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Apple on G5 PowerBook: Not so fast
G5 PowerBook Will Have To Wait
Guide to Differentiating Among CRT G3 iMacs
Undead Worms Infest Windows PCs (again)
The Business Case for Using Apple's Pages
Lindows Founder To Launch DRM-less Music Store
Wal-Mart Has An Ear For iPod market
Mac Night Owl: How Do You Identify a Journalist?
xtremeTech: Norweigan Startup Enters Handheld Graphics Market
Gene & Grayson Steinberg meet authors Dan Franks and John Rizzo, and get the scoop on QuicKeys X3 this week on The Mac Night Owl LIVE[/url]
Apple on G5 PowerBook: Not so fast
CNET News.com's John G. Spooner and David Becker comment:
"Apple customers have been waiting for the company to deliver a PowerBook driven by the G5 chip for some time. The more powerful chip first arrived in the Power Mac line in 2003, and Apple began offering it in the iMac last year.
"The computer maker is well aware that Mac fans want a G5 PowerBook, and technically, the company could offer one now. But given the relatively power-hungry nature of the IBM PowerPC 970FX processor.... would require compromises in size, weight and other aesthetics such as noise production. Apple, and likely most of its customers, wouldn't be willing to live with that.....
"'It is fair to say that incorporating a G5 into a notebook as thin and light as the PowerBook is extremely difficult,' David Moody, vice president of worldwide Mac product marketing at Apple, told CNET News.com on Monday....
"The main thing holding back a G5 PowerBook is the chip itself. IBM technical documents show that when running at 2.5GHz and 1.3 volts, the chip consumes a maximum of 100 watts of power, a fair amount of juice for a notebook. However, its power consumption can be reduced by lowering its clock speed or reducing its clock speed along with its voltage, IBM documentation shows...
That's not to say a 100-watt chip cannot be built into a notebook. Dell's Inspiron XPS, for one, offers Intel's 3.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor, which is designed for desktops. Intel's thermal-design guidelines call for computers using the chip to be able to dissipate heat produced by a chip of nearly 110 watts.
"But the Dell machine, which comes with a 15.4-inch wide screen, is a relatively hefty 2 inches thick and weighs just over 9 pounds....
"Although the wait might be painful for customers who want the latest technology from Apple, the company is likely to hold out for a low-power G5, a chip that could come later this year....."
For the full report, visit here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1044-5559311.html
G5 PowerBook Will Have To Wait
NewsFactor Network's Kimberly Hill says:
"Sales of the PowerBook have been disappointing. And some say that putting a super-powered G5 processor into the sleek, metal chassis that characterizes the line would mean making it chunkier and noisier. High-end PowerBook users may not be willing to make the compromises necessary to have G5 speed in notebook form...
Perhaps this year the computer maker has put all its energy and resources into the bottom of its line rather than the top. Just before the new PowerBooks were announced, Apple made the splashier announcement of the Mac Mini -- a super-small, entry-level machine intended to woo those previously faithful to Windows-based computers....
"Apple also may be looking at lagging sales of PowerBooks and determining that placing focus elsewhere right now can deliver more profits. Among the company's range of products, the iPod music player certainly remains the star. But the iMac and iBook computers continue to do well."
For the full report, visit here.
Guide to Differentiating Among CRT G3 iMacs
Low End Mac's Dan Knight says:
"Apple did a great job designing, marketing, and branding the iMac, but they also created a big problem - knowing which iMac you own or are looking to buy on the used market.
"There are now four basic iMac designs: the original G3 iMacs with CD-ROM trays, the newer G3 iMacs with slot-loading drives, the hemisphere-supporting-a-screen G4 iMacs, and the new everything-behind-the display G5 iMacs. The big questions involve the G3 iMacs, which were made in a great number of colors and processor speeds, not to mention different system boards."
Dan discusses how to distinguish among the many G3 iMac models, colors, and flavors.
You can check it out at:
http://lowendmac.com/macdan/05/0202.html
Undead Worms Infest Windows PCs (again)
The Register's John Leyden reports:
"Zafi-D has kept its place at the top of the virus charts for a second consecutive month, accounting for 44 per cent of all reports of anti-virus vendor Sophos in January 2005. The worm, which poses as a Christmas greeting, is continuing to cause problems well into the New Year.
"Runner-up spot went to NetSky-P. The worm - first spotted in March 2004 - accounted for 19.4 per cent of reports of viral activity to Sophos....."
For the full report, visit here.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/01/virus_chart/
The Business Case for Using Apple's Pages
Mike Rundle says
"Now that Paul's got a nasty Mac setup he can join in on the editing with the rest of us. Pages makes it easy to layout the flow of text, columns, tables, headers and footers, and other things that OmniGraffle never made possible without me doing it all manually. Now I can design the header and footer for the next whitepaper with no hassle, and we can start using a cohesive design for all proposals, contracts, whitepapers, and anything else the team comes out with or needs. Consistent branding across all our media is the way to go, and Pages is letting us do that.
"Pages' PDF output capabilities are really fantastic, and pretty much drop OmniGraffle right to the ground crying. Nothing is offset, and the PDF looks exactly pixel-for-pixel like it does on my screen when editing it. Everything is there—shadows, bold text, gradients, borders, and all other design elements....
"Should Pages be used for really large projects like books? Um, definitely not. Maybe. I wouldn't. But in terms of the actual layout and editing of documents, to me it is far ahead of Microsoft Word for Mac OS X, and I'll never switch back. Goodbye Word and OmniGraffle, hello Pages!"
You can check it out at:
http://phark.typepad.com/phark/2005/02/the_business_ca.html
Lindows Founder To Launch DRM-less Music Store
Ars Technica's Ken "Caesar" Fisher reports:
"Michael Robertson has done quite a bit these past few years. He was the CEO of MP3.com back in the day, and more recently he was in the spotlight because of Windows trademark shenanigans involving his Linux distribution/company, Lindows......
"Robertson is starting another venture, this time returning home (somewhat). Robertson's press folks are saying that he's going to announce a new, DRM-less online music store next week called MP3tunes. "
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Robertson, the founder and former CEO of MP3.com, will announce next week that he is starting a new digital music company called MP3tunes. The company will focus on music products and services with an emphasis on the MP3 format to maximize interoperability and consumer choice. Over the coming months, MP3tunes will make several new products available online including a hardware device, software products and an online music store.
"Robertson's big pitch is going to be DRM-free music, and he accused other online music 'forces' of 'trying to drive consumers away from MP3 towards proprietary systems.' The accusation obviously sticks. Microsoft, Apple, and others are pushing their own proprietary DRM schemes in the marketplace, but is the sole purpose of that to 'lock out some consumers and force everyone to buy a particular company's player or software program,' as Robertson suggests?"
For the full report, visit here.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050202-4576.html
Wal-Mart Has An Ear For iPod market
CNET News.com's Alorie Gilbert and Ina Fried reports:
"Wal-Mart Stores has quietly begun selling Apple Computer's popular iPod Minis in select stores, the mega retailer's first big move into the market for the enormously popular digital music players.
"The discount chain is selling Minis in a 'limited number of stores,' a Wal-Mart representative said Monday. The representative declined to elaborate on how many of the company's nearly 5,000 stores are carrying the device.
"The Mini is one of the few Apple products the discount chain sells, but that may soon change. The companies are rumored to be working out an agreement for Wal-Mart to begin selling the iPod Shuffle, a music device Apple unveiled last month. A report on enthusiast site AppleInsider speculated that Wal-Mart may order as many 250,000 iPod Shuffles."
For the full report, visit here.
Mac Night Owl: How Do You Identify a Journalist?
In the old days, it was all so easy. You worked for a newspaper or a magazine. When I began to specialize in broadcast news, we weren't taken very seriously. In fact, we were looked upon as second-rate, probably because most stations simply read copy off the wire services or summarized them from the local papers.
Here's the URL for today's commentary:
http://www.macnightowl.com/index.htm#journalist
xtremeTech: Norweigan Startup Enters Handheld Graphics Market
"Handheld graphics chip maker Falanx has decided to stake its claim in the handheld graphics race.
The Norwegian company officially launched its "Mali" IP cores business on Tuesday, announcing that chip vendor Zoran has become the company's first customer. Although Falanx is working with screens that are a fraction of the resolution of their desktop counterparts, the company says it can bring 16X antialiasing to handheld devices in its quest for image quality."
Read more at:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,,1758731,00.asp
Gene & Grayson Steinberg meet authors Dan Franks and John Rizzo, and get the scoop on QuicKeys X3 this week on The Mac Night Owl LIVE
This week Gene and Grayson discuss the latest & greatest Mac developments with author John Rizzo of <http://www.macwindows.com>MacWindows.com and Dan Frakes from <http://www.macworld.com>Macworld and <http://www.playlistmag.com>PlayList magazine. You'll also get the scoop on QuicKeys X3 from programmer Eric Roccasecca of <http://www.startly.com>Startly Technologies.
You can tune into the broadcast Thursday night from 6:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern, at: http://www.macradio.com/thursday . An archive of the show will be available for listening at your convenience within eight hours of the original broadcast.
Charles W. Moore
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