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The Macintosh Through Linux Eyes
Microsoft's EFI Pullback is Apple's Gain
Tempmarks: MacBook Pro versus PowerBook G4
Apple: Frugal to a Fault?
CBS Sports & Apple Offer 2006 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on the iTunes Music Store
Apple's French Dis-Connection?
Intel iMac Slows Non-apple Apps
Corning's Glass Breakthrough For Computer Displays
The Intel iMac Part 2: By The Numbers
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
Apple iTunes Offers First Full-length Film
VoIP Slowly Gaining Ground as Residential Phone Service, with Vonage Expanding Its Share to Nearly Half of the Total Market, According to Telephia
eWeek: Intel Plugs into System Power
Intel Boosts Energy-Efficient Performance With First Dual-Core Low-Voltage Intel Xeon Processor
eWeek: Intel Delivers Low-Power Blade Server Chip
Microsoft Watch: Microsoft Rethinks the Beta Process
ExtremeTech: Sony Confirms PS3 Delay, Talks Hardware Details
ExtremeTech: Dell, Alienware Merger Rumors Still Whispered
The Macintosh Through Linux Eyes
Linux Box Admin says:
In twenty odd years of working with computers, I never owned an Apple computer. Frankly, until OSX, I was never interested. But the BSD underpinnings of OSX got my attention. The Mac finally got a "real" operating system. It was interesting enough that several years after it debuted, I purchased my first Apple computer on eBay, a Mac Mini, to dig a little deeper into the OS. Not only did Apple do something right with OSX, but it was smart marketing to introduce a cheap Mac that worked with PC hardware.....
The first thing that struck me was that all the hardware worked (with one minor exception)..... As a Linux user, I am used to spending time to get all my desktop hardware to work. The Mac seemed to work better with my PC hardware than Windows; without endless, conflicting drivers and reboots.....
The second thing that struck me was that every Apple software application worked as advertised.....
Finally, the hardware was elegant.....
What matters most (to me) is the shell environment and the excellent selection of tools that are pre-installed. After firing up Terminal.app, the default terminal emulator, I was a surprised to find Bash as the default shell instead of a BSDish Csh or Tcsh. I was also surprised to find SSH and my favorite text editor, nano, ready to go. Once I customized the startup scripts (I had to modify /etc/bashrc to tell it to source $HOME/.bashrc), I felt right at home.....
The speed that I was able to become productive on OSX caused me to reflect a little about operating systems and my daily work....I will probably return to Linux on the desktop at some point, maybe with Yellow Dog on the G4 Mini. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't really matter.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://linuxboxadmin.com/articles/mac-thru-linux-eyes.php
Microsoft's EFI Pullback is Apple's Gain
eWEEK's David Morgenstern reports:
The news that Microsoft's support for the next-generation of BIOS, called the United Extensible Firmware Interface, will wait for a couple of years or so, was a welcome, but unexpected break for the Macintosh community.
The technology bragging rights against Windows and the commodity market for PCs can continue....
In so many ways, Windows users keep receiving the leftovers or technology hand-me-downs from the Macintosh. Longhorn looks to be more of the same, from the hardware to the software.
As Mac users gain the benefits of EFI over the next couple of years, Windows XP and Vista users won't. That is a simple equation, and one that Mac customers can cheer about.
For the full report visit here.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060314/tc_zd/173510
Tempmarks: MacBook Pro versus PowerBook G4
The Apple Core's Jason D. O'Grady reports:
One of the most popular questions about the new MacBook Pro is about its temperature. Users of previous PowerBook G4s (especially the 12-inch model) are very conscious of the ambient heat generated by their machines. It's difficult to use on your lap after running for as little as 30 minutes. This heat (and lawyers) are the reasons manufacturers don't call them "laptops" any more - they're only referred to as "notebooks" now....
None of the various temperature reading applications have been updated to read the sensors in the MacBook Pro so I took matters into my own hands. The following temperature benchmarks compare a MacBook Pro 2.0GHz and a PowerBook G4 1.5GHz, both configured with 2GB RAM and 120GB, 5400 RPM hard drives. I played a DVD on each of the machines overnight and measured the temperature (using a Cooper Atkins 313K digital thermometer with a surface probe) in the morning.
You can check it out at:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=157
Apple: Frugal to a Fault?
The Street.com says:
Last year, Apple spent 3.8% of sales on development, and it spent just 3.2% in its most recent fiscal quarter.
Apple hasn't cut R&D spending. The company spent $534 million on development in fiscal 2005, which was 24% more than it spent in fiscal 2001. But the company has clearly been constraining the growth of development spending.
While sales have grown at a compounded annual rate of 27% over the last four years, R&D spending has grown at an average rate of just 5.6% per year over that period.....
"....Apple is already being vastly outspent by its rivals. Both in dollar terms and as a portion of its revenue, Apple's R&D budget is a fraction of that of competitors....
For the full report visit here.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/tech/gamesandgadgets/10273658_2.html
CBS Sports & Apple Offer 2006 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on the iTunes Music Store
CBS Sports and Apple have announced they will bring the 2006 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship distributed by CBS Corporation’s College Sports TV (CSTV) to the iTunes Music Store ( http://www.itunes.com ). For the first time ever, college basketball fans can pay $1.99 per game for condensed versions of all the 2006 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball championship games. Customers can also choose the new “Season Pass” feature on iTunes for $19.99, and receive condensed versions of all 63 games the day after they are played for viewing on a computer or iPod. Full-length versions of this year’s semifinals and championship game, as well as compilations of buzzer beaters, upsets and memorable championship games from past NCAA Tournaments will also be available on iTunes.
The new “Season Pass” feature on iTunes is the easiest way to purchase the entire 2006 NCAA Tournament. Every game will automatically be placed in a customer’s download queue the day after it airs on CBS. Customers will be notified about new game highlights as they become available via email, and can be downloaded once they log into iTunes.
In its first major deal since being acquired by CBS, and as a part of the Company’s strategy to enhance its relationship with college sports fans, CSTV, in partnership with CBS Sports, will produce the condensed versions of CBS Sports’ broadcasts. CSTV also will provide expert analysis and commentary on each game of the package, as well as utilize its vast collection of 250 college sports web sites to market the service to sports fans all over the country.
“While CBS Sports’ coverage of the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship remains the centerpiece of the March Madness experience, iTunes is a great way for viewers to catch games they miss or to keep their favorite moments for viewing on their iPod,” said Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports. “This was how CBS envisioned the future when we made the bundled rights deal with the NCAA in 2003.”
“We’re thrilled to bring all of the 2006 NCAA Tournament action to college basketball fans on iTunes,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “With the new ‘Season Pass’ feature, fans can purchase and view highlights from every tournament game the day after it airs for just $1.99 per game or $19.99 for the whole tournament.”
“Having the ability to watch condensed versions of every tournament game on your iPod brings a unique, new dimension to the NCAA March Madness experience,” said Brian Bedol, president and CEO of CSTV. “The ability to watch ‘games-to-go’ that fans otherwise might have missed as their favorite teams travel down the Road to the Final Four is a great example of how CSTV continues to innovate and improve the college sports fan’s experience.”
The new highlight packages will feature condensed versions of all the games of the 2006 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship, as well as full-length versions of the National Semifinals and Championship Game. In addition, Thought Equity ( http://www.thoughtequity.com ), in conjunction with CSTV, is producing compilations of buzzer beaters, upsets and memorable championship games, which are included in classic game packages. Among those games are Duke’s win over Kentucky in 1992 on Christian Laettner’s last-second shot in the regional final; Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State team that shocked Houston to win the 1983 NCAA Championship; North Carolina’s victory over Georgetown from Michael Jordan’s game-winning basket in 1982 to win the championship title; and Syracuse’s freshman sensation Carmelo Anthony leading his team over Kansas to its first ever championship title in 2003.
With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as integrated video and Podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless integration with iPod and groundbreaking personal use rights, the iTunes Music Store is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and videos online. The iTunes Music Store features a selection of over 3,500 music videos, Pixar and Disney short films, a variety of hit TV shows, and more than two million songs from the major music companies and over 1,000 independent labels.
iTunes 6 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Music Store and is available as a free download from http://www.apple.com/itunes . Purchase and download of songs and videos from the iTunes Music Store requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase. Television shows are available in the U.S. only, and video availability varies by country. Television shows are $1.99 (US) per episode, and music videos and short films are $1.99 (US) each.
Apple's French Dis-Connection?
BusinessWeek's Arik Hesseldahl says:
Take a complicated issue such as copyrights in the Digital Age. Throw in a generous helping of French politics and stir it with a dash of socialist ideology. The resulting concoction might not taste very good to executives of Apple Computer, and indeed could force the computer maker to change the way it does business in the Fifth Republic.
On Mar. 16, France's National Assembly is expected to vote on legislation known as the author's rights law. Among its many provisions, the bill calls for lightening the punishment on unauthorized downloads of copyrighted music. Currently digital pirates can be fined more than $300,000 and see jail time. Under the new legislation, offenders would get a relative slap on the wrist -- a miniscule 38 euro fine -- or less than $50, if the downloading is intended for personal consumption. Illegal sharing would cost offenders 150 euros, or about $180.
If passed -- which some say is unlikely -- the legislation would also require digital music vendors like Apple, Vivendi Universal , and Virgin Megastores, which all operate music-download services in France, to sell music that is compatible with all media players. This provision would hit Apple particularly hard because the computer maker sells music that is compatible only with its own iPod player.
For the full report visit here.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060315_435741.htm
Intel iMac Slows Non-apple Apps
Apple's 20-inch iMac with the 2-GHz Intel Core Duo processor looks identical to the 2.1-GHz iMac G5 that we reviewed in February. The primary difference is that while Apple's own applications run faster on the new machine, current third-party software such as Adobe Photoshop CS2 is not yet optimized for the Intel processor, and such programs may run much more slowly than before.
Right now most of the Intel-friendly software is written by Apple, whose optimized iLife programs (iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, and iDVD) were quicker than their PowerPC counterparts in tests conducted by our sibling publication Macworld. Also, Macworld found that the Intel iMac starts up nearly twice as fast as the previous iMac G5. In my own informal tests, I found using iTunes and browsing the Web with Safari to be much snappier. In contrast, Mozilla's Firefox took twice as long to do the same things.
For the full report visit here.
http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int&id=2789
Corning's Glass Breakthrough For Computer Displays
The Street.com's Scott Moritz reports:
The big maker of liquid crystal display, or LCD, glass plans to unveil a new, purer glass for use in computer monitors and flat-panel TVs. The company has said it wants to make new glass types that cut product weight and production costs.
Corning will share details of the new glass on Tuesday at an industry conference in San Diego hosted by DisplaySearch, a market research shop.
In an interview Wednesday, Jim Clappin, Corning's display chief, declined to share any specifics about the new glass processing chemistry. Nonetheless he glowed about the development.
"This is the most remarkable innovation in glass manufacturing in my experience," said Clappin.
For the full report visit here.
http://www.thestreet.com/tech/telecom/10273778.html
The Intel iMac Part 2: By The Numbers
COMPUTERWORLD's Ken Mingis reports:
There is a debate of sorts raging these days among Macintosh fans about whether they should upgrade to the new Intel-based Apple hardware now on the market. Sure, Intel is the future for Apple Computer Inc., and there’s little doubt that within a year or so, all Apple laptops and desktops will be using its zippy chips -- and most of the software Mac users need will be updated to run on them at full speed.
But that’s next year, not now. So the question remains: Should you buy now?
After spending a few weeks with Apple’s new top-end iMac (and a few days with my own new MacBook Pro), I’d say the answer is a qualified yes.
For the full review visit here:
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,109571,00.html
iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder
A new Apple Knowledge Base article says:
If your hard drive is nearly full after loading all your music into iTunes, or if you just want to move all those music files to another hard drive on your system, here's a way to make the move while retaining all your playlists, ratings, and play history.
You can check it out at:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301748
Apple iTunes Offers First Full-length Film
NewsGator Technologies reports:
Having conquered music and video downloads, Apple Computer is apparently setting its sites on full-length films.
The Disney-produced "High School Musical," a 90-minute, made-for-TV production was recently made available for $9.99 on Apple's iTunes.
For the full report visit here.
http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-6050033.html?part=rss&tag=6050033&subj=news
VoIP Slowly Gaining Ground as Residential Phone Service, with Vonage Expanding Its Share to Nearly Half of the Total Market, According to Telephia
VoIP penetration as a home phone service solution is slowly gaining traction within U.S. households, reveals Telephia, the leading provider of performance measurement information to the converging communications and mobile industries. Overall penetration for VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) increased to 3.5 percent or nearly 3.9 million households in January 2006, up from 2.9 percent in June 2005. Vonage led the VoIP market, which includes all pure-play VoIP companies and providers who actively promote their VoIP service as Internet telephony. Vonage secured a 47.5 percent market share or nearly 1.9 million households in January 2006, up from a 40 percent share in June 2005
According to the Telephia Emerging Personal Communications Options (EPCO) survey, Skype posted an 11.8 percent market share, translating to more than 463,000 households who subscribed to the service in the U.S. during January 2006. AT&T Call Vantage claimed a share of 5.6 percent, representing 218,000 households, while Verizon Voice Wing followed closely with a five percent share, accounting for nearly 196,000 households.
"The combination of voice quality, reliability, and price could be a potent blend in attracting mainstream consumers. With more of the population converting to high-speed Internet connections, it opens up an opportunity for VoIP providers to gain a significant foothold in the market," said Kanishka Agarwal, Vice President of New Products.
Telephia data shows that 67 percent of VoIP early adopter households felt that the voice quality they experienced with the service was equal to traditional landline service, while 19 percent noted that the voice quality was better than wired phone lines (see Table 1). According to Telephia's EPCO survey from June 2005, ninety-one percent of Vonage early adopter households said that the company had equal or better voice quality, while 99 percent of Skype early adopter households felt that Skype scored equal or better than landline phones.
In terms of overall service reliability, 71 percent of VoIP early adopter households reported Internet telephony as having equal reliability to conventional wired phone lines. Sixteen percent considered VoIP to have better service reliability. Vonage also scored high on service reliability, with 91 percent of its early adopter households noting the company's reliability was equal or better than landlines. Nearly three out of four of Skype's early adopter households (74%) thought that Skype had equal or better service reliability.
The Telephia Emerging Personal Communications Options (EPCO) Survey aims to understand the attitudes of households towards emerging communications services, providing integrated insights into household use and preferences across converged landline and wireless phone, VoIP, Internet and TV services.
For more information, visit:
http://www.telephia.com
eWeek: Intel Plugs into System Power
"Intel has made low-power processors its first priority, but its next step is to focus on system-level power management-the cooling fans, circuits and voltage regulators-inside computers, company executives said at its spring developer confab here.
Officials for the chip maker at the Intel Developer Forum said the company's researchers are attacking system power with a series of initiatives they believe could collectively help reduce systems' average power consumption by 30 to 40 percent. These moves, if adopted, wouldn't result in any commercial products for at least three to four years, but they could eventually make a dent in high electric bills."
Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1937884,00.asp
Intel Boosts Energy-Efficient Performance With First Dual-Core Low-Voltage Intel Xeon Processor
Intel Corporation is outfitting server, storage and telecommunications equipment makers with a new ingredient for squeezing more performance out of space- and power-constrained environments. It is the first low-voltage Intel Xeon processor to combine dual-core technology with Intel's innovative power management capabilities, helping to boost energy-efficient price/performance with up to two to four times the performance-per-watt of previous Intel Xeon processors and platforms.
The historical need for raw computing performance has evolved into a drive for energy-efficient performance to meet people's expanding demands -- whether for smaller devices, lower cooling bills or better price/performance per watt. Energy-efficient performance enables equipment manufacturers to optimally balance processing capabilities with power and space constraints to help meet those demands. Intel is driving innovations in multi-core computing architectures through a combination of silicon, architecture, platform and software innovations to enable new levels of performance, capabilities and energy efficiency.
With total dissipated power (TDP) of 31 watts, the new low-voltage Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor is ideal for deployments requiring high compute density and power optimization, including single-height (1U) chassis and blade servers, SAN and NAS solutions, and network infrastructure equipment. The new processor excels at handling demanding multi-threaded, multi-tasking applications such as high-performance computing and financial services.
"The low-voltage Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor's combined enhancements in performance and energy efficiency, along with the efficient power and cooling design of IBM's industry-leading BladeCenter(1), deliver a leadership integer performance-per-watt solution," said Doug Balog, vice president and business line executive, IBM BladeCenter. "The new IBM BladeCenter Ultra Low Power HS20 blade(1) is a solid example of the innovation being brought to market through Intel and IBM's blade collaboration."
To accelerate time to market for telecommunications equipment makers and original equipment manufacturers, Intel also plans to introduce the AdvancedTCA-compliant Intel(R) NetStructure(R) MPCBL0040 Single Board Computer (SBC). This new, high-density-compute SBC features two of the new low-voltage Intel Xeon processors, which equates to four high-performance cores per SBC.
With the performance boost of the new dual-core processor, the MPCBL0040 is expected to service far more transactions and subscribers per system than previous generation products(3), which can help significantly reduce the cost per subscriber and/or transaction and total cost of ownership. This powerful processing capability, offered in the AdvancedTCA standard, is ideal for applications where transaction and subscriber load can increase dramatically in a very short time, such as IP Multimedia Services (IMS), Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and Wireless Control Plane applications.
"HP is helping operators and equipment providers take advantage of the trends that are reshaping the industry, such as the evolution toward open, modular networks; blended, content-rich services; and easy-to-use personal devices," said Ananda Subbiah, vice president, worldwide solutions, Network and Service Provider Business, HP. "The performance and innovation of Intel AdvancedTCA building blocks, combined with the comprehensive services and support of the HP Advanced Open Telecom Platform, are enabling customers to evolve their networks in the most strategic, cost-effective way."
Intel is also planning to offer a blade server solution powered by up to two of the new Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors LV for ultra-dense, low-power environments where density is limited by power and cooling capabilities. The Intel(R) Server Compute Blade SBXD62 will enable server OEMs and resellers to offer their small- and medium-sized business customers a blade server platform to help reduce operational costs and extend IT resources through improved price/performance/watt, operational efficiencies, deployment flexibility and simplified management.
The Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor LV 2.0 GHz and 1.66 GHz are available from Intel now for $423 and $209 per unit, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities. The Intel NetStructure MPCBL0040 Single Board Computer is expected to be available in the second quarter with an initial price from Intel of $4,495 per unit. The Intel(R) Server Compute Blade SBXD62 is expected to ship in April with an initial price from Intel of $945 per unit (price does not include processor, heat sink, memory or hard drive). For more information about low-voltage Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors and platforms, visit http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/xeonlv2sbc
eWeek: Intel Delivers Low-Power Blade Server Chip
"Intel has taken the wraps off of a new, low-power, dual-core Xeon chip for blade servers, the first of three new server chips it will roll out in coming weeks.Read more at:
The chip maker on March 12 said it had begun shipping its Xeon LV chip. The Xeon LV is Intel's first blade server-oriented processor to offer dual-cores. But it also promises to be stingy on power, meeting the needs of the most energy-conscious customers."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1937864,00.asp
Microsoft Watch: Microsoft Rethinks the Beta Process
"If Paul Flessner and his SQL Server team have their way, traditional beta releases may soon be a thing of the past. And they aren't the only Softies who are pushing to overhaul the way Microsoft builds software to more closely emulate the open source process."
Read more at:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1938275,00.asp
ExtremeTech: Sony Confirms PS3 Delay, Talks Hardware Details
"Sony held its PlayStation Business conference in Tokyo today and 1UP's correspondents were on hand to report back all of the details.
Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, took center stage and delivered the big news: PlayStation 3 will not release until November 2006, as previously reported.
However, he also revealed that Sony plans to release the system in Japan, North America, and Europe simultaneously this November. That's right, the PS3 will be in stores before the end of the year - within the first 10 days of November, to be exact. According to the company, it will have a production capacity of 1 million units a month to attempt to keep up with the demand. 6 million units are estimated to be shipped by the end of March 2007."
Read more at:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1938135,00.asp
ExtremeTech: Dell, Alienware Merger Rumors Still Whispered
"Both Dell Inc. and Alienware haven't quite quashed rumors that the PC giant is out to purchase the boutique PC maker.
Representatives of both companies contacted Tuesday and early Wednesday declined to comment on any potential transactions, however."
Read more at:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1938204,00.asp
Charles W. Moore
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