Moments ago I just received an email from Apple concerning a "Special Event" scheduled for Feb. 28, which will take place at Apple Town Hall, Building 4 at 10 AM Pacific Time.

The email contains the headline "Come see some fun new products from Apple" and the graphic is a desktop calendar (pictured), identical to the iCal icon, bearing the date Feb. 28, 2006....

I did my first real test of the controversial MacBook Pro battery today. I wanted to test the MBP in a typical setting for my daily use.....

For years, owners of Macintosh computers from Apple Computer have lived in a computing version of the Garden of Eden, free from the worries over viruses, trojan-horse intrusions, and other digital nastiness that crops up every day for users of Microsoft Windows.

Could it be that those days are coming to an end? Two malicious bits of software showed up on Macs in as many days in mid-February. And while neither appears to be all that harmful when compared with the worst threats to hit Windows, they may indicate more worrisome days are in store -- just as the Mac, newly powered by Intel chips, gains added popularity and attention.

Here's a rundown of what's known about these threats.

Since discovering the Oompa-Loompa (also called OSX/Oomp-A or Leap.A) Trojan horse, Intego has analyzed both the original Trojan horse and two variants that have been found in the wild, in order to determine the level of danger for Mac users. This document outlines the way this Trojan horse functions, how it transmits itself to other users, and how Mac users can protect themselves. Currently, the best protection against this Trojan horse and its variants is Intego VirusBarrier X4, which provides total protection from all known viruses. "It is clear that antivirus software on a Macintosh computer is as essential as wearing a seat belt in a car," says Intego CEO Laurent Marteau. "You only realize how valuable it is when you need it."

Intego was the first to discover this Trojan horse early last week, and updated its virus definitions on February 14, 2006, to provide protection for users of VirusBarrier X and VirusBarrier X4. While the company did this as soon as the Trojan horse was found in the wild, it chose not to publicize the threat immediately, since it could have incited hackers to create variants that may act differently. Indeed, after news of this Trojan horse became public, two other variants were found in the wild. While this Trojan horse currently damages applications and transfers itself to other users via iChat over a local Bonjour network, future variants may have the power to do further damage.

Intego's Virus Monitoring Center has examined the original Trojan horse and its variants and the following questions and answers explain how this Trojan horse works, how it infects Macintosh computers, how it propagates, and how Mac users can protect themselves from it.

Piper Jaffray research analyst Gene Munster called concerns about the impact of Apple Computer's transition to Intel processors on Mac sales "blown out of proportion."

"There may not be significant upside to Apple estimates over the next two quarters based on the Intel transition, but we believe numbers are achievable and we see now as the time to get positioned for the next peak," wrote the analyst in a research note Tuesday.

Owners of the new Intel-powered Macs are hit with a double whammy. OS X had to be rewritten to run on this very different processor family, and to get best performance applications also need to be recompiled (and in some cases completely rewritten) to support the new hardware and operating system version.

OS X software compiled for PowerPC processors will run on the Intel Macs, using a translation layer called Rosetta. But Rosetta's on-the-fly translations sap computer performance. Those applications run noticeably slower than on comparable previous-generation Macs.

Mac OS 9 isn't usable at all on the new hardware, so users who still rely on old Classic mode applications are simply out of luck if, lured by promises of double or triple the performance, they purchase a new Intel-powered Mac.

Or are they?

There are a couple of ways to make an end run around the Intel Macs' lack of Classic mode support. For instance, if users still have their previous Mac around (or if they buy a low-cost Mac like a mini), they could simply keep using it when they need access to that old Classic mode application.

A few weeks ago I received an email from a young family member. It said, "Thomas, do you know of any place where I could get an older laptop computer? Nothing too expensive, just something to play games on and use some old programs"......

I figured I'd turn to the Low End Mac Swap List. With the amount of people there, I knew I'd find something. I didn't even have to make a post saying what I wanted; I found something in someone's listing that day.

It was a PowerBook 520c for $16 shipped. This was a great deal, and I bought the computer almost immediately.....

The total amount I spent on the computer was $26, plus some other cash for a new keyboard. I'm sure it will pay for itself with all the usage it will get.

With Apple's transition to Intel processors in the new iMac and the 15" MacBook Pro, this is a very difficult time to choose which Mac to buy - or whether to buy one at all.

Normally, that isn't a very big deal, as chances are you either already have a Mac that will keep on working as well as always while you let the whole transition thing work itself out, or you're using a PC and can simply postpone your switch until things are more clear in Apple-land.

There are, however, situations where buying now makes a lot of sense.

I'm in the process of starting my own law firm, and rather than put up with all of the viruses and malware faced by Windows-using businesses, I decided from the very beginning that my law practice would be run on Macs. As I am opening my doors next month and stocks of PowerPC Macs are dwindling fast, I really had to make the decision now. I can easily see other Mac users in the same dilemma - if a machine fails or a new employee is added to an existing network, you might just need a new Mac today, instead of in June or July when we know more about the future Macintel releases and which programs are available as universal binaries.

Back to my law office. I need two machines from the start - a laptop for highly mobile me, and a desktop for my office manager. In a few months I'll be adding a paralegal, and I'll need a second desktop at that time. The office manager (my wife) will be doing light secretarial work, accounting, and scheduling.

I ordered it on Jan. 9, the day it was announced. It finally came today.

It’s not really basic Mac stuff because of the price, but I’m going to take this opportunity to tell you about one of the award-winning products introduced at January’s Macworld Conference & Expo that no one is talking about.

It’s called TechTool Protege..... it comes with TechTool Pro and DiskStudio preinstalled on a 1GB flash drive. Of course, anyone can buy a flash drive and copy a couple of utility apps onto it.

But can you boot from it?

What makes this special is that instead of a USB, which so far is unbootable on a PPC Mac, this is a FireWire flash drive, meaning it’s fast and it boots my PPC Mac. I don’t have an Intel Mac to try it on, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it won’t boot that, but only because it doesn’t have the Intel version of the operating system. Word is that the Intel Macs will boot off USB2 hard drives. I haven’t heard if it will boot off a flash drive.