[MyAppleMenu] Oct 13, 2006

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

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

[News]

*** Apple In Code Search Profanity Outrage
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/13/code_outrage/>
Lester Haines, The Register

'Register the f**king window class'

*** (PRODUCT) RED iPod Nano Released Today
<http://www.macuser.com/ipod/product_red_ipod_nano_released.php?lsrc=murss>
Aaron Freed, MacUser

The nano is 4G and costs $199, and $10 of what you pay will go to (PRODUCT) RED, which donates money directly to the Global Fund to help AIDS relief in Africa.

*** Local Merchants See Red For Bono AIDS Cause
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-061012bono-red,1,3210360.story?coll=chi-news-hed>
Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune

Inside Apple Store, Oprah Winfrey bought 10 new red iPod nanos, which Apple is introducing this week for Product Red. The sales of products bearing the label will go toward assisting African AIDS relief.

*** BART Awarded For iPod Friendliness
<http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2006/10/09/daily32.html?jst=b_ln_hl>
East Bay Business Times

The BART program allows passengers to get trip-planning information through their iPod devices. Passengers can look up train departure times, general station information and a color version of the BART system map.

*** iPod Flashmobbers Dance In Their Hundreds At Station
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=409998&in_page_id=1770>
Daily Mail

Hundreds of people descneded on Liverpool Street station for the biggest ever turnout for the latest internet craze -- mobile clubbing.

*** Apple MacBook Owners Organizing Class Action Lawsuit
<http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2132>
Katie Marsal, AppleInsider

Owners of Apple's new 13-inch MacBook notebooks, whose systems are plagued by intermittent shutdown issues, have become fed up with extended repair times and inadequate resolutions to the problem, and are now organizing a class action lawsuit against the Mac maker.

*** What You Need To Know About Stock Options, Backdating
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/10/12/backdating/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Todd Weiss, Computerworld

[Opinion]

*** Sometimes, Apple Gets It Exactly Right
<http://weblogs.asp.net/kdente/archive/2006/10/12/Sometimes_2C00_-Apple-gets-it-exactly-right.aspx>
Kevin Dente's PuppiesAndIceCreamBlog

Everything worked exactly as it should have.

*** Windows Vista Home Edition: No VM For You!
<http://www.joshkagan.com/sync/2006/10/12/windows-vista-home-edition-no-vm-for-you/>
Synchronicity

The last thing Microsoft wants is for Mac sales to pick up because consumers figure out that they can run all of their Windows applications in virtualization.

*** The Alleged Rush To Beat Vista To Market
<http://www.macnightowl.com/2006/10/13/the-leopard-report-the-alleged-rush-to-beat-vista-to-market/>
Mac Night Owl

*** The Apple Calendar Conundrum
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2006/tc20061013_153227.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology>
Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek

There's no easy way to transfer addresses and other data from Mac to PC to handheld and back -- but there should be.

*** Drinking The Other Kool-Aid
<http://heathervescent.blogs.com/heathervescent/2006/10/drinking_the_ot.html>
Heather Vescent

*** First 30 Days With A Mac
<http://www.maccast.com/2006/10/11/first-30-days-with-a-mac/>
Keith Selbee, MacCast

My MacBook is turning out to be a great machine.

*** An Apple Spreadsheet Does Not Mean Apple Are Trying To "Take On" Microsoft Office
<http://www.thomas-fitzgerald.net/2006/10/12/an-apple-spreadsheet-does-not-mean-apple-are-trying-to-take-on-microsoft/>
Thomas Fitzgerald

It's a competitor for Microsoft Works.

*** Life After .Mac
<http://boora.ca/blog/?p=619>
EDIing In The Dark

After dumping .mac, it seems that a whole new world has opened up through what Google has to offer.

*** iTunes 7: All The Small Things
<http://alvinmeetsmac.wordpress.com/2006/10/12/itunes-7-all-the-small-things/>
Alvin Meets Mac

I'm really loving the new version of iTunes for all kinds of big and small reasons.

*** Me, MySpace And iPod: Delightfully Geeky
<http://www.theworldisnotflat.com/boomchicago>
The World Is Not Flat

[Review]

*** Better iPhoto Keywords
<http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macgems/2006/10/keywordassistant/index.php?lsrc=mwrss>
Dan Frakes, Macworld

[Sidetrack]

*** Rumor Today: Leopard Available On Macworld Expo?
Heng-Cheong Leong

I wish this is true: LoopRumors <http://www.looprumors.com/LoopBlackPopup.php?leopard-available-at-mwsf-07> believes that Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will be available at Macworld Expo San Francisco come Jan 07.

[Wintel]

*** More And More Restrictive Windows Vista Is
<http://www.macuser.com/rivals/more_and_more_restrictive_wind.php?lsrc=murss>
Derik DeLong, MacUser

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

[News]

*** Your Television Is Ringing
<http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?story_id=7995312&fsrc=RSS>
The Economist

"Convergence" is the telecoms industry's new mantra. Whether customers really want it is another matter.

*** Teqlo: Not A Programmer? Not A Problem
<http://news.com.com/2061-12572_3-6125190.html?part=rss&tag=6125190&subj=news>
Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com

Start-up Teqlo on Wednesday described the company's plans to build an application creation service for end users.

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

[Tech & Science]

*** When A World Is Born
<http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8023422&fsrc=RSS>
The Economist

The discovery of new planets has forced a rethink of how they formed.

[Life]

*** Meet. Mate. Multiply.
<http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/22325/>
Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, New York

>From singleton to family of three in less than two years.

*** Last Orgasm In Hollywood
<http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/last-orgasm-in-hollywood/14730/>
Judith Lewis, LA Weekly

Movie sex, dirty and clean, through the ages.

*** Oh, For The Flesh
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15241226/site/newsweek/>
Max Smith, Newsweek

Single and fortyish, I'm learning what it means to be attractive but older.

*** Weapon Of Self-Destruction
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200528.html?nav=rss_print/style>
Art Buchwald, Washington Post

When scientists at MIT developed e-mail in 1961, they said it was a giant step for mankind. They didn't realize it was a weapon that could destroy the lives of many people.

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

[Ramblings]

*** Ez-Link: We Didn't Know The Difference Between Read/Write And Read-Only
Heng-Cheong Leong

EZ-Link Pte Ltd has terminated the online query service for EZ-Link cards on the web. In the past, one can just go to a web page, key in the serial number of the EZ-Link card, and the web page will tell one the recent transactions on the card.

Now the service has been terminated because, as EZ-Link Pte Ltd says <http://straitstimes.asiaone.com/portal/site/STI/menuitem.c2aef3d65baca16abb31f610a06310a0/?vgnextoid=f832758920e39010VgnVCM1000000a35010aRCRD&vgnextfmt=vgnartid:94c176b936a3e010VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD>, of "advancements in technology and user know-how that could compromise the integrity of the ez-link system."

This has, once again, demonstrated the lack of planning in the implementation of the EZ-Link system in Singapore. We all remember all the bugs and hiccups that need to be "fine-tuned" when the system was introduced, ranging from the deduction of wrong fares, to software that cannot detect whether a person is borading or alighting buses.

After all, an enquiry system is, bascially, a read-only system. Any Computer Science student can tell you that one simple solution is to have a batch job every early morning to copy the transaction log files over to a separate system that is for read-only enquiries. (Privacy issues still reamain, since the system has no strong identity authentication system in place, though, but that's not the issue here.) If this separate system is read-only, no compromise to the actual backend system can occur.

What Ez-Link Pte Ltd is basically saying is that it does not want to spend the money to buy a new database/web server system, and to add an additional daily batch job.

And you call this first-class infrastructure?

*** Reach For That Backronym
Heng-Cheong Leong

If the change of name from Feedback Unit to REACH (Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home; a 'backronym', I strongly suspect) is to promote better active citzenry and gather more feedback, I'll say the change of name is not a good idea.

Feedback Unit is clear and easily understood by everyone. Active Citizenry is vague and requires some PR efforts. REACH? That's just obtuse.

If the objective of the agency is to engage the citizen, what better way to convey that objective to your citizen than through the name of the agency? Why not just call it "Feedback and Active Citizenry Unit" and be done with it?

(I wonder how much money will be "wasted" in printing all the new stationary and change the signboards.)

[News]

*** Bangkok's Old Airport Had Been Busier Than Hong Kong And Singapore
<http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Bangkok_s_old_airport_had_been_busi_10122006.html>
DPA

*** Singaore, Malaysia May Ask Indonesia To Ratify Haze Agreement
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aoZJ0fbGHRdA&refer=asia>
Arijit Ghosh and Karima Anjani, Bloomberg

*** Raids Worry Online Music Fans
<http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-southeastasia.asp?parentid=55120>
Chua Hian Hou, Straits Times

Police action against seven people suspected of downloading MP3s illegally sets net abuzz.

*** Feedback Unit To Be Renamed REACH
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/235107/1/.html>
S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the revamp is aimed at raising the level of public engagement, promote active citizenry, and create more avenues for Singaporeans to involve themselves in the issues that affect their lives.

[Opinion]

*** MPs' Blogs A Good Move, But Dare They Go Further?
<http://tnp.sg/columnists/story/0,4136,115424,00.html?>
Gayle Goh, The New Paper

*** I'm Cool. I Look At Art.
<http://yumionthecoast.blogspot.com/2006/10/im-cool-i-look-at-art.html>
Yumi On The Coast

This little island-state tries hard to prove to the rest of the world that having ridiculously strict laws does not necessarily equate complete death of creative expressions.

*** Is A Dead Man's Confession Enough To Convict Another Person?
<http://kitana.wordpress.com/2006/10/11/is-a-dead-mans-confession-enough-to-convict-another-person/>
Coffee And Cigarettes

*** Singapore Is Sick, Architecturally
<http://hovivo.blogspot.com/2006/10/singapore-is-sick-architecturally.html>
Holland Village Voice

Why are we missing diversity in architecture? Why aren't there new movements to challenge the old? Are we missing diversity in views only in architecture, or are there other things we should also be worried about?

*** Older Workers Do Pay More Income Tax
<http://straitstimes.asiaone.com/portal/site/STI/menuitem.c2aef3d65baca16abb31f610a06310a0/?vgnextoid=7532758920e39010VgnVCM1000000a35010aRCRD&vgnextfmt=vgnartid:8db4bd194fc3e010VgnVCM100000430a0a0aRCRD>
Ho Shou Kwang, Straits Times

[Technology]

*** M1, StarHub To Offer Faster Wireless Services
<http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=55116>
Alfred Siew, Straits Times

Having lost out in the race to run Wireless at SG, M1 and StarHub are hoping to retain their market share by giving heavy users even faster connectivity.

*** Singapore's Unwired Dream
<http://featured.gigaom.com/2006/10/13/singapores-unwired-dream/>
Ben Scent, GigaOM

Like most things in Singapore, this initiative is spearhead by the government, and the companies involved are partially funded by government investment firms.

[Entertainment]

*** Soft-Boiled Eggs And Dim Sums, Bukit Merah View Hawker Centre, Singapore
<http://dancingblueseal.blogspot.com/2006/10/soft-boiled-eggs-dim-sims-bukit-merah.html>
Dancing Blue Seal

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

[Tunes]

*** Makin' Out
<http://www.archive.org/details/MadMagazine>
Mad Magazine
<http://ia300125.us.archive.org/2/items/MadMagazine/MadMagazine-MakinOut.mp3>