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As the name implies, it is an 800Mbps implementation of the IEEE-1394b standard. It utilizes a new connector, dubbed bilingual, and developed specifically to support the new interface. As before, there are connections for signals as well as power. There is still no guaranteed power spec for supplied bus power. With an appropriate adaptor, FireWire 800 bilingual connections can be used with legacy 6-pin or 4-pin connections, now dubbed FireWire 400.

FireWire 800 peripherals should be compatible with existing, slower devices provided the right adaptor cable is used. LaCie FireWire 800 products (see separate announcement) include 2 cables - a "FireWire 800 to FireWire 800" and a "FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 (6-pin)". The FireWire 800 connector is called bilingual, as it signifies the interface is compatible with legacy as well as new, faster interfaces.

IEEE-1394b also specifies a "beta" connector option. This is for FireWire interfaces that cannot be used at the lower, legacy and compatible speeds. Detailed information is available at the Molex website.

Matthew Rothenberg kindly replied to my email querying about this. Here is the Macintouch item and here is
a more detailed story Rothenberg mentioned.

sounds like you may have some bad RAM issues; OS X's more advanced virtual memory system is rather more sensitive to issues with cheap RAM; these often manifest as kernel panics, etc. replacement with higher-quality RAM has been "miraculously clearing up these issues".

before dismissing this post, please check out the variety of user experiences re: this issue in this this report.

also, I have to object to the (immediate) parent post's tone; berating the person experiencing the frustration is unhelpful, to say the least...

If the site was up-to-date, they'd be going after iCal 1.0, which came with Jaguar just lately. Tons of critiques on Macintouch of the immaturity of that interface. Apple's not perfect, but they take interface seriously, and the users' standards reflect that.

According to their history page, Macintouch, est. its web presence in '94.

Yeah, Steve Jobs has never acted like a petulant child before, so why would he now?

>Just because so many kiddies online are so emotional about things

I'm sure not when it comes to Apple. I don't use one, and never plan to if the company continues its hard-line "PC is crap, but we'll develop for it anyways" stance. It just seems so incorrect and wrong. Perhaps that's just me getting emotional, though.

>steve jobs must be super sensitive as well.

There was a PBS special explaining that he does have an emotional problem of some sort... Or so it would appears. I think it was called "Geeks" or "Nerds" 1.0.

>What he DOES care about is quality products

Ask a G4 cube owner about that...

>Why do people believe such rumors?

Because Apple said it best themselves: They "think different." ie: They don't follow common business sense all that well, just well enough to (sort of) survive.

This would be great if it weren't from Maxtor. I don't trust their drives as far as I can throw them. I've had three go bad so far (they start making a squeaking sound and fail to spin up). Mac users in particular have been having trouble with them.

• Osnews
  
• MacIntouch
  
• Zdnet
  
• Macworld
  
• MacCentral

The number one most useful product they could offer OS X users right now is a port of the Connector!

Microsoft has stonewalled on delivering a native Exchange client for Mac OS X. In fact, according to a recent posting on Macintouch (scroll down to the second or third message), their official recommendation is that you set up a separate PC and use the new Remote Desktop client to access it!

Here at NIH, we want to move to OS X soon but the lack of a native Outlook client is really going to hurt us. If Evolution+Connector were available instead, we would likely take a serious look at spending some serious money on it.

There is no mechanism for getting the absolute location of the users finger, rather than the relative movement. Without that, you can't remap part of the trackpad to be a scroll area.

Luke Pacholski is disappointed that the trackpad on the TiBook doesn't have any of the nifty software features that other notebooks have. This software is made by Synaptics, which manufactures almost every OEM trackpad out there. (My Pismo has a Synaptics touchpad - took it apart a few weeks ago and the IC on the trackpad had the Synaptics logo on it.) Anyhow, Synaptics has made most of the APIs for the touchpad public, and there are Linux drivers available - so all it needs is someone willing to write a driver for OS X or 9, and Mac users would probably have the same functionality.

Before there was a semi-mathemtical equation dictating the link between monthly bandwidth limitations and what you paid for additional web space...

Does anyone know how the new prcing structure will change this?

At least one correspondent has indicated that the same language appeared in earlier versions (5.3 and 5.2). However, 5.4 does appear to have disabled some functionality of earlier versions, which gives me pause. Until I can clarify the point, I'll stay at 5.3 and look into alternative products.

Too bad, toast was very easy to use and looked great. But if it doesn't work, who needs it?

According to MacInTouch, the new paragraph is a result of uniformizing all their legal disclaimers, which meant importing the warning from Easy CD Creator, which in turn has to have it because it leverages Windows Media. Since it's unlikely that Toast or Jam on Mac will ever leverage WiMP, perhaps we can pragmatically leave our principles out of it (since they're not actually violating our data) and not dump an otherwise excellent product. Just a thought.

The text from MacInTouch:

[15:45 ET] Roxio's Toast Product Manager responded to customer issues raised in our Toast special report, regarding the company's licensing terms and "digital rights management" technology: I wanted to set the facts straight with respect to the "Restrictions" section in the end user license agreement (EULA) that is displayed at installation of Toast 5.1.4 and Jam 5.0.1 (both the latest versions of our software).

1. Toast and Jam do not include any digital rights management (DRM) software.
2. Toast and Jam do not dynamically download, upload or update any software on your system, either automatically behind the scenes, or upon your request.
3. Toast and Jam do not store, collect or transmit any personally identifiable information about you or what you record, for any of its partners, or any content provider.

Toast and Jam use the same EULA that Roxio's PC burning product, Easy CD Creator, uses. Easy CD Creator leverages aspects of Windows Media Technology, which does include DRM components. Hence, the language in the EULA. Companies frequently share EULAs across products since it saves time and money with respect to legal, documentation and translation into multiple languages.

But, it also sounds like people have experienced a lot more trouble with 5.1.4, and don't still have their 5.1.3 updater handy to downgrade. I dig around for a while and found it on Roxio's Japan site. Feel free to download it from my personal server.

so it seems plausible that we're vulnerable, though I'm not sure.

However, this note indicates that 3.3p1 (and presumable now 3.4) compiles fine, including the privilege-separation option, without problems.

There is a reader report at Macintouch that mentions this oddity about 1/4 way down the page. Apparently, many localized systems from Apple don't have all of the software pre-loaded. I'm guessing that Apple just makes a universal config machine, and dumps in whatever CD's are appropriate for the country it is being shipped to. I suspect that fully pre-loaded machines only arrive in larger markets, like US and Japan.

On a positive note, I have actually clicked on relevant banners (not that most sites have them) and more importantly, I have clicked on text links to advertisers. Without relevant (to the website) ads, I never would have found Small Dog Electronics, RamJet, and even CD Now. All of which I have plunked down a large chunk of change at, as well as some other sites. Problem most websites have is that they don't use targeted ads, or they just have a banner that is for a site, instead of like MacInTouch and MacNN that have text links announcing deals for those web sites surfers when they click the links (which I have received some great deals by doing so).

I have banner images turned off in OmniWeb, manly because banner ads are typically junk, but I like relevant text links, or text ad boxes, because advertising works (and I want it to work) when advertisers do a good job. Text links require better targeting, and are more likely to be clicked.

Now, because I'm at work I haven't had a chance to install the 10.1.3 update. Someone please tell me they did some Aqua or ATI 3D optimization on the Rage chipset in the new iBooks. That is -all- I want! Also, I haven't really seen much comments or reports on the update, since Apple doesn't publish a really big CHANGELOG. But Macintouch has a fairly huge reader reports section. If not, I guess I'll have to wait for the next 10.2 beta.

Anyone know how to make non-supported DVD drives play with OS X DVD player.app? I have an LG 12x burner 8x DVD that is supposed to work according to xlr8yourmac.com - it'll work fine in OS 9 but no love from 10.1.2. Cool. Have fun!

-Pat

There's a thread over at www.macintouch.com that talks about a problem I used to have with Apple's "AppleShare IP" server software.

Sure, you can configure it not to be an open relay, but it only checks the "From:" line in your hostname. So any spammer can just say "yes, I'm johndoe@mydomain.com" and get a relay going. No way round it.
I soon switched to using sendmail on FreeBSD...

According to the letter [http://www.macintouch.com/postoffice.html], the cds inside of the post office were demo cds, and not the full version of Windows XP.

I am sure that the Powermac G4 upgrades will be announced soon. The iMacs are already at 800 so the Powermacs would at least have to be 1Ghz+...

Earliere today I saw this link regarding Dual 1.4Ghz G4s but obviously it was bogus....Oh well... I guess I am to blame for getting my hopes up.

S.r.

Adding WaveLAN Extender - This article discusses adding various antennae to base stations to improve their range.

Extending TheAirPort's Range - This article discusses some more radical procedures, including some neat stuff with Directional Antennae which allow 802.11b to work as far away as a 57 Kilometers. They also discuss various antennae to add to laptops in order to improve their range.

Adding WaveLAN Extender - This article discusses adding various antennae to base stations to improve their range.

Extending TheAirPort's Range - This article discusses some more radical procedures, including some neat stuff with Directional Antennae which allow 802.11b to work as far away as a 57 Kilometers. They also discuss various antennae to add to laptops in order to improve their range.

Adding WaveLAN Extender - This article discusses adding various antennae to base stations to improve their range.

Extending TheAirPort's Range - This article discusses some more radical procedures, including some neat stuff with Directional Antennae which allow 802.11b to work as far away as a 57 Kilometers. They also discuss various antennae to add to laptops in order to improve their range.

Here is a great site with all the info on modifying your base station for extended range.

the following is copy and pasted from macintouch.com/ipod.html.

:::::

A lot of people are making the mistake that the iPOD is only and MP3 player.

First and foremost it is a 5 gig firewire drive with 32 megs of static ram, and input as well as output devices (scroll wheel, screen, etc...not sure if the definition of a computer has changed in the last day... but this thing is a lot better than the powermac i owned years ago).

Ok, very simply it is a slave device. Portable Open Database. You know it will have a calendar, clock and whatever apps apple ads or I myself when i understand the OS... aka palm sync. It will also contain a few games... i still use my original game boy and the screen is not much bigger. Everyone thinks this is only a music device... but this is what everyone needs and doesn't even know it.

Ever since Apple took away our floppy drives. I can now take my excel files, photos, mp3 files, cad files, i can even put OSX on it and boot my mac from it!!!!....or any frickin thing I want in my pocket!!!! Just imagine the possibilities... when I am outdoors with my digital camera i can store files on it or when i am in a conference room I can record my voice on the disk.

Why would Apple put such a large screen on there, why would Apple not once place the words music or mp3 player on the device... why is the file system capabilities of this thing so amazing... no one quite understands what this is... remember all those easter eggs that weren't allowed in 9.1 or X...well they are all in this baby... this is iPod, this is our portable little slave device that everyone will want when they realize what it can do...

There has been a long discussion on Macintouch about Macintosh "vintage" apps, often now released as freeware, that are still running on recent systems (even too fast, sometimes). Sw includes word processors, slide presenters, etc.
A couple of old mac emulators running on new macs are also suggested for running outdated apps.
At the end of the discussion there is a list of links; furthermore, there is at least one games site (http://homepage.mac.com/giantmike/old.html) (tenths-hundreds of kylobites per game...).

"Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 17:02:59 -0400
From: [MacInTouch reader]
Subject: Security Alert for Explorer 5.1 (MacOS X 10.1)

I am shocked to report a huge security hole in the latest Internet Explorer version 5.1 that comes preinstalled on MacOS X 10.1

Every .hqx encoded classic application is decoded by explorer itself (that's the default, stuffit expander isn't used) and then AUTOMATICALLY STARTED!

This is totally unacceptable. You can test this simply by pointing your browser to

http://www.pardeike.net/danger.hqx

where I put a very small C program that just displays a message (trust me, it *only* does that message, nothing more)"

Also check the old standby Macintouch for coverage and some interesting bits.
</karmawhore>

--Volrath50

Macintouch reported today (2001-06-15) that Apple's mod_hfs_apple.c which fixes the problem is available as part of the Darwin Server source code, but also notes that it has not been tested on any 'client' version of Mac OS X.

There is a good thread on this topic at http://www.macintouch.com/websecurity.html

From a UI perspective, Mac OS 9.1 is nice and easy to use. Not perfect, but good. OS X 10.0 isn't just a few steps back, it is on a pretty escalator that goes sideways. Check out all of the reader reports on Macintouch for details. I bought the beta but I'm glad I didn't plunk down $129 (or $99 with the rebate) for the retail version.

I never thought I'd see the day when I preferred the current Windows GUI to the current Macintosh one. But there you go.

Macintouch shows that doing a web search on 'ELNSB50' provides more info than simply codified attributes of your client connection. Clicking on results from Google display "Web Browser Agent/Platform Statistics" which can be used to determine which websites a person visits.

At random, I chose the browser ID of "000041100320025802940113000000000502000800000000" and searched on that. I found that browser had visited four specific sites.

I don't want my tracks to be available to everyone. I understand that my perusals are logged in my company's system since that's my net connection, but these aforementioned actions are available publicly. That's not a good thing.

A key part of DoubleClick's patent is not present in the porn mogul's business plan: DoubleClick's use of cookies to identify a user across all of DoubleClick's affiliate web sites. The use of cookies allows DoubleClick to ensure that adds are not repeated, and helps them target their adds more effectively. It is much more interesting to advertisers to know that a person has visited www.macnn.com, www.news.com www.macintoch.com, and www.slashdot.com, then to simply know that the user is viewing an add from www.slashdot.com.

While some might say DoubleClick's use of cookies is the most insidious part of their patent, I believe it is a significant enough improvement over the porn king's business plan to make it's patent still stand up. At any rate is is far to soon to proclaim that DoubleClick's patent is "busted".

No, you'd still have to bitch at Apple. Apple sells to retailers at higher prices than most PC manufacturers and then undercuts them at the Apple Store. The retailers are left trying to sell a product (that they're not allowed to support) on even thinner margins than normal. I've seen stories at macintouch that explain this (although I can't find them through the search feature).

ummm...how about try just about any Mac site you can think of:

Mac Slash (they even use Slash!)

Xlr8yourMac

Macintouch

...and don't forget the "big" news sites like:

News.com

and

MacWeek

For more information about just about every kind of router available (including linux routers), check out the access routers report at macintouch.com

As for why Apple is fed up with this type of behavior, it's because they are afraid of losing market share. Much of Apple's current business plan seems to be creating new things that aren't that hard to reproduce (clear optical mouse, cube-shaped computer, easy-to-use movie software). Much of Apple's sucess rides on being the only ones offering such products. If a competitor had knowledge of Apple's plans six months before Apple released products, they could possible bring a competitive product to market, perhaps before Apple. This would effectively negate Apple's edge.

Also if Apple's customers know that a new product line is coming out, they might not buy into the current line. Can't happen, you say? Look at Kaypro. They announced the new version of their computer a year before it shipped. People got excited about the new version and stopped buying the old version. With no money coming in, Kaypro was barely able to finish the machine and wandered into backruptcy soon after.

Apple isn't the only one doing this. Adobe is suing Apple Insider over their previews of Photoshop 6 and ImageReady 3. I suspect that as the Internet continues to facilitate the rapid spread of information we will see more and more of this type of thing.

An MWJ editor wrote a very good analysis of this subject. Check it out for more details.

Hold on a minute, I don't remember Apple sueing any web sites! According to MacCentral,

Sources indicate that the person or persons named in the suit are possibly employees of Apple and/or Apple's trusted third-party developers -- individuals who had access to Apple's trade secrets.

In other words, the people Apple is actually sueing signed contracts with Apple not to divulge trade secrets. So there's the basis for the suit. The rumor sites that posted the leaked pics and info were threatened, but never sued, as far as I know. I agree that Apple would have little basis to sue web sites that had made no agreements with Apple. So their threats were out of line, but they haven't actually gone as far as sueing. Please post if I've missed something.

It took them a while, but Apple appears to have fixed the problems with both its mouse and keyboard.

It's about time. Mac people have been complaining vociferously about the teensy little keyboards and mice since the iMac first came out. It's worth noting that these are available separately, so owners of older Macs can finally get normal-sized Apple keyboards and mice.

I just got a G4/450 last month, and I definitely found the keyboard and mouse to be a disappointment. Until now I've held off getting replacements because I've yet to find a USB keyboard as good as my old Apple Extended Keyboard II or a good USB mouse. Also, Macintouch has been reporting problems caused by using third-party USB keyboards with recent Macs, which this will avoid.

As soon as the new keyboard shows up on the Canadian Apple Store, I'll be ordering one. I'm not so sure about the new mouse, which if nothing else, looks unbelievably cool, since I'd really prefer a 2 button mouse for LinuxPPC. I imagine there will be a bunch of other G3 and G4 owners also throwing out their old keyboards and/or mice with cries of joy.

Looks like TheMacJunkie.com has been taken offline from it's ISP. Probably on demmand from Apple layers, similarely to what they tried with Macintouch.com recently.

Macintouch has the same keynote coverage, in a pleasantly digested summary. MacCentral has point-by-point coverage, but for some reason it's writting in reverse order.

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That said, there's nothing wrong woth MOSR... I read their site regularly just for fun; I wouldn't base important decisions on their news, though.

Following up on Apple's threats to get the rumors sites to remove news on their new products: the same thing has happened to the much more reliable Mac news site MacInTouch. They've posted Apple's letter and their response which is quite well written. MacInTouch was also reporting about a Cube system, which actually increases the chance that it's not a hoax since MacInTouch is much more accurate than other sites like MacOSRumors.

Following up on Apple's threats to get the rumors sites to remove news on their new products: the same thing has happened to the much more reliable Mac news site MacInTouch. They've posted Apple's letter and their response which is quite well written. MacInTouch was also reporting about a Cube system, which actually increases the chance that it's not a hoax since MacInTouch is much more accurate than other sites like MacOSRumors.

Sorry, I know the situation you're currently in. You see, I too used to be a MOSR victim. Yes, I read all the Mac rumors sites back in the good old days before Steve Jobs took the helm and clamped down on any legit product info. I watched as site after site closed down or started spewing crap, but I didn't know that they were spewing crap for over a year.

Ryan Meader is full of crap. The Mac Junkie site documents in good detail how willing MOSR is to take anything and post it up as from legit sources. My eyes were opened by parody site mosr.net and other sites, and my own critical eye has caught Apple Insider fibbing on occasion, though they seem to be less obsessed with putting something, anything out no matter how blatantly false it is.

If you want legit news, go to Macintouch or MacNN, but don't trust the rumors sites. They haven't had good hit-miss ratios for over 2 years or so, and since they are in the entertainment business, they don't really care. I just regret getting my Dad hooked on the damn site.

These sites (AppleInsider, MacOSRumors, MacInTouch etc.) have a really lousey track record of posting half-truths and downright lies. Their quality control is really poor.

What's more, they can do real damage. I was involved in a product that Apple Insider leaked images of, two days before it was publically launched. As a result, we lost most trademark and patent rights outside the US. In most other countries, you cannot trademark and/or patent something that has already been released into the public domain.

So when you wonder why companies like Apple don't like these kind of sites and often seem heavy-handed in dealing with them, remeber that leaks like this can cost a company substantial amounts of money.

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