[MyAppleMenu] Jan 17, 2003

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu Newsletter
Friday, Jan 17, 2003

MyAppleMenu : Top Stories
-------------------------
Mouth Wide Shut (Joel Spolsky, Joel On Software)
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/MouthWideShut.html>
"Every word I say, by definition, is a promise."

Mix Master iPod Opens Up A World Of Sound (Tom Mon, Chicago Tribune)
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-030116epipod,1,335859.story?coll=chi%2Dhomepage%2Dfea&vote6264936=1>
Having so much music at your fingertips, with the ability to organize and quickly regroup tunes to follow one stylistic path or mix several, actually changes the listening experience.

MyAppleMenu : News
------------------
Apple Silences iTunes P2P Software (Mathew Broersma and Ian Fried, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981147.html>
Apple's move comes amid increasing hostility between the entertainment industry and music-swapping applications such as Kazaa and the now-defunct Napster.

Apple Posts 'iLife Up-To-Date' Details (Peter Cohen, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0301/17.ilife.php>
Apple on Friday offered details about its iLife Up-To-Date program, an incentive to get new Mac users to upgrade to the iLife package when it begins shipping later this month.

Apple Picks Up Wired Rave Award (MacMinute)
<http://www.macminute.com/2003/01/17/wiredrave>
The Apple's Mac OS X team picked up an award for excellence in software design.

Students To Click With New Laptops (Stephanie Angelyn Casola, Observer & Eccentric)
<http://observer-eccentric.com/local/Livonia/story4.shtml>
The Livonia school board agreed to buy a mobile computer lab for classroom use at Johnson Elementary School.

MyAppleMenu : Opinions
----------------------
Is QuarkXPress Hurting Power Mac Sales? (Gene Steinberg, Mac Night Owl)
<http://www.macnightowl.com/#quark>
It may seem like an extreme headline, and perhaps a serious charge. But Apple's statements in recent weeks make it clear that Quark Inc.'s lateness to the Mac OS X party is having its effect.

Never Forget Your Customers (Brian Babcock, The Globe And Mail)
<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20030117/CABAB2/Business/business/businessGeneralHeadline_temp/1/1/6/>
We may have to follow the example of Steve Jobs, who learned that it's with "hands-on" contact and real listening that a true understanding of the customer's problems can then be translated into a product that provides a solution and creates value.

Apple Needs More Of The Old Magic (Mathew Ingram, The Globe And Mail)
<http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20030116/wmath0116/Front/homeBN/breakingnews>
What Apple needs is something to drive sales in 2003 and 2004, and it's not clear that a new large laptop and a new small laptop will do it, or upgraded versions of the iMac and iBook.

How About An Apple-Sun Merger? (Steve Anglin, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/2631>
Given both companies' poor financial positioning in the equity market, an Apple-Sun merger or, at least, partnership would make sense for the following reasons.

David Pogue On Missing Manuals As Performance Art (Jennifer Buckendorff, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.missingmanuals.com/pub/a/oreilly/missingmanuals/news/interview2_0103.html>
Pogue dishes on what makes a poorly written guidebook, how it could be that Apple doesn't know what its own "letters" feature is, and why it's so important to him to get a book to press in a dizzying two weeks.

On iCommune (Joey deVilla, Forwarding Address)
<http://saladwithsteve.com/osx/2003_01_01_archive.html#90194284>
The file-sharing capability might fall beyond the accepted definition of "console".

What Does That $8 Million Loss Mean? (John H. Farr, Applelinks.com)
<http://www.applelinks.com/articles/2003/01/20030116172503.shtml>
The good news is that Apple is continuing to pump money into new products even in the midst of an unoffical recession.

MyAppleMenu : Reviews
---------------------
Heroes Of Might & Magic IV (Jay Swartzfeger, Inside Mac Games)
<http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=344>
Heroes of Might and Magic IV is the best yet in the series. If you’re a fan of the legendary series or just looking for a new strategy title, then Heroes of Might and Magic IV will not disappoint.

iListen 1.5: New Speech-Recognition Software For OS X Lacks Polish But Offers Transcription Support (Scholle Mcfarland, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/01/reviews/ilisten/>
At this point, IBM's ViaVoice--although it also has its flaws--is a better choice for most. The primary benefit of iListen today is the ability to transcribe documents dictated into a tape recorder.

Never Say Die (Robb Mandelbaum, Smart Money)
<http://www.smartmoney.com/theagenda/index.cfm?story=20030116-tech>
What to do when it costs more to fix your laptop than it's worth?

Links Championship Edition (Adam Karneboge, MyMac.com)
<http://www.mymac.com/karneboge/linksce_1.17.03.shtml>
It is enjoyable in its current state if you have a relatively new Macintosh, but if your machine is more than two years old, forget about it.

PrinTrio (Tim Robertson, MyMac.com)
<http://www.mymac.com/robertson/printrio_1.17.03.shtml>
A good value. A good printer. You will not be unhappy with the PrinTrio.

Hexen II And Heretic II (Bill Stiteler, Applelinks.com)
<http://www.applelinks.com/reviews/hexen2-heretic2.shtml>

PHP 4.3 And Mac OS X (Adam Trachtenberg, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/php/2003/01/17/phpcookbook.html>
After reading this article, you'll know how to download, configure, and install your very own PHP on Mac OS X.

JBL Creature (Patrick Leyden, Inside Mac Games)
<http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=333>
Keep in mind that sound fidelity can be very subjective, so if you are interested in the Creature speakers it would be a good idea to listen to them and decide for yourself. But after using the system for a few weeks, I found that the JBL Creature speakers deliver richly textured sound for both gaming and multimedia applications.

MyAppleMenu : Wintel News
-------------------------
Microsoft Thrills, Chills Investors (Joe Wilcox, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-981148.html>
Microsoft's stock split and first-ever dividend weren't enough to overcome Wall Street's apprehension about the software giant's reduced projections for 2003.

Microsoft Sets Dividend, Splits Stock (Joe Wilcox, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-981035.html>
Microsoft set its first-ever annual stock dividend Thursday and said it will split its stock as quarterly earnings surpassed expectations.

More Wintel News at <http://www.myapplemenu.com/wintel/>

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow : Top Stories
----------------------------------
Rule Your Own Realm: The Ultimate E-Mail Address (Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/16/technology/circuits/16basi.html>
Registering a domain name is easy, but the competing deals can be confusing.

After The Copyright Smackdown: What Next? (Siva Vaidhyanathan, Salon)
<http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/17/copyright/index.html>
Don't despair at the Supreme Court's gift to Disney, says one expert. The fight has really only just begun.

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow : News & Opinions
--------------------------------------
Will New Filters Save Us From Spam? (Scarlet Pruitt, InfoWorld)
<http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/03/01/17/030117hnspammit.xml?s=IDGNS>
The roughly 500 programmers, researchers, hackers and IT administrators gathered in a chilly classroom on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Friday aren't just looking to slow the relentless onslaught of spam -- they want to completely destroy its business model.

Oracle To Unwrap 9i Portal Enhancements (Cathleen Moore, InfoWorld)
<http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/03/01/17/030117hnoracport2.xml>
The new enhancements, dubbed OmniPortlet and Web Clipping, aim to shift portal development away from enterprise IT departments to non-technical business users, according to John Magee, vice president of marketing for Oracle9i Application Server. The end result is increased user productivity and lowered development costs, he said.

This Is Your Deep Link On P2P (Michelle Delio, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57230,00.html>
Following links from one Web page to another may soon require users to run special stealth applications, if a Danish search company's experience is a sign of things to come.

Will Tech Titans Derail Web Services Plans? (Paul Festa, ZDNet)
<http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-981059.html>
Disagreement over intellectual property issues could derail a new Web services standards effort.

Pentagon Database Plan Hits Snag On Hill (Declan McCullagh, Wired News)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-980889.html?tag=fd_top>
A Pentagon antiterrorism plan to link databases of credit card companies, health insurers and others--creating what critics call a "domestic surveillance apparatus"--is encountering growing opposition on Capitol Hill.

Grid Computing Good For Business (Randy Dotinga, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57231,00.html>
Grid computing is making its debut in the corporate world, and this debutante is ready for romance.

Librarians Split On Sharing Info (Julia Scheeres, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,57256,00.html>
In the year following the passage of the Patriot Act, librarians' response to law enforcement requests for patrons' records has been sharply divided, according to a nationwide survey.

Hackders Humble Security Experts (Brian McWilliams, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57229,00.html>
A wisecracking group of hackers confirmed that its claim this week that it spread an antipiracy virus was nothing but a hoax aimed at garnering fame.

Wi-Fi Group Gives First 802.11a Certifications (Stephen Lawson, InfoWorld)
<http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/03/01/16/030116hnwifi.xml?s=IDGNS>
The industry group Thursday unveiled the first list of products built for the IEEE 802.11a standard that have passed interoperability testing in its lab. That standard uses radio frequencies in the range of 5GHz and calls for a maximum data rate of 54M bps.

CERT Warns Of DHCP Vulnerability (Patrick Gray, ZDNet Australia)
<http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-980957.html>
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Coordination Center has warned of a serious security vulnerability in the Internet Software Consortium's (ISC) DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) software, which is shipped with multiple operating systems including popular Linux and BSD variants.

ACLU: You're Being Watched (Lisa M. Bowman, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-980964.html>
When it comes to snooping on Americans, Big Brother has a lot more gadgets at his disposal.

Military Worried About Web Leaks (Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1023-981057.html>
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned in a directive sent to military units this week that too much unclassified but worrisome material was popping up on the Web, and said Al Qaeda and other foes were sure to take advantage of it.

UnitedLinux Readies Telecom Package (Margaret Kane, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-980949.html>
The Linux operating system is continuing its spread across industries, with UnitedLinux releasing technology designed for telecommunications carriers.

SAP Pushes Web Services Plan (Alorie Gilbert, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1001-980982.html>
Software maker SAP on Thursday recruited Microsoft and IBM as part of a new initiative to simplify how companies build their business systems.

MyAppleMenu Reader : World
--------------------------
Clemency Without Clarity (Scott Turow, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/opinion/17TURO.html>
Perhaps the best argument against capital punishment may be that it is an issue beyond the limited capacity of government to get things right.

MyAppleMenu Reader : Life
-------------------------
Opting Out Of Hypermass (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal)
<http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110002929>
Modern culture creates its own escape routes.

In Berkeley, Strollers Find Art With Curb Appeal (R.W. Apple Jr., New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/travel/escapes/17CRAF.html>
More than anyone, Arts and Crafts architect Bernard Maybeck made Berkeley one of the nation's architectural treasure-troves. Much of his extraordinary work still stands today, on and near the campus of the University of California and in the hills above it.

Please Don't Bite The Star (James Gorman, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/arts/television/17WILD.html>
Some of the old-style shows, like "Nature" on PBS, are still on, but Animal Planet and some newcomers like the National Geographic Channel have no bounds and know no shame.

Penguins Get A New Will to Swim (Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/national/17PENG.html>
The week's most riveting celebrities are 52 Magellanic penguins at the San Francisco Zoo, who have spent the last three and a half weeks swimming round and round a shallow pool in a mysterious marathon.

My Disappearing Daughter (John George, Salon)
<http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/01/17/anorexic/index.html>
I watched my confident teenager head off to college. A few months later, I greeted a fragile, frightened apparition -- 35 pounds thinner than when she'd left. A story of anorexia, guilt and understanding.

Circle The Block, Cabby, My Show's On (Marc Santora, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/16/nyregion/16TAXI.html?ex=1043695757&ei=1&en=181fd9a4a79f60a2>
Half a billion eyeballs were left with nothing to do except look out the window. It was only a matter of time before television came to the taxi.

At CNN, It's All Problems, All The Time (Verne Gay, Newsday)
<http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/ny-p2top23088830jan16,0,1615419.story?coll=ny%2Dentnews%2Dfeatured>
Why can't CNN get its act together? Here lies one of the most pressing -- and perplexing -- questions in all of television journalism.

With Incessant Postings, A Pundit Stirs The Pot (Noah Shachtman, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/16/technology/circuits/16inst.html?tntemail0>
Being a law professor, author, husband, father, part-time record producer and space policy wonk would have been enough to keep most people busy. But Glenn Reynolds needed more.

MyAppleMenu Reader : Expressions
--------------------------------
Love Work (Gardner McFall, The Atlantic)
<http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/antholog/mcfall/lovework.htm>

Landscape With Deer And Figure (Henri Cole, The Atlantic)
<http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/antholog/cole/landscape.htm>

Discretion (Robert Wrigley, The Atlantic)
<http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/antholog/wrigley/discretion.htm>

MyAppleMenu Reader : EOF
------------------------
Who Says Science Can't Be Fun? (Karlin Lillington, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,57232,00.html>
At MIT's Media Lab and its offshoot, Media Lab Europe, engineers don't take their work too seriously. Often, they find that useful inventions can spring from a whimsical approach to tackling complex problems.

MyAppleMenu SingaporeSurf : News & Opinions
-------------------------------------------
Singles In The City And Love Engineers In Singapore (Mar-Vic Cagurangan, ABS-CBN.com)
<http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/abs_news_body.asp?section=Opinion&oid=13614>
Does it make you cringe?

Singapore-U.S. Trade Deal - A Model For Asia? (Reuters)
<http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/2003/01/16/rtr849216.html>
Economists said the deal could set the standard for other big exporting Asian nations, such as Thailand which suffered a huge outflow of capital at the start of the 1997-98 financial crisis but is now among Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economies.

More Singapore News at <http://www.myapplemenu.com/singapore/>

More
----
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MyAppleMenu is edited by Heng-Cheong Leong. This site is not affiliated with Apple Computer, Inc., or any other companies in any manner. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Power Macintosh, PowerBook, iMac, iBook, iPod, and eMac are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. All other brands or product names are trademarks of their registered holders. Copyright &copy; 1996-2003 Heng-Cheong Leong. All rights reserved.