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Fight For The Right To Copy
RealNetworks Doesn't Rock
Apple's Song Remains the Same
Whether You're Running OS 9 or X, Bad RAM Can Crash Your Mac
IBM Eclipses Linux
Mac Night Owl: The Tiger Report: Who is the Real Copycat?
Microsoft Watch: MSN Suspends Search Beta; Adds New Hotmail Services
The Tech Night Owl: Do You Benefit from the Extra Features?
eWeek: Microsoft Devising Tech Support Program To Battle Linux
ExtremeTech: AMD To Add 'Strained Silicon' To Processors
Mac Night Owl: A Paragraph Worth of Monday Rants
Mac Night Owl: This Week's Mac Night Owl LIVE Update[/url]




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Fight For The Right To Copy

BBC technology analyst Bill Thompson says:

"It is somewhat depressing when the mere fact that a court has shown some common sense is newsworthy.

"But we should applaud the 9th US Circuit of Appeals in Los Angeles for making it clear that file-sharing is not illegal.

"This is just as well, since file-sharing, which is just copying data from computer to computer, underpins the entire operation of the internet, from e-mail to viewing web pages to downloading the 72Mb of Windows XP SP2.

"But of course the argument was not about that sort of data copying....

"The arguments over copyright are the first skirmishes in a serious battle over the shape of our digital world"

For the full(excellent) commentary, visit here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3584010.stm






RealNetworks Doesn't Rock

Forbes Ten O'Clock Tech's Arik Hesseldahl says:

"It's never a smart move to pick a public fight with Apple Computer, and it's doubly unwise if that fight involves the iPod in some way.

"When it comes to brand loyalty, users of Apple Computer's Macintosh computers, and more recently the iPod, are infamous for a level of combative partisanship that would do Rush Limbaugh (notably, a Mac user himself) and Al Franken (notably not) proud. As anyone who has ever publicly criticized an Apple product or its mercurial chief executive, Steve Jobs, learns, the Apple-fan attack brigades descend quickly, delivering a brutal, if often factually challenged, e-mail assault.

Exactly why someone didn't bother to warn Robert Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks, about this is anyone's guess. Real earlier this week touched off a bit of a kerfuffle in the digital music business by temporarily slashing prices on songs sold on its RealPlayer Music Store to 49 cents each and launching a public relations offensive complete with full-page newspaper ads and an anti-Apple online petition. Its aim? To ratchet up the pressure on Apple to allow iPod users to continue to use Real's new digital-music format, "Harmony," which is iPod compatible....."

You can check it out at:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/08/20/cx_ah_0820tentech.html?partner=rss






Apple's Song Remains the Same

Forbes.com's Victoria Murphy says

"In an August memo typed from his hospital bed, Steve Jobs --Apple's chief executive, patriarch and media impresario--let his employees know he would be out for a month to recover from surgery to remove a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Patients with this type of cancer, called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, have a 90% survival rate, especially if treated early. Apple says Jobs is due back in September.

"A Jobs-less Apple is tough to imagine. The Monday after the memo was made public, shares fell 2%, the Nasdaq was flat. With his silver beard, round specs and trademark black mock turtleneck, Jobs personifies Apple and its brand:hip, independent and gleefully geeky. He drives its design and marketing prowess and is chief credit-taker for the iPod's wild success. (Name another product to hit $1 billion in three years.)"

For the full report, visit here.






Whether You're Running OS 9 or X, Bad RAM Can Crash Your Mac

Low End Mac's Adam Robert Guha says:

"While I was out in California this summer, my dad experienced more problems with his Blue & White G3. His main complaint was that it kept crashing -- even though it was running Mac OS X 10.3. I had done several things to upgrade it the last time I was there, and when I left it had been running fine.

"While it had worked fine under Mac OS 9, OS X required more memory. 256 MB was a good amount for OS 9, and it's a basic amount for OS X, but running more applications required more RAM. Microsoft Office was a notable one, especially when we installed the new 2004 version. Photoshop was also lagging behind a little bit, and just general performance of the Finder and launching applications seemed poor.

"The solution was to buy more RAM, so the last time I was out there we decided to order some RAM from an online discount memory supplier. I believe we bought an additional 256 MB for around $50, and the machine started running a lot faster.

"That was until after I left, when my dad said that he couldn't print -- the computer would just freeze. I knew that the printer was selected properly, so it seemed to make no sense. If anything, I'd expect OS 9 or Windows 95/98 to have these kinds of problems, not OS X...."

For the full report, visit here.
http://lowendmac.com/archive/04/0820.html






IBM Eclipses Linux

The Register's Lucy Sherriff reports:

"IBM has announced a new Eclipse development package for Linux.

'This is based on the most recent Eclipse software developers kit from Eclipse.org and the latest IBM Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for Linux. IBM says this will make it easier to test and deploy Java applications on the Linux platform.

'IBM quotes IDC predictions that Linux will run on 25 million desktops by 2007. The company points out, very reasonably, that greate demand for Linux translates into greater demand for Linux development tools, Eclipse among them. As evidence of this, it offer the download figures for the Eclipse platform - more than 29m download requests as of the end of July."

For the full report, visit here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/20/ibm_eclipses_linux/







Mac Night Owl: The Tiger Report: Who is the Real Copycat?

Maybe nobody . . .

Here's the URL for today's commentary:

http://www.macnightowl.com/index.htm#copycat






Microsoft Watch: MSN Suspends Search Beta; Adds New Hotmail Services

"This week, MSN has been tweaking its services line-up by rolling out a couple of new services and temporarily withdrawing the test version of its new MSN search engine.

On Tuesday, MSN removed the alpha release of its forthcoming algorithmic search engine from the MSN Sandbox site, as first reported by the BoostMarketing.com Web site. (The MSN Sandbox is a collection of technologies under development by MSN and other Microsoft divisions.)"

Read more at:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,,1637337,00.asp






The Tech Night Owl: Do You Benefit from the Extra Features?

Probably not.

Here's the URL for today's commentary:

http://www.technightowl.com/newsletters/2004/08/247.htm#features






eWeek: Microsoft Devising Tech Support Program To Battle Linux

"NEW YORK-Microsoft Corp. is quietly working on a new initiative, internally code-named Mission Critical Microsoft, to help fight the rising specter of Linux running on enterprise mainframes.

"Mission Critical Microsoft is an internal initiative, but it will probably result in a new program announcement from Microsoft within the next year," Paul Corriveau, group product manager for Windows Servers, told eWEEK.com at the IBM SHARE conference here."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1638395,00.asp






ExtremeTech: AMD To Add 'Strained Silicon' To Processors

"Advanced Micro Devices will add "strained silicon" to its microprocessor lineup this quarter to improve performance, a company spokesman confirmed Friday.

AMD was expected to begin implementing strained silicon in its 90-nm chips, which the company has just begun producing from its fab in Dresden, Germany. The addition of the technology of the chips to its older 130-nm process is somewhat of a surprise, although a company representative said AMD tweaks its silicon process on a regular basis; last quarter, the chip company added five incremental improvements, he said."

Read more at:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,,1638375,00.asp






Mac Night Owl: A Paragraph Worth of Monday Rants

The "halo" effect revisited.

Here's the URL for today's commentary:

http://www.macnightowl.com/index.htm#rants

Mac Night Owl: This Week's Mac Night Owl LIVE Update

Our "Best of" show this week featured Eliot Van Buskirk, the music guru at
mp3.com and noted Mac author Jim Heid. As usual, the show can be heard at
your convenience from our site.

Here's the URL for today's commentary:

http://www.macnightowl.com/newsletters/2004/08/247.htm#update


***



Charles W. Moore


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