need to keep buying the Sorenson product for now. Hopefully, Apple will realize how profitable a Windows or Linux version could be."

firegate writes "A lot of people have been thrilled since the release of Apple's Open Source Darwin Streaming Server. Unfortunately, to stream live video, you previously had to buy a product called Sorenson Broadcaster (Win/Mac). Apple has now released a tool called QuickTime Broadcaster which accomplishes the same task, except this product is free. From what I understand, this application is a scaled-down version of Sorenson's Broadcaster. Apple has only released a Mac OS X version of the program for now, so I guess that we PC guys will need to keep buying the Sorenson product for now. Hopefully, Apple will realize how profitable a Windows or Linux version could be."

flamingnight writes "If you go to Apple's QuickTime page, you'll notice that QuickTime 6 has been released. No mention of QT 5 anywhere on the site. Features include the long-awaited MPEG-4 support, 50+ input/output formats, and plenty of A/V codecs and video effects (see Apple - QuickTime - Specifications for a full list)." It's available for Mac OS 8/9, Mac OS X 10.1.3+, and Windows 98/2000/NT/Me/XP (does anyone actually use Windows Me?). Just remember that your QuickTime 5 key won't work with QuickTime 6.

flamingnight writes "If you go to Apple's QuickTime page, you'll notice that QuickTime 6 has been released. No mention of QT 5 anywhere on the site. Features include the long-awaited MPEG-4 support, 50+ input/output formats, and plenty of A/V codecs and video effects (see Apple - QuickTime - Specifications for a full list)." It's available for Mac OS 8/9, Mac OS X 10.1.3+, and Windows 98/2000/NT/Me/XP (does anyone actually use Windows Me?). Just remember that your QuickTime 5 key won't work with QuickTime 6.

hype7 writes "Apple's getting quick! Less than 5 days after the recently reported software update vulnerability was discovered, Apple have a patch plugging the hole. Apparently, packages now presented via the Software Update mechanism are cryptographically signed, and the new Software Update client 1.4.6 checks for a valid signature before installing any new packages."