[5/31] Hands-On Review--DOOM 3, the Latest First Person Shooter 3D Mac Game: A couple of weeks ago we picked up a copy of DOOM 3, the latest 3D first person shooter game for the Mac. DOOM 3 is published for the Mac by Aspyr Media. We bought our copy at an Apple Retail Store for $49.95 but you can get it from the online Mac Game Store for $47.95 or Amazon.com for $44.99.

The story takes place in an earth colony on Mars where, after a number of strange events, demonic forces from the underworld begin taking over just as you arrive to investigate the events. There are some pretty wild creatures along with zombified scientists, workers, marines and commandos among the attackers. Curiously, none seem smart enough to have planned the attack in the first place--what do they do when they are not attacking and eating earthling invaders?

In the single-player version of the game, your job is to fight your way back to the entrance, shooting the creatures and zombies along the way. The zombified marines and commandos shoot back and some creatures throw fireballs or shoot at you with plasma guns or rockets but otherwise they strike, claw or chew on you. Mars City is a pretty dingy place before the attack but it gets darker as the lights malfunction or are turned off by the creatures--this just makes your job harder, of course. You get the picture.... In the multiplayer online game, you just run around Mars City and shoot the other players without interference from creatures or zombies.

System Needs

The minimum system requirements for DOOM 3 are pretty high. They include a PowerPC G4 at 1.5 GHz or faster and an ATI Radeon 8500 or Nvidia GeForce 3 or better graphics card with 64 MB VRAM. We normally use a dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 with an NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card that has 256MB of VRAM for testing 3D games. It easily meets the minimum requirements. But we also tried DOOM 3 on our 1.67GHz 17" PowerBook G4 with ATI Radeon 9700 graphics that has 128MB of VRAM, just a cut above the minimum requirements.

Settings

Out of the box with DOOM 3's default settings for our PowerBook G4, the latest and most powerful that Apple makes, was unable to run DOOM 3 at an acceptable frame rate when confronted with a zombie or creature. Here are the settings:

• Video Quality: Medium Quality
• Screen size: 640x480
• Fullscreen: Yes
• High Quality Special Effects: Yes
• Enable Shadows: Yes
• Enable Specular: Yes
• Enable Bump Map: Yes
• Vertical Sync: No
• Antialiasing: No

Using the built-in demo (see our SpeedFAQ for how), our 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 managed an average of 19.6 fps. Disabling shadows moved it up to a respectable 27.5. Disabling specular yielded 28.1, disabling Bump Map also gave 28.1 and disabling high quality special effects provided 29.0 fps. The latter steps also obviously degraded the visual quality for just 1.5 fps. It seems the best combination of performance and visual effects is with just disabling shadows. Playing at an 27-28 fps is generally okay until you meet up with two or more creatures. Then the frame rate drops significantly to yield lags and choppy action. Most gamers will not like this so we'd say that the minimum requirements are probably set too low.

The default settings for our Power Mac G5 are:

The default settings averaged 52.1 fps. However, we like to play at a resolution of 1024x768 which reduced the fps slightly to 51.8. Turning shadows off increased the speed to 60.6 fps and provides very smooth play, even with many attackers present.

Play Experience Tips

Here are some tips we learned while playing. Skip this section if you would like to discover things by yourself.

Use your flashlight to search the corners of every room for ammo. It's there after every skirmish and virtually impossible to see without the flashlight. If you see ammo or armor or a med kit too high to reach, look for a container that you can move by "kicking" to jump up on. Don't forget to search under stairs.

If you are a serious gamer, you have a multi-button mouse. Map the flashlight to the second mouse button rather than the "F" key so it is easy to flip between the flashlight and a weapon. There is a mod that tapes the flashlight to the weapon if you are into hacks. We don't use it because we think it significantly detracts from a unique skill requirement for the game.

Conserve your ammo, especially the shotgun shells, because it is easy to run out and the shotgun is your best friend. The creature who throws fireballs is difficult to stop from a distance with either a pistol, shotgun or machine gun. You will waste a lot of ammo stopping them because they show up frequently once you find the shotgun. The best way to dispatch them is to move to the right, wait until they throw their fireball, dodge it easily by moving back to the left and then charge up and shoot them point blank in the upper torso--one shot instead of 3-6. Always just use your pistol on the scientist or worker zombies with a shot to the head at close range to conserve shotgun shells. The creature the climbs walls and looks like a lean gorilla can be stopped with one shotgun blast to the head at close range. The two-headed creatures can be dispatched easily with one shotgun blast to either head at mid range. Save the grenades and machine gun ammo for the marine zombies who hide behind containers and the myriads of spider-like creatures who seem to pour out of nowhere, almost endlessly at times. The toughest creature is the largest one--it resembles a grizzly bear in form and first attacks in the very close quarters of a small room. Dispatching it takes nearly a full submachine gun clip or 4 shotgun shells at very close range--we've found no way to not lose a lot of health to this creature per encounter. There are also skeletons with plasma guns and creatures with chainsaws and rockets that will need grenades and the longer range weaons like the BFG to stop.

Make sure that you do not miss collecting any PDAs along the way. They have essential information, like codes to get into supply and ammo lockers. Write down the codes and the locker that they work on. They also permit access to the various compartments you will need to pass though. You will have to knock off a couple of scientists for their PDAs--remember, DOOM 3 is only a game and you have to survive to win, right?

Save often--press the F5 key. When you find a health station, do a save so its easy to come back to if you get stuck further along in the game. Do this for every health station that you find, especially if you are at near full health when you find it.

If you seem to be stuck in an area with no way out look around for a vent or an area under the floor. Keep walking around the broader area of several compartments because passages will be revealed by creatures breaking through walls or from under stairs or through formerly malfunctioning doors to attack you.

Finally, look at every computer screen you encounter. Some will be a "touchscreen" and allow you to mouse-click to turn on lights, open secure areas, etc.

If you really want some help, there are many walkthrough files to help you get oriented, like the donationware DOOM 3 Guide v1.19 from Grawl for example. Just use Google to find others.

In Summary

We are still enjoying DOOM 3 and are about 80% of the way through it at medium difficulty. It's a very challenging game. We find it hard to believe that anyone is good enough to make it through at the highest difficulty level (Nightmare) but some are--amazing. We find DOOM 3 to be difficult, not so much because of the attackers but because it takes place indoors and the companion ways and compartments all look so much alike, especially with the lights dimming or going out all the time. It's very disorienting and easy to lose direction, inadvertantly backtracking.

The best thing about DOOM 3 is its fabulous graphics. They are truly outstanding as every reviewer has claimed. Of course, this is the reason for the high hardware requirements. Nevertheless, we are very impressed. In our view, DOOM 3's graphics edge out Halo's as the best.

DOOM 3 is not particularly scary to us as some reviews have claimed. Many of the creatures/zombies (except for the "grizzly bear," zombie marines/commandos and creatures that shoot rockets and plasmas) are fairly easy to dispatch at medium difficulty after encountering them a few times. Maybe we are just jaded from playing way too many first-person-shooter games. Alien vs Predator (or Marathon for that matter) is very similar in being dark, inside a space "city" and having ugly creatures suddenly appear and try to rip you apart before you can dispatch them.

Most of the weapons (fists through BFG) are taken right out of the stock of previous games so they hold no real surprises, good or bad, for the initiated. The Soul Cube is different so I won't spoil it for you.

We don't find the multiplayer online maps to be particularly interesting. They are all inside, or at least the ones we found were, and there are darn few servers at the moment. Like other 3D games of this genre, the players simply run around the confines of Mars City with rather small compartments trying to frag one another. We prefer bigger maps like the original Unreal Tournament and outside areas like Quake III Arena. DOOM 3 is too much like Unreal Tournament 2003 for us, even if it is better. So we prefer the single player version, a first for us.

Hopefully, Aspyr Media can keep DOOM 3 up to date for Mac users. It has been out on the PC since last summer and the PC version has recently received a patch to v1.3, which may be the reason why we could find only a handful of servers. According to IGM (scroll down), they are working on a similar patch for the Mac version and it should be out soon. When that happens, we'll retry the multiplayer online version and provide an update if it is warranted. [Bill Fox]

[5/31]Apple Posts Cool Freeware Automator Actions/Workflows: Automator is one of the new technologies in Tiger. It's basically a simple AppleScript maker that allows scripts (Actions) to be combined easily into a series of actions called Workflows. Apple has devoted a special web page to Automator Actions and Workflows created by third parties. There are 45 available as of publication time. Many are freeware but there are also demos and shareware actions available. Here are examples of some of the cool freeware Actions/Workflows:

Maintenance 2.0 -- This Automator application allows one to easily run the basic maintenance scripts in Mac OS X on demand. It throws up a set of Terminal windows that only requires one to type in their login password and hit return in each window.

Set Location Automator Action 1.0 -- Adds an Automator Action to System that automatically sets the user’s Network Location to a specified location when run.

Folder 2 Widget -- An Automator Workflow and application that automates making a Dashboard Widget from a folder and tests it in the Dashboard environment.

Resize Screenshot -- An Action that resizes a selected image/screen shot to a good size for web placement and saves it in the jpg format for higher compatibility.

[Bill Fox]

[5/28] Get inside Tiger--Implementing Core Data in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. Backups enable administrators to ensure business continuance. In this hands-on session, Apple's engineers will expand on the basics of Core Data by walking you through a series of examples to demonstrate how you can use Core Data to manage data effectively in your application. From data models to Interface Builder bindings to managed object context initialization, you'll discover practical techniques for using this compelling new Tiger technology in your application. Check out the details on what will be covered at WWDC 2005 on this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]

[5/28] Brief Hands-On Report--Halo 1.5.2 Update Brings PC Compatibility and Security: According to MacSoft the 1.5.2 update will bring the Mac version into sync with the current PC version and contains a networking security fix. This application will update all previous versions of Mac Halo to version 1.5.2. The Halo 1.5.2 Updater is for the U.S. (ie, English) retail version of Halo only.

We downloaded the installer and had difficulty decoding it with StuffIt Expander 9.0.2. So we downloaded it on another Mac and it decoded fine with StuffIt Expander 7.0.3. The installer worked fine and we ran our benchmark to determine 1.5.2's speed relative to 1.5.1. Here is the table of 3 runs each:

Speed (frames/sec) of Halo 1.5.1 vs 1.5.2

Run #	v1.5.1	v1.5.2
1	66.78	65.99
2	66.82	65.77
3	66.96	65.98
Average	66.85	65.91

Unfortunately, 1.5.2 is just a bit slower than 1.5.1 at the settings that we use to play Halo. One frame per second, though, is not much to worry about. We played for a couple of hours and found no problems. However, we hate the fact that playing Halo rearranges our desktop. [Bill Fox]

[5/28] Apple Revised the Offerings from Two Hot Deals Retailers:

ClubMac has great deals on essential Mac products, including Nikon's D70 Digital SLR Camera with AF-S DX 18-70mm Zoom Nikon Lens, Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 7450 Printer, Sony MVC-CD350 Mavica 3.2MP Digital Camera, Axis 206W Wireless Network Camera, Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 640x480 Resolution Webcam, Epson Stylus Phohto R800 Inkjet Printer, Epson PictureMate 4"x6" Photo Printer, and much more.

MacConnection has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac 7.0 Upgrade Version, Sony DSC-T7 5.1MP CyberShot Digital Camera, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Standard Upgrade, Epson PowerLite S3 Project with FREE 83.6" Hanging Pull Down Screen, Monster Cable iCruze CD Changer iPod Interface Module, and much more.

[Bill Fox]

[5/28] Feral Interactive's Weekly Game Report--Colin MacRae 2005: One of the gaming world's landmark racing games is coming to the Mac from Feral Interactive. Colin McRae 2005, the premier Rally racing simulation is currently in Mac development for a release in the Autumn. There's a huge amount to say about this game and a full-on minisite will be launched on Friday, June 3rd. [Bill Fox]

[5/28] Griffin's RocketFM Now Shipping: Griffin Technology Inc., announced that they are shipping the RocketFM, a unique wireless solution for broadcasting Mac audio applications to any FM radio. RocketFM uses any available FM frequency to transmit music or audio through your home or office stereo system. Applications such as iTunes, GarageBand, video soundtracks and even streaming audio can be conveniently broadcast with RocketFM, which runs $39.99. [Bill Fox]

[5/28] IOXperts Wi-Fi "b" Driver Updated for Tiger: IOXperts has released a compatibility update to its 802.11b driver for Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger". Version 1.0.4 works with MacOS X 10.4 only. Version 1.0.3 remains the current release for MacOS X 10.1 through 10.3. Both have equivalent functionality. The IOXperts driver supports more than 60 different 802.11b wireless networking cards on PowerBooks equipped with PC Card slots as well as PCI-equipped desktop Macs via a dozen "sled-style" PCI adapters. [Bill Fox]

[5/27] Get Inside Tiger--3D Environmental Audio with OpenAL in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. Looking to create thrilling multi-channel 3D audio experiences in your application? Check out OpenAL, a multi-platform audio API that is perfect for games and advanced media applications. Leveraging the power of Core Audio, Tiger's built-in OpenAL implementation provides high-quality, low-overhead environmental audio that is compatible with a wide-range of audio devices. Learn how easy it is to integrate OpenAL into your application and take your audio to the next dimension. Check out the details on what will be covered at WWDC 2005 on this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]

[5/27] MacWay's minipartner for Apple's Mac mini Released: MacWay, the French maker of storage solutions, announced the immediate availability of its minipartner™, an external hard disk and port extender with backup button designed to provide Apple's Mac mini with up to 400 GB of extra fast storage, 4 USB 2.0 ports and 3 FireWire ports. The minipartner™ perfectly matches the elegant design of the Mac mini. MacWay's minipartner™ is available from MacWay worldwide with drives that rang in size from 80GB (~$135) to 400GB (~$418). [Bill Fox]

[5/27] From the Dark Side--Intel Shipping Dual-Core Pentium D CPUs: Could this be what Apple is after in its discussions with Intel? Intel plans to ship 100,000 by the end of June and millions by the end of the year. The Pentium D running at 2.8-3.2GHz is destined for consumer PCs but needs software written to take advantage of its dual cores. Dual-core CPUs like dual CPUs are great at running multiple applications at the same time as well. More... [Dana Baggett]

[5/27] Marc Moini Released 3D-Space VFS v1.2.1: 3D-Space VFS combines Launcher, Dock and Finder features with elegant 3D drawers to give you easy point-and-click access to all of your favorite files and applications, without having to dig through folders.

+ Easy visual launcher / dock.
+ Finder like features and navigation.
+ Instant access to hundreds of your favorite items in glorious, spacious 3D drawers!
+ Fast OpenGL graphics for a fluid user experience.

3D-Space VFS lets you navigate from folder to folder, but it is designed to help keep navigation to a minimum. Because each 3D drawer lets you view a whole landscape's worth of items, you'll only need one or a few of these large spaces to keep all of your favorite applications, folders and documents at your fingertips. With fewer places to manage you spend less time digging things out, and everything becomes more accessible. [Bill Fox]

[5/26] Apple's Chief Designer Jonathan Ives Won 2005 Top Design Award: Wednesday night in London, D&AD (Design and Art Direction) presented its top award to Jonathan Ives, Apple's chief designer. The President's Award is given for outstanding contributions to the design and art direction industry. Apple's 4G iPod, 2G iPod mini and 23" Cinema Display won top awards in the product design category.

According to the D&AD web site, "[t]he D&AD Awards Ceremony & Dinner is the highlight of the design and advertising industry calendar. Drawing together over 1,800 creative professionals and the world’s media, the Awards are the only place where you can discover at first hand who’ll be taking home the Black and Yellow Pencils. With Nominations announced over a month before the Ceremony, you can be sure that the atmosphere will be something to remember."

The 2005 Awards Ceremony & Dinner was held at Old Billingsgate in the heart of the City of London. Both Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Ives attended the event. [Dana Baggett]

[5/26] Brief Hands-On Report--Apple Updated iWork, Pages to 1.0.2 and Keynote to 2.0.2: The updates are available for download via the System Preferences Software Update pane if you have Pages and Keynote 2 installed. There were no standalone updaters available at publication time. Pages 1.0.2 addresses issues with page navigation and organization. Keynote 2.0.2 corrects a security issue:

CVE-ID: CAN-2005-1408
Available for: Keynote 2, Keynote 2.0.1
Impact: A maliciously modified Keynote presentation could be constructed to retrieve files from the local system.
Description: With a specially crafted Keynote presentation and the use of the "keynote:" URI handler, it is possible that local files could be read and then sent to an arbitrary network location. This issue has been addressed in two ways: References to external resources have been limited, and the registration of the "keynote:" URI handler has been removed. This issue does not affect Keynote versions prior to Keynote 2. Credit to David Remahl (www.remahl.se/david) for reporting this issue.

We updated our copies of Pages and Keynote 2 with no problems. We weren't having any problems with the previous versions during our use and none have cropped up since updating. [Biill Fox]

[5/26] Registration Opened for O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON)--8/1-5/2005: Registration has just opened for OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. It's taking place August 1-5 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. Exploring what's afoot, what's fun, what's ahead, and the continuing challenges of adopting, integrating, and learning the basics of open source technologies are what OSCON is all about. This year's OSCON focuses on three deep trends affecting open source: the commoditization of software, network-enabled collaboration, and software customizability. [Bill Fox]

[5/26] Tonight on Tech Night Owl LIVE--Apple's Wiley Hodges plus Matt Neuberg and David Biedny: This week co-hosts Gene and Grayson Steinberg will continue talking about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger with some experts. Apple's Wiley Hodges will be on hand to provide Tiger tips and tricks. You'll also meet Matt Neuburg, author of "Take Control of Customizing Tiger." In addition, author and multimedia wizard David Biedny will be on hand to offer his usual provocative commentary on a variety of hot topics, including the new Star Wars movie and whether Apple should switch to Intel processors. You can tune in the internet radio broadcast tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific (9:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern). [Bill Fox]

[5/26] Apple Revised the Offerings from Four Hot Deals Retailers:

MacZone has fantastic prices on essential Mac products, including Microsoft Office 2004 Pro Upgrade/Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Pro Upgrade Bundle, LaCie 16x FireWire DVD±RW Drive with LightScribe and Toast 6, Symantec Norton SystemWorks 3.0.1 with $50 mail-in rebate, Sonnet PodFreq Premium FM Transmitter for iPod, Griffin RoadTrip FM Transmitter and iPod Charger, and much more.

CompUSA has money saving deals on a bevy of Mac products, including Roxio Toast 6 Titanium with $20 mail-in rebate, Epson Stylus C86 Color Inkjet printer with $20 mail-in rebate, Epson Perfection 2580 Photo Flatbed Scanner with $20 mail-in rebate, Sony HS95P/S 19" LCD Display with $100 mail-in rebate, Intuit QuickBooks Pro 2005 for mac with $100 mail-in rebate, and much more.

CDW|MacWarehouse has great deals on cool Mac products, including Epson PictureMate Deluxe Photo Printer, Macromedia Studio MX 2004, QuarkXPress 6.5, Epson S3 Projector, Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro/EnFocus Pitstop 6.5 Bundle, Canon PowerShot SD400 5MP Digital Camera with FREE Corel Painter Essentials Software, Nikon D70s 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera with FREE 256MB Memory Card, and much more.

Apple's Clearance Section of Hot Deals dedicated entirely to end-of-life and clearance Mac OS X products from all of your favorite retailers, boasts some newly added offers, including Ramjet 128MB SDRAM DIMM for Power Mac G3 Blue and White, Nectron Epson Stylus Color 9000 Ink Cartridges in a wide variety of colors, Microsoft Optical USB Mouse by Starck, M-Audio Oxygen B A-25 Key MIDI Controller, and much more.

[Bill Fox]

[5/26] Spotlight on Innovation--Using WebObjects Tools with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. WebObjects provides a rich set of tools for developing web-based applications. Bring your laptop to this session and get hands-on experience with Apple's engineers using data modeling, component creation, and rule-based assistants to rapidly build your application. Check out the details on what will be covered at WWDC 2005 on this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]

[5/25] Friday Night is Game Night at Several Apple Retail Stores: Several Apple stores are hosting a free Game Night every Friday from 7-9 p.m. Experience the latest and greatest games for the Mac. The following list gives contact info for some of the participating stores. If you know of any Mac gaming events going on in your area, please let Aspyr know.

Apple Store Barton Creek:
Every Friday at 7 p.m.
2901 South Capital of Texas Highway
Austin, TX 78746
(512) 347-7888
Featuring Star Wars Battlefront(TM) May 20th

Apple Store The Grove
189 The Grove Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 965-8400

Apple Store Third Street Promenade
1248 Third Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 576-1011

For a nationwide list of Apple stores, visit this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]

[5/25] Two Great QuickTime 7 H.264 Video Demos from Endorphin: If you want to see two excellent QuickTime 7 videos featuring a 16x9 format and the new H.264 codec, check out this Endorphin.com Web page. You can grab the corner of the QuickTime 7 Player and expand it to virtually full screen and even though it is just standard definition as opposed to HD, the clarity using H.264 and a small file size is remarkable. The two movies, Land & Sea and Powered by Gasoline, look very good even on our 30" Cinema Display at full screen.

"The ability to watch high quality H.264 full screen video on your computer monitor with QuickTime 7," states Endorphin President Bob Franco, "has the potential to start shifting the delivery of some of our entertainment from cable, satellite, and broadcast, to the internet and to elevate the perception of online video." [Bill Fox]

[5/25] Symantec's Norton AntiVirus for Mac 10.0 CD Now Shipping: Dana Baggett received notice that his credit card has been charged and his copy of the NAV 10.0 CD has shipped. NAV 10.0 is compatible with Tiger. [Dana Baggett]

[5/25] FREE Envision Web Show of the Week--Fractals: This week's Envision Web Show of the Week includes hundreds of images based on the mathematical concept of fractals. Fractals are objects with infinite levels of self-similarity. These images are from Sprott's Fractals at the University of Wisconsin. The Envision Web Show of the Week can be downloaded from Open Door Network's Envision Show of the Week Web site. Previous Shows of the Week are available in the Show of the Week archive. [Bill Fox]

[5/25] FREE Passes to MacDesign Expo in Tampa: Peachpit is offering free passes to the upcoming MacDesign Expo in Tampa, FL, June 21-23, 2005. To request a pair of passes (exhibit-only passes good for June 22 only; a $40 value), send an email message to freepasses@peachpit.com with your name and postal address. The passes are available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and Peachpit must receive all requests by June 16, 2005. [Bill Fox]

[5/25] iCal Events Widget Updated: Ben Kazez just released version 2.0 of his iCal Events widget, which now offers:

- Ability to view events from multiple calendars in the same widget
- See up to two weeks of upcoming events
- Dates and times now automatically appear in your language and format
- French localization

Many Tiger users had wanted a similar widget to come with Tiger. Here is the Web site for iCal Events. [Bill Fox]

[5/24] Commentary--The Rumor of Apple Using Intel CPUs: The Wall Street Journal posted an article claiming that Apple may soon switch to using Intel CPUs in the Mac. This is not the first time that this has happened, i.e. a rumor circulating that Apple will switch to Intel CPUs. It has happened several times before. But can it be true this time? After all, the WSJ cited inside scoop from Intel executives.

It seems to us that it is unlikely to be true but we don't really care that much one way or the other. Our feeling that the switch is unlikely is supported by reports on the technical challenges in doing so--it's not impossible, just challenging. The transition hassle factor with regard to application compatibility might be very high. It is also supported by Apple's persistent comments that it likes the IBM road map for development of its PowerPC CPUs. Finally, there's the expected negative reaction of many of the Mac faithful to Apple going partially over to the Dark Side.

On the other hand, the Power Mac G5 has not reached 3GHz, a feat promised to happen last summer. That's nearly a year ago! But to buy this as the reason for a switch is to buy into the GHz Myth all over again. Apple's PowerMac G5 and iMac G5 remain clearly competitive on performance and price with the Wintel crowd's offerings.

The only relevent concerns to us are if the new IBM technology of dual cores is not being quickly adapted for the Mac G5, the game machine CPU technology is also not being adapted for the Mac G5 and the G5 heat issue continues to look like a PowerBook G5 will not be feasible in the forseeable future. If the WSJ rumor is true, Apple executives may be seeing one or all of these happening.

Just remember that the Dark Side is really Windows. Apple's treasure is really innovation, Mac OS X and Apple's hardware design team. Would someone care if Mac OS X ran on an Intel CPU inside a fabulous, innovative, Apple-designed Mac and ran great at a competitive price? Maybe, we wouldn't that much but we'd certainly peel off the "Intel Inside" sticker. [Bill Fox]

[5/24] Spotlight on Innovation--Maximizing OpenGL Performance in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: The upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, June 6-10, will focus on the latest edition of Mac OS X, i.e. "Tiger" or 10.4. In this hands-on session, the Mac OS X OpenGL team will explain the latest techniques to optimize your application's OpenGL usage. All aspects of optimization will be covered including vertex and texture submission, elimination of redundant copies of data, and ideal pixel formats. Threading tips and techniques will also be discussed. Code along with live demonstrations of the OpenGL Profiler and Driver Monitor, and discover how to solve real-world performance problems. You'll learn to maximize your use of the GPU to increase your application's frame rate. Check out the details on what will be covered at WWDC 2005 on this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]

[5/24] Apple's Latest Tiger Tips of the Week: Every week Apple posts another tip on using special features in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Here are the two latest tips:

System Preferences: Shine a Spotlight. System Preferences now sports its own Spotlight search field. As soon as you start typing a word, a list drops down with any and all related preferences, while a nifty spotlight effect illuminates the corresponding icons.

Desktop Picture: Frame your Mac. Personalize you Mac's desktop background.

[Dana Baggett]

[5/23] Mac OS X 10.4.1--How Fast Is It? On Monday afternoon, May 16, Apple released Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update to Tiger. The Server edition of 10.4.1 Update was released Thursday of last week. As frequent readers know, we have benchmarked virtually every release of Mac OS X from the original 10.0 release through 10.3.9 to keep track of the improvements in its speed, a major complaint initially about Mac OS X. With the evolution of Mac OS X, Apple has made great strides in speeding it up. That, along with the release of Apple's Power Mac G5 and iMac G5, have mostly eliminated any significant OS speed concerns for its desktop computers. Even on the remaining G4s (i.e. PowerBooks, iBooks and Mac mini) and many legacy G4s and G3s, Mac OS X runs very well these days. According to Apple, the improvements in 10.4.1 included core graphics and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers.

So how fast is it? Did 10.4.1 speed anything up? To determine this we ran our usual suite of speed tests on our two test-bed Macs and one other. The speed tests are composed of a series of "canned" benchmark applications and several so-called "real world" tests that anyone can repeat on their own Mac for comparison by following the steps that we perform.

[5/21] Apple Recalls More LG Batteries for 12" & 15" PowerBook G4s and 12" iBook G4s: According to Apple,

In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety authorities, Apple is voluntarily recalling certain lithium ion rechargeable batteries that were sold worldwide from October 2004 through May 2005 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4. These batteries were manufactured by LG Chem, Ltd. of South Korea.

The affected batteries could overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers. Apple has received six consumer reports of these batteries overheating. If you have a recalled battery, please stop using it and order a replacement battery immediately. Once you have removed the battery, plug in the AC adapter to power the computer. If you must temporarily use your computer with the battery, do not leave it unattended and check for signs of overheating.

Apple has initiated a worldwide exchange program and will provide eligible customers with a new replacement battery, free of charge.
Identifying your battery

The recalled batteries include those with model numbers A1061, A1078, and A1079 and serial numbers that begin with HQ441 through HQ507 and 3X446 through 3X510. To view the model and serial numbers labeled on the bottom of the battery, you must remove the battery from the computer. The battery serial number is printed in black or dark grey lettering beneath a barcode. See photos below. Please use the chart below to identify the battery model and serial numbers that apply to your iBook or PowerBook.

Computer model	Battery Model	Serial No. Range
12" iBook	A1061	HQ441-HQ507
12" PowerBook	A1079	3X446-3X510
15" PowerBook	A1078	3X446-3X509

Please check Apple's Web page for more details on how to return the recalled batteries and receive a replacement. [Dana Baggett]More...

[5/21] Apple Revised the Offerings from Two Hot Deals Retailers:

Small Dog Electronics, a brand new retailer we warmly welcome to Hot Deals, has great prices on top quality Mac products, including Adobe's Photoshop CS2 Upgrade Version, LaCie Big Disk Extreme 500GB External Hard Drive with Extensis Portfolio 7, Small Dog Groove Cube Personal Speaker System iPod, Micronet miniMate 160GB FireWire/USB External Hard Drive and Hub with FREE MouseRug, and much more.

Mac Game Store, another new retailer joining the Hot Deals family, has great deals on the hottest games for the Mac, including MacSoft's Tropico 2: Pirate Cove, MacSoft Close Combat: First to Fight, Aspyr True Crime: Streets of LA, Aspyr Doom 3, Aspyr Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, Freeverse Burning Monkey Solitaire 2005, Feral Bionicle: The Game, and much more.

[Bill Fox]

[5/20] Apple LIVE Webcast May 25--Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" for Scientific and Technical Computing: You may join Apple at 10-11:15 a.m. on May 25 in this densely-packed webcast for general audiences on how each new feature in Tiger applies to Apple's scientific customers. For more details and to register for this live webcast go to this Apple Web page. [Bill Fox]

[5/20] Details on the Apple Mac OS X 10.4.1 Server Update: Mac OS X 10.4.1 Seerver Update is available for download either from the System Preferences Software Update pane or as a standalone updater from this Apple Web page. According to Apple,

The 10.4.1 Server Update delivers overall improved reliability for Mac OS X Server v10.4 and is recommended for all systems.

It includes improvements for:

-file sharing using AFP and SMB/CIFS network file services
-Software Update Server notifications and synchronization of package downloads
-displaying published Weblog Server content after a reboot
-binding to LDAP and Active Directory during system startup
-remote management using the Server Admin application
-creating and burning disk images using Disk Utility and System Image Utility
-compatibility with third party applications and devices

Here are the details of some of the enhancements and improvements:

Software Update Server

• Addresses an issue where the Software Update Service may not automatically download and host mirrored updates.

Open Directory

• Addresses an issue in which users may not be able to add Password Hints to an Access Control List.
• Addresses an issue in which static LDAP binding entries may be lost when bound to a DNS entry which resolves to many IP addresses.
• Addresses startup issues which may prevent computers from fully starting up when bound via Active Directory and hosting multiple services.

Apple File Server

• Addresses an issue in which the Apple File Server may stop unexpectedly when used simultaneously with SMB and CIFS.
servermgrd
• Addresses an issue that may cause the servermgrd service to stop unexpectedly over time with multiple services running.
Weblogs
• Addresses an issue in which user Weblogs may appear to be unavailable, even though they're really still available.
Mail Services
• Addresses mail migration issues in which the mail databases may be located on a different partition separate from where the 10.4.1 install resides. Additional mail database reconstruct instructions may be found here.

Disk Imaging

• Addresses an issue in which Disk Images may not properly uncompress and mount when stored on an Automounted Home Directory

Here are the security enhancements for both 10.4.1 Client and Server:

Bluetooth

CVE-ID: CAN-2005-1333
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4, Mac OS X Server v10.4
Impact: Directory traversal via Bluetooth file and object exchange
Description: Due to insufficient input checking, the Bluetooth file and object exchange services could be used to access files outside of the default file exchange directory. This update addresses the issue by adding enhanced filtering for path-delimiting characters. Credit to kf_lists[at]digitalmunition[dot]com for reporting this issue.

Dashboard

CVE-ID: CAN-2005-1474
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4, Mac OS X Server v10.4
Impact: Malicious websites can download and install widgets via Safari without the Safe Download Validation warning
Description: This update blocks the automatic installation of Dashboard widgets. Mac OS X's Safe Download Validation warning is enabled, requiring user approval before a Dashboard widget is installed by Safari. This issue does not affect Mac OS X versions prior to 10.4. Further information on removing Dashboard widgets that you have installed is available from this article.

Kernel

CVE-ID: CAN-2005-1472
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4, Mac OS X Server v10.4
Impact: Users can discover the names of files placed in normally unsearchable places
Description: Two system calls designed to allow efficient searching of filesystem objects incorrectly checked the permissions on enclosing directories and would reveal the names of files. The incorrect checking only occurred for directories without the POSIX read, but with the POSIX execute bits set for group and other. In practice this issue only affects files stored in users ~/Public/Drop Box. This update addresses the issue by correctly honoring the POSIX permission bits on directories. Credit to John M. Glenn of San Francisco for reporting this issue.

CVE ID: CAN-2005-0974 CERT: VU#713614
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4, Mac OS X Server v10.4
Impact: Local system users can cause a local denial of service
Description: A vulnerability in the nfs_mount() call due to insufficient checks on input values could allow unprivileged local users to create a denial of service via a kernel panic.

SecurityAgent

CVE-ID: CAN-2005-1473
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4, Mac OS X Server v10.4
Impact: Users with physical access to a system with a locked screensaver can start background applications
Description: A contextual menu feature in Mac OS X 10.4 allows URLs t