[MyAppleMenu] Saturday, Feb 21, 2004

Sat Feb 21 21:05:00 EST 2004

MyAppleMenu Newsletter
Saturday, Feb 21, 2004

MyAppleMenu : News
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Apple's Portable iPod Rotten To Some (Rene A. Guzman, San Antonio Express)
<http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=0&xlc=1131121>
Some iPod users are so fed up with its battery life they think it's time Apple faced the music.

Hilary Rhodes: Designing A Virtual World (Barbara Gibson, Apple)
<http://www.apple.com/pro/design/rhodes/>
Rhodes chose Bryce on the Mac because she could create virtual domains using fractals rather than photographic textures.

MyAppleMenu : Opinions
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The Mini And Me (Christopher Breen, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/mac911/archives/2004/02/000079.php>

MyAppleMenu : Reviews
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Apple iPod Mini (James Kim, TechTV)
<http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/products/story/0,23008,3622601,00.html>
Naysayers should consider the mini's size and styling, which is both functional and easy on the eyes and fingers.

Apple's GarageBand Keeps The Beat, But Can't Guarantee Originality (Glenn Fleishman, Seattle Times)
<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001862105_ptgarageband21.html>
Apple's key advantage with GarageBand is that it's hard to create songs that sound terrible -- you have to work very hard to make bad music. But you have to work equally hard to make music that's unique.

Darling Mini (Jason Snell, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/archives/000078.php>
Do I wish the Mini were cheaper? You betcha. But I'm not going to say it's overpriced. Every person is going to have to make up his or her own mind about that one.

Shareware And Widgets (Chris Oaten, The Advertiser)
<http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8738362%5E21669,00.html>

First Look At Apple's iPod Mini (Alexandra Kransne, PC World)
<http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114883,00.asp>
Fashionable iPod mini provides digital music in style at its debut.

A Security Primer For Mac OS X (Francois Joseph de Kermadec, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/20/security.html>
The Unix foundation of Mac OS X, Darwin, has provided us with powerful tools that we can leverage to help our computers remain secure in an otherwise dangerous world.

Home Automation With Mac OS X, Part 2 (Alan Graham, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/02/20/home_automation.html>
In this installment, I'm going to dig deeper into the hardware and show you some tips I've learned from my experiences.

My First 48 Hours Enduring Mac OS X (Matthew Thomas)
<http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2004/02/16/os-x>

iPod Battery Drain When Connected To Sleeping, Off Macs Part 2 (MacFixIt)
<http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20040220074918172>
What's odd is that some readers have reported that the drain occurs even while an iPod is dock-connected to a Mac that is turned off. This would appear to indicate that that the iPod is constantly "listening" for a signal from the Dock, depleting its battery in the process.

Final Cut Express 2 (Peter Wells, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=53992>
Final Cut Express 2 has an exceptional number of features for a product at this price point, and, as with all good editors, puts sufficient emphasis on the job of editing and storytelling rather than wild effects and novelty features.

Halo (Cliff Joseph, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=53994>
The high system requirements and limited control options may deter some people, but if you're an experienced gamer with a powerful Mac, then -- with the possible exception of Unreal Tournament or Medal of Honour -- Halo is the best first-person shooter on the Mac.

TechTool Pro 4 (Mike Hirschkorn, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=53996>
We were hugely impressed with TechTool Pro 4. It carries the tradition of a great Mac utility to OS X, and it adds a host of useful new features.

Art Directors Toolkit 4 (Craig Grannell, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=53998>
If you are a designer who wants all the useful tools in one place, this is an inspired package.

ConceptDraw V Professional (Christopher Phin, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=54000>

REALbasic 5.2.4 (John Dixon, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=54004>
REALbasic is let down by weak tutorials, and the uncommented code examples on the CD are difficult to follow. It does, however, make it easy to quickly create royalty-free standalone applications for both the Mac OS and Windows.

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow: News & Opinions
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Behind The Asian Outsourcing Phenomenon (McKinsey Quarterly, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2030-1069_3-5162352.html>
U.S. computer giants, along with leading U.S. companies in financial services and other industries, are using offshore partnerships to do more than just cut costs.

Death To Drivers (Christopher Lindquist, CIO)
<http://www.cio.com/archive/021504/et_development.html>
The Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is proposing an alternative that would do away with traditional device drivers forever.

Software To Cut The Digital Fat (Dan Farber, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2008-7343_3-5162264.html>
Intentional Software plans to deliver programming tools that reduce the discontinuities among the various stakeholders, which causes software projects to lose the design intent in the development process.

TiVo's Watching You. But Who's Watching TiVo? (Charles Cooper, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2010-1025_3-5162534.html>
I'd like my privacy back, but that's probably a pipedream.

MyAppleMenu Reader: Life
------------------------
What Did Jesus Really Look Like? (David Gibson, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/arts/21JESU.html>
>From Eastern Orthodox icons to Hollywood movie hunks like Jim Caviezel in "The Passion of Christ," depictions of Jesus have always served the needs of the day.

MyAppleMenu SingaporeSurf : News & Opinions
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JC Intake Only In March, Shorter Wait For Poly Entry (Jane Ng and Sandra Davie, Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,236241,00.html?>
>From 2006, junior college, polytechnic and ITE calendars will be adjusted so that waiting time for entry will be lessened.

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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) 1996-2004 Heng-Cheong Leong. All rights reserved.