Applelinks Tech Web Reader - Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Apple's Latest Notebooks Plagued With Graphics Glitches
QuickTime distortion in early 2008 MacBooks; Mac OS X 10.5.3 to fix
Word 2008 vs. Pages ‘08 - The Office Suite Smackdown
Stan Flack, MacCentral and MacMinute Founder, Passes Away
The Register Reviews Apple MacBook Air
The Mac Clone That Isn't
Mac Clone MIA Shortly After Birth
Apple's Greatest Innovations
What Color Is Apple?
Keyboards No Longer A Germ-laden Office Tool
UK music biz wants cut of iPod cash
Pimp My Mac Mini!
Home Made iMac-mini Case Mod
Earnings: Will Tech Pull Through?
Apple EDU: Students, Teachers and Staff Save $100 on MacBook Systems
The Mac Night Owl: The Leopard Report: Slower than Windows XP?
Apple's Latest Notebooks Plagued With Graphics Glitches
APCMag's Dan Warne reports:
Apple's latest raft of MacBooks and MacBook Pros, based on Intel Penryn CPUs, are giving owners grief with frequent onscreen display corruption.
Apple's latest notebooks - the MacBook and MacBook Pro with Penryn-class Core 2 Duo processors - should be the latest and greatest. Instead, many customers who've bought them are finding they're getting endless onscreen corruption and flickering.
A long discussion thread on Apple's discussion forums describes the problem, which so far, has not been publicly acknowledged by Apple....
The problems occur across both Macbooks -- with Intel's GMA3100 graphics chipset -- and MacBook Pros, with the NVIDIA 8600M GT chipset.
For the full report, visit:
http://apcmag.com/apples_latest_notebooks_plagued_with_graphics_glitches.htm
QuickTime distortion in early 2008 MacBooks; Mac OS X 10.5.3 to fix
MacFixIt reports:
Numerous users of early 2008 MacBooks are reporting an issue in which video played back via QuickTime flickers or exhibits other distortion. This issue is appearing on factory-fresh systems running Mac OS X 10.5.2, indicating a potential bug in OS revision....
...MacFixIt has learned that Mac OS X 10.5.3 will include specific fixes aimed at resolving this issue, specifically eliminating a "graphics corruption issue."
For the full report, visit:
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20080414103536701
Word 2008 vs. Pages ‘08 - The Office Suite Smackdown
Macworld's Jeffery Battersby reports:
Is Apple’s iWork a viable alternative to Microsoft Office? To find out, we asked Jeffrey Battersby - our go-to expert on word processing programs - to use Word 2008 and Pages ’08 to create the same project, progressing from the basics (text entry and formatting) to more-advanced features. Our questions: Which program is better at each stage of the job? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Which jobs (and which users) require which tool? (And for our experts’ take on alternatives to Office and iWork, see Word Processing Alternatives.)
You can check it out at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/132901/2008/04/office_word.html
Stan Flack, MacCentral and MacMinute Founder, Passes Away
Macworld's Jim Dalrymple reports:
It is with incredible sadness that I write this note today. MacCentral and MacMinute founder Stan Flack passed away quietly on Monday in his Prince Edward Island, Canada home at the age of 42. According to his sister, Stan died of complications to a pre-existing condition.
Stan has been in the Mac industry since 1994 when MacCentral first went online as a weekly publication. Things were a lot different back then - the Internet as we know it was in its infancy - but Stan saw a way to make a successful business....
In 1999, Stan sold MacCentral to Macworld. That was definitely a good thing for everyone involved, but a couple of years later Stan got the itch to start another new site. It was then that he founded MacMinute.
For the full commentary, click here.
http://www.macworld.com/article/132981/2008/04/stan_flack.html
The Register Reviews Apple MacBook Air
The Register's Tony Smith reports:
Apple's MacBook Air has polarised opinion, not just between the company's fans and everyone else, but even within the Mac community itself. It's expensive, it's arguably underpowered and certainly has very limited expansion opportunities.
On the other hand, it's ridiculously thin and is a truly gorgeous-looking object. We were sceptical about the Air when it was announced, back in January. But now it's available there was nothing for it: we had to try it out ourselves.
...the Air's not without its flaws... the very spartan array of ports... the design of cooling system. The Air pulls air in through the keyboard and vents it out of a grille on the base, or vice versa. That's fine when you're using the air on a desk, where the airflow will be unimpeded, but it makes it tricky to use perched on your thighs. Do so and you'll block the vents....
As it turned out, we didn't mind the absence of an optical drive or multiple USB ports either, but that's no excuse for not building either an extra USB or a Firewire port into the Air's array, and an Ethernet socket, for that matter....
This is style over substance in the very best possible way.
For the full review visit here:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/11/review_macbook_air/
The Mac Clone That Isn't
IT Wire's Stephen Withers reports:
The announcement of a 'Mac OS X ready' PC by a US-based company led to its web site being swamped...
When you add the price of Mac OS X ($US129), the price difference isn't so impressive, though the difference in the hardware specifications remains stark.
The fly in the ointment is that you can't legally use Mac OS X on a computer that isn't Apple branded....
For the full report, visit:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17648/1151/
Mac Clone MIA Shortly After Birth
MacNewsWorld's Chris Maxcer reports:
Macintosh cloner Psystar appears to have had a fairly short lifespan. The company announced Monday it was selling a computer running Mac OS X Leopard for under $400. Psystar, however, appeared to have absolutely no support from Apple. The company's Web site was inaccessible later in the morning, possibly due to Apple's legal team.
A small Miami-based business has jumped into the deep end of the pool - the one controlled by Apple in Cupertino - by offering Macintosh clones to everyday consumers. Pystar's Web site has regular PC hardware capable of running Mac OS X Leopard unmodified for a measly US$399, according to early reports.
Perhaps "had" is a better word, because as of Monday morning, the site was inaccessible....
The specs of the Psystar system reportedly include a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 GB of DDR2 667 memory and integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics, along with a 20x DVD+/-R drive, four USB ports, and a 250 GB 7,200 RPM hard drive. Not bad for the price, as compared to the Mac Mini, which starts at $599 for a slower processor, less memory, smaller hard drive, and relatively few upgrade possibilities.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/62576.html
Apple's Greatest Innovations
Forbes' Brian Caulfield reports:
Everywhere you turn this year, Apple's machines are on the march. Apple's iPhone is continuing to gobble up the smart phone market. Apple's PCs and notebook computers--long relegated to a niche status--are tearing off big gobs of the PC market. Even Apple's least successful effort - AppleTV - has rivals such as Blockbuster scrambling to blunt Apple's attack.
The common denominator? Software. While great industrial design - whether it's for great cars or great buildings - always attracts gawkers, it's software that makes Apple's proliferating array of machines so comfortable to use on a long-term basis. Apple's best products mix the curb appeal of a Lamborghini with easy-to-drive friendliness of a Honda Accord.
To read more, click here.
What Color Is Apple?
MacNewsWorld's Erika Morphy says:
Apple seems to have carefully constructed a persona that aligns it with left-thinking, socially liberal types. Yet it's a major corporation that has to be as concerned as any with its bottom line. Is Apple an urban liberal or a suburban conservative? Is it trying to be everything to all people? Or just catering to those who can afford to buy its pricey wares?
Apple has gotten a lot of mileage over the years portraying itself as a liberal - or at least, progressive - company. It first burst onto the national scene with its "1984" ad urging viewers to shatter the status quo -- at least in terms of choosing computers....
Its current Mac vs. PC ads have a laid-back hipster representing the Mac, while a conservative-looking schmo portrays the PC....
Still, the strategy is not without risks. Several years ago, for instance, one cellular provider provoked a firestorm of criticism for using Martin Luther King Jr.'s image in a commercial, and the company subsequently yanked the spot.
Once a company starts to paint itself a particular political hue, it's fair to take a deeper look at whether its actions match its public persona.
For the full commentary, click here.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/rsstory/62563.html
Keyboards No Longer A Germ-laden Office Tool
The Associated Press reports:
At a recent trade show in Orlando, a Jacksonville company left an eye-catching sales pitch in the women's restroom.
"Your keyboard has 400 times more bacteria than this toilet!!!"
The message on a sticker was meant to promote Seal Shield LLC's newest product, the Silver Seal washable, dishwasher-safe, anti-microbial keyboard.
The keyboard - the next generation of the company's medical grade washable keyboard that has a suggested retail price of $69.99 - uses exclusive waterproof technology and is made with anti-microbial plastic that uses all natural, pure silver ions.
An anti-bacterial mouse that can also withstand the dishwasher or submersion in water will be ready for shipping later this spring.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/2008-04-12-washable-keyboard_N.htm
Foe Charles Moore's Applelinks take in this topic, click here.
UK music biz wants cut of iPod cash
PCPro reports:
The UK music industry has called for Apple and other portable device makers to had over a slice of their revenues as compensation for fair use copying.
The Music Business Group (MBG), which numbers record company trade groups and rights collecting organisations among its members, backs proposals for change in UK copyright law that would provide legal backing for private copying of music to computers and portable players, so-called format shifting.
For the full report click here.
Pimp My Mac Mini!
williammize.com says:
There comes a time in a young man’s life when his thoughts turn to flights of fancy.
And when I say flights of fancy, I actually mean a new gadget.
And when I say new gadget, I actually mean a new computer....
But sometimes, alas, this is not to be.
Sometimes, the credit card debt is too high and the strength required to rationalize is unavailable, so you have to just make do with what you have, which in my case is a mac Mini.
It’s a perfectly acceptable, perfectly powerful machine that does exactly whatever I ask it to do....
But, again, you all know what I mean when I say “I want more! I want different! I want new! I want exciting!”...
If I can’t make it new, I can make it go faster and look better.
For the full report, visit:
http://williammize.com/2008/04/14/pimp-my-mac-mini/
Home Made iMac-mini Case Mod
Wired's Charlie Sorrel says:
There's a healthy (or perhaps unhealthy) scene for people who mod their Windows installs to look and feel just like Mac OS X, but German case-modder Phyro-Mane has done one better: The home-made iMacmini. He took an old Windows laptop, stripped it down and rebuilt into this custom aluminum case, complete with side-mounted USB ports.
For the full report, visit:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/04/home-made-imac.html
Earnings: Will Tech Pull Through?
BusinessWeek's Arik Hesseldahl says:
Though the technology sector is no longer the safe haven it seemed as the economy began stumbling last summer, investors are clinging to hopes that the industry's first wave of first-quarter reports will continue to demonstrate a touch of resilience against the gloom.
Intel: The opening ceremonies, and possibly the fireworks, begin Apr. 15 with Intel's results from the first three months of 2008. The semiconductor company rattled nerves Mar. 3 with a warning about weakness in its memory chip business. Revising its profit forecasts downward, Intel blamed weak demand at its NAND flash venture with Micron Technologies. As a result, the company said it would be forced to write down the value of its NAND inventory....
Apple: Apple, which only uses Intel chips in its Mac computers, is expected to report that it sold as many as 2.1 million desktop and laptop machines in the first three months of 2008 when the company posts its results Apr. 23. With consumer confidence sagging, Apple is seen as especially vulnerable. All eyes will be on unit sales of its iPod music players, which have been slowing, and the iPhone, which have been accelerating. For now, analysts are predicting sales of just less than $7 billion and earnings of $1.06 per share.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080411_040585.htm
Apple EDU: Students, Teachers and Staff Save $100 on MacBook Systems
dealsontheweb.com reports:
If you are a student, teacher or school staff member, you can save $100 on MacBook systems from the Apple Educational sales division.....
For more information, visit:
http://www.dealsontheweb.com/deal/67734
The Mac Night Owl: The Leopard Report: Slower than Windows XP?
The other day, I read an article in Daniel Knight’s usually excellent LowEndMac site, in which he interviews musician and artist Scott Hansen, a devoted Mac user who is willing to overlook alleged performance limitations with Mac OS X because he still thinks it’s far, far better.
Here's the link to the story:
http://macnightowl.com/2008/04/the-leopard-report-slower-than-windows-xp/
Notes: You can also access our RSS feed, available at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/rss
Or our Atom feed at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/atom
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|
|
|
|
| |