[MyAppleMenu] Sep 7, 2005

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/>
Mac news for Mac people

[News]

*** Apple Dominates Download Market In UK
<http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=1634>
Stuart Miles, Pocket Lint

Apple has announced that its iTunes Music Store in the UK has become the number one store dominating a massive 80 percent of the market place according to the Official Charts Company.

*** Mr Jobs' Modus Operandi: Heap On THe Suspense
<http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/business/12578637.htm>
Greg Sandoval, Associated Press

Few companies know how to ratchet up anticipation like Apple.

*** iPod, Play Hebrew For Me
<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/621414.html>
Shahar Smooha, Haaretz

Last month, Yinon Yamin, a 26-year-old student at Ben-Gurion Univeristy, managed to create an elegant solution to a problem that disturbs thousands of Hebrew speakers who purchased Apple's popular iPod digital MP3 audio player.

*** An Apple For The Student
<http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/06/technology/laptop_schools/index.htm>
Amanda Cantrell, CNN/Money

Some schools are handing out laptops to every student, giving a boost to Apple.

*** Creative Go After iPod Shuffle Owners With New Speaker Systems
<http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=1628>
Stuart Miles, Pocket Lint

*** Descent 2 Updated For OS X -- And Free!
<http://www.tuaw.com/2005/09/06/descent-2-updated-for-osx-and-free/>
David Chartier, Unofficial Apple Weblog

It loooks like an open source team somehow got ahold of the sourc and has been chugging away at getting it to work across platforms.

[Opinion]

*** Nothing Says "A Geek Lives Here" Quite Like This
<http://untangledlife.com/wibrary/2005/09/06/nothing-says-a-geek-lives-here-quite-like-this/>
Untangled Life

Now that you're living the G5 life (not to mention that "not so subtle" turquoise color completely clashes with your new brushed silver) here's the perfect solution for geeking up your front porch: The Mac G4 flower box.

*** Random Giants
<http://www.macobserver.com/columns/justathought/2005/20050906.shtml>
Vern Seward, Mac Observer

[Review]

*** What Is Automator (And Can It Make Your Life Easier)
<http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/09/06/what-is-automator.html>
Matthew Russell, O'Reilly Network

Let's take a closer look at Automator and see if it can really change the way we do our daily work.

*** Using iPods In A Cross-Platform Environment
<http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/todayatplaylist/2005/09/xplatipod/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Christopher Breen, Playlist

*** Tiger Secrets: Spotlight
<http://www.macworld.com/2005/09/features/tigertips2/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Christpoher Breen, Rob Griffiths, Ted Landau, Kelly Lunsford, Kirk McElhearn and Dori Smith, Macworld

7 secret strategies for sleuthing lost files.

[Sidetrack]

*** What's New?
Heng-Cheong Leong

"1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again."

Let's hope it is wireless, has more space tha a nomad, and not lame.

:-)

I will probably be sleeping when Steve Jobs unveils the new product or products -- it is 1 a.m. here in Singapore when it is 10 a.m. over at San Francisco. So, check out the other sites, and we'll have a summary later.

*** Mac OS X  Public Beta In Two Weeks
Heng-Cheong Leong

The Register <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/09/07/macos_x_public_beta/>: Steve Jobs astonished the Mac faithful... by announcing Mac OS X for Intel hardware. Jobs did announce that the Mac OS X beta would be sent out on 13 September...

And that's what you'll see if you didn't RTFArticle. But somehow, this article from 7th September 2000 landed in my RSS reader today. Maybe there's something out there that we don't understand, but Steve Jobs is already planning? :-)

*** Even When Photoshopped
Heng-Cheong Leong

Sometimes, a photo <http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/06/katrina_wish_you_wer.html> can still tell a thousand words, even if the words are, well, speechless.

*** Fish Head Curry
Heng-Cheong Leong

Many Singaporeans will probably name this as one of Singapore's national dish: the fish head curry <http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambarbriastuti/41000985/>.

[Wintel]

*** Beep Beep
<http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gillmor/?p=149&part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdblog>
Steve Gillmor, ZDNet

Remember WIly Coyote? He's the Roadrunner's nemesis, chasing him out off the cliff's edge. Then there's that exquisite moment where he stands on thin air, about to realize he's got nothing. That's Microsoft, folks.

The Tomorrow Weblog
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<http://www.myapplemenu.com/tomorrow/>
Emerging Technologies. Innovative Applications. New Economy

[News]

*** A Tutor Half A World Away, But As Close As A Keyboard
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/education/07tutor.html?ex=1283745600&en=cbb6d5137715ec47&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>
Saritha Rai, New York Times

*** More Parents Going High-Tech To Track Kids
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501292.html?nav=rss_technology>
Martha Irvine, Associated Press

Increasingly, parents are using high-tech methods to track everything from where their children are and how far they are driving to what they buy, what they eat and whether they've shown up for class.

MyAppleMenu Reader
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/reader/>
The other things in life

[World]

*** Osama And Katrina
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html?ex=1283745600&en=03bb84e987dcab63&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times

If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina -- and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.

[Tech & Science]

*** Coming To Grips With A Grim Count
<http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112603781963233031-h7TV7JxwhgnUoIDAHU0FI4FmBmk_20060906,00.html?mod=rss_free>
Carl Bialik, Wall Street Journal

If other recent disasters are a guide, it will likely be months b efore there is a credible number capturing the human toll.

[Life]

*** Good Vibrations
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050919/nehring>
Christina Nehring, The Nation

Sex in the twenty-first century is a performance sport: We are told we must "demand" orgasms; we are told we must demand lots of orgasms (for we are "multi-orgasmic"); we are told we must seize our own orgasms and offered an array of fancifully colored vibrators to stash in our bags lest any toilet break go unexploited. Men kinow this and they feel intimidated. Women know this and they feel inadequate. The bedroom, too often, has become a site of fear.

SingaporeSurf
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/singapore/>
Life in the city

[Ramblings]

*** EZ-Link: A Waste Of My Money?
Heng-Cheong Leong

I've sent the following to the Cut Waste Panel <http://app.mof.gov.sg/cutwaste/index.asp>...

When LTA migrated from the mangetic ticketing system to the EZ-Link contactless card system, the potential for non-transit application use was cited as an advantage of the new system. That is perhaps why LTA has chosen to issue the EZ-Link card as stored value card.

As described in the Banking Act, LTA cannot issue stored value cards as the EZ-Link card will also be used for payment for goods or services not provided by LTA. Hence, LTA needs to engage the service of a bank to issue the stored value card, thus incurring additional costs for EZ-Link users.

However, more than three years after the introduction of EZ-Link cards, it has not achieved any significant wide-spread usage within the business community. Besides the transit companies and a few other businesses, it is mainly used in educational institutes which are not opened to the general public, and in some government agencies, where there are already existing cashless payment facilities via the more popular CashCard system.

In essence, the rest of the EZ-Link users are subsidizing the banking fees required for a stored value system that is used by a small minority of EZ-Link users. And as the non-transit applications of EZ-Link are not widely available, this amounts to a waste of payment to the issuing bank.

May I suggest that LTA abandon the idea of establishing EZ-Link card as a store value system, and revert back to the previous system where the EZ-Link card is used only for payment to SBS Transit and SMRT.

If LTA continues to have ambitions beyond its charter to pursue a store value system for non-transit applications, may I suggest a different system from the EZ-Link card system, so that there will not be cross-subsidization from the majority of the commuters.

Thank you.

[News]

*** Singaporean Defers Army Service To Play Computer Games
<http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050906/od_nm/singapore_games_dc>
Reuters

A young Singaporean man has been granted a deferment from military service so he can take part in an international computer games comppetition, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

*** KL: Issues With Singapore Can Be Resolved
<http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/9/7/nation/11965894&sec=nation>
The Star

Malaysia believes the current climate of Malaysia-Singapore bilateral ties will help the two countries resolve outstanding issues amicably, said Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar. While tight-lipped about the ongoing senior officials meeting which began yesterday, the Foreign Minister said it was the intention of the two governments to find solutions amenable to both parties.

*** All Phone Numbers May Go Truly Mobile
<http://www.asiaone.com/st/st_20050907_339163.html>
Stephanie Yap, Straits Times

All phone users may be able to take their numbers with them when they switch operators under proposed changes to the system.

[Opinion]

*** Pay To Wash Hands At NTUC Foodfare Coffee Shop
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/forum/story/0,5562,339074,00.html?>
Lim Pui Yar, Straits Times

*** There's No Need To Switch To Biometric Passports Just Yet
<http://www.todayonline.com/articles/70887.asp>
Lim Jing Jing, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, Today

The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority is reviewing the schedule of Singapore's biometric passport program, taking into account changes in the passport test schedule with other Visa Waiver Program countries.

The Shuffle by MyAppleMenu
==================================================
<http://www.myapplemenu.com/podcast/>
Life is random. More tunes, less talk.

[Tunes]

*** Black Skies
<http://shades.camtarn.org/music.html>
Andy Walker
<http://shades.camtarn.org/mp3/blackskies.mp3>