[MyAppleMenu] May 20, 2003

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu Newsletter
Tuesday, May 20, 2003

MyAppleMenu : Top Stories
-------------------------
Apple Executives On Upcoming WWDC (Jim Dalrymple, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/05/20/wwdcexecs/>
"People are going to be blwon away by Panther."

Apple Announces Chicago, Tokyo, SF Stores (MacNN)
<http://www.macnn.com/news/19498>
Apple announced that during the next 12 months it plans to open 20 new Apple retail stores, including its first store in downtown Chicago, on North Michigan Avenue; its first store in San Francisco, in Union Square; and its first retail store outside of the U.S., in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district.

MyAppleMenu : News
------------------
NetNewsWire Lite Update Fixes Bugs, More (Peter Cohen, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/05/20/netnewswire/>
Ranchero Software has released NetNewsWire Lite v1.0.3, a new version of the Mac OS X-native RSS newsreader.

Creative Labs I-Trigue: Giving Voice To The iPod (Shoshana Berger, Business 2.0)
<http://www.business2.com/articles/web/0,1653,49606,00.html>
Now that you have your new iPod, you'll want a desktop speaker system that converts your small white wonder into a reverb room of sound.

WWDC Early Bird Registration Ends Friday (MacMinute)
<http://www.macminute.com/2003/05/20/wwdc>
The Early Bird registration discount for this year's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which offers a savings of US$300, ends this Friday, May 23.

U2, Johnson Top Apple Charts (Rolling Stone)
<http://www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?nid=18075>
Although these initial numbers are impressive, they represent a small portion of the music industry's $11.5 billion annual revenue.

"The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers" : Compositing The Middle-Earth Adventure (Vicky Gray-Clark, Apple)
<http://www.apple.com/shake/stories/lotr2/>
The visual effects... were produced at WETA Digital, New Zealand's foremost production facility.

MacSoft To Ship Unreal Tournament 2003 (Peter Cohen, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/05/19/ut2k3/>
Unreal Tournament 2003 is the latest version of the popular first person shooter.

Opera Updates Leave Macs In The Cold (Silicon.com)
<http://www.silicon.com/news/500003/1/4221.html>
Opera may be keeping its Linux and Windows updates synchronised, but it has deliberately let its Mac OS X development efforts lag.

MyAppleMenu : Opinions
----------------------
Would You Buy A Mac With Intel Inside? (Gene Steinberg, Gannett News Service)
<http://www.azcentral.com/business/etech/etechmain.html?gannet_story=http://www.gannettonline.com/e/eteam/mac_reality_check.html>
When you look at one of Apple's elegant computers, and experience the joys of its easy setup and superior reliability, do you really care about the name of the processor that's making it all happen?

Is The Backlight Supposed To Be Blue? (iPodlounge)
<http://ipodlounge.com/ipodnews_comments.php?id=498_0_7_0_C>

Don't Underestimate Macworld NY Just Yet (Derrick Story, O'Reilly network)
<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3207>
The focus of Macworld East is for general Mac users and for creative professionals and hobbyists. For some of us, this is the really fun stuff.

MyAppleMenu : Reviews
---------------------
Taking An iTrip: Three FM Transmitters (Travis Butler, TidBITS)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07191>
iTrip is by far the best of the lot if you have an older iPod that works with it. I just hope Griffin can come up with a version that works with the third-generation iPods.

BookIt 3.2 (David Weeks, MyMac.com)
<http://www.mymac.com/weeks/bookit_5.20.03.shtml>
BookIt 3.2 is Everyday Software's application for comprehensive bookmark managment.

MSN Messenger 3.5 (TopTechTips)
<http://www.toptechtips.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=2>
[MSN Messenger] offers a very good alternative to iChat on the Mac and with newer versions of Messenger on the way... things can only get better.

Spell Catcher X (Charles Purdy, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/spellcatcherx/>
Spell Catcher X is undeniably good at what it does, and it caused no noticeable slowdowns in other applications while it ran in the background.

QuicKeys X 1.5.4: Missing Features, But Getting Better (Franklin Tessler, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/quickeysx154/>
Although we still miss power features such as conditional branching, QuicKeys X offers you the fastest route to Mac automation without having to learn AppleScript.

PocketMac Pro 2.0: Software Opens PocketPCs To Mac Market (Andy Ihnatko, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/pocketmacpro2/>
PocketMac may be a flawed app, but for now, it's the only game in town. If you're in love with the huge power of PocketPC hardware and software, it's worth the hassle. If not, you're better off with a Mac-compatible Palm -- or waiting for another company to step up with a PocketPC-to-Mac utility.

Page Sender 3.0: Top-Notch Fax Application (Jeffery Battersby, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/pagesender3/>

X-Plane 6.5: Simulator Lets You Fly -- Courtesy Of Your Desktop (Peter Cohen, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/xplane6/>
Complex though it may be, X-Plane is unquestionably the king of the hill in Mac flight simulators.

Traktor DJ Studio 2.0: Pro DJ Software Comes To The Mac, Mixes Great Sound (Gil Kaupp, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/traktordjstudio2/>
The fact that you can leave your DJ hardware at home and just bring your laptop to your next party makes this program well worth considering.

TimeLiner 5.0: Teacher's Pet (Adrienne Robillard, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/06/reviews/timeliner5/>
TimeLiner 5.0 provides teachers with an effective tool for teaching across the curriculum, putting any chronological or numerical information on screen for students to see.

Why I Ditched Mac OS X For Linux (Jon Atkinson, OSNews.com)
<http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3596>
For my uses, Mac OS X isn't all it claimed to be.

Spam Filtering Smackdown (Mike Wendland)
<http://www.mac-mike.com/archives/000167.html>

17-Inch PowerBook Could Be Your One And Only (Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle)
<http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/tech/weekly/1912174>
This is the first PowerBook I'd be comfortable using as my one and only computer.

MSN Gives Mac Users Another Choice (Troy Dreier, PC Magazine)
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1094314,00.asp>
Although MSN will seem a bit too tame for some (especially without community features), parents and those looking for a slightly cheaper alternative to AOL will greet MSn for Mac OS X warmly.

A Decision Well Made, And Still Loving My Little AlBook (Mac Net Journal)
<http://www.whiterabbits.com/macnetjournal/May2003.html#note_1171>
Here is a quick overview of some of the compromises made when I bought this PowerBook and how they have stacked up over the last couple of months.

MyAppleMenu : Wintel News
-------------------------
Bug-Zapping, Microsoft Style (Alex Salkever, BusinessWeek)
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2003/tc20030520_4335_tc047.htm>
Mike Nash takes offense when people (like me) bash Redmond's software, because it's up to him to make it safe. Here's his defense.

More Wintel News at <http://www.myapplemenu.com/wintel/>

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow : News & Opinions
--------------------------------------
Unsuspecting Computer Users Relay Spam (Saul Hansell, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/technology/20SPAM.html>
As spam has proliferated, many mass e-mailers have become more clever in avoiding the blockades by aggressively bouncing messages off the computers of unaware third parties.

Nicholas Negroponte: The End To 'Economic Winter' Now In Sight (Robert Weisman, Boston Globe)
<http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/139/business/Nicholas_Negroponte_The_end_to_economic_winter_now_in_sight+.shtml>
"It will not be a rebirth of the digital world as we knew it in Wired magazine. It will be what people around here call silicon biology."

Business Is Toying With A Web Tool (Amy Cortese, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/19/technology/19NECO.html>
The wiki, a quirky software technology that has been kicking around the Web since the mid-90's, is starting to gain respectability.

Extent Of UK Snooping Revealed (BBC News)
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3030851.stm>
Officials in the UK are routinely demanding huge quantities of information about what people do online and who they call, say privacy experts.

SCO Group's Case Against Linux (Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007672.html>
Is Linux -- the most successful operating system built with free software -- infected with code that's actually owned by someone?

Microsoft Sends Message With Unix Deal (Martin LaMonica and Mike Ricciuti, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007715.html>
Microsoft's licensing of rights to Unix technology from the SCO Group helps Microsoft combat Linux, a growing marketplace threat to its operating system, analysts said.

Sun, HP: SCO Probably Won't Touch Us (Michael Kanellos and Ian Fried, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007891.html>
Sun and HP say SCO Group's attempt to obtain royalties for inappropriate uses of Unix won't likely affect them, while Red Hat said it would defend itself vigorously against any challenges.

Sun Beefs Up Low-End Servers (Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1010_3-1007934.html>
Sun got more serious on Monday about its effort to sell cheap servers, rolling out two new machines and announcing deeper ties with Oracle and Red Hat.

MyAppleMenu Reader : Science & Tech
-----------------------------------
Telescopes Of The World, Unite! A Cosmic Daabase Emerges (Bruce Schechter, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/20/science/space/20DWAR.html>
What some astronomers are calling "the world's best telescope" is built of terabytes of data collected by dozens of telescopes on earth and in space.

MyAppleMenu Reader : Life
-------------------------
Fangs For The Memories, Buffy (Rita Kempley, Washington Post)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12934-2003May19.html>
Theologians, psychoanalysts and academics from all disciplines are drawn to the show like vampires to blood banks. Not that you have to have a degree to fall for the slayer and the Slayerettes.

Reviewing A Fraud: Critics' Dilemma (Kevin Canfield, Hartford Courant)
<http://www.ctnow.com/features/lifestyle/hc-moreglass.artmay16.story>
Should [book editors and critics] review [Stephen Glass'] novel, thereby rewarding his bad behavior with the media attention he and his publisher so deeply crave? Should they treat the book as a news event about the re-emergence of a fallen star/ Or should they punish Glass for his bad behavior and ignore the book altogether?

More
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Internet News <http://www.myapplemenu.com/internet/>
Linux News <http://www.myapplemenu.com/linux/>

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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 &copy; 1996-2003 Heng-Cheong Leong. All rights reserved.