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I think it's very difficult to leave opinions about Spymac aside. Yes, I have problems with them being the iWalk source (the older ones here will remember) but what's really bad is the involvement with Jack Campbell.

"Legal Issues

The documentation included with AirPort hardware lists approval for use in the following countries:

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Denmark
Finland
Germany
Hong Kong
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States

Notably absent from this list is France. This is probably due to the conflict between frequencies used by AirPort and the French military. Apple has said it is negotiating to resolve this issue.

Using AirPort in countries where it's not approved can be a serious crime, and it is illegal for passengers to use any radio broadcasting equipment on a plane. I strongly recommend disabling AirPort when traveling in countries not on this list or on an airplane. The AirPort control strip includes a "Turn AirPort Off" command. While it would seem that this feature was created for this particular need, I have not been able to find documented assurance that turning off AirPort inhibits all transmissions. For extra protection against inadvertently doing something that could land you in prison, remove the AirPort card."

Not true that Apple don't care about developers. Remember the whole deal with Apple's Theme Converter for Mac OS 8.5 and how they after much press skipped it?

I see no misreporting of the facts. The fact is that the person in question downloaded it via limewire. I see no statement that excludes other gnutella clients.

A Macworld reader alerted the magazine to the malware after he downloaded the file from Limewire.

The latest advisory, posted to the company's Web site on Wednesday, warns of a Trojan Horse downloaded from the LimeWire peer-to-peer network[...]

The reader in question downloaded the file from the Gnutella peer-to-peer network, thinking that it was a public beta of Microsoft Word 2004.

Long thread on this at Macintouch here back in 2000.

The real reason that the autostart worm technique didn't do any damage on the Mac was that no Mac user in his right mind had autostart enabled (it might even default to off on a clean install, I forget)

Err...no.

The other person who responded to you is also wrong.

Autostart caused a lot of damage. You might not have gotten hit because the people that were most seriously screwed were graphic shops that had fileservers and large storage media moving around.

QuickTime, the component that provided autostart functionality, did ship with autostart enabled. Furthermore, for years it did not provide any way to disable autostart.

Believe me, Apple has its own sizeable collection of security sins. It's just that everyone hates what Microsoft's done to customers and competitors for years that they're willing (even eager) to overlook flaws in Apple.

Mac installers never made use of that feature, unlike on Windows, so there's no reason to have it on.

That might be true -- I don't think I ever used the feature, and I had it disabled.

However, almost every other computer I've seen *did* have it enabled.

Another great site with up-to-date user reports is www.macintouch.com

I screwed up. PGPnet was the software I was thinking of, not PGP.net, the website.

Anyway, I can't hardly find any info on it anymore...I used it back in the day...

http://www.macintouch.com/pgpnet.html

I contacted John Markoff when I saw the fine NYT article on the history of the Alto that has been discussed here by Lopez, Thain, and Horn. I've known Markoff for years, and he is one of the best and most knowledgeable writers about the personal computer era.

My comment to Markoff was that his wording would lead a reader to conclude that Jobs got the inspiration for the Lisa and Mac on a visit to PARC, came back after that, and created the computers. That is the standard mythology, and it's wrong. I hate to see it promulgated, and certainly the word "after" is simply incorrect.

More accurate would have been "In many ways, the Alto served as an inspiration in the development of Apple's Lisa and Macintosh computers, which in turn inspired the Windows operating system."

Markoff agreed, and said, "I'll save this and do it that way next time."

Aside from this one error, I share with Horn the opinion that the article was excellent and accurate.

I do consider the Alto and lots of other work at PARC to have helped inspire many aspects of the Macintosh. Other inspirations came from great pioneers such as Englebart, Shannon, and Sutherland. As Bruce Horn noted, much that was new and improved over what PARC had done was created at Apple. He contributed to some of it. I will forever be proud that I created the Mac project itself, changed the Lisa architecture to a bit-mapped display from its original hardware-character-generator design, and invented interface widgets which are now so universal that they are considered as natural as breathing.

As was pointed out by Lopez, I had already come to the concept of interface-first, graphics-based computing before PARC was even started (I published my thoughts in 1967, PARC began in 1972), so it is clear that not all the inspiration for the Mac originated with PARC. I participated in many discussions at PARC from 1973 to 1978, and a few of my ideas found their way into the work there. (Many of us from Stanford's AI lab, where I was a visiting scholar, were frequent visitors to PARC, and vice versa. I have rarely seen the AI lab credited with the contributions it made to PARC's thinking). Some precise and documented details of how the PARC interfaces differed from the Mac's are in available in an appendix to my book, "The Humane Interface" (Addison-Wesley 2000). An independent source and timeline for this period is in Linzmayer, Owen, "Apple Confidential". For those who want to see for themselves, Stanford University's History of Technology project has a website with many original Mac documents, some from before the infamous visit, and more information appears on my site, www.jefraskin.com, including reprints of early Mac and Apple documents.

I thank Mr. Lopez and Mr. Thain for sticking up for me, and I must chide Mr. Horn for crediting me with "helping to bring the vision of the graphical user interface back [from PARC] to Apple." As noted above, and as he should know by now (I have long since informed him), the chronology proves that I had the vision before there was a PARC.

How hard is it really, to put together a little app that sits between the USB port and some generic calendaring application, that passes info back and forth, applying simple rules as whether to delete, duplicate, or change a database record?

The fact that some small third-party developer has been able to do this in the past (and probably will do so in the future) points to the fact that this is a trivial thing to do. The only cost to Palm is in tech support (which may be the real reason they dropped support, not the development costs.)

Assuming that Palm really can save maybe a million dollars a year by not developing for the Mac, and in doing so, they alienate about 50% of their future Mac business, AND that Mac users are represented in their customer base at about 5%:

$80Mil sales/yr * .05 (mac user) = 4Mil/yr old mac revenue

4Mil * .5 (loss in customers) = 2 Mil/yr new mac revenue

Assumed cost savings by laying off Mac engineers: 1 Mil/yr
Projected loss by laying off Mac engineers: 1Mil/yr - 2Mil/yr = (1 Mil/yr) decrease in gross sales revenue.

Like I said, the real cost probably isn't in the engineering, even if you're real conservative about the cost of the engineering talent. It's probably in the tech support (Palm has outsourced their tech help line to India, so this probably has something to do with it...)

According to Macintouch, here are the fixes:

• AFP Server: Improves AFP over the 2003-12-19 security update.
• Apache 1.3: Fixes CAN-2003-0542, a buffer overflow in the mod_alias and mod_rewrite modules of the Apache webserver.
• Apache 2: Fixes CAN-2003-0542 and CAN-2003-0789 by updating Apache 2.0.47 to 2.0.48. Installed only on Server systems.
• Classic: Fixes CAN-2004-0089 to improve the handling of environment variables. Credit to Dave G. of @stake for reporting this issue.
• Mail: Fixes CAN-2004-0085 and CAN-2004-0086 to deliver security enhancements to Apple's mail application. Credit to Jim Roepcke for reporting CAN-2004-0086.
• Safari: Fixes CAN-2004-0092 by delivering security enhancements to the Safari web browser.
• System Configuration: Fixes CAN-2004-0087 and CAN-2004-0088 where the SystemConfiguration subsystem allowed remote non-admin users to change network setting and make configuration changes to configd. Credit to Dave G. from @stake for reporting these issues.
• Windows File Sharing: Fixes CAN-2004-0090 where Windows file sharing did not shutdown properly.

iPod Battery FAQ

http://ipodbatteryfaq.com/

Q: Is the iPod's battery replaceable?

A: Yes. Apple has an official battery replacement program for $99. You send your iPod in (any model iPod), and Apple will replace the battery for $99. AppleCare programs for iPod will also soon be available in Europe.

Q: Is the iPod's battery user-replaceable?

A1: Yes and no. The iPod's case is not designed to be opened, so, in that respect, it's not what would generally be referred to as "user-replaceable". But, the case can be opened, and there are several third parties that offer replacement batteries for the iPod, such as iPodBattery.com (instructions, with pictures: original, non-"dockable" iPod, new, slim "dockable" iPod) and PDASmart, for as low as $49. Some will even do the replacement for you if you send it in.

A2: TechTV's Call for Help has a story, with video , discussing and demonstrating replacing an iPod battery (the video was produced before the Apple service options were available).

Q: What is the iPod's warranty? Does it cover the battery? Is there any way to extend it?

A1: The iPod warranty is one year. It does cover the battery.

A2: You can extend the iPod's warranty, including battery coverage, to two years with AppleCare Protection Plan for iPod. Numerous retailers, such as Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc., also have very inexpensive extended warranty coverage available for iPod. Often these plans simply replace the product with a comparable new unit.

Q: What's the deal? Does Apple think the iPod is disposable?

A: No. Like all Apple products, the iPod is engineered to last. This is why Apple is consistently ranked number one in product quality and support by leading consumer groups, such as Consumer Reports.

Q: I heard that the iPod's battery only lasts 18 months, and then you have to buy a new iPod! Is that true?

A1: NO! The vast, vast majority of even the earliest iPods, now over two years old, continue to function just fine. Some iPods, however, have had issues with batteries. Lithium ion batteries are only good for 300 to 500 charge/discharge cycles (more). For this reason, certain customers' usage patterns may cause the batteries to degrade, or fail, sooner than others.

A2: If the battery does fail, and the iPod is no longer under its original one year warranty or $59 AppleCare Protection Plan for iPod, or any of numerous third party service plans, you don't have to buy a new iPod. You may replace the battery yourself for as little as $49, or have Apple perform the replacement for $99.

Q: Why didn't Apple use better batteries?

A: Apple uses the best lithium ion battery technology available from leading battery manufacturers. This is the best, most cost effective battery technology available given the requirements of the device.

See these couple of comments on Macintouch for some info re. the PowerBook/iBook power adapter, including a link to a doc from Apple itself.

Today's MacIntouch is reporting that some users are encountering kernel panics and have had to reinstall Panther after installing Xcode 1.1. Probably pulled for very good reasons.

I check all these daily:

MacInTouch
MacNN
MacMinute
MacFixIt
Mac OS X Hints
MacSurfer

Great software update resources:

VersionTracker
MacUpdate
OS X freshmeat

Other great sites:

O'Reilly Mac DevCenter
O'Reilly Mac OS X Page
Apple Mac OS X downloads
Apple Third Party Products Guide

Developer sites:

Mac OS X Developer Home Page
Mac OS X Developer Documentation
Darwin
OpenDarwin
fink

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A longtime mac bloggish site is linking to amazon, and offering actual discounts on a variety of apple hardware. Including the iPod.

Click on over to MacInTouch for a little bit off. It's linked off towards the bottom of the home page. It's not a huge discount, but the only one I've seen:

iPod 10GB: $284.05
iPod 20GB: $379.05
iPod 40GB: $474.05

Mac news site Macintouch has a bunch of discounts available via Amazon links. Here are the ones for the iPod:

iPod 10GB: $284.05
iPod 20GB: $379.05
iPod 40GB: $474.05

~Philly

Someone else already pointed out that this was covered on MacSlash; however, I first saw this covered a little over a month ago on Macintouch. At the time, the author's employer was not revealed. I e-mailed the author, who goes by Cricket, and basically said that I thought he was in the right, and wondered if he'd take a principled stand and leave the company.

In the e-mail response I got, he thanked me and pointed out that his employer was indeed claiming the software as competing against a planned product, but that this was a legal smoke-screen to lay claim to his code. (In the California Labor Code, it's section 2870(a)1, which provides an exception for inventions that "Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer.")

The Think Secret article linked in this Slashdot article suggests that Apple is interested in adding this functionality to their Sherlock application. I'm not sure I believe this.

If the code is preserved and actually used, and if Cricket doesn't lose his job or have bad things done to him to punish him (which some employers will do instead of outright firing someone to avoid a wrongful termination lawsuit), then I think this situation can be resolved reasonably. However, I have this sick feeling that the code is going to be shelved, and nothing will ever come of it... and if this is the case, a great application will be lost for no good reason. I have no tolerance for code or technologies being "sat upon" because some large corporation wants to keep them out of the market.

In this particular instance, this almost seems like a case of a company flexing their muscles because they can, not because they really hope to gain something out of it. Indeed, this was Cricket's belief when he e-mailed me back in October -- they had no real interest in the software, nor any plans (even general ones) related to the software.

... these /. mac fags should go get their own site and leave real enthusiasts/nerds alone.

Okay. I'll bite. Dear Mister Troll sir...as to us having a site of our own...we do. In fact we have several from which to choose. And, pray tell, what in your tiny little troll-like mind leads you to believe that Mac users are all of a particular sexual orientation of any kind at all? Or that mac users don't qualify as nerds? And by some strange twisting path of logic that we don't in some way belong here?Newsfalsh! The mac now not only sports a command line environment, but you can set your environment to your shell of choice!

I know, I know, please don't feel the trolls. Move along. Move along...

Well, in the case of lullabud's Ethernet issues, Apple may deserve blame. See the following Apple Knowledge Base article:

Mac OS X 10.2.8: Can't Connect via Ethernet After Installing Update

His other statement (about waiting a few days before installing an OS update) is good advice, echoed by Mac troubleshooting websites such as MacFixIt and MacInTouch. Both offer excellent coverage of (and cures for) issues brought about by Mac OS updates. Reading the troubleshooting reports before installing an update can prevent a lot of unnecessary grief.

I'll also note that Apple's own Discussion Forums) provide a place to seek troubleshooting advice and/or a place to vent your frustrations. Since Apple employees monitor the discussion threads, it's possible that at least some of what's posted there is noted and acted upon.

D.

As usual, MacInTouch is doing a great job of staying on top of the issues. Also, Mac OS X Hints has been flooded with loads of new Panther hints the past few days.

It's not a crack. It's a molding line.

Macintouch had an indepth discussion of CD-R failure

Why do you say it doesn't work? Why wouldn't it?

Because Microsoft says it won't.

I quote: "Virtual PC for Mac version 6.1 currently will not run on the new G5 machines."

~Philly

Maybe you tried this, but I'll ask anyway: have you tried reseting NVRAM via OF? See here for details. It may not be the same problem, but it may be worth trying (assuming you can power on your machine!)

Well, according to Andrew Webb on MacInTouch, Apple says that

This promotion is coming to the UK in the next 7 days. The reason for the slight delay (compared to the US one, which started yesterday) is that we have been working with Adobe to get the promo up and running in all European countries simultaneously, which is a logistical nightmare. But we're getting there.

So it seems that Adobe is cooperating with Apple on this one (maybe by assuring them that Adobe customers won't be in violation of their Premiere licenses by just sending the media to Apple).

You don't see Apple comparing After Effects on the Mac with After Effects on the PC, right?

Click here to check out a comment from an After Effects user, showing the G5 leaving the Xeon in the dust! So your apparent hypothesis of "there exists a program which Apple did not publicly benchmark, therefore they must be hiding something" has now been disproven by contradiction--imagine that ;-)

Improving the the capabilities of the spam filtering in Apple's Mail.app program is nice, but I wonder if they've fixed any of the *REAL* problems? There are so many problems that Macintouch has PAGES of reader reports of issues.

Like, the fact that the application kills its own preferences if your drive runs out of space.

Or the problem of attachments being destroyed when sent if they have a resource fork.

I switched to Mail.app for a day, but switched back to Entourage when I discovered these serious issues, as well as the lack of interface behavior controls (like the fact that Mail.app automatically marks an email viewed in the preview pane as "read", when I don't want it to).

Improving the the capabilities of the spam filtering in Apple's Mail.app program is nice, but I wonder if they've fixed any of the *REAL* problems? There are so many problems that Macintouch has PAGES of reader reports of issues.

Like, the fact that the application kills its own preferences if your drive runs out of space.

Or the problem of attachments being destroyed when sent if they have a resource fork.

I switched to Mail.app for a day, but switched back to Entourage when I discovered these serious issues, as well as the lack of interface behavior controls (like the fact that Mail.app automatically marks an email viewed in the preview pane as "read", when I don't want it to).

Ack. I had no idea. An AC in this thread just pointed me at this MacInTouch page on Jack's enterprises. I'd say that MacWhispers isn't just a hobby, it's how he wants to sell all those weird mac furniture items he doesn't have.

What are you, a fucking Jack Campbell lackey?

Shut the fuck up, Jack Campbell.

I'm no fan of Jack Campbell and honestly do not believe anything his site spouts. The only time I ever hear anything about it is when (semi-)legitimate news sources pick up "scoops" from his site.

To read more about how cool a guy he is, check out the MacTable report at Macintouch:

http://www.macintouch.com/mactable.html

The eMac had indeed a horrible problem in the beginning (video would die a lot). This has been solved however (see bottom two posts here.

[Clipped from MacInTouch 5/15/03]

Jimmy Grewal followed up on recent notes about a BMW computer bug that trapped the occupant inside his car:

I work for Microsoft (program manager for Mac Internet Explorer), and I own a 2002 BMW 745i. Though the underlying OS the vehicle is running is Windows CE for Automotive, BMW and Siemens VDO wrote all of the software that the car is running: [BMW iDrive press release]

I don't think Microsoft should be blamed for problems with the applications written by others on top of their OS, just as no one blames Apple for the problems users have with third party software on their Macs. Furthermore, the on board computer that is running WinCEfA is used to control the radio, tv, navigation system, telephone, etc (commonly referred to a telematics features). The engine management system, electrical, etc. are controlled by another set of computers that also manage emissions, diagnostics, etc.

The 7-Series does have a lot of issues that BMW needs to address, including major failures like this, but most of those are related to the drive-by-wire systems rather than the navigation/entertainment system that's running WinCEfA. It has its own problems, but those are related to confusing controls and an unintuitive interface

MacInTouch held this discussion a while back... Might be some useful info in there somewhere. Of course, this was just prior to 800mb FW.

In closing... maybe Spymac itself will die a quick death. Most Mac users recognize that it's rumor predictions are consistently way off base, the content is juvenile, and overall, it is just plain bad.

It's not Apple's list actually, but a copy/paste from www.macintouch.com website

If it's Apple's list, please tell us where on Apple's website we can find that list.

All the more valid.

Apple states that the 128-kbps AAC "combines sound quality that rivals CDs with smaller files sizes (compared to MP3s)." Someone reported that Apple said during the original PR event that some of the tracks actually sound better than the original CD tracks because they went back to the original master recordings to encode. Ok, I'll buy all that. AAC offers better compression and higher quality at lower bitrates. Fine. If really true, I might even consider re-ripping my CDs to AAC and saving some disk space. IF it's really that good. But as I said, the proof is in whether I can hear a difference. All other technical mumbo jumbo is meaningless.

I previewed a number of songs the first night it was operational and was fairly impressed. Definitely much better than 128 kbps MP3. Then I put my headphones on and started to notice possible compression artifacts. I wasn't sure if I was imagining these or whether I was really hearing something, so I started listening to the previews of tracks I already have, ripped from original CDs. I compared the preview tracks to my MP3 copies, which are high quality VBR averaging a little over 200 kbps. I went back and forth between the store preview and my copy numerous times, and always felt like I heard compression artifacts in the previews. I wanted to setup a true blind test to make absolutely sure I wasn't being biased by knowing which sample was which, but I haven't had time this week.

Apple's Discussion board for iTunes has numerous topics debating the quality of the AACs. Some people swear that the previews are lower quality, and what you get when you buy is perfect. Others say just the opposite. Apple itself says of the previews, "You'll hear a 30-second sample that rivals CD quality sound." Doesn't exactly say that the preview is the same quality as the purchased track, but kind of implies it too. MacInTouch has tons of reader reports that are interesting as well.

I suppose ultimately I'll have to spend $0.99 and see for myself what happens. I'll try to choose a track that I have, and whose preview sounds pretty bad. If the purchased track is indistinguishable from the CD, I'll be a happy camper. But if it's the same as the preview, I'll be severely disappointed. I'd so love for this to take off, as it is the future of music buying. I think Apple has done a good job of balancing consumers' fair use rights with the rights of the copyright holders. If this flops, it'll be more fodder for the RIAA to push legislation through that protects their dying business model. (sorry, had to get political for a second there)

But mainly I'm excited about the prospect of buying music this way. Hopefully in the near future, they'll have liner notes, etc available as a PDF when you buy. And lots more artists, including any that are out of print. That would so rock. So many CDs on my wishlist now are so hard to find, and I'd buy them in a heartbeat if they were available this way now. So please, Apple, don't let us down on quality! And if the quality really is subpar, let's all send them feedback (link at the music store main page) until they listen!

I wasn't able to register until I read on Macintouch that your id has to be your email address--firstname lastname doesn't work and will result with a generic error.

that you're wrong

You have to be kidding me...

You want some background on mr macwhispers?

http://www.macintouch.com/mactable.html

Trust him about as far as I can throw him...

http://www.macwhispers.com - is never wrong, check them out.

Never wrong, huh? I beg to differ. The guy that runs MacWhispers already ruined his own credibility back in February. Clearly embarrassed, he acknowledged the site's failure and announced that MacWhispers was exiting the rumor business . Quitting the rumor game, eh? For how long? 10 minutes? A quick visit to the site clearly shows that the rumor mongering continues unabated.

That rumor site exists primarily to generate traffic for this guy's other business interests (DVForge, MacMice, etc.), which can be seen advertised all over the MacWhispers page. While I do not presume to know much about this person's character, from the detailed descriptions I have read about his business practices, I plan on staying far away from MacWhispers and all his related ventures. Caveat emptor.

Hey! Earlier today this page: XServe Design included a cool joke:

Designed for the computational clusters and distributed applications, this Xserve configuration delivers high-density processing power without the server features you won't need in a cluster enviroment. A single drive bay offers space for the operating system, and there's no optical drive, which means the front panel can offer more ventilation. This does result in fewer blinkenlights. [Emphasis mine]

I looked again, and now its gone. Spoilsports!. Did anyone cache the original? Its quoted here: At Macintouch. I swear I am not making this up!

The bash script spoken of in an earlier comment on this topic produces charge and capacity results in microamperes per hour (mAh). (The script's own creator did not know what units the numbers produced.)

This entry in their Knowledge Base gives you the initial capacity of each of Apple's batteries, out of the box, in amperes per hour. Given that information, you can determine what percentage of its original capacity your current battery has.

Also, XBattery allows you to track your battery's capacity over time, as well as a great deal of other battery-related information, in a nice GUI wrapper. It is freeware.

For what it's worth, my own results from the bash script are:

voltage=16666 flags=5/0x005 amperage=1200 capacity=3544 current=3538 [99.8%]

A fresh battery for my 14.1" iBook would hold a charge of 3.9 Ah, and thus my 3.544 Ah battery still has 91% of its original capacity.

Like an earlier poster, I am able to turn down the brightness on my screen to one notch away from darkness, turn off my AirPort card, and in doing so extend my battery life up to five hours or more. It's not the way I normally wish to work, but it's good to know. I had no idea that the screen's brightness level affected battery life so much.

FWIW, the output on my 88% charged iBook 800 (12", combo drive, november '02 model, bought in Januari) is voltage=11928 flags=4/0x004 amperage=1023 capacity=4192 current=3692 [88.1%]. I can squeeze 5+ hours out of this (just typing text, screen dimmed to the one but darkest setting, cpu speed set to "automatic"), so the battery is definitely good. I don't know what normal or good capacity values for other models are.

The enamel keeps peeling off [tipaint.com]

Have you actually tried TiPaint.com? According to several of the reader reports at MacInTouch, they're a scam.

the exterior of the machine, being metal, is prone to denting.

Hardly something you can fault them for - build it out of plastic and you're more likely to crack it than make a dent. Not much you can do other than take care: they're computers, they're always going to be delicate.

what Apple really needs to do is come out with a G4 iBook

That would be the 12" PowerBook. It's pretty obvious that this was going to be "the G4 iBook", but they probably couldn't get the cost down for the first rev - but that's what it is.

is this. It is a report from someone who saw the 20" Cinema Display alongside the other displays in Apple's lineup.

From the OSNews review:

For those who didn't know, Apple is using two different models on their LCD products, one great quality (older powerbooks, Cinema Displays) and one crappy/cheap one (imac, ibooks, 12" powerbook and the new 20" Cinema Display (that's why it is so cheap and it even competes price-wise with the PC LCD monitors in the range))

Interesting, because on MacInTouch, there is a reader report in which many are noting that the 20" Cinema Display looks better than its older counterparts.

If the reviewer is correct in asserting that the 12" PB display and the 20" Cinema Display are the same, then the quality issue would appear to be more subjective than he thinks.