Kenmos Technology and Taiwan Nano Electro-Optical Technology (Nano-Op) have become suppliers of notebook-use LED backlight units (BLUs) for Dell and Apple, with the makers' shipments to the segment expected to soar, according to industry sources.

Nano-Op has already started shipping 12.1-inch notebook LED BLUs to Dell via AU Optronics (AUO), and its 13.3-inch LED notebook BLUs have already been validated by Apple, the sources said.

The sources disclosed that Nano-Op's LED notebook BLU shipments in November were only about 10,000 units, but Apple orders are expected drive up shipments to over 90,000 units in December.

Both Apple and Dell are already set to receive large quantities of small LCDs with LED backlights for imminent notebooks, according to a new report from Taiwan manufacturers. Local firms Kenmos and Nano-Op are said to be producing the thinner, more power-efficient backlights for LCD display makers AU Optronics (AUO) and Chi Mei respectively that will be used for compact notebooks by both of the American notebook designers. Although details of Kenmos' production plans are unclear and may include existing systems such as the 15-inch MacBook Pro or the XPS M1330, AUO and Nano-Op are allegedly producing a 13.3-inch screen for Apple and a 12.1-inch screen for Dell, the report's industry sources claim.

Once upon a more innocent time, I had a Macintosh. Please note that I say "a Macintosh". As in one and only one.

It was a Macintosh SE, which I got new and used for years. I was determined that I'd avoid buying a different computer until I had to. I was able to keep that SE going for nearly nine years, at which time the video circuitry started to fail. I replaced the SE with a Classic.

Logically, there was no reason to keep the old SE. But I could not bear to just toss it out. It was an old friend. It had seen me through a lot. I had used it for every task imaginable - writing college papers, writing some bad short stories, and more. This SE held a lot of history. It had been the computer that allowed me to explore the Digital Wilderness. So I kept the SE without even thinking. I knew I'd probably never use it again, although I figured - what is one unused and unusable computer when it holds personal history?

Two months later, I bought an SE/30 to replace the Classic. I decided to keep the Classic as a backup. It's understandable that one using old hardware would have an extra Mac for backup.

What's harder to understand is what happened over the next four years. I went through four Macs. Each step was a definite step up. Yet I kept every computer I'd had before! I'd become a Man with Macs!...

It's hard to believe, but the MacBook Pro has been around for almost two years now. I can still vividly remember watching the Macworld keynote in 2006 when Steve jobs used his trademark "one more thing" technique to surprise the audience with a final Mac revelation. As a result of Apple delaying the release of the keynote online until the day after the event, I did my best to avoid any kind of news regarding what was announced during the presentation.

Unfortunately, practically every news site on the Web with a technology column posted the new products Steve revealed as soon as it happened. This meant that I was already aware that there was a replacement for the PowerBook G4, and it was called the MacBook Pro.

"The MacBook Pro?" I thought to myself. "Could Steve find a cornier name?" Straight away, I didn't like the name change... I still have fond memories of the PowerBook brand, but I like the way that MacBook tells you exactly what sort of computer you're talking about in a way that PowerBook didn't...

With Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday now behind us, the holiday shopping season is in full swing. Last month, we offered our Holiday Gift Guide to help you sort through this year's gadgets and techie toys.

But shopping for Mac users and Apple fans can sometimes be a challenge -- especially if you want to get something other than the obvious choices, or if you're not as big an Apple fan as the person you're shopping for. With that in mind, here are 10 great gift ideas for the Mac user on your list.

Bong! . . . . . . Welcome to Macintosh!

I hope everyone had a safe and blessed Thanksgiving!

After another hiatus, Welcome to Macintosh is back - this time with Low End Mac's very own Clamshell iBook in hand. Thanks to Dan Knight, LEM's publisher, I've had in my possession the official Indigo Clamshell iBook from LEM's headquarters for about a month now.

I love the little bugger. The hard drive tends to whine, and with 128 MB of RAM, it's not exactly a speed demon under Mac OS X 10.3.9, but it's convenient. Ya just gotta love the thickness and the handle on it. This was one of the more cool and practical designs Apple came up with for a laptop. I'm all for thin, but give me something durable. The Clamshell screams durability.

This iBook is my first modern Mac laptop. I'm very impressed with it so far.

A federal judge dismissed all claims yesterday by the P2P file-sharing network LimeWire that the record industry illegally blocked its attempts to build a legitimate digital music service.

LimeWire's suit was a counter-claim to a copyright complaint bought by the labels last year.

The 13 labels named in the complaint, including the four majors, were accused of price-fixing, hacking LimeWire users, falsely claiming that Lime Wire promotes child pornography, and pressuring artists not to deal with P2P networks.

Dell was kicked into third place in the worldwide laptop market last quarter, as Acer and its associated brands took second slot behind HP.

A grand total of 29 million laptops were shipped in the third quarter, according to researcher firm Displaysearch, up 42 per cent on the year. The firm expects full year shipments to hit 103 million.

The figures show HP consolidating its lead in the third quarter, shifting 6.22 million units, up a whopping 72 per cent on the year. This gave it 21.4 per cent of the market.

Dell shifted 4.01 million units, up just 12 per cent on the year, giving it 13.8 per cent of the market.

Acer shifted 3.72 m units, up 54 per cent and grabbing 12.8 per cent of the market. However, once shipments by recent purchases Gateway and Packard Bell are included, the Taiwanese firm's shipments come to 4.7 million, giving it 16.2 per cent of the market.

Is Apple covertly working on a direct Windows application compatibility for Mac OS X? Some observers have suggested that it may well be after it was discovered that Leopard will attempt to load Portable Executable (PE) files when asked and even try to find relevant Windows Dynamic Linked Libraries (DLLs).

"Both Intel and AMD stole market share from other microprocessor vendors, according to third-quarter rankings released Monday from iSuppli."

After this past summer's iPhone frenzy, I suppose if you don't see a story about this hot-selling gadget for more than a few days, you can speculate that the fever has died down. Or, perhaps more accurately, that people are too busy enjoying them to complain about them.

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