[MyAppleMenu] Jul 18, 2008

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** Apple In No Rush To Bring iPhone To Russia, China <http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSL1769156920080718>
by Maria Kiselyova and Sophie Taylor, Reuters
For now, Apple has given tacit consent to the informal supply chain by adding Russian and Chinese language options.

**** Why Does Open Source Need A Villain? <http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2668>
by Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet.com
Don't make Steve Jobs out to be more than he is. Stop worrying about what he's going to do to open source.
Make him worry about what open source is going to do to him.
/However, Apple is not in the businesses where open source is of any significant threat. Except maybe Safari. But Safari is given away free; it is to support the real business of MobileMe./

**** Apple's Beijing Retail Store Opens <http://www.cctv.com/program/bizchina/20080718/102659.shtml>
by CCTV.com
Consumers in Beijing will soon be able to access Apple products directly from the company itself.

**** Apple Needs To Slay Its iPhone Dragons <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/18/charles.arthur>
by Charles Arthur, The Guardian
/Bottom line, Apple's iPhone still have a lot of room for improvement, especially if you are looking at it as a computer that does phone functions./

**** MobileMe And iWeb Woes Continue <http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/07/18/mobileme-and-iweb-woes-continue>
by Charles Jade, Ars Technica
"If you are a .Mac user and are trying to publish iWeb content via this MobileMe(ss), you can forget about it for now. It doesn't work. Period."

**** iPhone 3G GPS - Is It Too Small In The Antenna Department To Be Any Good? <http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2261>
by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com

**** Apple Seen Ordering 20% More MacBooks <http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/07/18/apple.more.macbooks/>
by Electronista

**** Invoice 3 Adds Smart Coloring <http://www.macworld.com/article/134573/2008/07/invoice.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Peter Cohen, Macworld
Aimed at small business users who need to create invoices to bill clients for products and services, Invoice lets you create colored invoices, keep track of payments, use drag and drop to create and arrange invoices, maintain currency conversions, save selected invoices as PDFs, create recurring invoices, manage smart folders and smart counters and more.

**** 21 Great Technologies That Failed <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2325941,00.asp>
by Jeremy A. Kaplan and Sascha Segan, PC Magazine
We took a look back over the years at some of the greatest flops to come out of both Microsoft and Apple, technology that failed not because it was lacking in brilliance but often because it was simply ahead of its time.

**** Apple's Earnings Dance <http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/17/apple-earnings-iphone-tech-intel-cx_bc_0718apple.html>
by Brian Caulfield, Forbes

**** Write On One Computer, Deploy Everywhere
by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu
No, I don't believe in cross-platform GUI code. Never seen one that is good enough.
But, wouldn't it be great if I can start using my Macintosh to write Windows application? MFC, WTL, ATL, .Net and plain Win32. Pretty please?
(Yes, I've actually used Visual C++ for Macintosh. If you don't know what this is, you should be thankful. Worse than Bob.)
<p class="permlink">Permanent Link to This Post <http://www.myapplemenu.com/2008/07/18/id0019/>

**** Designing A UI To Do Cut And Paste Is Easy?
by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu
If you think that designing the UI for iPhone to do cut and paste is easy, just take a look at the mess which is Adobe Acrobat Reader.
<p class="permlink">Permanent Link to This Post <http://www.myapplemenu.com/2008/07/18/id0018/>

**** 10 Reasons To Switch From PC To Mac <http://www.technospeedia.com/2008/07/10-reasons-to-switch-from-pc-to-mac/>
by Technospeedia
Mac is ready to use out of the box.

**** The MobileMe Disaster Continues: Now It's Not 'Exchange For THe Rest Of Us' Anymore <http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/07/17/the-mobileme-disaster-continues-now-it-s-not-exchange-for-the-rest-of-us-anymore.aspx>
by Paul Thurrott, SuperSite For Windows
Apple has a history of over-promising and under-delivering and they get a total pass on this with the press.

**** Has Apple Lost Its Mojo? <http://www.internetnews.com/commentary/article.php/3759676/Has+Apple+Lost+Its+Mojo.htm>
by Mike Elgan, Internet News
The handful of recent stumbles by Cupertino is just a temporary rough patch, right?

**** Apple Fails BlackBerry Test <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44616a14-5421-11dd-aa78-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=02e16f4a-46f9-11da-b8e5-00000e2511c8.html?nclick_check=1>
by Paul Taylor, Financial Times
The two most glaring problems from a business perspective are the lack of a physical Qwerty keybaord and, as most other commentators have noted, rather disappointing battery life.

**** Demographics Is Destiny <http://speirs.org/2008/07/16/demographics-is-destiny/>
by Fraser Speirs
If you haven't got it already, it's time to move your head to this place: iPhone OS is Apple's mainstream platform for 2012 and beyond. It's a bold prediction, but the numbers seem fairly clear.

**** Hands Off iPhone Talking In My Car <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9697>
by Rick Fay, TidBITS

**** iPhone 3G Shortage To Last Two To Four Weeks, Analyst Says <http://www.macworld.com/article/134567/2008/07/iphone3g_shortage.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Customers looking for an iPhone 3G may have to wait up to a month for Apple to boost its orders with suppliers and refill the pipeline, a Wall Street analyst said Thursday.

**** RiftVault Security Software Reaches 1.0 <http://www.macworld.com/article/134548/2008/07/riftvault.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Peter Cohen, Macworld
RiffVault secures credit card numbers, documents and other data using 256-bit AES encryption combined with SHA-256 hashing.

The Tomorrow Weblog
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**** Google Deliberately Sells Fewer Ads - And May Have Gone Too Far <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/google-deliberately-sells-fewer-ads-and-may-have-gone-too-far/>
by Saul Hansell, New York Times

**** Who's Going To Fund The Next Steve Jobs? <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121633667123063791.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>
by James Freeman, Wall Street Journal
Is the great American financial engine that gave the world Intel and Google grinding to a halt?

**** Debugging Multiprocessor Code <http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209100262>
by Jakob Engblom, EE Times

MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Kick Over The Scenery <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n13/burt01_.html>
by Stephen Burt, London Review Of Books
When an art form or genre once dismissed as kids' stuff starts to get taken seriously by gatekeepers - by journals, for example, such as the one you are reading now - respect doesn't come smoothly, or all at once. Often one artist gets lifted above the rest, his principal works exalted for qualities that other works of the same kind seem not to possess. Later on, the quondam genius looks, if no less talented, less solitary: first among equals, or maybe just first past the post. That is what happened to rock music in the late 1960s, when sophisticated cirtic decided, as Richard Poirier put it, to start 'learning from the Beatles'. It is what happened to comics, too, in the early 1990s, when the Pulitzer Prize committee invented an award for Art Spiegelman's /Maus/. And it has happened to science ficitoin, where the anointed author is Philip K. Dick.

**** The Art Of Dying <http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=620532&ft>
by Brendan Kiley, The Stranger
How one guy in Seattle is changing what happens when we die.

**** Selected Poems By Kay Ryan <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/books/17poet-extra.html?ex=1373947200&en=542b861a4a59e580&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink>
by Kay Ryan, New York Times

**** Knowing Me, Knowing ABBA <http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2008/07/18/abba/index.html>
by Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon
How did a cheesy Scandinavian pop group in jumpsuits and blue eye shadow become as seriously beloved as the Beatles?

SingaporeSurf
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**** Higher Fares On 11 Premium Bus Services <http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_259021.html>
by Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times
The increases, ranging from 30 cents to 60 cents, come as transport operators are feeling the pinch from rising fuel costs.

**** Raising The Bar <http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751390&CFID=13652217&CFTOKEN=29043335>
by The Economist
A rare slip-up in court by Singapore's elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew.

**** Hunger Strike Protest <http://topmleehsienloong.blogspot.com/2008/07/hunger-strike-protest.html>
by Eastcoastlife
Sheila mentioned that an MOE officer (from public affairs probably) told her editor who was on good terms with them, "we have a good relationshiop going on, don't pursue the matter further."

**** New Committee Set Up To Ensure Stability In Long Term Food Supply <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/361239/1/.html>
by Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia
Among its plans, the new inter-agency committee will examine Singapore's farming policy while investing in food production overseas.

**** Retailers At Changi's T3 Say Business Bad, 6 Months After Opening <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/361215/1/.html>
by Imelda Saad, Channel NewsAsia
Some shops said takings have dropped by up to 70 per cent, compared to when T3 first opened early this year.

**** George Yeo Gives Asean... C Grade For Its Hnadling Of Myanmar Issues <http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_258690.html>
by Leslie Koh, Straits Times

**** Allow Teachers To Teach, Or Many Will Keep Quitting <http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Story/STIStory_258765.html>
by Christopher Tan, Straits Times
Many became disillusioned as when they started they wanted to be an educator but they eventually became more of an administrator.

**** Ren Ci Suffers Sharp Drop In Donations <http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_258680.html>
by Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times
Donations to Ren Ci Hospital and Medicare Centre have pluged. It collected just $1.1 million in the last seven months, down from the $9.3 million that came in over the same period last year.

**** But We Aren't Even Staying! <http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/boatubia/world_tour/1213327200.html>
by Travelpod
We had to walk 30 steps outside the buidling on Singapore soil from the arrival hall to the departure hall. Seriously, couldn't a tunnel have been built?

**** ABC Correspondent Facing Drug Charges In Singapore <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/18/2307570.htm>
by ABC News

**** The Dark Side Of Paradise <http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2008/07/democracy-philippines>
by Sholto Byrnes, New Statesman
Put bluntly, liberal democracy has no historic roots in the Asean countries; and after independence there were plenty of reasons why more authoritarian forms of governemnt swiftly became the norm.

**** No One System Of Government Can 'Tick All The Boxes' <http://www.todayonline.com/articles/265716.asp>
by Matt Pasterfield, Today
What you gain on the one hand, you lose with the other.
/It's seldom a zero-sum game. How do we know we can't tick more boxes, unless we try?/

**** Why Cruise Empty, Cabby? <http://www.todayonline.com/articles/265691.asp>
by Thomas Koshy, Today
Why not allow taxis, which now cruise empty past bus stops, to pick up those waiting for feeder buses and drive them to the nearest hub for a flat charge of $1 or less? Wastage from empty cruising would be cut dow. Taxi drivers would have a new revenue source. Commuters would have a shorter wait.
/There is a serious gap in the market between public bus/train service and taxi. LTA need to open up the market for competition beyond just premium buses which have too many rules and regulations./

**** Singapore Companies Should Work Collectively, Says Lee <http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=346825>
by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama
Singapore companies should work collectively when taking on new markets if they want their overseas ventures to thrive, prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said Thursday.

**** Navigating Singapore's New Media Environment <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/07/navigating-singapores-new-media-environment/>
by Gerald Giam, The Online Citizen
We Singaporeans need to cease being observers on the sidelines, and take the future in our own hands.

**** SDBA Reiterates Not Responsible For Cambodia Dragon Boat Tragedy <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/361020/1/.html>
by Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia
While it said it fully respected the families' right and prerogative to express their wishes, it said the question of responsibility had been fully investigated with the findings made public.