[MyAppleMenu] May 25, 2006

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

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

[News]

*** Apple Wins Two Awards For iPod Design
<http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/05/25/apple.wins.dad.awards/>
MacNN

*** Apple Sells PowerSchool To Pearson
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/25/powerschool/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Peter Cohen, Macworld

Apple will sell PowerSchool, its Student Information System software to Pearson Education -- a major publisher of educational print and digital content.

*** Apple's Glass Structure Embodies Growth
<http://www.startribune.com/789/story/453466.html>
May Wong, Associated Press

Call it the symbolic revenge of the Cube. Apple's latest cube-shaped creation -- a stunning three-story glass structure marking the entrance to its new store on New York City's Fifth Avenue -- reflects how far the Macintosh maker has come since its first embodiment of a hexahedron.

*** Apple Checks On Microsoft At WinHEC
<http://news.com.com/2061-10794_3-6076237.html?part=rss&tag=6076237&subj=news>
Joris Evers, CNET News.com

WinHEC is meant for companies that develop hardware to work with or run Microsoft's Windows operating system.

*** Apple And Nike, Running Mates
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2006/tc20060523_569911.htm>
Arik Hesseldahl and Stanely Holmes, BusinessWeek

Apple had approached Nike about being its MP3 supplier, but Nike execs came up with a bigger idea.

*** Is Windows On A Mac Really Drawing In New Users?
<http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/windows-on-a-mac-helping-the-switch/>
Aaron Wright, Apple Matters

*** Second "Mac Pro" Filing By Apple Surfaces
<http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1768>
AppleInsider

Offering yet another hint that it's done using the "Power" moniker in the names of its professional computer offerings, Apple this week made a second trademark filing on the phrase "Mac Pro," this time in the United States.

[Opinion]

*** Playlist Politics
<http://www.slate.com/id/2142359/?nav=ais>
Jacob Weisberg, Slate

What's on your iPod, Senator?

*** Think Different
<http://www.ideasonideas.com/2006/05/think_different/>
Ideasonideas

There is one big reason why I'll choose our Wintel solution over the Mac OS, and that's Outlook.

*** Everyone Needs A Steve
<http://www.byte.org/blog/_archives/2006/5/24/1982722.html>
Ross Rader, Byte

What every company needs is a design tyrant like Steve Jobs. I'm surprised that tech companies haven't figured this out at some point over the last 20 years or so...

[Review]

*** QuarkXPress 7: Slow Performer's New Features And Improvements Cater To A Limited Audience
<http://www.macworld.com/2006/05/reviews/qxp7/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Galen Gruman, Macworld

The new territories Quark is staking out -- especially composition zones and job jackets -- will hardly excite the broad design community, and they're difficult to learn.

[Sidetrack]

*** The Original Icon
Heng-Cheong Leong

Where's Macintosh? There's Mac mini, iMac, Power Mac (soon to be replaced with Mac Pro?), Mac Book, and Mac Book Pro. But where is the Macintosh?

*** One Life To Live
Heng-Cheong Leong

Increasingly, my problem is not about finding stuff. Be it something to read, something to listen, or something to watch.

Increasingly, the problem is what to throw out, because I simply don't have the time to read, to listen, and to watch everything I've collected.

Sign of technological progress, or sign of me getting old?

*** Listen Up, You Can Only Sell Sounds
Heng-Cheong Leong

Yesterday, I wondered out loud why Audible.com isn't doing anything with its asset: the availability of its very own DRM system on millions and millions of iPods.

An "Audible.com Podcast Creator" e-mailed me to confirm that there is indeed a contract between Audible.com and Apple that prevented Audible.com from taking advantage of this asset beyond selling audiobooks and radio shows from its own store.

So, if you are a "content-provider", and you want DRM protection, you willl have to deal with either Apple or Audible.com. If you are a middle-men, and you want DRM protection, you are out-of-luck.

But hey, we all "know" that the internet is going to kill off all those middlemen...

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

[News]

*** The Rise Of Crowdsourcing
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html>
Jeff Howe, Wired News

Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. THe new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D.

*** EC: Software Is Not Patentable
<http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39270929,00.htm>
Ingrid Marson, ZDNet UK

The European Patent Office will be bound by proposed legislation that will exclude software from patentability, acording to the EC, in a move that has startled opponents of software patents.

*** The Death Of Wikipedia
<http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/05/the_death_of_wi.php>
Nicholas Carr, Rought Type

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit," was a nice experiment in the "democratization" of publishing, but it didn't quite work out. Wikipedia is dead. It died the way the pure products of idealism always do, slowly and quietly and largely in secret, through the corrosive process of compromise.

*** Smart Sites To Power Semantic Web
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5013146.stm>
Jonathan Fildes, BBC News

Much of the talk at the 2006 World Wide Web conference has been about the technologies behind the so-called "semantic web."

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

[Life]

*** Keep 'America' In Michigan Schools
<http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060524/OPINION01/605240307/1008>
Michael Warren, Detroit News

Censoring the word "America" from our own schools is something Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden would never have thought possible. Michigan has done it without a whimper.

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

[News]

*** James Cameron May Offer 'Titanic' Ride In Singapore Casino Bid
<http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aO5VMLz40oaE&refer=news_index>
Bloomberg

James Cameron, the Hollywood director of "Titanic" and "Terminator," plans to create rides based on his movies in his bid to win Singapore's first casino-resort as a partner of Harrah's Entertainment Inc.

[Opinion]

*** The Story Of Ike See
<http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/2006/05/story-of-ike-see.html>
My Singapore News

To be fair to Mindef, it is a tough decision to make.

*** Does Singapore Really Value Its Talents?
<http://fieldmarshal.blogspot.com/2006/05/does-singapore-really-value-its.html>
The Field Marshal

The difference here is that NUS and NTU are willing to wait for us, Curtis can only wait a year.

*** Did You Know - Ministers On Pension Scheme
<http://totallyconfused.blogspot.com/2006/05/did-you-know-ministers-on-pension.html>
Choong Yong Koh, TotallyConfused

*** Citizen Reporting
<http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/2006/05/citizen-reporting.html>
My Singapore News

Citizen reporting will grow in leaps and bounds as more people flock to the net to hear alternative and refreshing views and voices.

*** Lucky Plaza For Filipinos
<http://krizian.blogspot.com/2006/05/lucky-plaza-for-filipinos.html>
Chronicles Of An IT Support Engineer

I was told to go to Lucky Plaza by my Singaporean boss. There he said where all Filipinos come and dine every Sunday.

*** 'Desperate Housewives' On TV Mobile Not Good
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/forum/story/0,5562,395424,00.html?>
Rupa Balaguru, Straits Times

If a parent deems it unsuitable for his children to be watching this show, there is no way of switching to another channel or turning it off if they are travelling in the bus.

*** MDA Should Give Fuller Picture
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/free/story/0,6418,395415,00.html?>
Burton Ong, Straits Times

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

[Tunes]

*** Assignment #1: Heart Design
<http://www.aqueductisgoodmusic.com/sound.html>
Aqueduct
<http://www.aqueductisgoodmusic.com/Heart%20Design.mp3>