[MyAppleMenu] Oct 21, 2008

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** Aperture 2.1.2 Fixes Print Output <http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/10/21/aperture.212.fixes.print/>
by MacNN

**** New Laptop Tempting, But Not Enough <http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/silverman/6069498.html>
by Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
The new design is smart and the new features are slick, but it's not quite enough for me to cast off my black MacBook.

**** Display Is A Strength Of New MacBook Pro <http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/drmac/6069502.html>
by Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle
The display is to die for, and I may even stop hating trackpads.

**** Camcorders And USB: Is Steve Jobs Right? <http://theappleblog.com/2008/10/20/camcorders-and-usb-is-steve-jobs-right/>
by Tm Reestman, The Apple Blog
The results? I believe all but one of these models allows USB 2.0 for video.

**** Traveling With My iPhone (And MacBook Pro) In Japan <http://blogs.macobserver.com/userfriendly/2008/10/20/iphone-in-japan/>
by Ted Landau, Mac Observer

**** Apple iPhone Ad: "Sequence Shortened" <http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1328-apple-iphone-ad-sequence-shortened>
by Jason Fried, 37signals
Apple is now adding some fine print to the bottom of some of their ads that says "Sequence shortened".

**** Apple's New MacBook Is Mm Mm Good <http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/20/apples-new-macbook-is-mm-mm-goo/>
by Thomas Ricker, Engadget

**** Why You Need More Than One iPhoto, iTunes Library <http://mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/why_you_need_more_than_1_iphoto_itunes_library/>
by Alexis Kayhill, Mac 360
As much as we ask of our Macs these days is it any wonder that we need even more utilities to help us organize our organization tools?

**** Has Apple Successfully Lured Microsoft Into An Ad War? <http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2008/10/has_apple_succe.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_blogspotting>
by Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek
One has to wonder whether Microsoft has played into Apple's hands on this one. It took the risk of launching a campaign that, after years of staying mum about hte Mac's startling growth in recent years, essentially called out Apple. But it did so at a time when Redmond didn't have any great news to announce.

**** AppLoop Cretes iPhone Apps From Blogs With RSS <http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/10/20/apploop.iphone.app.creator/>
by MacNN
AppLoop has launched App Generator, a service for blog publishers that will create an iPhone app from any RSS feed.

**** Digging Into New MacBook's Support Of GPU-Accelerated H.264 <http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/10/20/digging-into-new-macbooks-support-of-gpu-accelerated-h-264>
by David Chartier, Ars Technica
All this leads to the theory that the new MacBooks are sporting a custom version of Mac OS X that finally harnesses GPU-acceleration for H.264 decoding.

**** Is Price No Object To The Typical Apple Customer? <http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/decisioncentral/?p=161>
by John Sheesley, TechRepublic
Why do Apple customers pay a higher price for Macs? Is price no object or at least not that big of a deal to a typical Mac user?

**** Review: Apple Part 1I: MacBook (13-Inch, Aluminum) <http://www.electronista.com/reviews/macbook-13-inch-aluminum.html>
by Wallace Wang, Electronista

**** Andrew Zuckerman: The Wisdom Project <http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/wisdom/?sr=hotnews?sr=hotnews.rss>
by Bija Gutoff, Apple
Final Cut Studio was central to Zuckerman's workflow from that first treatment to, well, the final cut.

**** Ars Reviews The 2008 MacBook Pro, Part I: Aluminum And Glass <http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/2008-macbookpro-review.ars>
by Clint Ecker and Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica

**** Searching For The Perfect Mac E-Mail Client <http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/10/20/searching-for-the-perfect-mac-e-mail-client>
by Erica Sadun, Ars Technica

**** If It Ain't Broke, Don't Upgrade It <http://www.macworld.com/article/136038/2008/10/staake.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Dan Moren, Macworld
Besides contributing to more than 40 books as author, artist, or both, Bob Staake's also done illustrations for clients as diverse as /The New York Times/ and Anheuser Busch. And he's done it all with a piece of software that's almost 15 years old.

**** MacSpeech Dictate Offers New Phrase Training <http://www.macworld.com/article/136232/2008/10/dictate.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Peter Cohen, Macworld
MacSpeech on Monday announced the release of Dictate 1.2, an update to their speech recognition software for Mac OS X. New to the 1.2 release is the ability for you to dictate any specific word, by spelling it letter-by-letter using a new Spelling mode.

**** Extensis Ships Suitcase Fusion 2 <http://www.macworld.com/article/136231/2008/10/fusion2.html?lsrc=rss_main>
by Peter Cohen, Macworld
Extensis on Monday announced that it is shipping Suitcase Fusion 2, a new version of its single-user font management software. Changes in Suitcase Fusion 2 include a redesigned user interface and a dramatically changes code base that now uses SQLite database technology.

The Tomorrow Weblog
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**** Untangling Web Information <http://www.technologyreview.com/web/21583/?a=f>
by Erica Naone, MIT Technology Review
The Semantic Web organizer Twine offers bookmarking with built-in AI.

**** Microsoft Gets Patent For Real-Time F-bomb Bleeping <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081020-microsoft-gets-patent-for-real-time-f-bomb-bleeping.html>
by Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica

MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Reading Faulkner At 17, You Forsee Your Reckoning <http://www.slate.com/id/2200506/?from=rss>
by Chaterine Pierce, Slate

**** Financial Crisis: We Should Turn To Charles Dickens In Hard Times, Not Just Little Dorrit <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/21/bodickens121.xml>
by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Telegraph
The centre around which the Victorian age revolved and Dickens's combination of ambition and anxiety make him unmistakably our contemporary. And not only can we find parallels in his novels with the current crisis, we can also learn from them how to survive and triumph over it.

**** The Thing: Magazine Or A Work Of Art? <http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-thing20-2008oct20,0,2619169.story?track=rss>
by Mindy Farabee, Los Angeles Times
The Thing is not your garden-variety periodical. Putting a spin on the idea of text messaging, the Thing is by turns a window shade, a baseball cap, a set of coasters and a hunk of rubber. That last issue puts the lie to those glossy fall fashion magazines that could double as doorstops. It /is/ a doorstop.

**** The Terror And Attraction Of Science, Put To Song <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/science/21atom.html>
by Dennis Overbye, New York Times
Is it the hrror or the beauty that makes science cool?

**** The Carnivore's Dilemma <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/books/review/Shae-t.html>
by Michael Shae, New York Times
Such a litany of negatives may be presumed to create a sense of unease, if not a downright bad conscience, among those who take pleasure, guilty or not, in eating beef. Both Betty Fussell's "Raising Steaks" and Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser's "Beef" hold fast to th ecause, but both are shadowed by an anxiety that an ancient pleasure may come to be shunned out of fear and disapproval &mdash; an anxiety that causes them to rise at times to distinctly overheated defense.

SingaporeSurf
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**** Recent 21% Increase In Electricity Tariffs Not Arbitrary <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/384335/1/.html>
by Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia
Senior minister of state for trade and industry, S Iswaran, said the formula had kept tariffs lower than if the country had pegged tariffs to the daily oil price or spot price instead.

**** The Privileges Of Expat Children <http://millysmix.blogspot.com/2008/10/privileges-of-expat-children.html>
by Singapore Kids Places

**** Malaysia Suggests Curb On Ships In Key Waterway <http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/21/asia/AS-Malaysia-Crowded-Waters.php>
by Associated Press
Malaysia on Tuesday proposed limiting the number of vessels that can enter one of the world's busiest shipping lanes amid worries that rising congestion could spark accidents.

**** Has Our Prime Minister Gone Missing Again (Part Two)? <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/10/has-our-prime-minister-gone-missing-again-part-two/>
by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen
Eminently qualified, so why so silent?

**** Overview Of The Crisis
by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu
For a good overview of the current financial crisis &mdash; no, it's not all due to greed &mdash; do take a listen to this episode <http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263> of "This American Life."
<p class="permlink">Permanent Link to This Post <http://www.myapplemenu.com/singapore/2008/10/21/id0033/>

**** The TBT 18 Trial Is A Rape Of The Constitution Of Singapore <http://jg69.blogspot.com/2008/10/tbt-18-trial-is-rape-of-constitution-of.html>
by Jacob's Weblog
These 18 individuals were only exercising their constitutional rights.

**** China Sows Seeds Of Fear In Singapore <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b363cea4-9eb6-11dd-98bd-000077b07658.html>
by John Burton, Financial Times
A suspension in share trading of two Singapore-listed Chinese companies due to debt servicing problems has undermined investor confidence in the China-related sector that has been a driving force behind the Singapore Exchange's recent growth.

**** Compensation Reduces Barrier <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_293012.html>
by Straits Times
Reimbursement to kidney donors will help protect donor welfare and reduce thebarriers against kidney donation, said health minister Khaw Boon Wan. He said the health ministry and National Kidney Foundation are working out the details.

**** Loss Of Hard Earned Savings <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/10/loss-of-hard-earned-savings/>
by Tan Kin Lian, The Online Citizen
I hope that appropriate action be taken to restore the confidence of the people in the fairness of the system in Singapore and to restore the reputation of Singapore as a financial hub that the Singaporeans and foreigners can trust to leave their money here safely.

**** Singaporeans - Stop Referring To Foreign Workers As Talents <http://www.mrbiao.com/blog/singaporeans-stop-referring-to-foreign-workers-as-talents.html>
by This Lush Garden Within
This phrase only serves to demoralize Singaporeans and over-qualify foreign workers.

**** Why Leave Pools Vacant? <http://www.todayonline.com/articles/282625.asp>
by David Kwok Ng Kan, Today
Besides Yan Kit swimming pool, there are other public pools which have also been left vacant for years.

**** Start Looking For A Job <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_292965.html>
by Robin Chan, Straits Times
Houswives and retirees should roll up their sleeves and prepare to rejoint he workforce to help their families cope with what may be a prolonged recession. That spark piece of advice came from Prof Tan Khee Giap, associate professor and co-director of the Asia Research Centre at Nanyang Technological University, yesterday.

**** Vehicle Growth Rate Will Be Reduced: LTA <http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Story/STIStory_292872.html>
by Geoffrey Lim, Land Transport Authority, Straits Times
The roads are crowded not because the COE system is not functioning as intended, but because at 3 per cent per annum, vehicle growth significantly outstrips road growth at 0.5 per cent, thus making it untenable to continue at this rate.

**** Students Start Online Paper <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_292970.html>
by Amelia Tan, Straits Times
Three undergraduates have started a news website as an alternative to their campus newspaper which recently saw a report on a political opposition figure's visit yanked from its pages by the university administration.

**** Low: Be More Proactive MAS! <http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2008/10/low-be-more-proactive-mas.html>
by Diary Of A Singaporean Mind
See Also: Be More 'Proactive', MAS <http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_292790.html>, by Francis Chan, Straits Times.

**** Government Expenditure To Increase By 3% Of GDP In Five Years' Time <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/384172/1/.html>
by Ng Baoying, Channel NewsAsia
Finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told Parliament on Monday that the government wants to increase the amount of investment returns from the country's reserves that can be used for spending. As Singapore's society ages, there will be greater demand for healthcare and other sectors.
/Do we still need a huge defence budget?/