[MyAppleMenu] Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu Newsletter
Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003

MyAppleMenu : Top Stories
-------------------------
Apple Emerges From The Pod (BBC News)
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3321943.stm>
You can hire as many "cool hunters" and guerrilla marketers as you like, but when it comes to the youth market you've either got it or you haven't. And, at the moment, the iPod has got it.

A Look Back: The Best Of 2003 From Apple Computer (Yuval Kossovsky, Computerworld)
<http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/macos/story/0,10801,88307,00.html?SKC=macos-88307>
Apple is not a computer company, but a solution company. Apple delivers innovative, elegant and friendly solutions to a specific community with a problem. Apple delivers utility in a decidedly nonutilitarian way.

MyAppleMenu : News
------------------
Reader: Apple Quietly Patches MPEG-2 Component Bug (MacNN)
<http://www.macnn.com/news/22527>

Awards Of Excellence 2003 (Judy Salpeter, Techlearning)
<http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=16700431&pgno=2>
Apple's four popular multimedia tools-iTunes for music management, iPhoto for digital photography editing, iMovie for digital moviemaking, and iDVD for burning DVDs-have been upgraded in the past year and incorporated into a single integrated package known as iLife. Impressed with each of these tools individually, our judges were particularly wowed by the richness of the resulting suite.

Apple Releases Battery Update 1.1 For Portables (MacNN)
<http://www.macnn.com/news/22534>
Apple today released Battery Update 1.1, which enhances the performance of the battery to ensure that full capacity is available for your PowerBook or iBook.

The iPod Is The New Sonic Boom (Toby Manhire, The Guardian)
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/editor/story/0,12900,1108425,00.html>

Apple Discussions Support Area Gets Revamped (Peter Cohen, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/12/17/discussions/index.php?redirect=1071672015000>
The new Apple Discussions area features "a significant update to the user interface and a change to the way posts are rated."

AppleCare Planned For Euro iPods (Jonny Evans, Macworld UK)
<http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/top_news_item.cfm?NewsID=7521>
Apple Europe has told Macworld of its plans to offer Europe's iPod owners battery replacement and AppleCare packages soon.

FoxTrot Dances Across Your Comics Page In Step With Mac (Brad Cook, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/12/17/amend/index.php?redirect=1071671139000>
Few months ago, Bill Amend treated himself to a 2 GHz Dual Processor Power Mac G5, complete with a Cinema HD display.

Love Apple (Garry Barker, Sydney Morning Herald)
<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/17/1071337013693.html>
As Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith of The A Team would have said, the plan has come together and the people love it.

Apple Hits Back (Russell Brown, New Zealand Listener)
<http://www.listener.co.nz/default,1114.sm>
Apple's PC market share might be as little as three percent, but the pundits have lately queued up to praise its sense of style and innovation.

Poll: Mac Veterans Abound (Macworld UK)
<http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=7513>
Nearly a third of Mac users readers bought their first Mac between 1984 and 1990, the latest Macworld Online poll shows.

Free 2 - 3 Day Shipping At Apple Store (MacMinute)
<http://www.macminute.com/2003/12/16/applestore>
The online Apple Store is offering free 2- to 3-day shipping on all orders until December 27, 2003.

Mac Applets Coming Soon To Windows (Paul Festa, CNET News.com)
<http://rss.com.com/2100-1046_3-5126248.html>
A Web site that offers desktop applets for the Macintosh desktop is gearing up to provide similar gadgets for Windows.

Stillwater: Laptop Foes Say Deal Will Stand (Megan Boldt, Pioneer Press)
<http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/7500310.htm>
Public opposition to a plan to provide laptops to junior high students was strong enough to help put two write-in candidates on the Stillwater school board last month, but iBook naysayers on the board say they won't push to sever the deal with Apple Computer.

Microsoft's Music Play Aims To Put Apple's iTunes In Juicer (Stephen Lynch, New York Post)
<http://www.nypost.com/business/13531.htm>
"Microsoft isn't interested in selling music. Microsoft is interested in providing technology that proliferates."

MyAppleMenu : Opinions
----------------------
Update: What's Up With Uru For Mac? Cyan Answers (Vern Seward, Mac Observer)
<http://www.macobserver.com/columns/justathought/2003/20031216.shtml>
While there's no definite date for when Uru will show up, it seems reasonably certain that it will, which should make a lot of Mac Myst fans extremely happy.

A G5 Laptop? Maybe Next Year (Alex Salkever, BusinessWeek)
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2003/tc20031217_5848_tc056.htm>
Much of the requisite modifications needed to convert a G5 desktop chipset into one that works in a laptop may have already taken place.

iTunes For The Rest Of Us (Amy Percival, SpyMac)
<http://www.spymac.com/comments.php?id=1263_0_5_0_M>
Apple must open the iTunes Music Store internationally, or risk losing the market share it has gained in the digital music market it created.

10 Things I Think I Think I Feel About Switching (Tim Verpoorten)
<http://www.surf-bits.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=174>
I think after less than a year as a Mac owner, I've seen more quality software than I did in 15 years working with PC's.

MyAppleMenu : Reviews
---------------------
Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2.0 (Lucian Fong, Inside Mac Games)
<http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=470>
I find it puzzling that after all the great mice that Microsoft has made, they release a product that takes a step back.

Apples G5: More Than A Pretty Face (Tom Yager, ARN)
<http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=1504198582&fp=16&fpid=0>

iPod Offerings, Part 2 (Dan Frakes, TidBITS)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07480>
Give your favorite iPod user even more reason to love their iPod with one (or more) of these useful items.

Music To Your Ears: 2003 (Dan Frakes, TidBITS)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07479>
If someone in your life uses headphones, give them a pair that do their music/movies/games justice.

Age Of Mythology (Mike Phillips, MacGamer)
<http://www.macgamer.com/features/?id=1730>
This game is deep in strategy, rich in story, lush in visuals and well-groomed in sound.

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow: Top Stories
---------------------------------
Bush OKs Spam Bill -- But Critics Not Convinced (Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com)
<http://rss.com.com/2100-1028_3-5124724.html>
President Bush signed the "Can-Spam" bill Tuesday, creating the first federal law regulating spam, a move backers say will be a major step in the war against e-mail solicitations for pornography, Viagra, diet pills, get-rich-quick schemes and the like. But critics scoff that e-mail users will be unlikely to see a decline in the volume of junk in their in-boxes as a result.

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow: News & Opinions
-------------------------------------
Film Fans Befuddled By Copyright (Katie Dean, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,61598,00.html?tw=rss.TOP>
A major studio's recent action to curtail online sales of its films has left some movie buffs confused about where and when purchasing foreign DVDs is legitimate.

"Moving To India Is Not A Luxury. It Is A Necessity" (Katharine Mieszkowski, Salon)
<http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/12/17/chiruvolu/index_np.html>
American workers won't like what venture capitalist Ravi Chiruvolu says about why his tech start-ups are built using Indian workers. But they'd better listen.

Google Here, There, And Everywhere (Alex Salkever, BusinessWeek)
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2003/tc20031216_9018_tc047.htm>
As the search giant keeps expanding into new services, it's becoming a rival to just about every other Net company out there.

Soon, Marketing Will Follow You (Daniel Terdiman, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61597,00.html?tw=rss.TOP>
While consumers may wish for less-intrusive advertising, it appears, short of permanently shutting their wallets, they may not be able to fend off the coming wave of mobile-target marketing.

It's Not Called 'Can' Spam For Nothing (Ray Everett-Church, CNET News.com)
<http://rss.com.com/2010-1028_3-5125192.html>
The law is little more than an instructional guide for how to keep pumping out millions of e-mails per hour while avoiding legal liability.

Why We've Finally Canned Spam (Ron Wyden and COnrad Burns, CNET News.com)
<http://rss.com.com/2010-1028_3-5125699.html>
As co-authors of this legislation and as two of the Senate's leading technology legislators, we do not claim that the Can-Spam Act, which passed into law Tuesday, offers a silver bullet that will stop all unwanted e-mail. However, we do believe that the law will offer important new tools in the fight against spam and that some of the criticisms of the legislation are misguided.

Where Did My IT Job Go? (William V. Grebenik, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2010-1022_3-5124555.html>
Markets hate high prices, and our labor was extremely high-priced.

Blaster And The Great Blackout (Bruce Schneier, Salon)
<http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/12/16/blaster_security/index_np.html>
It's impossible to prove that a malicious worm caused last summer's power outage, but one thing's clear: Ordinary computers are the weakest link.

MyAppleMenu Reader: World
-------------------------
Saddam Is Ours. Does Al Qaeda Care? (Bruce Hoffman, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/opinion/17BRUC.html>
There's strong evidence that Osama bin Laden is using Iraq the way a magician uses smoke and mirrors.

MyAppleMenu Reader: Science & Tech
----------------------------------
Seven Days Of Creation (Wendy Goldman Rohm, Wired)
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/clones.html>
The inside story of a human cloning experiment.

MyAppleMenu Reader: Life
------------------------
Look! Up In The Air! It's A Plane! The Joy Of Flight (Joel Achenbach, Washington Post)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6509-2003Dec16.html>
A hundred years after the Wright brothers, everyone has to change planes in Atlanta.

McLanguage Meets The Dictionary (Dennis Baron, Chronicle Of Higher Education)
<http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i17/17b01401.htm>
Dictionaries don't tell us how to use our words, they describe how we use them.

For Some, It's A Very Moo Shu Christmas (Alex Witchel, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/dining/17HENR.html>
Welcome to the conundrum that is Christmas New York style: while most restaurants close for the holiday, or in a few cases, stay open and serve a prix fixe meal laden with froufrou, thousands of diners, most of them Jewish, are faced with a dilemma.

The Kitchen Faucet Is A Vegetable's Best Friend (Marian Burros, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/dining/17WELL.html>
It has become clear that fruits and vegetables have been responsible for about as many reported cases of food poisoning as beef, chicken, fish and eggs combined.

MyAppleMenu Reader: Expressions
-------------------------------
Dinner With The Metrophobe (Aimee Nezhukumatahil, Slate)
<http://slate.msn.com/id/2092680/>

All Aunt Hagar's Children (Edward P. Jones, New Yorker)
<http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/content/?031222fi_fiction1>

MyAppleMenu Reader: EOF
-----------------------
Disney Puts 'Motion Sickness' Bags On Mission: Space Ride (Local6.com)
<http://www.local6.com/news/2707438/detail.html>
Several theme park consultants told Local 6 News that it is the first time "motion sickness" bags have been made available on a theme park ride.

MyAppleMenu SingaporeSurf : News & Opinions
-------------------------------------------
70 Quarantined On Sars Precaution (Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/storyprintfriendly/0,1887,225809,00.html?>
Singapore health authorities said on Wednesday that 70 people will be quarantined as a precautionary measure after Taiwan health officials confirmed that a medical researcher who had visited Singapore between Dec 7 and 10 has tested positive for Sars.

No SARS Cases In Singapore: MOH (Channel NewsAsia)
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/print/62407/1/.html>
The Health Ministry says there are no SARS cases in Singapore following the latest infection in Taiwan announced on Wednesday.

Merger? What Merger? (Tan Hui Leng, Today)
<http://www.todayonline.com/articles/11751.asp>
The two main media groups have scotched speculation of an impending union. However, the punters haven't lost steam yet.

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MyAppleMenu is edited by Heng-Cheong Leong. This site is not affiliated with Apple Computer, Inc., or any other companies in any manner. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Power Macintosh, PowerBook, iMac, iBook, iPod, and eMac are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. All other brands or product names are trademarks of their registered holders. Copyright (C) 1996-2003 Heng-Cheong Leong. All rights reserved.