[AppleSurf Inbox] May 21, 2000

[applesurf at myapplemenu.comapplesurf]

AppleSurf Inbox

== Top Stories ====================

How Microsoft Made Virus-writing Accessible (The Baltimore Sun)
<http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Daily_Sections/Business/Archives/2000/May/stories/0521w-microsoft.htm>
Microsoft snatched programming from the clutches of the professional priesthood and gave it to the common user. When Apple brought out the Macintosh in 1983, it deliberately left these tools out of the operating system, which meant that only geniuses could develop software for the machine. That gave Apple more control over Macintosh software, but severely stunted the number of programs available for a technically superior machine.

What Are Peter And Dan Doing Tonight? Click Here. (Inside)
<http://www.inside.com/story/Premium_Story?art_id=4307>
The fact that the most watched news shows in the country now effectively share their story lineups reflects how cable news and the Web have usurped the evening news's role as a source of breaking news. 

== Seize the Day! (Great news for Mac users) ====================

Apple Making Inroads Into The Science Arena? (MacCentral)
<http://www.maccentral.com/news/0005/20.science.shtml>
Some users want Apple to make a harder push into the scientific arena -- it may be happening.

== Reviews (The good and the bad) ====================

Power Macintosh G4/500 (Macworld)
<http://macworld.zdnet.com/2000/07/reviews/mac_g4.html>
The Power Macintosh G4/500 offers only an incremental speed boost over the 450MHz G4 released last year, but it's still Apple's fastest system. Its only problem, besides the nonergonomic mouse, is the wallet-busting price.

In-flat-uation: The Coolest New Computer Screens Are Sleek, Slim -- And Costly (New York Daily News)
<http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-05-21/New_York_Now/Technology/a-67224.asp>
The grandest LCD monitor on the market, with a 22-inch diagonal screen Ñ which will display two pages side-by-side at full size Ñ the Apple Cinema Display is also one of the most expensive. However, by all accounts, you get what you pay for.

New Explorer For Apple Looks Good, Works Well And It Isn't Too PC (The Orlando Sentinel)
<http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocId/45491970431464ED862568E6002561A3>
Visually, it's more appealing than the Windows version. I urge Mac users not to be misled by the anti-Microsoft voices.

Winnie The Pooh Kindergarten (MacCentral)
<http://www.maccentral.com/news/0005/21.poohkinder.shtml>
Disney's Winnie the Pooh Kindergarten offers a variety of early learning activities for most kindergarten-aged players, although parents should be warned that advanced students may not find this title to offer an ample enough challenge.

What's The Fastest Large Format Inkjet, The HP DeskJet 1220Cse? Or The Epson Stylus Photo 1270? (Bare Feats)
<http://www.barefeats.com/inkjet4.html>
Hewlett Packard and Epson have recently released their newest version of these type of printer. Let's see which is the fastest.

== Thousand Flowers (News on Macintosh third-parties) ====================

Service Bureaus Look To The Future (MacWEEK.com)
<http://macweek.zdnet.com/2000/05/14/0520svcburthree.html>
Adapt, or die. That's the cruel truth for prepress firms as technology and economics conspire to evaporate demand for their primary services--drum scanning, proofing and film output. 

The Changing Face Of Prepress (MacWEEK.com)
<http://macweek.zdnet.com/2000/05/14/0519svcburtwo.html>
Prepress service bureaus today face a challenge similar to the desktop publishing revolution that caused the death of typesetting shops about 10 years ago.

== Know Thy Enemy (Keeping track of the Wintel empire) ====================

How Microsoft Made Virus-writing Accessible (The Baltimore Sun)
<http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Daily_Sections/Business/Archives/2000/May/stories/0521w-microsoft.htm>
Microsoft snatched programming from the clutches of the professional priesthood and gave it to the common user. When Apple brought out the Macintosh in 1983, it deliberately left these tools out of the operating system, which meant that only geniuses could develop software for the machine. That gave Apple more control over Macintosh software, but severely stunted the number of programs available for a technically superior machine.

For Microsoft, Beating Sony Is A Game Of Time (Los Angeles Times Syndicate)
<http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500206331-500287520-501528173-0,00.html>
Microsoft Corp.'s determination to head off Sony Corp. in the battle to control digital entertainment faces some substantial risks, analysts say.

== Breaking Barriers (About the internet and the web) ====================

Split Personalities: Dotcoms Want To Become Brands, But They Have A Long Way To Go (Far Eastern Economic Review)
<http://www.feer.com/_0005_25/p62innov.html>
Driven by pressure to stand out from the crowd, Internet companies are turning to branding as a way to lure both customers and investors. But most don't even have time to figure out what that means, and their businesses are changing so fast that a relevant brand image today is irrelevant tomorrow.

Winning Asia's Portal Races (Business Times)
<http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/1/fbzit/fbzit08.html>
There's a boom in Asia in Internet portal development. Low entry barriers and tantalising potential have triggered a spate of new portal launches throughout the region.

Sports Lawyers: Web is Legal Issue (Associated Press)
<http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/91333l.htm>
>From Webcasts to team logos on fan sites, the Internet is becoming a legal issue in professional sports, affecting leagues, teams and players, attorneys said Saturday.

With Stock Surging, Oracle Sets Sight On Internet (Associated Press)
<http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500206742-500288311-501558847-0,00.html>
Wall Street's belief that Oracle has transformed itself from a mundane maker of database software to an Internet trailblazer has yielded huge returns so far.

What Are Peter And Dan Doing Tonight? Click Here. (Inside)
<http://www.inside.com/story/Premium_Story?art_id=4307>
The fact that the most watched news shows in the country now effectively share their story lineups reflects how cable news and the Web have usurped the evening news's role as a source of breaking news. 

Dialup Fees: Banned Or Bandaid? (Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36427,00.html>
The House unanimously voted to ban FCC fees on dialup connections. At least that's what they thought they were doing, but the bill doesn't really prevent that from happening. 

A Visit To Tokyo's 'Electric Town' (San Jose Mercury News)
<http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/top/080981.htm>
The i-mode cell phone, which is Internet enabled, was introduced in February 1999. In a little more than a year, the i-mode's manufacturer, NTT DoCoMo, became the nation's largest Internet service provider, with about 4 million users today, all of them wireless.

The Side Effects Of Surfing On The Job (New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/personal/052100personal-diary.html>
A new survey has found that nearly 10 percent of employees with Internet access think that their work performance has suffered as a result of the time they spend online. An additional 13 percent blamed the Internet for their inability to stay focused at work.

Browsing The Future (Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,36474,00.html>
Under the ironic mantle "The End of the Browser," the Third International Browserday on Friday presented some 35 visions of the future of the information interface.

The Internet Doesn't Isolate, But Reconnects Us To Others (San Jose Mercury News)
<http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/dp052100.htm>
While men still go online more frequently than women and spend more time logged on, the researchers found it was women who were most emphatic about how the Net is improving their relationships. 

News You Can Choose (San Jose Mercury News)
<http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/news052100.htm>
Now the Internet -- home to uncountable sources of fact, rumor and innuendo -- is starting to deliver news with more of that TV flavor.

== The AppleSurf Reader (Great Reads!) ====================

Laboratories Against The Literati (Edge)
<http://www.edge.org/documents/independent.html>
If you didn't know who he was, you might take Brockman for a professor on the high plateau of his career. But this is a man legendary for forcing a publishing culture with its spiritual home in Bloomsbury to do business the Wall Street way.

Navigating The Amazon Circle (New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/05/21/bookend/bookend.html>
Introduce a computer to a heap of raw data and the temptation to slice the information every which way can prove irresistible.

== Technology (The Technology Scene In Singapore) ====================

KRDL, Siemens In $1 Million R&D Deal (Business Times)
<http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/1/fbzit/fbzit14.html>
Kent Ridge Digital Labs (KRDL) and Siemens Information and Communication Mobile (ICM) will collaborate on a $1 million R&D project to design and implement a testbed for mobile, wireless Internet.

Winning Asia's Portal Races (Business Times)
<http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/1/fbzit/fbzit08.html>
There's a boom in Asia in Internet portal development. Low entry barriers and tantalising potential have triggered a spate of new portal launches throughout the region.

BG Yeo: We Need Cosmopolitan Workplace (Business Times)
<http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/1/news/nsing02.html>
[S]ingapore ought to learn from Silicon Valley, where every individual is rewarded according to his or her own ability, regardless of race.

Bigwig Advisers For dollarDEX (Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/money/sinb1_0522.html>
One-year-old dollarDEX says it has lined up an advisory panel that includes former Simex chief Elizabeth Sam, advertising guru Ian Batey, DBS senior managing director Soh Kim Soon and PrimePartners Asset Management managing partner Hsieh Fu-Hua.

Police Had Proof Of E-mail Bombing Case (Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/forum/for2_0522.html>
Singapore Police Force: The accused person was charged for an offence under Section 7(1)(a) of the Computer Misuse Act, Chapter 50A. This section makes it an offence for any person, who knowingly and without authority or lawful excuse, interferes with the lawful use of a computer.

Intention, Not E-mail Volume, Is The Issue (Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/sin8_0521.html>
The issue is whether the person knows his action will interfere with the use of the computer, say lawyers.

== Entertainment (The Entertainment Scene In Singapore) ====================

Master Stroke: Leading Singapore Watercolorist's Big Splash In America (Asiaweek)
<http://www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0526/as.painting.html>
Singapore's best-known watercolorist says he grew up in a "gangster-infested neighborhood" and could barely afford to attend school as a child.

Bare Stage, Rich Performance (Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/life/life22_0522.html>
What they dished up in terms of performance was akin to a slice of good, old-fashioned apple pie -- rich, warm, comforting, prepared with care and topped with a special attention to detail.

PCK Reconstructed (Asia E!Online)
<http://www.asia.eonline.com/Features/Topics/Content/0,1053,1893,00.html>
Will the eponymous Phua Chu Kang still be Singapore's favorite housing contractor in the third season of Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd?
 

== Around Town (News out of Singapore) ====================

Keep Out: That Is One Message In Kuala Lumpur's Restructuring Of Timedotcom (Asiaweek)
<http://www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0526/biz.time.html>
When is a deal not a deal? For those watching Asia's takeover-happy telecommunications sector, the answer may well be: when it's a deal with Singapore Telecom.

Go Ahead, Cut Red Tape, PA Chief Tells CDCs (Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapore/sin3_0521.html>
Mr Chan Soo Sen, Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister's Office and Ministry of Health, also emphasised the need for CDCs to cut back on bureaucracy and to give more space to VWOs as they value their independence and do not like to be micro-managed.