Intel has already launched its first desktop 45nm 'Penryn' processor, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 and has begun seeding next year's QX9770 - reviewed here. And now we know what it's planning for laptops.

While these desktop CPUs are quad-core parts, the mobiles will be dual-core chips, DailyTech reports. They'll debut on 6 January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and just ahead of Macworld Expo....

All four chips have a thermal envelope of 35W, which matches current Core 2 Duo processors, allowing notebook makers to slot the new chips in without having to redesign the machines' thermal characteristics....

...Intel's next update of the current incarnation of its Centrino notebook platform. Santa Rosa's successor, 'Montevina', is due in May 2008 and will see the introduction of 25W CPUs capable of running on an 1066MHz frontside bus (FSB) - Santa Rosa uses an 800MHz FSB.

Intel shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to its mobile processors. Intel's Core-based architecture has being doing remarkably well in the marketplace with Celeron-M, Pentium Dual Core, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors covering the vast spectrum between budget and high-end notebooks.

Intel will up the ante again on January 6, 2008 with its new 45nm Penryn-based Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme dual core processors.

It's highly plausible that the chips could make their first appearance at CES 2008 (January 7, 2008) with further unveils at MacWorld 2008 in Apple's oft-rumored tablet, revamped MacBook Pros or refreshed iMac desktops.

In a widely reproduced 1994 article, novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco famously argued that <a href="http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html">"Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant."</a> In that spirit, and with apologies to the maestro, imagine for a moment the technological backbone of Jewish communal worship. The vast majority of it looks remarkably consistent, but around the edges there are new alternatives gaining popularity and drawing the attention from the traditional market leaders.

Established synagogues have all the advantages of Windows, an operating system base used in more than 90% of computers around the world. We know how they work, we recognize them wherever we go, and in return, we tolerate their shortcomings...

Can a Leopard change its spots, or a Tiger its stripes? Creative rabbi-led emergent communities sure think so. The problem with Windows isn't the user experience, much of which works very well, but the underlying operating system, which is out of date and hopelessly complicated.

Far better to start over on a Mac, with stunning graphics and impressive ergonomic design, preserving the best of what's out there, but creating an interface that will ensure that the technology remains relevant to our everyday priorities. From time to time, certainly, they'll reinvent the wheel, figure out something from scratch that they could have copied from Windows, just so they can say it originated on the Mac. But that's part of the project: forcing people to take a second look at what they took for granted in order to finally appreciate the beauty of the still, small microchip.

Then there are the independent minyanim. They are the Linux operating system of the liturgical world. They're free to use, have very low overhead, and every time someone comes up with an improvement or bug fix, it's quickly disseminated throughout the user network.

After reading Charles Moore's recent article, The Case for a Quiet, Cooler Running, Low Powered MacBook, suggesting a cooler-running, lower-powered MacBook and sending him a lengthy reply, I thought that I should weigh in on this topic. Speed, (lack of) heat, noise, battery life, and a number of other factors go into the design of a portable computer, and like any other manufacturer, Apple must balance these factors, as well as cost, before arriving at a retail product.

You've all seen those signs at retail stores to the effect of "Cheap, Fast, Good: Pick Any Two", and so it goes when designing a computer. For a laptop, the equation has more variables, but it's basically the same. Speed, price, weight, noise, battery life, size, durability, and other, more specialized specifications (such as docking, optical drives, connectivity and screen type) all are considered.

Apple made a number of choices in its MacBook and MacBook Pro that make them ideal for some users - and poorly suited to others.

The US Department of Justice has given government backing to the $222,000 fine slapped on Minnesota woman Jammie Thomas. She was successfully sued by the Recording Industry Ass. of America earlier this year for illegaly sharing 24 songs.

In a brief filed in federal court in Minnesota yesterday, acting assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bucholtz wrote that the penalty is not "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense"....

A Supreme Court constitutional judgement precedent prohibits financial penalties "so severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously unreasonable"....

Thomas' lawyers will argue that the fines of $9,250 per song uploaded to Kazaa are disproportionate to the money the record industry would have coined from legitimate sales.

I've definitely learned something in recent weeks about reacting to the inevitable problems that will happen in life--how it can be possible to turn a problem into a huge opportunity, but also how a problem can become an even bigger problem overnight with neglect.

Perhaps it was inevitable for Apple this year, as the nearly unprecedented iPhone hype from this summer was followed by a surge in Mac shipments. Peeved by their experiences upgrading to Leopard, some high-profile Apple customers have taken to the Internet in recent weeks to complain, suggesting that Apple is leading them on with the brand promise of the Mac.

It's never clear in the early going exactly how many people as a whole run into problems with Macs, since things get quickly blown out of proportion under the intense scrutiny paid to Apple. But the basic complaint seems to be: this ain't what we thought it would be. Buggy upgrades? Security issues? This is why we switched to the Mac in the first place, right?

Another possible theory about iWork and the number five

Jim Dalrymple at Macworld reports on what can only be described as astonishing news about iWork, at least for anyone who has compared Apple's productivity suite with Mac Office.

According to NPD Group, Apple's efforts with iWork have paid off. The revamped suite has captured 16 percent of the office productivity application sales on the Mac, with Microsoft's Office taking the rest. While that figure is "a success for Apple," NPD says, the market-research firm doesn't feel that number is sustainable once Office 2008 arrives on the Mac.

I'm not having a change of heart or a mid-life Widget crisis. Most Dashboard Widgets are pretty much worthless (to me, at least) and others agree.

However, I am rethinking the value of Widgets on my Mac, what they mean to me, what they do, and I worry whether Widget development will continue.

Stacks is one of the selling points of Leopard, and many users love it. Many, but not all. If you'd like to use hierarchical menus in Leopard, try one of these three solutions.

Quay 1.0 was released last week as shareware , Quay provides custom-sorted hierarchical menus, re-sizable icons and a customizable dock icon.....

Also available is freeware HierarchicalDock by Eternal Storms Software.....

Finally, check out OldFolder.

When I first told people about the Eye-Fi Card ($99 list), I was greeted with little enthusiasm. "So what," they said, "it's not that hard to transfer photos from your camera to your PC." But then, when I actually showed these naysayers how the Eye-Fi Card works, their interest was measurably piqued. You go out and take pictures. You return home, turn on your camera and, within 20 to 30 seconds, your images (JPEGs only) begin uploading wirelessly—in full resolution—to your hard drive and your favorite photo-sharing sites. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection, a camera that accepts SD cards, and a PC or Mac. It's really that simple.

I started late (1997) but have had dozens of Macs pass through my hands &endash; I still have my first one, the Road Apple PowerBook 150 that got me through Law School, and will keep it despite my basement purge/cleanup that I'm presently going through &endash; three Centris 610s, three Power Mac 6100s, a 7100, and a 5400, as well as five Mac monitors, a still-working-but-falling-apart PowerBook 165c, the remains of a dead TiBook, and two StyleWriter printers are heading to the electronic recycling center this weekend.

Despite this, my basement will still hold a Mac Classic (stored), a spare PowerBook 150, three G3 iMacs (I hope to give to nieces/nephews), two G4s (being upgraded for the kids to use Leopard), and a Cube (for me to play with), while upstairs we have an eMac (for the wife) and an iBook (for me).

.... despite disposing of 10 Macs, I will still have 12 Macs in the house. I can only imagine how many I would have if I had kept some of my favorites &endash; a Mac Portable, a PowerBook 180c, my Indigo clamshell iBook 366, or my wife's old Plus - or if I had an unlimited budget.

Ultrasmall desktop PCs

Apple Mac Mini
HP dc7800
Lenovo ThinkCentre A61e

At 6.5 in. wide and deep, two in. high and weighing less than three pounds, the Mac Mini is, by far, the tiniest of the three small computers we looked at. It's also, arguably, the most elegant-looking. While the other units look like shrunken desktop computers, the Mini is a sleek silver-and-white unit with rounded corners. There is nothing on the front panel except an optical drive slot and a tiny light showing whether the unit is turned on.

Here we are in the thick of the holiday shopping season, and no matter your faith or creed you know that the kids, tweens and teens in your life will be expecting something nicely wrapped. What can you give them that will help get them going on the Macintosh Way or enhance their iPod educational options? Read on for a brief and subjective list; for more, you can check out Apple's kid-specific section of the Macintosh Product Guide or check out our Education and Gaming categories.

Flip Boom, from Toon Boom Animation, $30. Who's going to support you in your dotage? Hopefully, your well-paid animator kids. Flip Boom brings the TB pro products into the kid-friendly world with easy and fun animation design.

AppleInsider has picked up a story from DigiTimes in Taiwan about suppliers shipping "notebook-use LED backlight units (BLUs) for industry heavyweights Dell and Apple, with shipments to each supplier expected to soar in the near-term".

LED BLU screens are typically used for 7in digital photo frames and portable DVD players, and in the subnotebook market. The increasing availability of these 7in screens underlay Microsoft's attempt to bump-start a UMPC market with Origami. (I'd assume the OLPC uses one.)

PC Mag: What Not to Buy in 2007

"Gift buying is nice, but if you're a smart shopper, you know that there's no better time to buy for yourself than during the holidays. There are great new products and amazing deals available to you right now. Of course, it's just as easy to screw up purchases for yourself as it is to blunder on someone else's gift. That's why I'm here to introduce my third annual "What Not to Buy" guide to ensure your holiday-buying success."

Up till now, Mac users have been spoiled. Each and every release of Mac OS X has been shown to be demonstrably faster than its predecessor, whereas with Microsoft Windows it's usually the reverse.

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