If you haven't read the article, just taking amoment to read the first paragraph really summarizes it to me. I was just a teen when Hubble was launched but the images of space that Hubble gave me were a personal experience, though I have no connection to the industry of space exploration in the slightest.
To me, it seems like destroying Hubble is not a fitting end to a tool that has built so much for us for over a decade.
So I wonder, why are devices like Hubble not built to be retooled - built with some type of standard socket connections so batteries, comupters, lenses, etc. could be more easily upgraded by swapping out major units and bolting them together on a frame just like a computer?
Would a shift in design principles not be the ultimate homage to Hubble, that it would live on as inspiration for developing space exploration devices that were upgradable?...On the other hand, didn't they think of all these things 13 years ago when the were launching Hubble?
Listen to what Jobs said - at $0.99 per song, you can only breakeven at this business. He is talking to analysts, analysts who are also gonna talkto DELL, Wal-Mart, MTV, Napster, et al. Jobs didn't say it's a loss leader, he just said it isn't very profitable and basically breaks even.
(Now, add volume on the order of magnitude of 80% of all music sales, not just on-line...and you have a position of strength to negotiate all your direct costs, an economies of scale for your indirect ones - but that's another econ lesson)
So he is casting FUD onto the longevity of those competitors. What is also important to note is that NONE of those services work with the worlds #1... iPod. They do all work with a myriad of competitors and they themselves all compete with a comodity product - the WMA music file.
Now listen up - this is important - the WMA music file is a comodity because if it costs $0.99 from Wal-mart or MTV or Napster or DELL, then why should I buy it from any of them? They will either have to add value to it by making the shopping experience easier, or lower the price. Assuming it can't get easier than 1-click shopping (Apple and Amazon exclusives) or rich browsing/searching content of which most services have, then that leaves price.
Which brings us full circle - if WMA music files are comodity items that can only compete on price, and if at $0.99/song, a music store isn't significantly profitable, than prices will drop until the competition goes out of business.
an encredible but true Story out of NC in September about a man who passed a phoney "$200 bill" with G.W. on it at a grocery. He got $150 worth of goceries and a (real) fifty dollar bill in change.
The issue I see with this form of anti-piracy copy protection is that the methods to detect fraud take too long.
When I worked in retail where a typical purchase was about $35, we saw Twenties all day long. The only thing we did was make sure it was put in the drawer facing the same way so the manager wouldn't get upset when he did the count that night.
For $50 or $100 we had a yellow pen that you ran on the bill and the ink would be brown for a good bill, black if it was not.
THAT'S IT - there was no using a microscope to read Jackson's lips as he spoke the word "Republic".
Bottom line is, unless retailers perceive there is a problem to their bottom line because the banks won't accept their cash deposits full of bad cash, the best solution is for the mint to print fewer bills and assume a certain percentage of fraudulent bills are in circulation.
It woudl save the treasury money on ink and cotton paper!
Not to excuse an upgrade that does damage (should SW vendors have to have a hipocratic oath akin to Doctors' - "first do no harm")
My 15" 400Mhz 1st generation Bowerbook G4 (now nearly 3 years old) is doing just fine with 10.2.8.
This will serve as a wakeup to me to be sure to give Panther a week or so before I plunk down the cash and roll the dice with system stability.
Is the same true for hand written notes?
on
Can You Raed Tihs?
·
· Score: 1
I can understand how people read words commonly mistyped or even rarely. "Teh", "shoudl" are very commond to our Time New Roman trained eyes.
But has this experiment been tried with handwriting? Do those with dislexia perform better at these tests. These are two questions i would like to have the answers to.
For me, the major advantage of the G5 is not that it is 64 bit or that it reaches speads up to 2.0 Ghz. For me, it is that there is finally a single chip that can process at the same rate as two G4's (see benchmark results for the 1.6Ghz G5 vs 2 1.4Ghz G4s).
This is important because there is once again - in many years - a single Apple box one may purchase and upgrade as demands increase. THAT IS as long as a single 1.6 or 1.8 Ghz G5 has the option of upgrading to a second processor (of the same clock speed of course).
Does anyone know if this is possible or is the 2 Ghz the only configuration able to support dual G5's? (Can one purchase a single 2.0Ghz and add a proc later?)
Radio shack: You've got questions, we've got Tandys
More than 12 hours since the story broke and still
on
Beatles Bite Apple
·
· Score: 1
Though the world news organizations have had over 12 hours to cover this story, only Fox News has had an original article (note that Yahoo! News, Mac Central, etc all reference the Fox News article).
My question is, is this some "Fox exclusive" or erronious reporting from Fox? If anyone finds an article from an original source other than Fox, let the rest of us know.
I think Redmond should take a page out of Washington State law enforcement's book on keeping bomb sqads prepared by having them build bombs and then diffuse them.
Microsoft needs to setup a team to create an RPC worm that would install a patch for the RPC vulnerability and thus fix the issue while learning how to write a worm, and perhaps then, learning to to prevent loop holes.
for $0.99 you get not only a product, an encoded AAC audio file with an album cover graphic and meta data describing the song, but you also are buying a service.
That service is the key. (pardon the pun)
Apple is providing the means to manage the unlocking of the file - presumably for as long as you own the AAC file. But Apple's service is limited. Their service does not include the management of your license. Their service does not include a utility to transfer ownership or will AACs to your heirs. One much booed but accepted limitation is that it doesn't include the ability to re-download the songs you purchased, so you have to archive them yourself.
There are lots of alternatives out there. Apple has bundeled the product and service they feel is most compelling to the marketplace. 10,000,000 songs have been purchased so some people are compelled. Yet there will always be the OGG zelot or the eBay seller who really needs to push the limits of the license. To both groups as it turns out, I recommend they but the CD, rip it to OGG, and when they are done, delete the OGGs and eBay the CD for half what you paid. You might even come out only paying $0.99 a song that way.
As for me, I'll stick with iTMS which gives me more than I could ask for, and all they ask is $0.99 (plus tax).
I guess SonyEricsson is using special blue tooth then for their Bluetooth Headset HBH-3 seeing that it handles two way audio for their cellular phone for 5 hours of talk time.
Re:Great use for 802.11 & || bluetooth on ipod
on
New iMacs (and iPods)
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
One possibility would be to use bluetooth as a "splitter" for multiple, wireless headsets. It would be great to keep the ipod safely away in a backpack or coat pocket, while a bluetooth remote controlled the tracks (and duplicated the display) and a bluetooth headset played the music. a friedn could them easily "authenticate" their bluetooth headset for the iPod and share the tunes, er, itunes.
Wow, re-reading the score 4-5/. posts when the iPod was first announced is really quite interesting.
It would be interesting for/. to run a "year in review" and highlight some threads of technology announcements and other geek worthy news with 365 days worth of hind sight to see how people's first impressions can be accurate...or not.
I particularly like the Apple share holder who was upset at the pricing...that it won't sell because it was $400, not $200. I suppose teh same share holder is pretty happy the high margin audio player is the #1 digital music device in the world.
I actually thought "Complicated" was an appropriate song for the occasion.
On-line music sells are "complicated", and have left many users and companies "frustrated". The chorus about how "you fall and you crawl and you pick yourself up" could be nice foreshadowing if Apple's Windows iTMS is as successful as the mac version and converts Windows users to the Apple experience.
Not to mention 10,000,000 songs downloaded
on
New iMacs (and iPods)
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Also announced along with larger capacity ipods (20 and 40 to replace 15 and 30 GB models with no other changes in HW or SW stated) and faster iMacs (the 1.25 Ghz 17" now packing a 160 GB HD) there is even more significant news.
The real news here is that since April 28th when the iTunes Music Store opened, there have been more than 10,000,000 songs downloaded by the US Apple consumer base runing OS 10.1 and iTunes 4. Very impressive in my opinion. The 10,000,000th song was "Complicated" and was sold on September 3rd. Apple stated they are selling 500,000 songs per week.
The first week Apple stated they sold 1,000,000 songs so that plus half a million a week after corroberates the 10 MM song claim and shows a steady rate.
It would be interesting to know how BuyMusic.com is doing with their knowck off...especially after all the bad press and sites like BoycottBuyMusic.com and DontBuyMusic.com have exposed some shady dealings with artists, consumers, and their advertising.
And Apple a day keeps Windows at bay
Even J Lo is down wit Google
on
Google Turns 5
·
· Score: 1
The other night I saw an aweful movie with a cool Gogoel reference - "Maid in Manhattan" with Jennifer Lopez. In the movie she has this son who is obsessed with the 70's and within the first ten minutes of this disaster of a movie, there is a pretty cool dialog.
The kid is asking J Lo how Simon and Garfunkel broke up. She says to him "you can google it at school".
I wonder if this is the first pop culture reference to "google" the verb.
I also wonder if the writers knew it would be the only interesting part of the movie.
I echo Tumbleweed's experience. I saw the 1.6 Ghz at an Apple Store in Dallas. There were very few customers in the store and I would not say it was any louder in there than in my house with someone else home. Unless I put my ear up to the heavy plastic (think the clear plastic used on the Apple Pro Mouse or the edges of the 17" iMac screen) I could not hear any of the 3 fans I saw spinning.
I think the key is the low RPMs. with it spinning slower, there isn't a "whirrr" sound. Since the sound is not as high pitched, the sound is deadened sooner by the materials in the case.
eMachines - THOSE are second rate computers. Apple builds first rate computers. What, because they charge more or have a smaller niche they aren't first rate? Or is it that they don't use an Intel chip like everyone else? Hey, BMW has a small niche market too. The Mazda RX-8 uses a rotary engine unlike anyone else. Are these cars second rate?
In the Terminal Preferences window (Terminal -> Preferences) You will clearly see the option to change the command shell (This is with Jaguar 10.2.6): Execute this command (specify complete path
How do you figure they will exactly? Up until the >> made it a priority to erradicate terrorists they had sneakily planned and carried out their missions. These days, their missions are looking for water and trying to snipe a marine.
September 11th was the last day a plane will ever be hijacked with live passengers. After that, they'll have to kill everyone onboard before anyone, especially >> will let them control the plane. Brave souls proved it that very day.
And to make it worse, the only post sticking up for the Brazilians was a couple of phrases in a slashdot post (half of which is opinionated anti-US rhetoric from an unbelievably foul mouthed anti-US viewpoint) and not much else. Like, what's your point?
Are you asking/. to have more links to the disaster? Is that the point? Or do you not like it that the US didn't declare a national day of mourning for two dozen souls who aren't US nationals? I bet Brazil did and if they didn't, then that isn't the US's fault.
How is it not hipocritical to bash the US but ally with and rely on Her to defend the world against evil for the past century?
I have used Graffle for basic flow charting (without registering), Does the registered version allow the user to automatically map Database schema or build object models? I have been told Visio Pro can do such amazings tasks.
This is an interesting application - not that it enables a Mac to use a PC product, nor that it is for the XM radio, though both are note worthy.
This application is interesting because it is integrated with another application (iTunes). It is the second such "Integrated Applicaiton" application recently, as Quicken 2004 will integrate with iCal as well.
We have had this in part for a while - click a Mailto: tag and Outlook Express launches - but I am talking about more tight integration.
I am a huge fan of this type of integration. One of my favorite features of Apple's "Mail" is that when iChat is running, and a person who's e-mail address and IM address are in "Address Book" is on-line, there is a little green icon in "Mail" that lets you know so instead of sending them an e-mail, you have the option to click the icon ("iCon") and chat in iChat. Three apps, iChat, Address Book, and Mail, working together to deliver functionality none could deliver otherwise.
So are we seeing a trend? Is this in kind with other great technologies like Web Objects (what MS has rebranded as.NET) or is this a new phanominon born out of Apple's own developer network?
Whatever it is, I would like to see more of it. In what other ways could applicaitons be more tightly integrated amongst eachother?
An Apple a day keeps the BSD away.
More relevant than a 640x480 camera
on
Garmin iQue 3600
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I find this offering by Garmin to be superior to other combination PDA and fill-in-the-blank-with-MP3-Player-or-cell-phone-or -digital-camera.
It is particularly applicable for mobile professionals who often find themselves in unfamiliar cities. The high level sales executives where I work immediately come to mind. No they aren't stupid, they just often find themselves having to get to a certain downtown meeting in a city they have been to many times visiting different clients and I am sure it would be nice to have a mobile GPS integrated with the PDA they already carry anyway. Plus it is sleek and stylish enough that even the women in the power suits would pull it out of their purse at a meeting.
So why don't you buy the 17" PowerBook? You say it has what you want correct? I have a PowerBook G4 and I have never had chipping paint issue. Mine was the first generation 400mhz which is still plenty applicable two years latter running Jaguar. I anticipate replacing it with a new laptop in another two years at teh earliest. Its just so relevant still.
Come on, if you know how it goes - as you said if they release it today it won't be available for 3 months - then why wait? Is there a technology you need that the current ones don't offer or are you just warry of buying last year's model? I am not trying to get in a fight, I want to understand your objection.
Slashdot Mirror
If you haven't read the article, just taking amoment to read the first paragraph really summarizes it to me. I was just a teen when Hubble was launched but the images of space that Hubble gave me were a personal experience, though I have no connection to the industry of space exploration in the slightest.
...On the other hand, didn't they think of all these things 13 years ago when the were launching Hubble?
To me, it seems like destroying Hubble is not a fitting end to a tool that has built so much for us for over a decade.
So I wonder, why are devices like Hubble not built to be retooled - built with some type of standard socket connections so batteries, comupters, lenses, etc. could be more easily upgraded by swapping out major units and bolting them together on a frame just like a computer?
Would a shift in design principles not be the ultimate homage to Hubble, that it would live on as inspiration for developing space exploration devices that were upgradable?
Listen to what Jobs said - at $0.99 per song, you can only breakeven at this business. He is talking to analysts, analysts who are also gonna talkto DELL, Wal-Mart, MTV, Napster, et al. Jobs didn't say it's a loss leader, he just said it isn't very profitable and basically breaks even.
... iPod. They do all work with a myriad of competitors and they themselves all compete with a comodity product - the WMA music file.
(Now, add volume on the order of magnitude of 80% of all music sales, not just on-line...and you have a position of strength to negotiate all your direct costs, an economies of scale for your indirect ones - but that's another econ lesson)
So he is casting FUD onto the longevity of those competitors. What is also important to note is that NONE of those services work with the worlds #1
Now listen up - this is important - the WMA music file is a comodity because if it costs $0.99 from Wal-mart or MTV or Napster or DELL, then why should I buy it from any of them? They will either have to add value to it by making the shopping experience easier, or lower the price. Assuming it can't get easier than 1-click shopping (Apple and Amazon exclusives) or rich browsing/searching content of which most services have, then that leaves price.
Which brings us full circle - if WMA music files are comodity items that can only compete on price, and if at $0.99/song, a music store isn't significantly profitable, than prices will drop until the competition goes out of business.
That is what Jobs said.
an encredible but true Story out of NC in September about a man who passed a phoney "$200 bill" with G.W. on it at a grocery. He got $150 worth of goceries and a (real) fifty dollar bill in change.
The issue I see with this form of anti-piracy copy protection is that the methods to detect fraud take too long.
When I worked in retail where a typical purchase was about $35, we saw Twenties all day long. The only thing we did was make sure it was put in the drawer facing the same way so the manager wouldn't get upset when he did the count that night.
For $50 or $100 we had a yellow pen that you ran on the bill and the ink would be brown for a good bill, black if it was not.
THAT'S IT - there was no using a microscope to read Jackson's lips as he spoke the word "Republic".
Bottom line is, unless retailers perceive there is a problem to their bottom line because the banks won't accept their cash deposits full of bad cash, the best solution is for the mint to print fewer bills and assume a certain percentage of fraudulent bills are in circulation.
It woudl save the treasury money on ink and cotton paper!
Not to excuse an upgrade that does damage (should SW vendors have to have a hipocratic oath akin to Doctors' - "first do no harm")
My 15" 400Mhz 1st generation Bowerbook G4 (now nearly 3 years old) is doing just fine with 10.2.8.
This will serve as a wakeup to me to be sure to give Panther a week or so before I plunk down the cash and roll the dice with system stability.
I can understand how people read words commonly mistyped or even rarely. "Teh", "shoudl" are very commond to our Time New Roman trained eyes.
But has this experiment been tried with handwriting? Do those with dislexia perform better at these tests. These are two questions i would like to have the answers to.
The wait is OVER!
For me, the major advantage of the G5 is not that it is 64 bit or that it reaches speads up to 2.0 Ghz. For me, it is that there is finally a single chip that can process at the same rate as two G4's (see benchmark results for the 1.6Ghz G5 vs 2 1.4Ghz G4s).
This is important because there is once again - in many years - a single Apple box one may purchase and upgrade as demands increase. THAT IS as long as a single 1.6 or 1.8 Ghz G5 has the option of upgrading to a second processor (of the same clock speed of course).
Does anyone know if this is possible or is the 2 Ghz the only configuration able to support dual G5's? (Can one purchase a single 2.0Ghz and add a proc later?)
Radio shack: You've got questions, we've got Tandys
Though the world news organizations have had over 12 hours to cover this story, only Fox News has had an original article (note that Yahoo! News, Mac Central, etc all reference the Fox News article).
My question is, is this some "Fox exclusive" or erronious reporting from Fox? If anyone finds an article from an original source other than Fox, let the rest of us know.
I think Redmond should take a page out of Washington State law enforcement's book on keeping bomb sqads prepared by having them build bombs and then diffuse them.
Microsoft needs to setup a team to create an RPC worm that would install a patch for the RPC vulnerability and thus fix the issue while learning how to write a worm, and perhaps then, learning to to prevent loop holes.
Either that, or everyone buys Macs.
for $0.99 you get not only a product, an encoded AAC audio file with an album cover graphic and meta data describing the song, but you also are buying a service.
That service is the key. (pardon the pun)
Apple is providing the means to manage the unlocking of the file - presumably for as long as you own the AAC file. But Apple's service is limited. Their service does not include the management of your license. Their service does not include a utility to transfer ownership or will AACs to your heirs. One much booed but accepted limitation is that it doesn't include the ability to re-download the songs you purchased, so you have to archive them yourself.
There are lots of alternatives out there. Apple has bundeled the product and service they feel is most compelling to the marketplace. 10,000,000 songs have been purchased so some people are compelled. Yet there will always be the OGG zelot or the eBay seller who really needs to push the limits of the license. To both groups as it turns out, I recommend they but the CD, rip it to OGG, and when they are done, delete the OGGs and eBay the CD for half what you paid. You might even come out only paying $0.99 a song that way.
As for me, I'll stick with iTMS which gives me more than I could ask for, and all they ask is $0.99 (plus tax).
I guess SonyEricsson is using special blue tooth then for their Bluetooth Headset HBH-3 seeing that it handles two way audio for their cellular phone for 5 hours of talk time.
One possibility would be to use bluetooth as a "splitter" for multiple, wireless headsets. It would be great to keep the ipod safely away in a backpack or coat pocket, while a bluetooth remote controlled the tracks (and duplicated the display) and a bluetooth headset played the music. a friedn could them easily "authenticate" their bluetooth headset for the iPod and share the tunes, er, itunes.
Wow, re-reading the score 4-5 /. posts when the iPod was first announced is really quite interesting.
/. to run a "year in review" and highlight some threads of technology announcements and other geek worthy news with 365 days worth of hind sight to see how people's first impressions can be accurate...or not.
It would be interesting for
I particularly like the Apple share holder who was upset at the pricing...that it won't sell because it was $400, not $200. I suppose teh same share holder is pretty happy the high margin audio player is the #1 digital music device in the world.
I actually thought "Complicated" was an appropriate song for the occasion.
On-line music sells are "complicated", and have left many users and companies "frustrated". The chorus about how "you fall and you crawl and you pick yourself up" could be nice foreshadowing if Apple's Windows iTMS is as successful as the mac version and converts Windows users to the Apple experience.
Also announced along with larger capacity ipods (20 and 40 to replace 15 and 30 GB models with no other changes in HW or SW stated) and faster iMacs (the 1.25 Ghz 17" now packing a 160 GB HD) there is even more significant news.
The real news here is that since April 28th when the iTunes Music Store opened, there have been more than 10,000,000 songs downloaded by the US Apple consumer base runing OS 10.1 and iTunes 4. Very impressive in my opinion. The 10,000,000th song was "Complicated" and was sold on September 3rd. Apple stated they are selling 500,000 songs per week.
The first week Apple stated they sold 1,000,000 songs so that plus half a million a week after corroberates the 10 MM song claim and shows a steady rate.
It would be interesting to know how BuyMusic.com is doing with their knowck off...especially after all the bad press and sites like BoycottBuyMusic.com and DontBuyMusic.com have exposed some shady dealings with artists, consumers, and their advertising.
And Apple a day keeps Windows at bay
The other night I saw an aweful movie with a cool Gogoel reference - "Maid in Manhattan" with Jennifer Lopez. In the movie she has this son who is obsessed with the 70's and within the first ten minutes of this disaster of a movie, there is a pretty cool dialog.
The kid is asking J Lo how Simon and Garfunkel broke up. She says to him "you can google it at school".
I wonder if this is the first pop culture reference to "google" the verb.
I also wonder if the writers knew it would be the only interesting part of the movie.
I echo Tumbleweed's experience. I saw the 1.6 Ghz at an Apple Store in Dallas. There were very few customers in the store and I would not say it was any louder in there than in my house with someone else home. Unless I put my ear up to the heavy plastic (think the clear plastic used on the Apple Pro Mouse or the edges of the 17" iMac screen) I could not hear any of the 3 fans I saw spinning.
I think the key is the low RPMs. with it spinning slower, there isn't a "whirrr" sound. Since the sound is not as high pitched, the sound is deadened sooner by the materials in the case.
And Apple a day keeps Gates at bay
eMachines - THOSE are second rate computers. Apple builds first rate computers. What, because they charge more or have a smaller niche they aren't first rate? Or is it that they don't use an Intel chip like everyone else? Hey, BMW has a small niche market too. The Mazda RX-8 uses a rotary engine unlike anyone else. Are these cars second rate?
In the Terminal Preferences window (Terminal -> Preferences) You will clearly see the option to change the command shell (This is with Jaguar 10.2.6):
Execute this command (specify complete path
The default is "/bin/tcsh"
An Apple a day keeps the BSoD away
How do you figure they will exactly? Up until the >> made it a priority to erradicate terrorists they had sneakily planned and carried out their missions. These days, their missions are looking for water and trying to snipe a marine.
September 11th was the last day a plane will ever be hijacked with live passengers. After that, they'll have to kill everyone onboard before anyone, especially >> will let them control the plane. Brave souls proved it that very day.
And to make it worse, the only post sticking up for the Brazilians was a couple of phrases in a slashdot post (half of which is opinionated anti-US rhetoric from an unbelievably foul mouthed anti-US viewpoint) and not much else. Like, what's your point?
/. to have more links to the disaster? Is that the point? Or do you not like it that the US didn't declare a national day of mourning for two dozen souls who aren't US nationals? I bet Brazil did and if they didn't, then that isn't the US's fault.
Are you asking
How is it not hipocritical to bash the US but ally with and rely on Her to defend the world against evil for the past century?
I have used Graffle for basic flow charting (without registering), Does the registered version allow the user to automatically map Database schema or build object models? I have been told Visio Pro can do such amazings tasks.
This is an interesting application - not that it enables a Mac to use a PC product, nor that it is for the XM radio, though both are note worthy.
.NET) or is this a new phanominon born out of Apple's own developer network?
This application is interesting because it is integrated with another application (iTunes). It is the second such "Integrated Applicaiton" application recently, as Quicken 2004 will integrate with iCal as well.
We have had this in part for a while - click a Mailto: tag and Outlook Express launches - but I am talking about more tight integration.
I am a huge fan of this type of integration. One of my favorite features of Apple's "Mail" is that when iChat is running, and a person who's e-mail address and IM address are in "Address Book" is on-line, there is a little green icon in "Mail" that lets you know so instead of sending them an e-mail, you have the option to click the icon ("iCon") and chat in iChat. Three apps, iChat, Address Book, and Mail, working together to deliver functionality none could deliver otherwise.
So are we seeing a trend? Is this in kind with other great technologies like Web Objects (what MS has rebranded as
Whatever it is, I would like to see more of it. In what other ways could applicaitons be more tightly integrated amongst eachother?
An Apple a day keeps the BSD away.
I find this offering by Garmin to be superior to other combination PDA and fill-in-the-blank-with-MP3-Player-or-cell-phone-or -digital-camera.
It is particularly applicable for mobile professionals who often find themselves in unfamiliar cities. The high level sales executives where I work immediately come to mind. No they aren't stupid, they just often find themselves having to get to a certain downtown meeting in a city they have been to many times visiting different clients and I am sure it would be nice to have a mobile GPS integrated with the PDA they already carry anyway. Plus it is sleek and stylish enough that even the women in the power suits would pull it out of their purse at a meeting.
So why don't you buy the 17" PowerBook? You say it has what you want correct? I have a PowerBook G4 and I have never had chipping paint issue. Mine was the first generation 400mhz which is still plenty applicable two years latter running Jaguar. I anticipate replacing it with a new laptop in another two years at teh earliest. Its just so relevant still.
Come on, if you know how it goes - as you said if they release it today it won't be available for 3 months - then why wait? Is there a technology you need that the current ones don't offer or are you just warry of buying last year's model? I am not trying to get in a fight, I want to understand your objection.