-- TGIF, April 30 --

Hands-On Commentary--Was Apple Cheated by Pepsi in the Free iTunes Song Promo? You might think so based on articles like the one posted by Think Secret which claims that Apple's internal goal was 25 million redemptions but the promo netted only 5 million. We don't know how many redemptions Apple expected to get but 5 million redemptions out of 100 million possible is not too far off from what we'd guess given the design and expected execution of the promotion. Why is that?

We participated relatively heavily in the promotion. On the one hand, it wasn't hard to do since we use our iPod mini, and our iPods before it, for hours every day and we tend to favor diet Pepsi along with Dr Pepper when we buy soda which we do a lot. On the other hand, it was difficult because we almost never buy 20-oz bottles of soda. This is partly because they are only available as singles in coolers in convenience stores or in special coolers in grocery stores or in special dispensing machines located in some bowling centers, motel hallways and the like. It is also partly because the 20-oz bottle is probably the most expensive way to buy soda and partly because 20 oz is more than we usually want to drink at one time and no fridge is usually available for the residual.

It took some serious effort to change our habit of buying soda in large flats or 12-can and 24-can boxes with large discounts or as reasonable doses from 12-oz cans from dispensing machines. One might ask if the average person who stops by a convenience store and drinks a 20-oz bottle of soda is really likely to care about redeeming a song via a computer for use with an iPod, if they even know about it in the first place. Pepsi knows the demographics of those who buy its products and we don't. But one might also ask why so many of Pepsi's promotions involve the 20-oz bottles. If Pepsi bore the cost of the promotion and knew this would minimize their outlay but Apple didn't, then maybe one could conclude that Apple got cheated but there are a lot of "ifs" involved in reaching that conclusion, more than we are comfortable with.

Clearly, Pepsi did not make the bottles with the iTunes promo caps widely available in the market quickly after the promotion began. We found only a few such bottles in a few 7-11 stores after an extensive search of Northern Virginia a full week after the four-week promotion began. It was several weeks into the four week promotion before the promo bottles were fairly common. But again, it may not have been practical to do better given Pepsi's distribution process.

Our first thought when the promotion period was announced for just 30 days with an additional 30 days for redemption that pushing 300 million 20-oz bottles promo bottles onto and through the market in that time period would be a monumental feat. We still see notes on web sites from people saying they never arrived. However, one of the areas mentioned was San Diego, CA, when we were there so we went to the local Albertsons in San Diego and found iTunes promo bottles in their singles cooler by the checkout counter. There were still promo bottles there last week which can be redeemed through today [Note: We originally incorrectly wrote "Saturday"]. So it seems that some people just don't know where to look. We wonder if Pepsi will get even the 100 million winning bottles (one-third of the total) to and through the market by Saturday. Only Pepsi knows this for sure.

Was the rate of winning bottle caps changed to accomodate a slow delivery of the promo caps to market? We managed to score free songs at a 75% rate, without "tipping", from nearly 80 20-oz bottles, a rate that is over double the advertised 33-1/3% rate. We are not particularly lucky so we don't believe that our success was entirely luck. In fact, the success rate enjoyed by a few other people whom we know who bought 50 or more iTunes promo Pepsi bottles ranged well above the advertised rate according to their recollection. Our experience over time, which supports a change, was that we had a winning rate of around 50% in the beginning and that it increased to nearly 100% toward the end.

We also have some concerns about the integrity of the process. Two of our first ten winning bottlecaps would not work, i.e. the code was not uniquely readable or it was bad. The instructions for bad caps were to get an RMA from a Pepsi web site and send the cap in a padded envelope to a Pepsi redemption center. Then, a working code would be sent back by email. Despite the fact that a padded envelope and postage costs more than 99 cents, we did this twice to test the system. The first bad cap was obtained during our first weekend survey and it received an RMA from Pepsi in the 300's. The second followed by four days and it received an RMA in the 900's so at least initially there were more than a few caps with redemption codes that did not work or were not readable. Inspite of spending an extra $3+ for the two "free" songs, we received only one code back by email from the redemption center and even that was nearly after the promotion is set to end. We suspect that most people just trashed a winning cap with a code that didn't work.

So, in conclusion, it seems to us that the promo was designed and executed in a way that was stacked against getting a high redemption number even though the actual winning rate may have been higher than designed and may have even increased over the promotion. However, it strikes us that almost any marketing person should have anticipated that happening so we find it hard to believe that Apple was cheated. If Pepsi didn't perform up to its contract, we expect that Apple will be getting some consideration but it would have been far better if the program had been designed and executed to deliver more redemptions than 5 million.

Apple Broadens iBook Logic Board Repair Program to include additional serial numbers according to this Apple web page.

The update to the iBook Logic Board Repair Extension Program is the inclusion of certain additional iBooks to the existing program. The Updated iBook Logic Board Repair Extension Program is a worldwide program covering repair or replacement of the logic board in specific iBook models manufactured between May 2002 and October 2003 that are experiencing specific component failures.

The program is available for iBooks with serial numbers in the following range(s):

UV220XXXXXX to UV342XXXXXX

iBooks with the serial numbers listed above may be referred to as:
• iBook (16 VRAM)
• iBook (14.1 LCD 16 VRAM)
• iBook (Opaque 16 VRAM)
• iBook (32 VRAM)
• iBook (14.1 LCD 32 VRAM)
• iBook (800MHz 32 VRAM)
• iBook (900MHz 32 VRAM)
• iBook (14.1 LCD 900MHz 32 VRAM)

iPod Mini Prices Skyrocket to Over $400 on eBay: The trickle of new iPod minis to market with high demand is leading to incredibly high prices on the gray market. A pink one went for $400 last night on eBay. Several went for over $500 in the past couple of weeks with many selling for over $400. Pink has been a hot color for gifts--our West Coast reporter, Brian Nakamoto, related to us his observation of a guy who bought 8 for gifts. So much for the pundits who thought the iPod mini was overpriced at $249.

Reports of iPod Update Problems Persist, Apple Investigates the Problem according to this CNet article. We updated several original 5-GB iPods and two iPod minis with no problem, however others have had problems. Brian Nakamoto, our West Coast reporter, was unable to update his 30-GB iPod. He reports:

I have a 30 GB iPod that mounts as a drive, but is not recognized by the latest updater. iTunes will launch the updater, the updater will report that there's no iPod connected and then quit. iTunes will subsequently not recognize my iPod.

I finally got my iPod to update... I ran the iPod updater on a Mac that had not yet been updated with it, iTunes 4.5, or the QuickTime update via Software Update. The iPod update went quickly. iTunes 4.5 recognizes my iPod and doesn't launch the updater (so I assume it knows my iPod is up-to-date now).

I also notice that my iPod is no longer set to mount as a drive in iTunes. I vaguely recall a problem that I experienced with a previous iPod update where I had to disable that option in order to get the updater to recognize my iPod. In that case, iTunes still recognized my iPod so I was able to do so.

Apple is encouraging those with problems to contact AppleCare. [Dana Baggett]

iBook Extension to High Schools Not in Maine Supplemental Budget according to this Portland Press Herald article. The spending bill has been sent to the Governor for signature. Gov. Baldacci proposed extending the highly successful iBook program from 7th and 8th grade to 9th grade using left over capital improvement funds but is expected to sign the bill and look for some other way to extend the program. [Dana Baggett]

Which are the Best WiFi Internet Hotels? MSNBC.com provided a report useful to road warriors. Here is their best 10 list:

• Best Western International
  
• Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
  
• Hilton Hotels
  
• Hyatt Corporation
  
• InterContinental Hotels
  
• Marriott International
  
• Microtel Inns and Suites
  
• Omni Hotels
  
• Starwood Hotels & Resorts
  
• Wyndham Hotels and Resorts

[Dana Baggett]

Internet Tax Ban Extension Approved by U.S. Senate on a 93-3 Vote according to this Washington Post article. The Senate's extension is for four years and leaves open taxing telephone service regardless of medium. However, the House version provides for a broader and permanent ban so it still has a tough fight in Congress. [Dana Baggett]

-- Thursday, April 29 --

Apple Promo--Free iTunes Music Store Song Each Day for Eight Days: Apple is marking the first anniversary of its iTunes Music Store by thanking its customers with a free song of the day, starting Wednesday (My Hero by Foo Fighters), for the next eight days from artists who have helped make iTunes a runaway success, including Foo Fighters, Avril Lavigne, Courtney Love, Annie Lennox, Jane’s Addiction, Counting Crows, Renee Fleming and Nelly Furtado. Following the anniversary celebration, the iTunes Music Store will continue to offer a “Free Single of the Week” from up-and-coming bands, spotlighting emerging artists and offering iTunes customers a risk-free way to discover new music.

The free song is available by clicking the free song image on Apple's home page.

Washington DC's National Mall to Get Free Wireless Internet according to this Reuters article on Yahoo News. The Open Park Project has already set up a free wireless internet access point covering the Supreme Court and the Capitol. Their plan is to add 6 more along the two-mile Mall. [Dana Baggett]

Retrospect 6.0 v5.3.102 is Out and available for download. From Dantz,

A new Retrospect Driver Update (RDU) has been released for use with Retrospect 6.0 for Macintosh. To download the update and read a list of changes, please visit the following address:

Macintosh RDU version 5.3.102 (Retrospect 6.0)

Thanks for using Retrospect.
Dantz Development

This release supports many new drives plus:

• "Erase Selected" now works when selecting only one tape slot in a library
  
• Improved stability when running the Custom Configuration option.
  

[Dana Baggett]

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

The Apple Store has a limited supply of brand new iBooks and PowerBooks at fantastic prices. For example, get an iBook G4 starting at only $1,249, or a 12" PowerBook G4 for only $1,499. Also available is the beautiful 17" PowerBook G4 for only $2,599, and the 15" PowerBook G4 starting at only $1,799. These are brand new, unopened products covered by Apple one-year limited warranty. In addition, customers may purchase an AppleCare Protection Plan for their new iBook or PowerBook. All details on these offers available under the "Special Deals" tile.

Outpost has fantastic deals on a wide variety of products for your Mac, including Aspyr Media Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, MacSoft Unreal Tournament 2004 with a $10 mail-in rebate, Viva Media Making Music, Real Basic 5.5 for Professional and Standard Editions, Adobe Creative Suite 1.1 Premium for Mac, SoftPress Freeway Express, Cylogistics Office Applications 2.0, and much more.

New Apple iTunes Music Store Features with iTunes 4.5 and QuickTime 6.5.1:

“iMix,” a new way for users to publish playlists of their favorite songs on the iTunes Music Store for other users to preview, rate and purchase. iMix creates a virtual iTunes community, enabling users to discover new music recommended by fellow music fans and rate the iMixes published by other iTunes users;

“Party Shuffle,” a new playlist that automatically chooses songs from a user’s music library, displays just-played and upcoming songs, and allows users to easily add, delete and rearrange the upcoming songs on the fly. Party Shuffle is the ultimate DJ at any gathering, and a great way for users to get reacquainted with their personal music library;

Radio Charts from more than 1,000 radio stations, enabling users to easily find and buy the top songs played on local radio stations in major US markets and buy directly from the charts with just one click;

A new Music Video section featuring more music videos than ever, and a new Movie Trailer section with the most popular movie trailers on the Internet and links to buy songs from the soundtrack or audiobooks related to the movie;

The rights to play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, including songs previously purchased, on up to five personal computers, two more than before;

The ability to create and print stunning CD jewel case inserts for albums or compilation discs, combining album art and track lists using professionally designed templates. For compilation CDs, iTunes will automatically generate a mosaic of album covers based on the chosen songs; and

Automatic WMA to AAC conversion, enabling Windows users to automatically create iTunes versions of their songs encoded in unprotected WMA. Converting an entire music library into iTunes and syncing it onto iPod™ is now a snap.

The only "downgrade" is:

Honoring Apple’s commitment to discourage music theft while preserving fair personal use rights, the number of times a user can burn the same playlist onto CDs with iTunes is being reduced from ten burns to seven. Users can still burn a single song an unlimited number of times and listen to their music on an unlimited number of iPods.

Apple's iTunes Music Store provided 70 million song downloads in its first year and the download rate is now at an annual level of 140 million songs. iTMS now has 700,000 songs from the five major music distributors and 450 independents. Here is the full Apple press release.

-- Wednesday, April 28 --

[Update 7:50a EDT] Apple iTunes 4.5 and iPod Update 2004-04-28 are Out and avilable for download from Apple's iPod web page but not yet via the Software Update preference pane.

The iTunes 4.5 improvements will probably be divulged at this morning's 11:30a (ET) news conference. But the Read Me says:

What's new in iTunes 4.5

• Using iTunes 4.5, you can DJ your own parties with Party Shuffle, share playlists with friends, print jewel case inserts, and much more.
  

Changes for iPod without a Dock connector

• Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
  
• Improved playback performance
  

Changes for iPod with a Dock connector and iPod mini

• Compatibility with iTunes 4.5 and the iTunes Music Store
  
• Improved playback performance
  
• Support for the Apple Lossless Encoder, to enable compressed music encoding at high quality

We downloaded both and installed them with no problems. [Dana Baggett]

Apple Emphasizes Enterprise IT at WWDC 2004: In-house developers, system administrators, and IT managers won’t want to miss WWDC 2004. Apple engineers and industry-leading enterprise solution experts will present detailed technical sessions on developing, deploying, and managing enterprise applications using Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Xserve G5 and the Xserve RAID storage system. Learn more about how coming to WWDC 2004 can help you make the most of your company’s investment in Apple technologies.

Did Apple's AirPort 3.4.1 Updater Take? If you had a reception issue with AirPort 3.4 and after applying the 3.4.1 updater reception did not improve, how can you tell that the 3.4.1 updater actually installed? Well, launch the System Profiler in your Utilities folder, click on "Extensions" under Software in the navigation window on the left and scroll down the the four AppleAirPort... extensions as shown below:

The first and second extensions should have the date of when you installed the 3.4.1 updater and the AppleAirPort2 extension should be version 3.4.1.

If you have problems maintaining an AirPort connection, it may have nothing to do with AirPort 3.4. We always move the primary internet connection port configuration, especially "Internel Modem," to the top of the list to minimize connection problems. To do so open the Network pane in System Preferences, click on the "Show" popup menu, select Network Port Configurations and drag AirPort to the top of the list. This works for us with dial-up connection problems but we do not have AirPort connection problems to test.

Apple Hands-On Labs at WWDC 2004 Are "Hidden Gems": The Hands-On Labs at WWDC are the “hidden gems” of the conference, offering both formal and informal opportunities to get specific advice and assistance from Apple's engineers. You can schedule a one-on-one consultation focused on your application’s UI, get tips and techniques for optimizing for the Power Mac G5, test drive the latest version of Apple’s developer tools, or simply drop in for a casual chalk-talk with an Apple engineer. Be sure to bring your source code and your questions and take advantage of this valuable opportunity to get answers from the experts. Last year the hands-on labs were huge hits according to our personal observations.

SureType 2.0 for Mac OS X is Out: SureType 2.0 for Mac OS X, from Rampell Software, allows users to define text shortcuts that insert frequently typed text, open websites and applications. With SureType, by typing address\ (address + backslash) SureType will insert your full address, or by typing excel\ SureType will open Microsoft Excel. This is similar to Microsoft Word's AutoCorrect feature, but is much more powerful and works from any application. Not only can SureType insert frequently used text items and speed up your typing, like TypeIt4Me, it can also put your favorite files, folders, and applications at your fingertips. SureType requires Mac OS X 10.2 or higher. It comes with a free 14-day trial, and can be purchased for $19.95.

Apple Subsidiary FileMaker Released Meetings 2.0 and Tasks 2.0 Business Software according to this eWeek article. FileMaker Meetings 2.0 manages meetings from making agendas, taking minutes to the assignment and tracking of follow-up actions. FileMaker Tasks 2.0 manages tasks for individuals and project groups, as well. They cost $69 each or, until September 30th, both for $99. They work with FileMaker Pro 7. [Dana Baggett]

Apple Extends WWDC 2004 Early Registration to May 14 to Save $300: Apple is pleased to extend the WWDC 2004 Early Registration deadline to May 14, 2004. You now have two additional weeks to save $300 on your WWDC 2004 E-ticket or to invite your team and save 20% on a WWDC E-ticket 5-Pack. Plus, there’s still time to get good airfare, book a great hotel room at a great price, and reserve a seat for yourself at one of the free pre-conference workshops.

-- Tuesday, April 27 --

Apple Partner in $11 Million EETT Grant to LA County Schools according to this Business Wire article. The grant is from the Enhancing Education Through Technology program, a part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The participating districts are ABC Unified, Compton Unified, Downey Unified, East Whittier City, El Rancho Unified, Norwalk/La Mirada Unified, South Whittier, and Whittier City School Districts. The 2-year grant covers 33 middle schools with some 33,000 students. Apple will be expanding 6th-8th grade student access to wireless laptop technology (iBooks and AirPort Base Stations?). [Dana Baggett]

Hands-On Report--Apple AirPort 3.4.1 Updater: AirPort 3.4.1 Updater is out and available for download via the Software Update preference pane or as a standalone file. We couldn't find any details on what exactly is fixed in the new updater. But after the release of v3.4 there were a number of reports of reduced reception and wake from sleep connection issues. While we did not see these issues on four AirPort networks, one or more of the issues may have been fixed for others in v3.4.1. Here is what the vague Read Me file says:

This software update provides improved AirPort wireless networking software, and is recommended for all users with an AirPort Extreme and AirPort enabled computer or an AirPort Extreme base station.

New AirPort Extreme Features

• Improved antenna output control.
  
• Enhanced logging from your base station which is compatible with syslog.
  
• Performance improvements for WPA security implementations.
  

This is the same as for v3.4.

Upon rebooting after installation, we had to reselect the wireless network and allow access to our Keychain in a dialog box on several Macs.

With one exception, we notice no reception differences in our AirPort Extreme networks, probably because we noticed no real degradation with AirPort v3.4 as reported by some. We also had no reconnection problems after waking from sleep.

The reception exception is a 1-GHz 17" PowerBook G4 that, from the same location, consistently showed three arcs in the menu icon before 3.4. But when downloading large files, it would drop to two arcs. After 3.4, things were reversed--the icon would display two or three arcs normally and a solid three arcs during a large download. In either case, however, the throughput as measured by several download speed services was the same on average regardless.

After 3.4.1, the icon is back to a solid three arcs normally and it also displays a solid three arcs during a large download. Unfortunately, the download speed remains the same as before using the speed tests (CNet and Bandwidth Place). We conclude that our reception issue was really cosmetic. [Dana Baggett]

Bedlam 2 v1.1 is Out and Runs on Mac OS X: Bedlam 2 is a fast action, arcade-style game with forty-five levels of blistering game play. As you blast away at the invading forces, your ship moves along the bottom of the screen while you try to avoid a barrage of enemy firepower, collisions with attacking ships and the occasional chunk of floating space debris. By racking up points along the way, you earn much-needed extra ships, and can even capture hunks of gold bars released when you've demolished the ships of some of the greedy trespassers. Other fun and nasty surprises materialize during your long mission to free our galaxy from this evil infestation. Changes in this version (v1.1) include:

- Bedlam 2™ has been Carbonized to run natively on Mac OS X!
- Also plays great on Mac OS 8.6-9.x with CarbonLib
- High resolution graphics.
- Improved game play (full screen, additional ship capabilities, music, ...)

Bedlam 2 v1.1 is available for $15.

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

CDW|MacWarehouse has great deals on a wide variety of products for your Mac, including SimpleTech Full Speed USB 2.0 256MB Flash Drive, Iomega Zip 750 Drive with $50 mail-in rebate, Kensington USB Keyboard, LaCie 500GB Big Disk, Asante Gigabit Switch, Xerox Phaser 6250 Color Laser Printer with $300 mail-in rebate, Iogear 4-port USB 2.0 Microhub, and much more.

Apple's Steve Jobs to Hold Wednesday Conference on iTunes Music Store Anniversary according to a news story broke yesterday morning by MacMinute and confirmed by MacCentral late yesterday afternoon. The conference will include BIO media and analysts and will take place at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 28th, the anniversary of Apple's iTunes Musinc Store. [Dana Baggett]

-- Monday, April 26 --

[Update 10:30a] ADHOC (formerly MacHack) Announced Keynote Speakers: The Advanced Developer Hands On Conference (ADHOC) will take place in Dearborn, MI, on July 21-24. It will have two keynote speakers.

One featured speaker is Jordan Hubbard, Apple's manager of the Darwin (UNIX-based) core of Macintosh OS X. He's famous for co-founding the FreeBSD project and being an active contributor to the Open Source community. His career focus pretty well mirrors the range of ADHOC, cutting edge technology that can be used and expanded on by all.

The official keynote speaker will be David Pogue, an author who gets around. Not only is he the New York Times Technology Columnist and tech expert for CBS News, but he is also responsible for a diverse series of how-to books (over 3 million sold!) including the well-read "Missing Manuals" series. He's also an accomplished music composer and longtime Macintosh aficionado.

Hands-On Review--Dual BayDock 400 with InfoTrays from WiebeTech: We purchased a new 120-GB 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda hard disk drive (HDD) along with a PowerLogix 1.4-GHz CPU for one of our G4 Cubes. It it had been upgraded with a PowerLogix 1-GHz CPU a couple of years ago, but one that wouldn't sleep. The new 1.4-GHz model is not only faster and uses less power, hence produces less heat, but it has no sleep problem nor any other problem that we are aware of (see our review).

Installing the Seagate Barracuda HDD displaced the original 20-GB Western Digital Caviar ATA HDD in our Cube. We already had a 20-GB IBM Deskstar ATA HDD in an inexpensive external FireWire 400 case. We use the external HDD for backup storage for our Cube but the old case's FireWire bridge was giving us occasional trouble, i.e. not mounting, and the fan on the case was louder than we like. Rather than get two new but similar external FW400 cases for the two 20-GB HDDs, we decided to try out a dual model of WiebeTech's BayDock 400 with InfoTrays. It is a bit more expensive than two OWC Elite FireWire cases, our favorite external FireWire case because they are attractive and quiet, but we really liked the features of WiebeTECH's BayDock with InfoTrays, including only one power cord and easy drive removability.

WiebeTech's BayDock is a flexible system. It comes in one, two and four bay models. One can get the BayDock with plain trays ($19.95 each) or with InfoTrays($49.95 each). The InfoTrays provide lots of information about the drives and the tray on an LCD read-out on the front of the tray. The BayDock also comes with either FireWire 400 or 800 bridges. We decided on the dual BayDock 400 with two InfoTrays, all for $279.95.

We got the older FireWire 400 model because the Cube has original FireWire 400 ports and we plan to use our until it drops. Besides, the two 20-GB HDDs are circa 2000 and they are not the fasest on today's market at 5400 RPM. It might be smarter for some to invest $449.95 for the dual FireWire 800 model with InfoTrays if one is looking for maximum speed.

The BayDock and each InfoTray has a built-in fan, something that originally concerned us since the old external case had such an unacceptably loud fan that we kept it off until we really needed to use it, quite an inconvenience. But the BayDock's spec sheet states, "Yes, the fans are very quiet. We know how important that is."

Our dual BayDock with InfoTrays was shipped overnight the business day after we ordered it. Aside from the two InfoTrays and their screws and keys, it came with a CD containing setup and operation instructions, short and long FireWire cables and a power cable. The BayDock is quite attractive and not as large as we had imagined (7"x11"x5.5" tall). The InfoTrays are removeable and have a lid that slides off to allow a drive to be easily installed.

Installation

Installation was quite simple given the instructions provided on the CD. Jumper wires, the power cable and the ATA connector are pressed into the HDD and it is secured in the tray with four screws. The tray with lid closed is slid into the BayDock, its faceplate is closed, it is locked into place with the key and the dark gray lever closed. Note that the HDD will not run unless the tray is locked with the key. The photo below shows the BayDock running next to our Cube.

The hardest part of installation for a non-engineer is to figure out where to connect the three jumpers on red, yellow and green wires and how to set the dip switches on the back of the tray. But we did it right the first time so probably most anyone can. One has to remove the existing jumpers from the jumper block on the HDD and plug in the tray's jumper wires. WiebeTech provides a diagram for most drives on the market of where the tray's jumpers go. The conventional perspective of the diagram is from looking at the jumper block with the drive's electronic board downward. WiebeTech also provides diagrams of how the tray's 4 dip switches should be set for each drive manufacturer. WiebeTech recommends that each drive be set to "Master" unless the manufacturer or type of installation calls for another configuration.

The "info" part of WiebeTech's InfoTray has these features:

• Lockable on, locked off and unlocked off.
• Torque Handle for easy removal and insertion of trays.
• Select "Master" or "Slave" without removing the drive.
• Master/Slave Indicator.
• Accessing Indicator.
• Drive Temperature.
• Overheatind Alarm.
• Fan Failure Alarm.
• Drive Timer.
• All aluminum construction.

The information LCD is shown above at right. During our use, the drives generally ran at 80-81 deg F.

The WiebeTech dual BayDock with no drives or trays installed is whisper quiet. The one medium size fan on the BayDock's back can not be heard in a room with normal background noise. However, with two drives running and the small fan in each tray running, the sound is noticeable. We would not call it "very quiet" as it is somewhat louder than our Cube with a single large fan to cool the 1.4-GHz CPU. But it does not have an objectionable pitch so we leave it on all the time. The BayDock's noise fades into the room's background noise after awhile.

Performance

What about the performance of the two 20-GB 5400 RPM drives? We used Xbench 1.1.3 to benchmark each drive separately in the old FireWire case and each separately in the BayDock and together as a striped RAID set up using Mac OS X's 10.3.3 Disk Utility. We also benchmarked our new 120-GB 7200 RPM Seagate internal HDD for comparison. Here are the results:

Drive Benchmarks--Score/MB per seconds

Xbench 1.1.3	Old Case		WiebeTech Dual BayDock			Internal Drive
.	WDC*	IBM*	WDC	IBM	Striped RAID	Seagate*
Overall Score	38	41	50	54	63	116
Sequential Read--Small**	11	13	18	18	21	53
-- Large**	11	12	17	17	19	52
Sequential Write--Small	3	4	6	10	8	23
-- Large	20	22	20	28	24	52
Random Read--Small	1.0	0.6	0.9	0.6	1.4	1.4
-- Large	11	12	12	12	19	24
Random Write--Small	0.4	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.7
-- Large	12	14	12	15	15	25

*WDC=Western Digital Caviar 20-GB 5AA-40BAA0; IBM= IBM Deskstar 20-GB DTLA-305020; Seagate=Seagate Barracuda 120-GB ST3120026A
**Small=4K blocks; Large=256K blocks in MB/sec

The FireWire bridge in the BayDock is much faster than in the old FireWire case, nearly a third faster according to the aggregate scores and mostly in the sequential actions. Striping the two drives provides a 20+ per cent additional boost overall. But the new Seagate drive is still about twice as fast overall.

Summary

The WiebeTech dual BayDock 400 with InfoTrays is quite a neat solution, it's attractive, fast, reasonably quiet and informative. While we used our available two extra 20-GB drives, if we had been more observant we might have noticed that a single BayDock 400 with InfoTray and a 120-GB 7200 RPM hard disk drive is only $249.95. It would have been $30 cheaper to trash our two older 20-GB drives for a much faster and, with only 1 tray fan, probably quieter solution with 80-GB more space! D'oh!

-- Weekend, April 24-25 --

Hands-On Report--DiskWarrior 3.0.2 CD Update is out and available for download from Alsoft. What's new in DiskWarrior 3.0.2?

• The DiskWarrior 3.0.2 interface was updated to support translation to Japanese. A Japanese version is now available.
• DiskWarrior 3.0.2 is faster than DiskWarrior 3.0.1, which was much faster than DiskWarrior 3.0, which was many times faster than DiskWarrior 2.x.

Note that you need an original 3.0 or 3.0.1 CD to use this updater and that it produces a new CD so you need a CD burner and a blank CD as well.

We downloaded the updater and updated our DiskWarrior to v3.0.2, getting a new CD in the process. The new DiskWarrior 3.0.2 CD booted our PowerBook just fine. Then we optimized the directory on the hard disk drive in our 1-GHz 17" PowerBook G4 and on our external bootable FireWire hard disk drive. Both were about 30% scrambled and it took just a couple of minutes to complete the optimized directory for each drive. If you need a CD with Mac OS X 10.3.x on it to boot your Mac, call Alsoft.

Senate Set to Move Internet Tax Ban Bill Next Week according to this Reuters article on Yahoo News. The compromise will extend the ban for 4 years but the issue of whether or not to include voice calls over the internet in the ban will have to be addressed by Congress. [Dana Baggett]

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

Other World Computing has great deals on essential Mac products, including the OWC Neptune 200GB 7200RPM External FireWire Hard Drive; OWC Mercury Pro DVR-107 8x DVD-R/RW 24x CD-R/RW External FireWire Drive complete with Dantz Retrospect, media 25-pack, and all necessary cables; OWC Mercury Extreme G4/1GHz Upgrade Card, Griffin SightLight FireWire Light for iSight, and much more.

MacMall has fantastic prices of cool Mac products, including Aspyr Media Command & Conquer: Generals, FileMaker Pro 7/Dantz Retrospect 6 Bundle, FileMaker Pro 7/Intuit QuickBooks Pro 6 2004 Bundle, Hewlett Packard LaserJet 3020 All-in-One Device, Canon PowerShot S1 Digital Camera, Final Draft 7, Sennheiser PC155 USB Electronic Gaming Headphones, and much more.

Sweetwater has great prices on essential music and audio products for your Mac, including M-Audio Audiophile USB Audio and MIDI Interface, M-Audio MIDISport 1x1, Tapco 2-8 Studio Monitor Speakers, Audio Technica AT-3035 Large Diaphragm Condenser Mic, JL Cooper CS-32 Minidesk, Ableton Live, Native Instruments Battery, VST to AudioUnits Wrapper, and much more.

Ramjet has fantastic prices on RAM upgrades for your Mac, including 1GB DDR400 Kit for Power Mac G5, 512MB Module for Titanium PowerBook G4, 512MB Module for Aluminum PowerBook G4, 1GB DDR333 Kit for Power Mac G4, 512MB DDR Slot Module for iMac G4, and much more.

ClubMac has great deals on hot Mac products, including Iomega Rev External USB 2.0, Removable Storage Backup Drive, MacPlay Super Collapse II, Shure E3C Earbuds with $40 instant rebate, LaCie 160GB d2 Extreme External FireWire 400/800 Drive, Microsoft Office 2004 Standard Edition Upgrade, Altec Lansing inMotion Portable iPod Speakers, and much more.

O'Reilly has great prices on many of it's hottest Mac titles, including "Running Mac OS X Panther," "Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther," "Mac OS X in a Nutshell," "Mac OS X Unwired," and much more.

Publishing Perfection has fantastic deals on a wide assortment of products for your Mac, including Nik Multimedia Dfine, TDK 100 Pack CD-R Media, Virtual Mirror Vector Studio 2, Transverter Pro 4.0, Pantone Formula Guide, Colorvision SpyderPro with OptiCAL, Epson Stylus Photo RX500, and much more.

-- TGIF, April 23 --

Griffin Announced their iTalk Voice Recorder for iPod is Now Shipping: The iTalk Voice Recorder's exclusive features include external microphone input and headphone play-through. Griffin Technology, Inc, innovator of accessories for iPod like the iTrip, today announced the iTalk Voice Recorder for the iPod is now shipping--on schedule. This stylish accessory snaps directly on top of the iPod and turns it into a fully functional voice recorder and playback device. In addition to it's superior built in microphone and internal speaker, the iTalk has a connector that supports both headphone monitoring and the use of an external microphone. Recording control is handled directly on the iPod and recording time is limited only by the iPod's size. The iTalk Voice Recorder retails for $39.99 and is available now.

Apple FireWire Audio Driver Update 1.0.8 for Mac OS X 10.3.3 is Out and available for download. However, it does not appear in the Software Update preference pane. According to Apple,

This update is recommended for users of FireWire audio devices built on the BridgeCo Enhanced Breakout Box (BeBoB), including the FA-101 from Roland/Edirol.

[Dana Baggett via MacUpdate.com]

Internet Piracy Busts Around the World Announced by Justice Department according to this AP article on Excite News. The busts occurred in 27 states and 10 countries, netting 100 people and 200 computers including 30 servers. A bust happened in the near-future city of our global headquarters, San Diego, where six warrants were served by the FBI in Operation Fast Link (AP news). The piracy involved music, movies and software. [Dana Baggett]

Apple Wins NAB 2004 Best of Show Awards: The 2004 Vidy Awards, Digital Television/TV Broadcast Awards and Government Video Salutes, which are presented in recognition of outstanding achievement in the advancement of the art and science of video technology, were announced at NAB yesterday.

"To receive an award, a product must be reviewed by our panel of editors and technology experts,” says Videography Group Publisher Cristina Gallo. “The winning technologies reflect innovation and engineering excellence."

"Recognition with a Vidy Award, Digital Television/TV Broadcast Award or Government Video Salute is a true vote of confidence and admiration from these three leading publications," adds Videography magazine editor Cristina Clapp.

Apple won two Viddy Best of Show Awards for Motion and Xsan, a Government Video Salute for Motion and a DTV Pick of Show Award with Panasonic for their 100 Mbps DV-HD over IEEE 1394 solution.

Aspyr's Monthly Game Report: Aspyr is one of the top Mac game publishers.

New titles:

Command & Conquer Generals [Shipping]: The world is teetering on the brink of Armageddon. Tensions are running high all a round the globe. The Chinese Red Army is massive, and they're pissed. The Global Liberation Army, a network of international terrorists, is sneaky, stealthy and resourceful. Their dedication to each other and their cause makes this fanatical enemy more dangerous than almost any modern weapon of warfare.The United States has the most sophisticated arsenal and technologically advanced weapons, but these things don't come cheap. Can the U.S. afford to wage war long enough to claim victory over the GLA and the Chinese? Check out screenshots, system requirements or order Command & Conquer Generals (Mac).

Call of Duty [Mid-May]: Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to be an American paratrooper on D-Day, or a member of the British Special Forces, or a Russian tank commander in the middle of World War II? Well, soon you can experience all of that, at least while sitting in front of your Mac. Call of Duty, an intense, first person World War II action game is scheduled to ship in May and will be available to Macintosh gamers worldwide. Aspyr's own incredibly talented development team, Aspyr Studios, developed Call of Duty for the Mac, which is licensed by Activision. Check out screenshots, system requirements or order Call of Duty (Mac).

Development News:

The big news this month is that Aspyr Studios is heavily in development on Battlefield 1942 for the Mac. This incredibly popular multiplayer game has been one of the largest development commitments Aspyr has undertaken, and everyone at Aspyr is working to make it the best online first person shooter for the Mac. The first tests of network games between PC's and Mac's in BF1942 are underway, and things are running smoothly. The final polish is also being put on Call of Duty, and SimCity 4: Rush Hour is moving along.

In general development news, Aspyr Studios is working on a standard set of Mac-specific features to support in all our games, covering everything from allowing our games to run in a window to supporting wide-screen resolutions natively.

-- Thursday, April 22 --

Apple Posted a Preliminary WWDC 2004 Conference Schedule: You can begin planning your WWDC experience today. Check out the preliminary conference schedule to get a head start on what you’ll want to attend when. You should also take a look at the full slate of evening events we have planned. Finally, be sure to sign up for one of the free pre-conference workshops scheduled for Sunday—space is limited, and these valuable bonus sessions are always popular.

Mozilla 1.7rc1 is Out and available for download. The next version of the Mozilla web browser is out as a release candidate. Here are the release notes and long lists of new things in the browser, mail and chat applications plus under the hood. [Dana Baggett]

Review--Five 17" Laptops including Apple's 17" PowerBook G4 are reviewed in this CNet article. Apple's 17" PowerBook G4 is rated slightly (0.2 points) behind a 17" HP Pavillon basically on the difference in performance as a desktop replacement. However, the total unweighted score of the PowerBook is higher than the HP and it has a higher reader rating. In addition, all the others are thick and weigh in at a huge 9+ pounds vs Apple's 6.8.

WAPi AMUG April Meeting--iMovie: Fun, Fantastic, Free: The metro Washington DC area's Washington Apple Pi, one of the oldest AMUGs, will devote the entire April 2004 General Meeting to iMovie and the wonders of QuickTime. Come see clips and mini-feature films created by Pi members. Grab the brochure, with details on how your own iMovie masterpiece can be shown at the meeting, in Web-friendly GIF (89K) or Web-resolution PDF (184K) or hi-resolution PDF (3.5 MB) format. Mark your calendar: April 24, 2004, 9 a.m. to noon.

Note that the April General Meeting has been moved to the staff dining room at Northern Virginia Community College's Annandale campus. This room is quite removed from our normal location in the Forum. It is in building CF. Use the Cultural Center parking lot as usual and the Pi will place signs to help you find the right place. Plan to get there early if you want good seats for the iMovie program. Here's a map of the NVCC campus.

-- Wednesday, April 21 --

AirPort 3.4 Update Problems? None Here: We may be fortunate because there are reports of reception, connection retention and wake from sleep problems on several Mac web sites. We have updated an all AirPort Extreme network, including updating the Extreme Base Station with firmware 5.4, a mixed network with an Extreme card in a G5 and a snow Base Station and an all original AirPort network with a graphite Base Station. We have also updated an original white 500 MHz iBook with regular AirPort card on a Cisco access point. We've had no problems with any of the clients on those networks, not with a reduction in reception nor with waking from sleep and re-establishing the connection.

The only problem with all of the new AirPort software that we've encountered is a minor one with the AirPort Management Tools software that Apple released Monday. The date in the log of the AirPort Management Utility initially was December 31 but yesterday it updated to April 20 and is now correct.

El Dorado High School Students May Get iBooks according to this El Dorado Times article. The proposal includes a pilot with the seniors and juniors of El Dorado High in El Dorado, KS. The school Board would then evalute the program to see if it should be extended to freshmen and sophomores. The school district technology director is working with Apple to prepare the proposal. [Dana Baggett]

Review--IOGear Miniview Extreme 2 and 4 Port KVM Switches in this OFB.biz article. A KVM switch is used so that several computers can share one keyboard, mouse and monitor set. Many KVM switches don't work particularly well with Macs and are very expensive. This one does work well with Macs and is relatively inexpensive at $129 (2 ports) and $179 (4 ports). It also includes USB for sharing audio peripherals so it's really a KVMP switch. [Dana Baggett]

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

The Apple Store has new money-saving deals on high-quality refurbished Apple products, including eMacs starting at only $529, 15" PowerBooks starting at only $1,599, 17" PowerBooks starting at only $1,999,12" PowerBooks starting at only $1,199, and much more. All Apple refurbished equipment meets stringent refurbishment processes prior to sale, and is covered by Apple's one-year limited warranty. What's more, customers can purchase AppleCare Protection Plans to go along with their refurbished equipment. But hurry; supplies are limited and sure to go fast. All details available under the "Special Deals" tile.

Amazon has fantastic deals on a wide variety of products for your Mac, including MacSoft's Unreal Tournament 2004, SanDisk 256MB Secure Digital Card, Lexar 256MB USB 2.0 Jump Drive, Canon i9100 Photo Printer, Final Draft 7, eMedia Guitar Method v.3, THQ Finding Nemo: Nemo's Underwater World of Fun, Symantec Norton Systemworks for Mac, ViewSonic VX2000 20.1" LCD Flat Panel Display, and much more.

-- Tuesday, April 20 --

Netscape.com is Aggressively Hiring according to this ZDNet article. Could this mean that AOL has decided to resurrect Netscape as a product? [Dana Baggett]

Apple Released New AirPort Software--Update 3.4, Extreme BS Firmware Update 5.4 and AirPort Management Tools 1.0:

Apple AirPort Update 3.4 is available for download via the Software Update preference pane and as a standalone updater. It includes the AirPort Extreme Firmware Update 5.4 for Extreme Base Stations--the firmware is also available as a standalone updater. To apply the firmware update, open the AirPort Admin Utility and then open the configuration window--a dialog box to apply the update should pop up.

New AirPort Extreme features:

• Improved antenna output control.
  
• Enhanced logging from your base station which is compatible with syslog.
  
• Performance improvements for WPA security implementations.
  

Apple AirPort Management Tools 1.0 are available for download (we had difficulty with Apple's web page but not MacUpdate's.)

The AirPort Mangement Utility and AirPort Client Monitor provide powerful tools for planning, setting up, fine-tuning, and managing larger, enterprise-class wireless networks. This version of the AirPort Management Tools software requires:

• Mac OS X 10.3
• AirPort 3.4

Apple Bluetooth Firmware Updater 1.1 is Out and available for download via the Software Update preference pane and as a standalone updater.

The Bluetooth Firmware Updater 1.1 provides improvements in the update installation process, better performance when waking the computer from sleep, and support for additional key commands during startup.

The Bluetooth Firmware Updater is for D-Link USB Adapters (revision B2 or later), and Apple internal Bluetooth modules on PowerBooks and PowerMacs. This firmware update will improve connectivity between the computer and the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse. Use this updater for the modules specified above; this updater is unsupported with any other Bluetooth modules.

Important: Applying this firmware updater to a D-Link USB to Bluetooth adapter will make it incompatible with non-Macintosh systems.

The Firmware Updater must be run after it has been downloaded. If the Software Update preference pane was used, the Updater will be in the root Utilities folder. An internet connection must be live, Bluetooth must be on and the computer must not be disturbed during updating. We applied it to our 1 GHz 17" PowerBook G4 with no problem.

In the past we have occasionally had interference problems between Bluetooth and AirPort, particularly when the AirPort signal strength is not really high. Hopefully, the AirPort and Bluetooth updaters fix this issue.

Panasonic and Apple Collaborate to Bring HD Over FireWire to the Desktop and Mobile Editing: Panasonic and Apple announced the world’s first implementation of IEEE 1394 FireWire with 100 Mbps DV-HD (the native video compression of Panasonic DVCPRO HD recording systems) to bring unmatched capabilities to high definition (HD) post-production and content distribution. Together, Panasonic and Apple bring HD over FireWire capabilities to desktop and mobile editing with Panasonic’s new AJ-HD1200A, the first HD production VTR to offer a FireWire interface, and Apple’s newly-announced Final Cut Pro HD professional video editing software, enabling mass adoption of HD resolution images on the desktop, and even on PowerBooks.

According to Apple's press release, the new hardware and software solution dramatically lowers the costs of HD production.

Apple Released Refreshed PowerBooks and iBooks: Yesterday morning, Apple announced refreshed PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 lineups.

The new PowerBook G4s get 1.33 and 1.5 GHz CPUs in place of 1.0, 1.25 and 1.33 GHz, faster graphics with a minimum of 64 MB VRAM and AirPort Extreme cards and Bluetooth modules are included across the lineup. The 15" and 17" PowerBooks' graphics chip is the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 in place of the 9600 of the previous models. In addition, the VRAM in the top 15" and the 17" PowerBooks can be upgraded to 128 MB and have faster 4X SuperDrive DVD/CD RW optical drives. The price of the 17" model was reduced $200 from $2,999 to $2,799 and the price of the top 15" model was reduced $100 from $2599 to $2499.

The new iBook G4s get 1.0 and 1.2 GHz CPUs in place of 800, 933 and 1000 MHz CPUs, ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 graphics with 32 MB VRAM and are AirPort Extreme ready. The top 14" iBook also has AirPort Extreme included and the 4x SuperDrive DVD/CD RW optical drive as a BTO option.

The only downside to us is that the 12" PowerBook G4 still does not come with PC card slot which we need for a broadband wireless PC card. We were waiting for this refresh before shopping for a small, lightweight laptop with a PC card slot like the 1.7 lb Sony Vaio x505--rats.

The speed and value of the PowerBook and iBook G4s were greatly enhanced with this refresh. The cases are identical to the previous models which is fine with us since we think they are very hard to improve upon.

All but the 17" PowerBook are available now. The new 17" model will be available in May.

Apple Released Third AirPort Extreme Base Station Model with Power over Ethernet: The new AirPort Extreme Base Station allows one to provide power through the ethernet cable so no AC adapter is needed at or near the location of the Base Station. This is very helpful for placing Base Stations in odd places where there is no power like in air handling passageways, ceilings or out in the middle of large rooms. The new Base Station also meets UL2043 safety standards for placing it in ceilings and air handling systems. It has an external antenna port but no modem and sells for $249.

Maine Middle School Teacher Testified Before Legislature in Favor of iBook Program Expansion to High School: The testimony of Ernie Easter was published here. Mr. Easter is a 7th and 8th grade teacher in New Sweden, Maine. His summary is:

"I could talk all day about my students and their work and accomplishments with the laptops, for these laptops are truly integrated into my daily teaching and the curriculum. But the focus of this hearing is on moving the laptop project into Maine high schools. So, why do I think bringing the MLTI into the high schools is so important that I took - and my superintendent approved without hesitation - a personal day to be here? Because this is important. For New Sweden; for Aroostook County; for Maine. And because I hate to think that these 8th grade students - not just mine, but those of my colleagues as well - might be working without the tools to which they have become accustomed: a fast processor, current software, and up-to-date information all at their fingertips. It would be like asking you or me in those days gone by to have been in school without books, pens, ditto masters (remember that smell?) or filmstrip projectors!"

-- Monday, April 19 --

Apple Released/Announced New Video Software over the Weekend:

Apple Motion 1.0--Available this summer for $299.

Apple Shake 3.5--An upgrade.

Apple DVD Studio Pro 3.0--Also an upgrade.

Apple Final Cut Pro HD 4.5--An update.

Print It! 1.0 for OS X is Out. With Print It!, if you can see it, you can print it and a whole lot more! And Print It! is fast--very fast. Simply put, Print It! is a big advance in Mac OS X printing technology, MacEase Software claims.

Here is a partial list of Print It!'s features:

* Print It! lets users instantly select and print anything they can see on their monitors--even if it's not normally selectable--and this includes any combination of text, pictures, and graphics--literally, anything.

* Print It! is a system-wide enhancement to OS X that runs in the background; there's no interface to have to learn or to get in the way.

* A simple system-wide hotkey instantly invokes Print It!'s ability to select and print anything on users' displays.

* A simple system-wide keyboard shortcut instantly brings up Print It!'s innovative contextual menu which provides instant access to Print It!'s many other advanced features. (Among the innovative featurs of this CM are its optional ability to remain visible so users easily can perform multiple/repeated actions, its ability to be dragged to any location on the Desktop, and its ability to remain visible when users drag their cursors off of it.)

* Print It! lets users instantly add notes and/or time-date stamps to anything they print, including pictures and graphics.

* Print It! lets users -- even on the fly -- create print jobs by combining virtually an unlimited number of selections from anywhere and then printing them together. Additionally, users can add notes and/or time-date stamps to their selections individually and/or to their print jobs as a whole.

* Print It! lets users select and grab whatever info they need from anywhere, including databases, spreadsheets, web pages, email, AOL, online chats, newsreaders, word processors, PIMs, calender/appointment programs, Quicken and other financial software, and virtually anything else -- you name it!

Print It! works with Mac OS X 10.2 and higher and costs $24.95. A demo version is available for download.

New Super-Fast Internet Protocol is 6,000 Times Faster than DSL: NCSU scientists have designed a new internet transmission protocol called BIC-TCP (binary increase congestion transmission control protocol) to replace TCP adopted in the '80's according to this Yahoo News article. With BIC, speeds of 6,000 times DSL or 150,000 times a 65K dial up are possible. BIC is one among a half dozen protocols being considered as a new internet standard. [Dana Baggett]

Broadband Internet Continues to Replace Dial-Up Connections: According to the latest surveys, broadband accounts for 55 per cent of internet connections in the U.S., i.e. about one-third of all adults, at home or at work. [Dana Baggett]

Lowry Digital Makes High Definition DVD Restorations with Power Mac G5s, 600 of them according to this NYT article on Excite News. The G5's have a total of 2400 GB of RAM. Lowry scans aging celluloid film images at 4,000 lines per image frame rather than the norm of 480 to 2,000. For comparison, high definition TV has just 1080 lines per image. [Dana Baggett]

-- Weekend, April 17-18 --

[Update 12:30a EDT 4/18] New NVIDIA 6800 Ultra Graphics Kicks the ATI Radeon 9800 XT's Butt in two early reviews. Last Friday we reported on NVIDIA's event releasing their new ATI-killer graphics card. In terms of visual quality involving anti-aliasing (removing jaggies) and anisotropic filtering (detailing) ATi has been king, but the new-yet-to-be-released NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra reference card has caught up to ATI's top dog, the Radeon 9800 XT, and surpassed it in some ways. In terms of speed for 3D gaming, the GeForce 6800 Ultra cleaned the Radeon XT's clock by a substantial margin in virtually every comparison.

Of course, the reviews (here and here) are based on PCs running Windows XP, mostly with Microsoft DirectX 9.0c APIs but some with OpenGL, since there is no Mac version of the GeForce 6800 yet. There's not even a Mac version of NVIDIA's previous top performer, the GeForce 5950 Ultra, only the previous generation GeForce4 Ti 4600. Heck, we're still waiting for the long-ago announced 256 MB version of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Special Edition. But the reviews indicate what might be in store for the Mac at the next upgrade of the top-end Power Mac G5.

The other shoe has yet drop--ATI has the X800 under development and we may hear more about it now that NVIDIA has released the GeForce 6800 Ultra.

MacPlay Game Report: We received a report from MacPlay announcing their $5 per game special and listing the status of their coming new titles:

$5 Game Special--Choose any of the games in the list below for just $5 each, no limit on the number you can order. This promotion ends at midnight (CST) on April 26, 2004.

Coming Titles--Here is the status of MacPlay's upcoming games:

1. Tron 2.0--Pre-order it and save $10.
2. Super Collapse! II--Now shipping.
3. Victoria--Coming soon.
4. Massive Assault--Coming soon.
5. Celtic Kings--Coming soon.

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

AudioMIDI has great deals on a wide variety of music and audio products for your Mac, including Digidesign Mbox Factory Bundle, MasterWriter, Iomega Mini 256MB USB Drive, Edirol UM-1X All-in-One USB MIDI Interface, Ebtech Hum X, Oxygen 8 with Gig Bag, M-Audio Mobile Preamp, Emagic Logic Pro 6, and much more.

B&H has fantastic prices on a bevy of photo and video products for your Mac, including the Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom 8.0 Megapixel Digital Camera, Canon i960 Photo Quality Color Printer, Pentax S4i 4.0 Megapixel Digital Camera, Canon Elura MiniDV Camcorder with $50 mail-in rebate, Samsung LCD-17 17" Flat Panel Display, and much more.

Review--Flatbed Scanners Digitize 35mm Slides: This AP article reviews two flatbed scanners that the author used to digitize an old 35mm slide collection. The scanners are the $99 Epson Perfection 1670 and the $199 HP ScanJet 4670. The author likes the looks of the HP ScanJet itself but likes the results of the Epson Perfection better. [Dana Baggett]

-- TGIF, April 16 --

Apple Rejected Discussing Online Music Alliance with RealNetworks according to this AP article on Yahoo News. RealNetworks wanted to discuss an alliance involving Apple's iPod as widely reported yesterday. But AP reported early this morning that Apple CEO Steve Jobs rejected the meeting, not wanting to open up the iPod to music services other than Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Apple .Mac Promo--60 Days Free Trial: Check out the .Mac web site if you are not currently a member and are interested in a free trial. We have had a .Mac account since its inception and find it to be extremely convenient for syncing computers at our several locations, transporting moderately large files among them and posting photos on the web for our widely dispersed family.

Apple Final Cut Express v2.0.3 is Out and available for download via the Software Update preference pane if you have FCE 2.x installed according to VersionTracker. Only v2.0.2 is listed on Apple's Final Cut Express' web page.

NVIDIA Announced Latest ATI Graphics Killer, The GeForce 6 Series: NVIDIA Corporation, a leader in visual processing solutions, introduced the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 models of graphics processing units (GPUs) for high-performance desktop computers. The NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, which includes the flagship GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800, is designed to deliver the ultimate graphics experience, including:

• Industry-leading 3D performance- new superscalar 16-pipe architecture delivers more than twice that of current industry leading NVIDIA GPUs
  
• New features, including Microsoft DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 feature set - for ultra-realistic cinematic effects
  
• Unprecedented on-chip video processing engine - enabling high-definition video and DVD playback

The first GPUs based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series, the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 models, are manufactured using IBM’s high-volume 0.13-micron process technology and are currently shipping to leading add-in-card partners, OEMs, system builders, and game developers.

No mention of Apple was made in NVIDIA's announcement but then again no other OEM was mentioned either. Apple has moved more to ATI graphics recently, especially in its top end models.

Transferring Data to a New Mac, Let me Count the Ways: So, you’ve got a new Mac. Now how can you copy all of your Photoshop, AppleWorks, Excel, FileMaker, iMovie, and other files from your old Mac to your new Mac? Well, you could:

•  Burn your files onto a CD or DVD
•  Back them up to your iDisk if you have a .Mac account
•  Use an external USB or FireWire drive
•  Use FireWire Target Disk mode to connect the two Macs
•  Connect both computers via Ethernet and turn on file sharing

Information about each of these data-transfer methods can be found in the Apple Knowledge Base article Moving Files from your Older Macintosh to a New One.

But the answer is six. Mac Help provides the other way. In the Finder, just type Command-? and then type "Using IP over FireWire" to learn how Mac OS X Panther lets you transfer data between two Macs with just a FireWire cable.

-- Thursday, April 15 --

Apple Posted Q2 Profit of $46M, Beat Consensus Estimate by 20%: Late yesterday Apple announced its second quarter earnings, a $49 million net profit on earnings of 12 cents per share beating the consensus estimate by 20 per cent. The consensus estimate that we reported on Monday was 10 cents per share. Apple's sales were $1.9 billion, a 29% increase over the same quarter last year and a 5% decrease over the first quarter, traditionally a high quarter because it includes the holiday season.

Apple shipped over 749,000 Macs and 807,000 iPods in their second quarter, i.e. from January 1st though March 31st, 2004. These sales represent a 5% increase in Macs and a whopping 909% increase in iPod sales over the same quarter last year. Here are the unit sales details:

Unit Sales (1000s) by Product

	Q2 2004	Q2 2003	% Change
iMac	217	256	-15
iBook	201	133	51
Power Mac	174	156	12
PowerBook	157	166	-5
iPod	807	80	909

Sales of iBooks increased a significant 51% over last year but were flat from the last quarter. Power Mac sales increased 12% over last year but decreased 19% below last quarter. iMac sales continue to decline significantly. While PowerBook sales declined only 5% from the same quarter last year, they declined nearly 20% below the previous quarter.

The star was the iPod, of course, with sales nine times last year and even 10% over the preceeding hot holiday quarter.

Revenue from Apple's retail stores increased nearly 100% over the same quarter last year but declined 4% below last quarter, the holiday season. Revenue increased year to year in the Americas and Europe but Japan showed a decline.

Except for iMacs and the Japan region, Apple's second quarter report is excellent. Here is Apple's press release for further details.

Hands-On Report--Our iPod Mini at 7 Weeks and Counting: On Friday, February 20th, we stood in line at the Tysons Corner Apple Store until the appointed hour of 6pm for an opportunity to be among the first to buy a retail edition of Apple's brand new iPod Mini. Despite the many online and print media whines that they were overpriced at $249 and sales would bomb, we believed otherwise and thought they'd go fast and be hard to get. After using an original 5-GB and then 10-GB and 30-GB iPods we were certain that the iPod Mini would be our perfect digital music player. After we took home our silver iPod Mini, we were quickly convinced of this (see our highly enthusiastic February 23rd review).

Our New England Editor, while not particularly a digital music buff, takes hour-long early morning walks in his rural Maine neighborhood to start the day. Dana's walking companion was recently sidelined with an injury so he decided to get a 15-GB iPod to listen to audio books during his morning constitutional. Our enthusiastic endorsement along with the iPod Mini's lighter weight and $50 cheaper price tag convinced him to get a Mini instead. With the nearest Apple Store a 5-hour drive away and the online Apple Store out of stock, Dana opted to get a silver one from an online retailer--one of the last as the first 100,000 manufactured completely sold out right afterwards.

Our iPod Mini is still as good as new, with nary a scratch on it's sleek anodized case despite being carried virtually everywhere we have gone since February 20th. This includes more than a half dozen cross-country flights as well as tooling around town in various cities to work. It still pumps out great digital music from our collection that grew by over 25% during the Pepsi/iTunes free song promo.

Unfortunately, Dana was not as lucky. After about a week's use, just an hour a day during his morning walks, his iPod Mini occasionally began to emit static. The frequency of static rapidly increased and the sound became distorted as well. If he lightly tapped his Mini's case, the sound would improve somewhat or get worse. After consulting with an AppleCare technician, Dana was shipped a cardboard coffin and he sent if off to be repaired or replaced. This was a little over two weeks ago. Dana was hopeful to get it back repaired or replaced right away as the warranty proclaims. AppleCare immediately gave him a replacement order with the Apple Store but after a week the order still showed a 3-5 week wait.

Then, last week it became apparent that the static problem in Dana's iPod Mini was more widespread and may, in fact, be caused by a design or manufacturing defect or both. There are claims of a poor design in the connector between the headphone jack's mini-board and the main electronic board and poor soldering of the pins in the connector (see this web site).

The jack board is solidly connected to the top of the iPod Mini's case while the main board is "loose" in the case. The connector between them is solid rather than flexible so it would receive stress from any movement of the main board. It is not clear from the articles or pictures that we have seen that the main board can actually move around inside the case. However, our unopened iPod Mini's aluminum case can be flexed a bit on the front and back with a little finger tip pressure just below the top in the area of the connection at issue. Doing so produced no static.

We are hopeful that the boards' solid connection is not an inherent design flaw and that either only a few had a poor soldering job or that there is some other isolated problem. CNet reported that Apple is looking into the issue and provided this Apple quote: "Apple is aware of a few isolated reports online of iPod Mini audio static."

Meanwhile, yesterday Dana received notice that his replacement iPod Mini has shipped. This may indicate that Apple has either fixed the problem or has confirmed that it is an isolated problem. At least it means that a continuing supply of new iPod Minis still exists and Apple is allocating some for repair/replacements.

Our iPod Mini continues to work fine.

Apple Revised the Offerings from One of their Hot Deals Retailers:

J&R has fantastic deals on a wide variety of products for your Mac, including Route 66's Route USA 2004, APC PIT 1-Outlet Portable Surge Protector, Canon PowerShot S500 5.1 Megapixel Digital Camera, Digipower 6-in-1 USB 2.0 Media Card Reader/Writer, Hercules Complete Portable DJ Controller, LaCie 120GB External FireWire Hard Drive, Miglia Tech Director's Cut 'Take Two' Video Capture Device, and much more.

-- Wednesday, April 14 --

Hands-On Report--TaxCut 2003 Premium for Mac: We finally finished our 2003 tax returns, well, mostly. We're still waiting for the Commonwealth of Virginia to bless our Monday afternoon electronic filing. The feds took less than 24 hours to do so but, not to worry, the VA return is not due until May 1st. We also filed a California return which had to be printed and mailed since we are a non-resident. We are not sure why the state that houses the electronic industry capital of the world either can't or won't process an e-filed non-resident return. Doing so might even save the budget-troubled state a few bucks.

We are extremely impressed with the 2003 tax year version of TaxCut from H&R Block. It ran perfectly on Mac OS X 10.3.3. We know this endorsement probably doesn't help you decide on which tax preparation software to use for your 2003 return. Since we always owe Uncle Sam more money and the preparation of data for entry from our records is such a huge chore that takes a lot to get up for, we usually prepare our returns in the last fews days before April 15th. Our New England Editor swears by TurboTax from Intuit. Our Editor in Chief switched to TaxCut several years ago because it was much cheaper then and had received better reviews than MacInTax (now TurboTax). But doing taxes is such a chore that neither of us can quite bring ourselves to do it twice or more using the range of tax preparation software available for the Mac.

Our tax return is fairly complicated with several businesses plus a primary employer and income sourced from two states. Fortunately, Virginia and California have an agreement to avoid double state taxation but, unfortunately, not one to reduce the hassle of filing two returns. After checking for, downloading and installing a set of updates, TaxCut 2003 quickly imported the data from our 2002 return with no problem. Up popped a report for all of the forms we used in 2002 showing completed data entry fields for 2002 and blank ones for 2003. It appeared to be a relatively simple matter of just entering the gathered 2003 data on that one report form. Since we had a couple of new/different 1098 & 1099 forms, we decided instead to go through the interview and watch the report change as we did so.

This year, TaxCut's interview was well-tailored to continuing from a prior year, much better than the TaxCut versions of prior years and we whizzed through it. The total data entry time for all three returns was less than half that of previous years. Our federal return was straight forward with no glitches, missing IRS forms nor the few crashes that we encountered previously.

The interviews for the state returns were much more helpful than in previous years. TaxCut's Help system for the state returns was more user-friendly, not just a partial or often incomplete recitation from the state form instructions. Only one computation on paper forms was needed to make a data entry and that one was silly. We had to manually compute whether or not we owed a penalty on our Virginia return for under payment when the rule was essentially whether or not our underpayment was less than 10 per cent of what we owed. You'd think H&R Block could have programmed that one.

After completing the data entry, TaxCut checked for errors and questionable entries. It found no errors and issued a half dozen "warnings," questions to check up on in our three returns. Fortunately, the warnings checked out as okay. We e-filed our federal and Virginia returns and printed and mailed our California return. All with no glitches.

In summary, TaxCut Premium for Mac for the 2003 tax year is excellent. Since it continues to be improved significantly each year, we highly recommend it and intend to use it again next year.

Apple Closed Its Elk Grove, CA, Manufacturing Plant, idling 235 workers according to this Sacramento Bee article. That work will be done under contract elsewhere in Southern California and Apple will place other unspecified operations in its Elk Grove facility. [Dana Baggett]

From the Dark Side--M$ Continues to Clean Its Hands in Settling with InterTrust Technologies Corp. who had sued Microsoft for patent infringement according to this Washington Post's AP article. The lawsuit was over technology which prevents copying of digital content like songs and movies through file sharing. The settlement brought InterTrust $440 million--another M$ "innovation" gone poof.

In fact, this has become a way of doing business for M$. Infringe on others patents and violate antitrust laws, then lose or settle in court and still make more money, gobs of it, as outlined in this CNet.com article. [Dana Baggett]

-- Tuesday, April 13 --

[Update 9:20a EST] Apple Released Faster 1.25 GHz G4 eMac with Bluetooth Capability for $999: Apple today announced a faster and more affordable line of eMac desktop computers for home and schools. The latest eMac includes a faster PowerPC G4 processor running at 1.25 GHz, 333 MHz DDR memory, a faster ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card with 32 MB VRAM and USB 2.0 connectivity to peripherals. The eMac now also offers an optional internal Bluetooth module, in addition to including a built-in antenna and card slot to support an optional AirPort Extreme Card for 54 Mbps 802.11g fast wireless networking. Apple’s most affordable SuperDrive-equipped Mac is now available starting at $999. The combo drive model is $799. Here is the full press release.

CA State Senator Will Try to Block Google's New Gmail Service: According to this CNet article, Google's new free Gmail service will insert ads into its Gmail after searching the content for key words consistent with Google's ads. Privacy advocates are freaked out over this but if Google clearly discloses this to customers, which they plan to do, we don't see what the big deal is all about. The ads alone kill the concept for us.

VoIP to be Unregulated if Bill Passes Congress: Using the internet for voice services (voice over IP or VoIP), will be clasified as an information service by law if a bill just introduced into the House and Senate passes according to this AP article on Yahoo News. The bill ensures that VoIP will not be classified as a communication service and regulated as such. [Dana Baggett]

New Laptop Battery Specification Released by IEEE: According to this ExtremeTech article, the new statndard, termed IEEE P1625, covers manufacturing lithium-ion and lithium-ion polymer batteries. The new standard will help "...to reduce the incidence of user problems, the portable computer and battery industries need standardized criteria for qualification of rechargeable battery systems and for verifying the quality and reliability of those batteries." Apple was not a member of the workgroup that developed the new standards but its batteries should benefit anyway. [Dana Baggett]

Apple's PowerSchool Announced New Version 2004 of its Student Information System: PowerSchool, a division of Apple and maker of the leading web-based, single-server Macintosh and Windows compatible student information system (SIS), announced the availability of PowerSchool SIS version 2004. The upgrade is one of the most significant of PowerSchool’s recent versions, including more than 100 new features.

“PowerSchool 2004 takes the student information system category to a new level of product performance and flexibility,” said Bob Longo, PowerSchool’s president. “We have leveraged our products’ built-for-the-Web advantage to deliver the only SIS technology robust enough to address today’s combination of challenges that include complex scheduling, reporting, NCLB and SIF, with an ultimate goal of improved student achievement.”

Version 2004:

• builds upon its scheduling strengths to provide walk-in scheduling automation;
  
• increases flexibility and usability for meeting NCLB requirements;
  
• streamlines reports to help minimize data entry and increase system run-time performance;
  
• includes a SIF agent for schools interoperability framework readiness; and
  
• includes state specific special compliance enhancements.
  

PowerSchool SIS 2004 is scheduled to ship June 25, 2004, in time for full implementation prior to the 2004 back-to-school season. Schools and districts interested in learning more should call 1-877-873-1550 ext 0. Here is the complete announcement.

OpenOSX Posted Free TrojanDefuser for MP3Virus.Gen: According to Open OSX, "This application [TrojanDefuser] will allow you to drag files that are suspected of being the recently (4/8/04) discovered Trojan Horse 'MP3Virus.Gen' by making a copy of the suspected file without the resource fork, therefore eliminating the potentially malicious code and preserving the data fork of the file. If the dragged file(s) is type 'APPL' (application), then it will be considered suspect."

As we posted last Friday (here and here), the MP3Virus.Gen cited by Intego's press release is a "proof of concept" Trojan Horse and is benign. There have been no known instances of it being delivered to anyone's Mac, malicious payload or not. Still, it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to such things.

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

The Apple Store has great pricing on a limited supply of 10GB and 30GB iPods. The 10GB iPod is priced at only $249, and the 30GB iPod is priced at only $399. These are brand new, unopened products covered by Apple one-year limited warranty. In addition, customers may purchase an AppleCare Protection Plan for their new iPod. All details on the 10GB and 30GB iPods available under the "Special Deals" tile.

Additionally, The Apple Store has new money-saving deals on high-quality refurbished Apple