-- Wednesday, March 31 --

Apple iTunes/Pepsi Free Song Promo Ends Today but winning caps may be redeemed through April 30th. There are still a zilion in retail channels.

We have won nearly 50 free songs with an unaided win rate of about 75%. We're floating in Pepsi and they still owe us a replacement for an unreadble cap that we mailed in over a month ago. We guess that the redemption rate has been so low that the ratio of winning to losing caps has far exceeded the advertised 1 in 3 chance, at least in our area.

In part, the redemption rate is low because the contest caps on 20-oz bottles were very slow to hit the market nationwide and partly, we guess, because 20-oz bottles are not sold in quantities in supermarkets but only as expensive singles from coolers in convenience stores or coin machines and most were tossed without even being checked.

Still, we are surprised that Apple has not similarly partnered with other vendors. Surely, the advertising value for recognition is very good.

Retrospect 6.0.193 Update for Retrospect 6.0 for Macintosh is Out and available for download. Dana Baggett received the following note from Dantz that explains the changes in this update:

Hello,

Earlier today Dantz released Retrospect 6.0.193, an update to Retrospect 6.0 for Macintosh.

This update makes some very important fixes to Retrospect 6.0, including dramatic speed improvements when copying the file permissions during a duplicate or restore. Specifically this will speed up Retrospect while "closing" the execution.

This update is available at http://www.dantz.com/updates

Other changes include support for 10.3.3. For a complete list of changes see below:

• Tape Autoloader and Fibre Channel Tape Libraries: This build includes an updated Device Access bundle (version 1.0.5) that provides a workaround to a Mac OS 10.3.3 bug that prevented tape autoloaders and fibre channel tape libraries from working.
• Slow Duplicates and Restores: Retrospect has made changes to the “closing” phase of these operations to increase speed.
• Media Capacity Display: The Media Capacity window for backup set members now correctly indicates that the displayed capacity is in GB, not MB.
• Retrospect “Hangs” or Generates Error 108: Retrospect no longer hangs or generates an error when accessing older (pre-6.0) backup sets with many sessions.
• New Media Backups to Older Backup Sets: Retrospect now allows "New Media" backups to older (pre-6.0) backup sets. As with all New Media backups, a new backup set is created (in this case a 6.0-compatible backed set) with a similar name to the old backup set.
• Recreating Catalogs for Internet Backup Sets: Users should no longer see the error “assert at module.c-654” when recreating Retrospect 5.1 Internet backup set catalogs.
• Restoring from Older Internet Backup Sets: Users can now restore data from older (pre-6.0) Internet backup sets.

Thanks

Dantz Technical Support

QuickerTek Released External WiFi Antennas for 15" & 17" Aluminum PowerBooks: QuickerTek, the developers of PowerBook antennas for all Apple wireless products, is now shipping the only external antenna for the 15" and 17" aluminum PowerBooks. According to QuickerTek it can easily double and triple the signal strength for PowerBook users, quickly and easily.

"Customers who bought our other antenna products have been thrilled with the performance improvements," said Rick Estes, president, QuickerTek. "We have had several hundred customers request these antennas and after testing, we concluded that we could provide significant wireless network improvements in Apple's latest and most powerful PowerBooks."

These new wireless Airport antenna products are available for $89.95 for either aluminum PowerBook computer. PowerBook users can find QuickerTek antennas at resellers including MacAnywhere.com; TechnoWarehousellc.com and SmallDog.com.

Netscape Lives? Well, MozillaZine thinks so. According to this MozillaZine article, AOL will deliver a new point release version of Netscape in the near future. It will be based on the latest Mozilla release and will be virtually identical. This is a little surprising because AOL stopped providing support to Mozilla's development some time ago. [Dana Baggett]

-- Tuesday, March 30 --

Hands-On Review--Apple In-Ear Headphones: When we bought our iPod mini we also wanted to get a pair of Apple's newly-released In-Ear Headphones to try out. Why? We are always looking for "small" solutions, i.e. some way of reducing the size (or quantity) of gear that we have to carry when we travel by air. That does not apply to our choice of mobile computer, a 17" PowerBook G4, but that is another story--serious screen real estate addiction. The Apple In-Ear Headphones were announced at Macworld 2004 along with the iPod mini but have been just as scarce, at least at the Apple Stores we visited. We found that B&H PhotoVideo had them in stock and ordered a set by mail. They were received in a few days, a couple of weeks ahead of the transcontinental flight we are on as we write this review. We visited the Tyson's Corner Apple Store over the weekend and it now has a ton of them, of course.

We have carried an iPod almost every where we have gone since they came out and have used them extensively on airplanes to listen to our own choice of music. The iPod's standard ear bud headphones are small, light and have excellent sound but one has to crank them up pretty high on an airplane to drown out the external noise. We have worried about possible further damage to our already poor hearing so we got a pair of Sony noise-cancelling headphones. They fold up but are still very large lump in our computer bag. Apple's In-Ear Headphones are as small or smaller than the standard iPod ear buds. They are supposed to fit tightly in the external ear canal like ear plugs so they should reduce external noise significantly without having to set them extra loud.

Apple's In-Ear Headphones come in a well-designed box that is useful for keeping them from tangling. They have three sets of caps that can be fitted to the phones: large, medium and small. Unfortunately, we must have ear canals smaller than the tolerance on the smallest set of caps because they are too large to fit in our ear canals. The phones either fall right out on their own or are dislodged by even the slightest tug on the wires. We tried cramming them in as hard as possible and even screwing them in by twisting them, all to no avail. From the forums we have visited, this appears to be a common problem. We don't know where Apple got its ear canal measurements but they seem to have managed to exclude a significant portion of the population. The caps need to be much smaller in diameter and a bit longer to fit snugly without using brute force. It's possible to make plugs like that because the earphone itself is pretty small.

When the phones are in tightly, the sound is great including the bass. When loose, the sound is weak and tinny. We managed to find a hack on one list server that kind of works for us. The plugs are inserted with the stems with the wires pointed up at 10 0'clock or 2 o'clock, depending on the ear, rather than down. Then the wires are draped back over the top of the ear, much like some hearing aids. Using this hack, the plugs stay in place for awhile and the In-Ear Headphones deliver rich, broad-range sound. However, we occasionally had to press on them. Forget eating or chewing since the plugs drop right out.

It's a shame Apple's In-Ear headphones fit us so poorly. They are small, light and deliver great sound. They also exclude most external sounds, perfect for airplanes, with the volume set at a normal range. They are much better at eliminating external sounds than our Sony noise reduction headphones. The exclusion of external sound is so good that we do not recommend using them while driving or walking around or in any situation where an audible warning may be needed--the standard ear buds should be used in those cases.

Except for the poor fit, the Apple In-Ear Headphones are exactly what we are looking for. Hopefully, Apple will eventually make smaller caps so we can use them. They are a very reasonable $39.

Ninth Annual Apple Design Awards Announced: The Annual Apple Design Awards recognize technical excellence and outstanding achievement in Application Software, QuickTime Content, and new for 2004 — Performance Demos. The Apple Design Awards are presented annually at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, where the Mac technical community gathers to hone skills and learn best practices for delivering outstanding products with Apple technologies.

If you have worked hard to create a best of class product that showcases Apple’s platform and technologies, don’t miss this opportunity to be recognized by Apple in front of your peers and the press.

New in 2004. In addition to the new Performance Demo contest, this year there are new categories in both the QuickTime Content and Application Software contests, an expanded list of countries eligible to enter, and the option to submit electronically. And best of all, for the first time ever, winners in all categories, except the Student category, get to choose their own prize; either the stunning 17-inch PowerBook G4 or the groundbreaking 64-bit Power Mac G5.

For more information on the Apple Design Awards, visit this Apple web page.

High Performance Computing for the Rest of Us--New Apple Xgrid Cluster Article: As we have noted previously, you can set up a computer cluster with the Power Macs in your lab or office with just a few clicks, using Xgrid. The newest version of Apple's high performance computing software, Xgrid Technical Release 2, is out now with a number of added features. Apple has posted a new article on using Xgrid. This article explains who might benefit from Xgrid, how to set it up and get started, and shares some stories of how mathematicians and scientists like Xgrid's power and easy setup, which lets them to focus on problem solving.

iBooks Replacing Books? Maybe in Tuscon, AZ: The Vail School District in Tuscon, AZ, plans to hand each high school student at its new high school a new iBook instead of text books according to this article. This will be the first school district in Arizona to hand out iBooks instead of text books. [Dana Baggett]

WWDC 2004--Details on Over 100 Sessions are Out: From basics to best practices, the in-depth technical sessions at WWDC provide the latest details about Mac OS X and Apple technologies. Descriptions of more than 100 sessions are currently available to view with more coming soon. Check them out.

-- Monday, March 29 --

Hands-On Book Review--iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition, by J. D. Biersdorfer. The second edition of this excellent book was recently published. It is totally up to date, including ten pages of information on Apple's brand new iPod mini.

iPod & iTunes has 359 pages divided into the front pages, an introduction, 16 chapters and two appendices. Whoa? There's that much to know about the iPod, iPod mini and iTunes? Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

The introduction covers digital music, all iPod generations including the new mini, the differences between the Mac and Wintel versions and the needed companion computer hardware. The first two chapters cover the iPods themselves while the next four cover the software, including the iPod's, iTunes for Mac and Windows, MusicMatch Jukebox for Windows and the iTunes Music Store. The next five chapters cover the typical non-music capabilities of the iPod including: contacts, calendars, games, ebooks and audiobooks and and an external hard drive plus keeping all in sync with iSync. The final five chapters are devoted to what the author calls "Extreme iPodding", i.e. lots of other things that the iPod can do using third party applications, hacks and hardware--chapter 15 is on troubleshooting with 36 pages. Appendix A covers the mechanical details of iTunes, menu by menu, in 14 pages and Appendix B does the same in eleven pages for MusicMatch Jukebox Plus. Finally, there is a nine-page index.

We read the book cover-to-cover, although we admit to lightly skimming much of the simple material since we are a long-time iPod and iTunes user. The book is very well written. It's style is clear and easy to read, especially for a "manual." A lot of the instructions are in the form of a figure with a set of steps to follow.

We learned a lot of interesting details including: the many digital audio formats, how to tell a Mac iPod from Windows iPod, that a Mac can use both the Mac and Windows formatted iPods but a Wintel computer can not and which iPod models can be used as startup drives with which versions of Mac OS 9 and X. The book includes easily-followed directions on how to make an iPod into a Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X startup drive, including doing so with Mac OS X 10.2 and 10.3 which is not so easy. Chapter 13 "Hot Hacks and Cool Tools" and Chapter 15 "Troubleshooting" are particularly useful to the initiated and unintiated.

Yes, there's a lot to know about iPods and iTunes, a lot more than we thought. We think everyone who uses both will find the book interesting to read and a valuable addition to their library. [iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition, February 2004, by J. D. Biersdorfer, Pogue Press/O'Reilly, $24.95 ($17.47 on Amazon.com)]

Apple's "More memory for less." Promo Extended to June 26th according to their memory promo web page. It was slated to run out this past Saturday. For this limited time you can save up to $700 when you power up a new iMac, Power Mac G4, or Power Mac G5 to maximum capacity. Get special RAM upgrades on all qualifying desktop systems when you custom-configure one at the Apple Store by March 27. Save up to $50 on each 256MB RAM module, up to $150 on each 512MB RAM module, or up to $50 on each 1GB RAM module added to your system. [Dana Baggett]

New Apple Promo "Brilliant savings." Get $500 Off a G5 and 23" Cinema Display when both are bought together according to this Apple web page.

Between March 28, 2004, and June 26, 2004, purchase a Power Mac G5 and a 23-inch Cinema HD Display at the same time — and get $500 back by mail.

From the Dark Side--MicroUnity SE Sued Intel and Dell over patent infringement on its multimedia procesing technology according to this NYT article on CNet. Remember hyperthreading being added to the Pentium 4 to speed up multitasking? Well, MUSE claims it's theirs.

-- Weekend, March 27-28 --

[Update 11a EST 3/27] Being First--The Maine Education iBook Program: The debate in Maine over expansion of their highly successful state-wide iBook program to high school carries on. Here is a column in the Morning Sentinel, "Long live the Laptops" by Jim Brunelle that sumarizes the issues very well while arguing in favor of the extension. As we pointed out in earlier articles, the first year of the extension from seventh and eighth grade to ninth grade is essentially at no cost. [Dana Baggett]

Adobe GoLive CS 7.0.2 Full Product Update is Available for download via the "Updates" selection under the "Help" menu in GoLive CS. It's a 15.3 MB download. Here are the changes:

This update provides key fixes in the following areas: Adobe Co-Author Components, CSS, FTP Connectivity, InDesign CS Package for GoLive, Link Management, Preferences, QuickTime Authoring, SDK, Site Management, Smart Objects, Source Mode, SWF, Templates, Text, User Interface, Version Cue, Web Settings.

Here is the link for the standalone updater.

BBB Pans Apple's Initial Power Mac G5 Ad: The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus recommended that Apple stop advertising the Power Mac G5 as the fastest, most powerful personal computer and that the G5 is the first 64-bit personal computer according to this CNet article. The NAD found Apple's evidence insufficient for the claim and that Apple's wording could encompass workstations. Dell Computer was fingered as the fink.

-- TGIF, March 26 --

[Update 10:30a EST] Apple Revised Offerings from Four of their Hot Deals Retailers:

ClubMac has fantastic deals on a variety of products for your Mac, including Planar Systems 17" Flat Panel LCD Display with $80 mail-in rebate, Adobe Creative Suite Standard Upgrade from Photoshop, Hewlett Packard LaserJet 3380 All-in-One Device, Epson Perfection 4870 Flatbed Scanner with SilverFast, Netalog Transpod All-in-One Car Solution for iPod, TriSynergy X-Plane, You Software You Control 1.0, and much more.

OWC has money saving deals on a bevy of upgrade products for your Mac, including FasterMac.NET TurboMac Unlimited, OWC Mercury G4 Processor Upgrade for all Power Mac G3 Models, OWC Mercury G4 Processor Upgrade for Power Mac G4, Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM SATA Drive with 8MB Data Cache for Power Mac G5, OWC Laptop Screen Protector, Miglia Alchemy TV DVR PCI Tuner Card, and much more.

MacConnection has great deals on a wide array of Mac products, including Roxio Toast with Jam 6 with a $30 mail-in rebate, Canon ZR80 MiniDV Digital Camcorder, Speck iSport Custom iPod Waist Pack, Intuit TurboTax Deluxe 2003 for Mac with FREE single download of TurboTax State, Intuit Quicken 2004, Extensis Portfolio 6.1, Apple eMac Bundle with Vivicam 3340 Digital Camera, and much more.

O'Reilly has great deals on some of it's most popular book titles for the Mac, including "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition," "Mac OS X for Geeks," "Mac OS X Hints: Jaguar Edition," "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual," "The Best of the Joy of Tech," and more.

[Update 8:30a EST] Students Testify in Favor of Expanding Maine iBook Program to High School: Some 25 middle school students testified before the Maine Legislature on how important the iBooks had become to their education in 7th and 8th grade according to this morning's Portland Press Herald article. The Legislature is considering Gov. John Baldacci's proposal to extend the program to 9th grade in high school basically at no cost for the first year. The 25 students representing nearly every county in Maine testified that the iBooks had become so central to their education that they can't conceive of going to high school without them and recounted all of the benefits for the Legislature. [Dana Baggett]

Quicken 2004 for Macintosh Release 3 (R3) Update is Available for download via the applications update feature. Intuit recommends that all Quicken 2004 for Macintosh users install this update. Here are the improvements:

For everyone:

• Old Quicken Data: If you are running the R2 version of Quicken 2004, you may notice that a backup of your data file is created in the folder /username/Documents/Quicken Backup Folder/Old Quicken Data each time you launch Quicken, regardless of your backup preferences. This issue has been resolved. You may want to examine this folder and delete some of the excess backup files.
  
• Reconcile: If you are running the R2 version of Quicken 2004, you may notice that you are not able to manually clear or unclear transactions in the register. This issue has been resolved.
  
• Calendar: You may have experienced an issue where Quicken would unexpectedly quit after a transaction in the calendar was edited and recorded by clicking the Return key. This issue has been resolved.
  

For online banking users:

• Online Transfers and Quicken Bill Pay: You may have experienced an issue where you were unable to perform an online transfer in a data file enabled for Quicken Bill Pay. This issue has been resolved.
  

It's also available from this Intuit web page. [Joe Sacco]

Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition, Released by O'Reilly: CSS is no longer just about potential. "CSS is realized. CSS has proven itself beyond imagination. Cascading Style Sheets have unquestionably revolutionized the Web," says Molly Holzschlag, a steering committee member for the Web Standards Project, in a new Foreword to the just-released "Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition" (Eric Meyer, O'Reilly, US $39.95).

MacWireless Announced High Power 200 mW 802.11g WiFi Access Point: Offering 200 MilliWatts of output power (6 times the normal power of AirPort Base Stations), the MacWireless 802.11g High Power Access Point has the signal strength to take your wireless network to the furthest corners of your building according to the manufacturer. They will ship April 10th for $199.98.

Airline Internet Pricing Announced: According to this Reuters article on Yahoo News, the cost for a transcontinental flight (3-6 hrs) will have a flat rate of $19.95. Flights under 3 hours will cost $14.95 and those longer than 6 hours will cost $29.95. There is also a metered rate. The Boeing Connexion system will be tested on a few Lufthansa, SAS, All Nipon and Japan Airlines flights. [Dana Baggett]

New Virex 7.x DAT Update is Out: Click on the eUpdate icon of your Virex application panel. There is a new DAT file dated March 03, 2004, available from McAfee that will download and install automatically.

Single DVD Format Standard Taking Over, Kind of...It's a Dual: Most, if not all, DVD drives are being manufactured to handle dual formats, i.e. both DVD-R and DVD+R. Sony started the movement with their dual format DVD drive and other manufacturers are following suit according to this PC World article on Yahoo News. Soon, it won't matter if you have a DVD-R or DVD+R disc to read or to write. [Dana Baggett]

New Macromedia Shockwave Player 10.0.0.210 is Out for Safari, Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers and is available for download.

From the Dark Side--Look Out Google and Yahoo, Here Comes M$: In a speech at Microsoft's advertising conference, CEO Steve Ballmer boomed that M$ plans to come after leading search machines Google and Yahoo and catch up to them according to this CNet article. M$ has a monopoly in its Windows OS platform so using it, as M$ has with other technologies, M$ should have little difficulty catching up and crushing them like they did with Netscape and are doing with Real Player and QuickTime.

-- Thursday, March 25 --

[Update 9:30a EST] Apple Unveils Turn-Key Workgroup Cluster to 16 Nodes: Based on the new Xserve G5, Apple is offering a turn-key computational cluster system designed especially for bioinformatics starting at $27,999 with 2 nodes (i.e. 2 dual 2-GHz Xserve G5s). The cluster can hold up to 16 nodes or 32 G5 processors and provide up to nearly a half teraflop of computing power. Each cluster node costs $2999 by itself, making the full cluster of base 2-units plus 14 more nodes cost about $70,000, but Apple's web page provides no information on pricing above two nodes. One has to write Apple to get a quote.

According to Apple,

You don’t have to be a computer scientist to set up a fully functioning UNIX-based computational cluster. Apple has assembled the parts you need in one easy-to-set up, easy-to-use cluster powerhouse. In about 30 minutes you’ll be ready to run BLAST, HMMER, fasta and more from a powerful, easy-to-use Web interface — the setup process installs over 200 bioinformatics applications on your cluster.

Here is Apple's pdf brochure with the technical specifications.

[Update 9a EST] Apple Delayed iPod Mini Worldwide Availability to July: The iPod mini is a huge success. We replaced our 30-GB iPod with a silver iPod mini (see our review) because it does everything we need to do and holds five times as many songs as we have--so far. At $250, the iPod mini sold out rapidly and supplies have remained contrained in the US. The continuing high demand means that Apple will have to ramp up production further to provide the iPod mini outside of the US. That is projected to happen in July.

According to Apple,

Apple® today announced that it is moving the worldwide availability of iPod™ mini to July due to the much stronger than expected demand in the U.S. far exceeding the total planned supply through the end of June. Apple expects to ramp up its manufacturing of the iPod mini to meet worldwide demand in the July quarter.

“The iPod mini is a huge hit with customers in the U.S. and we’re sure it will be the same worldwide once we can ramp up our supply in the July quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Operations. “The iPod mini adds further momentum to the iPod, which is already the leading digital music player in the world.”

The iPod mini is the world’s smallest portable music player to hold up to 1,000 CD-quality songs, and is encased in an ultra-portable, lightweight anodized aluminum body, available in five colors—silver, gold, pink, blue and green. iPod mini features the Click Wheel for effortless one-handed operation, along with the same award-winning user interface as the rest of the iPod family, and works effortlessly with Apple’s iTunes®, the world’s number one digital music service.

On-Site GDC 2004 Report with Photo Gallery: Our West Coast reporter, Brian Nakamoto, was able to attend the Game Developers Conference 2004 in the San Jose, CA, Conference Center yesterday and attend the Microsoft keynote. He said he saw nothing of Apple and ATI was not openly showing off its promised Radeon 9800XT for the Mac (256 MB VRAM). Nvidia's big announcement on its next hot game chip comes in a couple of weeks so nothing new was displayed. According to Brian,

Since the launch of the Xbox, the annual Game Developers Conference has seemed more like the Microsoft Game Developers Conference with Sony and Nintendo playing second fiddle in the face of Microsoft's developer relations juggernaut. Although I won't be able to attend due to scheduling conflicts, it will be interesting to see what Sony chooses to highlight in their keynote tomorrow.

Microsoft used their keynote to continue their long-term plan to make game development easier and more cost-effective by (big surprise) using their software platform. To that end, they announced XNA today which unifies new and existing development tools across Microsoft's major gaming platforms: Xbox, Windows (read: Longhorn), and mobile (e.g. PocketPC). By making game development easier, Microsoft attacks the perceived difficulty of coding for the PS2. Creating a unified game platform--notably between Xbox and Windows--potentially opens up developers to an installed base that could compete with Sony.

Except for PowerBook-toting game developers, Apple did not have a conspicuous presence at the conference. Hopefully, tools that make porting XNA technologies such as DirectX to Mac OS X counterparts like OpenGL will continue to be made available by third parties.

There remain some game genres such as real-time strategy games that I'd rather play on my Mac than even on next generation networked console systems coupled with the all-digital home theater. The refreshing competition among the game console companies is great for game fanatics in general. Should the rumored Xbox price drop come true around May, I may have to actually purchase (my company paid for Microsoft Office) a Microsoft product once Halo 2 ships.

Here is Brian's photo gallery.

FileMaker Pro Business Tracker Module is Free, a free download according to this FileMaker press release. FileMaker Business Tracker combines such key business functions as customer tracking, invoicing, shipping and more to help both current FileMaker Pro users and new users to learn about the many new features and functions now available in the new FileMaker Pro 7 database software from FileMaker. Try out Business Tracker with a free 30-day trial download of FileMaker Pro 7. [Dana Baggett]

WAPi's Monthly Meeting is this Saturday, March 27th: Washington Apple Pi (WAPi) is the AMUG for the greater Washington DC area and one of the oldest in the nation.

What do the World Wide Web, Electronic Mail, Mailing Lists, Electronic Forums, Personal Web Pages and a funny looking penguin have in common? Find out Saturday, March 27, 9 AM to noon When Washington Apple Pi reviews its electronic services and looks to the future: some of which may surprise you. TCS Explorer subscribers, this is a meeting you won't want to miss!

Washington Apple Pi has a wide range of electronic services, from a busy Web site to electronic forums to E-mail service to mailing lists to (for Explorer subscribers) dial-up Internet connectivity and member Web sites. The March 27 General Meeting will feature a review of these services, plus (with any luck at all) a major announcement of new telecommunications capabilities. Grab a meeting brochure in Web-friendly JPEG or print-friendly PDF format.

Washington Apple Pi General Meeting
Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus
Ernst Community Cultural Center
8333 Little River Turnpike
Annandale, VA 22003-3796
Free admission
Everyone is welcome
Free parking in the Cultural Center parking lot.

Apple Wireless Keyboard/Mouse Firmware 1.1 Updaters are Out. They are available via the Software Update preference pane if you are using the Apple wireless keyboard and mouse. Otherwise, they are available as a standalone updater from this web page. The firmware updates are recommended for all users. The download decodes as two separate update installers. We downloaded and applied them and encountered no problems.

Nanosaur 2: Hatchling v1.0.4 Updater is Available for download from Pangea Software's web site. This update is highly recommended by Pangea and it will update any version of Nanosaur 2 to version 1.0.4. It fixes a major memory leak. Several other minor bug fixes and tweaks are also included. We love this game and anxiously await the arrival of the red/cyan glasses that we ordered last week.

Apple Revised Offering From Their Hot Deals Retailer Sweetwater:

Sweetwater has fantastic deals on a wide variety of music and audio products for your Mac, including Digidesign Mbox, MOTU FastLane USB, M-Audio BX5 Monitor Speakers, Rode NT1-A Studio Microphone, JL Cooper CS-32 MiniDesk, Native Instruments B4, Edirol PCR-1, MakeMusic Finale 2004, Bias SoundSoap, and more.

Griffin SightLight is Now Shipping: Griffin Technology, Inc, announced the Griffin SightLight, the only light in the world made specifically for the iSight camera, has begun shipping--two weeks ahead of schedule. With SightLight users can better use their iSight cameras to video chat while they're in dimly lit or dark areas such as hotel lobbies or darkened rooms. Announced at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January, the SightLight slips directly onto the front of the iSight and beams a warm bright glow onto the iSight user. Settings include On, Off and an Auto light mode, which senses the amount of ambient light and adjusts SightLight's output accordingly. Made exclusively for the iSight, the Griffin SightLight sells for $39.99 and can be purchased directly from Griffin.

From the Dark Side--Mike Rowe Donates Legal Fund to Hospice: Remember Canadian teenager Mike Rowe? He put up a web site for his company with the domain name "mikerowesoft.com" which generated a legal attack from none other than the richest man in the world's company, Microsoft, for copyright infringement. That's right, Microsoft believed that Mike Rowe using his own name was a copyright infringement. People donated $6000 to his legal defense but Rowe reached a settlement with Microsoft. So he has stated that he will donate most of it, $5250, to a hospice for terminally ill children accordingg to this AP article on Excite News. [Dana Baggett]

-- Wednesday, March 24 --

USB 2.0 Flash Memory Drives Gaining Features and Popularity according to this Boston.com article. While the floppy drive has been dead on the Mac for years, the flash drive may finally kill them off on PCs. Now, flash drives are gaining features other than just being a straight copy medium.

We think someone needs to write killer Mac software that automatically exports bookmarks, contacts and other settings so the flash drive can be plugged into any Mac anywhere and the Mac will be temporarily sync'ed with the flash drive owner's configurations--kind of "My Mac is your Mac." We know one can do this with iSync and a .Mac account but it takes awhile and is difficult to remove when you are done. Such an app on a flash drive could be the next "Salling Clicker". [Dana Baggett]

iChat AV v2.1 is Out in Final and available for download via the Software Update preference pane or as a standalone installer. From the Read Me file:

iChat AV v2.1 adds support for video conferencing with the new AOL Instant Messenger 5.5 for Microsoft Windows.

We have been using iChat AV 2.1 Beta but haven't chatted with any one using AIM 5.5 and Windows via video.

Apple Xgrid Technology Preview 2 is Out and available for download. Yesterday, Apple's Xgrid Product Manager, Ernest Prabhakar, sent the following note to Apple's Xgrid list:

Hello everyone,

In recognition of the overwhelmingly positive response to the initial
release of Xgrid back on January 6th, we are pleased to announce the
immediate availability of Xgrid Technology Preview 2. This improves
on Xgrid's already breakthrough ease-of-use by adding the most
requested features:
* an 'xgrid' command-line utility (including man page)
* support for MPI jobs using UCLA's LnxMPI library
* a brand-new, comprehensive Xgrid Guide.pdf document
as well as numerous bug fixes.

To download either the full Xgrid install, or just the new Xgrid Guide,
please visit <www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/>. The Release Notes are also
included below, for your convenience. <attachment deleted>

Xgrid is still only a Technology Preview, but it has already made
substantial progress thanks to your input. Please continue to file
bugs <bugreport.apple.com> and feature requests
<mailto:xgrid@apple.com> -- we're listening.

Sincerely,

Ernest Prabhakar

Xgrid is Apple's software for creating a simple, inexpensive cluster among Macs on the same network. Things like scientific simulation studies that require many separate runs to look at various scenarios or the effects of uncertainty are great candidates for Xgrid running overnight on many idle Macs on a network in an office building.

Apple Xserve G5 With Single 2-GHz G5 Processor is Shipping according to this Apple press release:

Apple® today announced it has begun shipping its Xserve® G5, the most powerful Xserve yet, to customers. With unparalleled performance and manageability, Xserve G5 delivers over 30 gigaflops of processing power per system—about 60 percent more than the PowerPC G4-based Xserve—in a 1U rack-mount enclosure.

The single 2-GHz G5 model is shipping now at $2999 and the dual 2-GHz G5 models will be out in April. One of the dual models is optimized for clustering. All models include Mac OS X 10.3 Server with unlimited licenses.

Seniors Less Vulnerable to Spam/Fraud according to a study covered in this TechWeb article on Yahoo News. Web surfers 65 and older click less on scams and block more spam than other age groups. [Dana Baggett]

Zachary Keith Hill Busted for "Phishing" according to this PC World article. Phishing is an identity theft scam where an email that masquerades as a real email from a credit card company, Paypal or other financial institution asks the receiver to click on a link and fill in a form that has credit card numbers and other personal financial information. It's not too hard to believe but a lot of people have fallen for this particular scam because the bogus emails and web sites with the forms are many times very good forgeries. Frequently, the emails have obvious gramatical errors but, hey, people still fall for the so-called Nigerian scam which we find hard to believe. Hill of Houston, TX, was busted for this identity theft scam while awaiting sentencing on federal criminal charges. [Dana Baggett]

RIAA Sued Another 532 Individuals for Illegal Music File Swapping according to this AP article on Excite News. 89 are at 21 universities. The suits are "John Doe" lawsuits since in a court decision the RIAA is forced to sue first to try to get the actual names of the accused individuals rather than forcing ISPs to turn the names over to them. [Dana Baggett]

From the Dark Side--M$'s Passport Bombs: Do you trust Microsoft? Heck no! Why on earth would anyone give all of their personal credit information to the king of swiss cheese software to hold? This CNet article covers the lack of progress in the once crown jewel of Microsoft's eCommerce strategy. Passport was designed to use M$'s operating system monopoly to corner the market on eCommerce transactions and collect a toll on each one from businesses. The consumers' response has been no way, Jose, in the face of a better model from the Liberty Alliance, including Sun and Intel, that doesn't use M$'s exclusive software and servers for authentication.

-- Tuesday, March 23 --

Apple iPhoto v4.0.1 Update is Out and available for download via the Software Update preference pane if iPhoto 4.0 is installed. There is also a standalone updater available from this Apple web page. According to the Read Me file:

Photo 4.0.1 includes many organizational and stability enhancements. Performance has also been increased throughout the application, giving you faster importing, smoother image viewing and easier Rendezvous photo sharing. This version of iPhoto also features improved thumbnail images in your photo library. To take advantage of this, your thumbnails must be upgraded, which may take a while, depending on the number of photos in your library.

Updating the thumbnails of our meagre four hundred photos took 4-5 minutes.

Broadband Wireless Internet Widespread This Year? Maybe so, according to this AP news article. Lots of companies appear to be jumping into the fray--AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and Samsung. The signal will cover an entire city, not just the 300' that WiFi covers today. [Dana Baggett]

Apple Revised the Offerings from Two of Their Hot Deals Retailers:

CDW has fantastic deals on a bevy of products for your Mac, including Xerox Phaser 6250N Color Laser Printer with a $300 mail-in rebate, Sony VPL-DS100 LCD Projector, MacAlly iKey USB Keyboard Dr. Bott ExtendAIR Omni Antenna, Epson Perfection 4870 Photo Flatbed Scanner, Exabyte VXA-2 FireWire Tape Drive with Dantz Retrospect Professional, and much more.

Ramjet has fantastic deals on a wide variety of upgrade products for your Mac, including 120GB External FireWire Hard Drive; RAM upgrades for Power Mac G5, Aluminum PowerBook G4, iBook G4, Power Mac G4, iMac G4, eMac, and much more.

TechTool Pro v4.0.2 What's New Details Now Available: Last Friday we first posted the availability of the TTP4 v4.0.2 updater but noted that we did not know all of what was fixed. Here are the details courtesy of MacUpdate.com:

• Updated bootable TechTool Pro 4 CD to Mac OS 10.3.2 to support latest machines.
  
• Additional support for third party ATA PCI cards.
  
• Added French, Italian and Japanese localization.
  
• Enhancements to Wipe Data feature.
  
• Enhancements to File Structure and Finder Info tests.
  
• Enhancements to Directory Maintenance and Optimization features.
  
• Enhancements to Data Recovery feature to find data on volumes with bad blocks.
  
• Improvements to Diagnostics Setup feature.
  
• Additional support for eDrive creation routine.
  
• Improvements to Volume Structure detection and repair routines.