[MyAppleMenu] Jul 23, 2003

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu Newsletter
Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003

MyAppleMenu : Top Stories
-------------------------
Apple Cuts Prices For Students, Teachers (Ina Fried, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1042_3-5052346.html>
As part of its efforts to stem a market share decline, the company is offering college students and teachers larger discounts on new Macs -- up to 15 percent more off of some models.

MyAppleMenu : News
------------------
Apple Releases Mac OS X Server Security Update (MacMinute)
<http://www.macminute.com/2003/07/23/macosxserver>

A Look At The Upcoming Panther Server OS (Ryan Faas, Computerworld)
<http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/macos/story/0,10801,83353,00.html?SKC=macos-83353>
Here's a quick snapshot of some of the changes in the works from the current OS X Server release, based on information from Apple's Web site.

Konfabulator 1.5 Brings Host Of New Features (MacMinute)
<http://www.macminute.com/2003/07/23/konfabulator>
Version 1.5 adds over 200 new features, including support for drag and drop, direct text input, keyboard events, mouse event tracking, and better desktop integration.

New Mac-Centric Blogging Service Debuts (Peter Cohen, MacCentral)
<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/07/23/sparkpod/>
Features include commenting, image uploading, auto-archiving, design templates and automatic announcements.

The Official G5 Interview (IT-Enquirer)
<http://www.it-enquirer.com/macosx/appleinterview.html>
IT-Enquirer had an interesting interview with Apple's Tom Boger, the product manager for the Power Mac range.

'Glitch' In Apple Server Software (Macworld UK)
<http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=6634>
The Security Corporation claims to have identified a flaw affecting Apple's QuickTime/Darwin Streaming Server software.

Number 1 With A Whimper (Rob Walker, Slate)
<http://slate.msn.com/id/2085779/>
If it takes just 1,500 sales to be No. 1 on the digital download chart in Billboard, then the variety of tracks that people are downloading mus tbe extremely broad.

Apple UK Offers Xserve Leasing Program (MacMinute)
<http://www.macminute.com/2003/07/23/xserveleasing>
Apple UK has launched a new program that offers qualifying professional customers the chance to lease a range of scalable Apple server solutions at attractive monthly rates.

MyAppleMenu : Opinions
----------------------
Penny-Pinching PowerBook (Michael J. Norton, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/07/22/cheap_powerbook.html>
You can have an Apple laptop for less than $200.

Readers Reply: Designed To Confuse (International Herald Tribune)
<http://www.iht.com/articles/103776.html>

Hands On Throttle And Mouse: The Dogfight Over The Mouse Button (Del Miller, Applelinks.com)
<http://www.applelinks.com/abacus/hands_on_throttle.shtml>
Apple: Keep the one button mouse!

Tiem For Apple To Rethink Its Options (Alex Salkever, BusinessWeek)
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2003/tc20030723_2824_tc056.htm>
Jobs & Co. should follow Microsoft's lead and give up its passion for dispensing huge options grants. And how about paying investors a dividend?

Why David Coursey's OS X On Intel Proposal Just Doesn't Make Sense (Dan Knight, Low End Mac)
<http://www.lowendmac.com/musings/03/0722.html>
In the end, Coursey's proposal would create a third platform that is neither Wintel nor PPC/Macintosh.

Lessons From Apple (Danielle Iuliano, Empower America)
<http://www.empoweramerica.org/stories/storyReader$829>
We need clarification of what fair use means for technology.

MyAppleMenu : Reviews
---------------------
Logitech MX300 (Jean-Luc Dinsdale, Inside Mac Games)
<http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=385>
The odd fourth button placement aside, this mouse is the mosue to go for Mac users and gamers who want better and more precise control out of their mice at a price that won't break the bank.

Menu Master 1.0.1 (Craig Grannell, MacUser UK)
<http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=44492>
Almost every Mac user has to use cumbersome shortcuts at some stage during their work, and we think $10 is a small price to pay to standardise shortcuts in all your most important applications.

Keyspan USB Bluetooth Adapter (Ian Johnson, Globe And Mail)
<http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030722.gtbluejuly22/BNStory/TechReviews/>
The Keyspan USB Bluetooth Adapter is a handy little piece of hardware -- it's portable, easy to install and it works. With hardware like this, Bluetooth's time may finally have come.

C Is For Cocoa (Seth Roby, O'Reilly Network)
<http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/07/22/cocoa_series.html>
You will learn all the C you need to know to learn Cocoa, and ignore the rest.

1GHz eMac: Apple's Best Desktop For Education Gets More Appealing (Jennifer Berger, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/1ghzemac/>
This revision strengthens the eMac's position as the best Mac desktop for education environments, and the eMac retains its endearing qualities: a squat, heavy, kid-resistant exterior; easy-to-use programs; and an intuitive operating system. But it's also a great choice for everyday consumers who need only the basics.

900MHz iBook: The Last Of The G3s Gets A Small Update (Jennifer Berger, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/900mhzibook/>
The iBook is excellent for the basics, but remember that it's the only Mac still using a G3 processor. We were also underwhelmed by the iBook's keyboard, but it may not bother everyone.

Mac OS X Internet Clients: MSN Or AOL? Both Offer Mail Filters, Parental Controls In Bid For Subscribers (Philip Michaels, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/macosxinternetclients/>
With AOL and MSN matching each other in terms of features, the question of which service is superior boils down to where your particular interests lie.

Lift NN/g: Guidelines By Design Gurus Add Value To Web-Site Accessibility Tool (Lisa Schmeiser, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/liftnng/>
Fans of the Nielsen Norman Group's Web-accessibility guidelines will benefit greatly from this thorough and useful testing tool, as will Dreamweaver buffs. The references are invaluable, as are the tools for tracking and fixing errors found during testing.

Painter 8: Unparalleled Natural-Media Painting Tool Gets A Much-Needed Interface Redesign And New Brushes (Ben Long, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/painter8/>
Painter won't turn you into a great artist, but if you're used to real-world media and tools, you'll be astonished at how well the program mimics what you already know -- with no muss, fuss, or fumes.

ShutleXpress: Customizable Device Enhances Your Control Over Video And Audio Applications (Anton Linecker, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/shuttlexpress/>
Contour Design's ShuttleXpress is a compact, useful controller that follows neatly in the footsteps of the ShuttlePro, which will be a fine alternative if the ShuttleXpress's five buttons are not enough for you.

EazyDraw: Drawing Application Straddles Hobby-Pro Line (Andrew Shalat, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/eazydraw/>
EazyDraw defies categorization. It has the illustration-tool features you'd expect from a higher-end application, but its odd interface and limited output capabilities will slow down, rather than speed up, your work.

Tip: Keep Some "Head Room" On Your Mac OS X Volume For Best Performance, Fewer Errors (MacFixIt)
<http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20030722075052544>

The Game Room: Get Into The Action (Peter Cohen, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/thegameroom/>
This month I look at several different takes on the action genre -- a modern relative of Dungeons and Dragons, a 3-D romp with a bouncing orb, an homage to top-down-scrolling games of yore, and three variations on classic puzzle games. One thing they have in common is some fast and furious play.

SoundSoap 1.0: Noise-Reduction App Helps Eliminate Hiss And Hum (Christopher Breen, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/soundsoap1/>
There's no question that SoundSoap ably and easily removes noise from just about any audio file you throw at it -- and if that's all you have to do, then this is the tool you need.

Mask Pro 3: Photoshop Plug-In makes Simple Work Of Tough Masks (Ben Long, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/maskpro3/>
We recommend it to anyone who needs to make quick, accurate masks.

Sorenson Squeeze 3 Compression Suite: Utility For QuickTime, Flash And MPEG-4 Is Easy To Use But Doesn't Completely Ease Editing Workflow (Christopher Breen, Macworld)
<http://www.macworld.com/2003/08/reviews/sorensonsqueeze3suite/>
Despite its occasionally inflexible interface, it offers the easiest way to apply professional-quality compression to movies. People who need video compressed in the Windows Media and RealMedia formats should look into Cleaner.

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow : Top Stories
----------------------------------
Respect Copyright, Says A Pious Hollywood (Dan Gillmor)
<http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001216.shtml#001216>
The point of copyright is not solely to pay creators. It's equally designed to get ideas and inventions -- arts and sciences and scholarship -- first into the the public sphere, and ultimately into the public domain, where other creators build on them to make new art, new science, new scholarship.

MyAppleMenu Tomorrow : News & Opinions
--------------------------------------
Web Services Not Spared From Budget Ax (Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com)
<http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5053130.html>
Shrinking IT budgets have forced corporations to cut back on Web services spending but such projects still remain a top priority, according to a Gartner report released Wednesday.

Developing Systems Of Online Payment (Bob Tedeschi, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/technology/21ECOM.html>
A few start-up Internet companies are taking on a problem that goes back to the earliest days of online commerce -- micropayments.

Advice For Middle Management (Dana Blankenhorn)
<http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/20030701.shtml#45686>
If you really have a Clue, you have to run your own shop.

Why Biometrics Is No Magic Bullet (BusinessWeek)
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2003/tc20030722_2846_tc125.htm>
This promising ID technology works best in controlled situations -- which are hardly the norm in the real world.

Tired Of The Telly? Reprogram It (Leander Kahney, Wired News)
<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59690,00.html>
A Colorado startup, Interact-TV, has released a hacker-friendly digital entertainment center that plays, records and archives TV shows, DVDs, music and even digital photo albums.

MyAppleMenu Reader : World
--------------------------
The Cuban Missile Tape Crisis (David Greenberg, Slate)
<http://slate.msn.com/id/2085761/>
Just how helpful are the White House recordings?

At War For Freedom (James Woolsey, The Observer)
<http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1001642,00.html>
The former Director of the CIA says that America should make no apology for its robust response in the "war on terrorism". And if that makes other states nervous, so much the better .

MyAppleMenu Reader : Science & Tech
-----------------------------------
The New Science Of Dyslexia (Chrstine Gorman, Time)
<http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030728/story.html>
Why some children struggle so much with reading used to be a mystery. Now researchers know what's wrong -- and what to do about it.

Yips, The Curse Of Golfers, Are Put To The Test (Monica Davey, New York Times)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/23/science/23GOLF.html>
Yips are the sudden jerks, clenches, twitches or spasms that can send an easy two-foot putt right off the green.

The Lost City Of Venice (Josh McHugh, Wired)
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/venice.html>
For centuries, St. Mark's Square has been slowly slipping closer to Atlantis. Here's how a massive system of floodgates could turn the tide.

MyAppleMenu Reader : Life
-------------------------
The Me-Moir: Publishing's Vanity Project (Linton Weeks, Washington Post)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32034-2003Jul22.html>
I am in My Summer of Memoirs. The story you are reading, ostensibly an exploration of storytelling genres, is really all about me. And about what it's like to be me.

MyAppleMenu SingaporeSurf : Top Stories
---------------------------------------
Unionists Raise Discomfort Over Labour Chief Lim's Remarks (Farah Abdul Rahim, ChannelNewsAsia)
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/45091/1/.html>
Union chief Lim Boon Heng found himself in the hot seat on Tuesday as union leaders spoke of their discomfort at recent comments he made on companies retrenching staff while they are still profitable.

Singapore Fling (Baltimore Sun)
<http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-ed.singapore22jul22,0,4922308.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines>
The modern world's only Confucian state, has taken a long look in the mirror -- and found itself, well, boring.

MyAppleMenu SingaporeSurf : News & Opinions
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US Lawmakers Debate Free Trade Agreements With Singapore, Chile (Dan Robinson, Voice Of America)
<http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=6E586E2B-7435-4456-BDF85B680F53989F>
The House of Representatives is set to debate Wednesday free trade agreements between the United States and two trading partners, Singapore and Chile. Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over the merits of the new agreements, while key U.S. labor organizations are pressuring members of Congress to vote against them.

People Willing To Walk To Buangkok MRT, Says Survey (Christopher Tan, Straits Times)
<http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,200975,00.html?>
New poll refutes reasons cited for not opening station; SBS sticks to decision.

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

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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.