Applelinks Tech Web Reader - Friday, February 22, 2008
Apple OS X 10.5.2 (Leopard) "By Far The Best Operating System Ever Written For The Vast Majority Of Consumers"
AOL Really Kills Netscape This Time
Flash NAND Decline Provides Upside Surprise for Apple
Dear Apple: My Macbook Keeps Trying To Light My House On Fire, Please Replace It
High Megapixel Compact Digicams May Be Worse than We Thought
Why Apple's Secretive Approach Is So Effective
The Vista SP1 Saga: The Best Ad For Mac And Linux Yet?
eWEEK: Will XP SP3 Slow Vista Adoption?
10.5: Install Tips For Older Somewhat Broken Macs
It Is Not Unusual That A Mac Breaks Down Within 2 years!
eWEEK: Apple Updates Xsan 2, Drops Xserve RAID
eWEEK: Google Probes Medical Record Exchange
The Mac Night Owl: Keyboards: From Half-Ergonomic to Full Ergonomic
Apple OS X 10.5.2 (Leopard) "By Far The Best Operating System Ever Written For The Vast Majority Of Consumers"
PCMag's Edward Mendelson says:
After three months with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard Version 10.5, I have three main things to say about it. First: Despite minor problems, it's by far the best operating system ever written for the vast majority of consumers, with dozens of new features that have real practical value - like truly automated backups, document and spreadsheet preview images in folders, and notes and to-do lists integrated into the mail program. Propeller-heads with IT know-how will no doubt hold up Linux as the better choice, and Vista has its devotees as well (and will probably have more when SP1 is widely available), but, for the average user, Leopard is the most polished and easiest to use OS I've tested......
For the full review visit here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2207543,00.asp
AOL Really Kills Netscape This Time
Computerworld's Gregg Keizer reports:
Several weeks after AOL gave Netscape Navigator a one-month reprieve, the company Wednesday released the last update for the browser and prodded users to switch to Flock or Firefox.
"Users will see the following major upgrade notice, released as Netscape 9.0.0.6," said Tom Drapeau, the director of AOL's Netscape brand, in a post to a company blog Wednesday. "When the Netscape 9.0.0.6 upgrade is accepted and run, the following notice will appear, denoting the end of support date and the recommendations of Flock and Firefox."
For the full report visit here:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/21/AOL-really-kills-Netscape-this-time_1.html
Flash NAND Decline Provides Upside Surprise for Apple
SeekingAlpha says:
While the price decline of Apple's components is well noted by many analysts, I believe the precipitous drop in NAND flash memory and its effect on Apple's margins has been vastly underestimated.
To read more, click here.
Dear Apple: My Macbook Keeps Trying To Light My House On Fire, Please Replace It
Consumerist.com says:
This poor guy is named Steve. Steve's Macbook keeps trying to light his house on fire, so Steve would like replacement. He's already sent the computer for repair several times, gotten it back, at which time it tried to light his house on fire again.
The machine in question.... likes to shoot off sparks that land on his copy of the New York Times. The NYT is not only the paper of record, but it also functions rather effectively as tinder.
To read more, click here.
High Megapixel Compact Digicams May Be Worse than We Thought
Low End Mac's Dan Knight reports:
Last month we looked at the megapixel myth. As we noted then, "in the rush to market megapixels, images can actually be worse with a high megapixel camera than from a lower megapixel one."
The sad truth is that it's worse than we thought.
Mason Resnick of Adorama has exposed another issue caused by an unhealthy fixation on megapixels: As compact digicams include more and more megapixels on their tiny sensors, something has to give. In Stop the Megapixel Madness!, he says,
"...each pixel has its own microscopic lens, and each lens is separated by a microns-wide wall, or septum, to prevent light from falling from one pixel into the next and thereby reducing image quality . . . to make room for eight, nine, or (heaven help us, again) ten million pixels, those septums get either unusably thin, or are removed altogether."
The result of removing the septum? Spillover from one pixel another, which can cause fuzziness and increase noise (the digital equivalent of film grain).
For the full report visit here:
http://lowendmac.com/digigraphica/08dg/high-megapixel-compacts.html
Why Apple's Secretive Approach Is So Effective
The Guardian's Charles Arthur says:
That Apple (Inc, no longer Computer) likes to keep the details or even existence of upcoming product releases close to its chest is a given within the technology industry. Yes, there were loads of people who were sure last year that Apple would launch a mobile phone product; but barely any outside the company itself who knew what it would look like. (Even the head of AT&T, its network partner, only got to see it late in the development process.)...
By contrast, companies like Microsoft and Dell like to tell everyone well ahead of time what they're going to do. I can't recall the last time a Bill Gates speech led anyone to hold a middle, let alone front, page.
Now it turns out that there may be very deep reasons why Apple's secretive approach entices us so, and Microsoft's doesn't....
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/21/apple.marketingandpr
The Vista SP1 Saga: The Best Ad For Mac And Linux Yet?
ITWire's Alex Zaharov-Reutt says:
First, it was a 5 year delay for Vista minus plenty of features, drivers and software compatibility. A year later, Vista SP1 'launches', but few can get it yet. Then two SP1 pre-updates launch, only to have many reports of endless rebooting. What more can Microsoft do to convince people to try a Mac – or Linux?
I wouldn't exactly call the delay of Vista SP1 a 'comedic' situation, but the whole thing seems to have gone from comedic to shambolic in less than three weeks since the February 4 announcement that Vista SP1 had gone to RTM.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16789/1103/
eWEEK: Will XP SP3 Slow Vista Adoption?
Analysts say that the more secure, stable and reliable Windows XP is, the less reason businesses have to upgrade to Vista in a hurry.
To read more, click here.
10.5: Install Tips For Older Somewhat Broken Macs
MaxOSXHints contributor sgasp says:
I wanted to install Leopard on an iMac G4 800 with a broken DVD player (having read errors on the Leopard DVD) and an empty internal drive. So I faced two issues that I have been able to solve: not having a bootable drive in the machine, and working around a broken DVD player.
You can check it out at:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071230150740522
It Is Not Unusual That A Mac Breaks Down Within 2 years!
HardMac's Lionel says:
During the past years, by buying an Apple product, one was certain to have a machine that would function without fault over the years to come... and this is regarded as a fact. Even though this is often the case today, the golden era is over. Over the past few years we have seen many problems over the full range of Apple products: the Airport Express , iMac G5, Powermac g5 that leak, MacBooks that crack...
For the full commentary visit here:
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2008-02-21/#7823
eWEEK: Apple Updates Xsan 2, Drops Xserve RAID
The updates are an attempt to make storage area networks easy for Apple's users, many of whom are not storage experts.
To read more, click here.
eWEEK: Google Probes Medical Record Exchange
The search vendor scratches the surface of its online health initiative, testing a pilot with the Cleveland Clinic to make medical records portable.
To read more, click here.
The Mac Night Owl: Keyboards: From Half-Ergonomic to Full Ergonomic
As most of you know, I've been hugely impressed with two keyboards that sort of mimic the ergonomic style. What I mean is that the bottom portion of the keyboard spreads sideways. Logitech expanded on this approach with its Wave keyboard, which does what the name implies, and that is to eschew the typically flat style and have the keys rise higher in the center and lower at the sides, a sort of wavy approach.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://macnightowl.com/2008/02/21/keyboards-from-half-ergonomic-to-full-ergonomic/
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