Applelinks Tech Web Reader - Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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What's the Latest on Wireless and Your Health?
How To Switch To A Mac And Live To Tell About It
Netflix Begins Rollout of Mac Media Player
Dell Inspiron Mini 12 First Impressions; The $600 MacBook Air??
Dell Unveils 12in Vista-Based Notebook-not-netbook
Apple Earnings, Profits, And Cash Embarrass Microsoft
How long until Apple is bigger than Microsoft?
iPods accounted for just 14.2% of Apple's sales in Q4 2008
Apple To Sweeten Snow Leopard With More Cocoa
Leopard's Year-old Annoyances
PC Mag: Office 2008 for the Mac: Eight Things You Didn't Know
The Mac Night Owl: The Mac OS Clone Myth Revisited
What's the Latest on Wireless and Your Health?
InternetNews.com's Brian T. Horowitz reports:
As we mark the 25th anniversary of the first cell phone call in 1983, the handsets, along with technologies such as Wi-Fi, are as ubiquitous as ever for IT workers and consumers. But are we getting cooked by the radio waves entering our brains?
Although current research shows no clear evidence of health risks from cell phones, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi devices, as a precaution, you may want to avoid extended use and passing the phones to young children while the jury is still out.
Based on information from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), FDA, FCC and other government agencies, little risk exists as far as ailments such as brain tumors -- at least within 10 years of use, the NCI reports.
However, studies are ongoing for terms of more than 10 years and the effects of wireless radio waves on children, who, due to their smaller amounts of brain tissue, may be more susceptible to the amount of radiation in wireless devices, according to the NCI.....
The NCI also has a helpful fact sheet on its site.....
For the full report visit here:
http://tinyurl.com/5m9hy7
How To Switch To A Mac And Live To Tell About It
CNET's Dave Rosenberg reports:
I'm always shocked when people tell me they don't like the Mac, primarily because they don't understand that the MacOS is much more humanized and has a deeper level of mind-meld than Windows does.
Several times a year, a long-time Windows user I know switches over to a Mac. What with the new MBP's ("MacBookPro") out, there're several people "making the leap," as they always put it. These people are usually "business users," people using their machine for work: information users, programmers, managers, etc.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10075680-62.html
Netflix Begins Rollout of Mac Media Player
Macworld's Jim Dalrymple reports:
Netflix on Monday will begin rolling out its second generation media player that includes support for Intel-based Macs. The company is also adding support for the Firefox Web browser with this release.
Using Microsoft's Silverlight technology, Netflix's new media player will allow Mac users to watch movies and TV shows using the company's "instant watching" feature. The Netflix player will use Microsoft's Play Ready DRM to protect its content, a feature that wasn't available for Mac users before the release of Silverlight 2.0.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/152874/.html?tk=rss_news
Dell Inspiron Mini 12 First Impressions; The $600 MacBook Air??
LaptopMag's Joanna Stern reports:
A few months ago, even before Dell released its Inspiron Mini 9, I got a chance to take a peek at the Inspiron Mini line, including the Mini 12.....
At less than an inch thick (according to Dell its .92-inches at its thinnest point) and weighing 2.7 pounds, I couldn't help but look at the Mini 12 and think of $1,500+ ultraportables like the MacBook Air and Voodoo Envy 133.
The Inspiron Mini 12 was just about the same thickness as the Lenovo ThinkPad x200 I had brought to the meeting, and only a bit thicker than the .76-inch MacBook Air that one of the meeting attendees had on the table (see the photos in the gallery below). But that extra girth buys the Dell more ports - 3 USB, full-size VGA out, a 3-in-1 card reader, along with a mic and headphone jack......
For the full commentary visit here:
http://tinyurl.com/5cznro
Dell Unveils 12in Vista-Based Notebook-not-netbook
The Register's Tony Smith reports:
Remember the 12in laptop Tesco inadvertently told the world Dell was preparing? Dell has announced the machine, the Inspiron Mini 12, in Japan.
Not only does the Inspiron Mini 9's bigger sibling sport a decidedly un-netbook 12in screen - the resolution's 1280 x 800 - but the Mini 12 is powered by an Atom Z530 CPU....
For the full report visit here:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/10/27/dell_launches_12in_netbook/
Apple Earnings, Profits, And Cash Embarrass Microsoft
Appleinsider's Prince McLean reports:
While Microsoft executives like to talk about Apple as an insignificant company with less than 5% of the worldwide market share of all PCs and servers sold, the Mac maker now has more cash than Microsoft and earns more than half of its profits and over three fourths its revenues.....
For the full report visit here:
http://tinyurl.com/5jwol8
How long until Apple is bigger than Microsoft?
ZNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes says:
While Microsoft executives like to talk about Apple as an insignificant company with less than 5% of the worldwide market share of all PCs and servers sold, the Mac maker now has more cash than Microsoft and earns more than half of its profits and over three fourths its revenues.
The numbers are incredible....
All of which raises an interesting question - How long until Apple is bigger than Microsoft?....
For the full commentary visit here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2850
iPods accounted for just 14.2% of Apple's sales in Q4 2008
Appleinsider's Andy M. Zaky reports:
If someone were to tell investors two years ago that iPod sales would only contribute 14.2% of Apple's total revenue and that the company's sales would significantly accelerate to a pace of 75% year-over-year, those investors would likely have presumed Apple shares would be trading at a significant premium to 2006 levels.
And yet here we are: Two years later, iPod sales only contributed 14.2% of Apple's total fiscal Q4 2008 revenue which grew at a rate of 75% YoY. Yet, Apple's stock is only $4.00 higher than it was in November 2006.
For the full report visit here:
http://tinyurl.com/5gc9md
Apple To Sweeten Snow Leopard With More Cocoa
Appleinsider's Prince McLean reports:
According to developer build notes leaked on the web, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard's new Finder and "almost all" other graphical apps will be delivered using Cocoa. Here's why, and what benefit this additional use of Cocoa will provide to users.
You can check it out at:
http://tinyurl.com/5v324x
Leopard's Year-old Annoyances
Macworld's Rob Griffiths reports:
One year ago today, Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) hit the streets. One of the main sales pitches for Leopard concerned its 300-plus new features, and certainly, there are quite a few winners amongst that bunch. A year later, I can't imagine using OS X without my always-present always-updated Time Machine backups, easy access to Wikipedia entries in Dictionary, and the oh-so-useful screen sharing.
But perhaps more so than any other OS X release, Leopard brought forth its share of bugs, features missing from the prior version, and features that still make me scratch my head and wonder just what the Apple engineers were thinking.....
For the full commentary visit here:
http://tinyurl.com/5lp6aq
PC Mag: Office 2008 for the Mac: Eight Things You Didn't Know
Most of us use Microsoft Word and Excel every day-but barely scratch the surface of its capabilities.
To read more, go to:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333285,00.asp
The Mac Night Owl: The Mac OS Clone Myth Revisited
In the 1980s, Bill Gates told Apple's CEO at the time, John Sculley (the former soft drink executive), that he should license the Mac OS. As far as Gates was concerned, Apple would own the market.
Here's the URL for today's commentary:
http://www.macnightowl.com/2008/10/the-mac-os-clone-myth-revisited/
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