From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Jul 1 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 1 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 1, 2008 Message-ID: <20080701171501.29364.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** AT&T To Offer iPhone Without Contract For $400 More by Crayton Harrison, Bloomberg Customers can buy the new handset, which uses speedier third-generation technology, for $599 if they don't want to commit to using AT&T's network, the Dallas-based company said today in a statement. **** AT&T iPhone 3G Price Details by Jeff Longo, MacRumors.com AT&T has announced detailed pricing information for its iPhone 3G plans. **** Getting Ready To Support Mac On The Corporate Network by Tricia Liebert, TechRepublic **** Changes 1.0 by Dan Frakes, Macworld If you've got two folders that you want to have the same contents, or if you're just trying to figure out which of two folders has the latest versions of your files—Skorpiostech's Changes 1.0.4 can help. **** No 'Apple Effect' Seen For NAND Market by Mark LaPedus, EE Times What happened to the "Apple effect" that is supposed to ignite the worldwide NAND flash-memory market? **** 17-Inch MacBook Pro Is A Thing To Behold by Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle It's the fastest, most powerful and most capable notebook I've tested. **** SproutCore: Apple's Path To iLife Online? by Seamus Byrne, APC By bringing Cocoa development into the land of pure Javascript, SproutCore has the long-term potential to give Apple the power to deploy core desktop applications to users on any platform while avoiding the proprietary traps associated with Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight. **** OS X Leopard For Physicists by An American Physics Student In England **** The iPhone's Love/Hate Relationship With Hackers by Dave Jewell, The Register I foresee an increasingly fractured marketplace developing around the iPhone. In one camp you will have tons of games available from App Store and in the other, tons of very clever utilities and productivity enhancements from the rest of us. **** A World Ruled By Apple by John Carroll, ZDNet.com Software is still the great leveler. There's just a lot more agreement regarding common terms of software discourse, thus making it less necessary for any one company to provide all the terms itself. **** 7 Weeks Later: Life Without MS Office by Leigh McMullen, Cult Of Mac The big surprise is that I also can't live without iWork. **** Safari 3.1.2 Fixes Critical Security Flaws by MacNN Apple on Monday released Safari 3.1.2 for Mac OS X 10.4.11, which fixes an issue that could lead to arbitrary code execution and patched another flaw that was previously corrected in the Mac version. **** Inside The OS X 10.5.4 Update by Rob Griffiths, Macworld **** Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.4 by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Apple on Monday released Mac OS X 10.5.4 fixing several issues with iCal, AirPort, Safari, and Spaces & Expose. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Touch Computing Hits Its Stride by Aaron Ricadela, BusinessWeek Microsoft's Surface and other touch-sensitive products can simplify complicated interactions, but are software makers and consumers game? **** Adobe To Help Reveal 'Invisible' Flash Web Content by Steven Musil, CNET News.com Adobe has given Google and Yahoo optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to help them better index dynamic web content and rich internet applications that include the Flash file format, or Shockwave Flash (SWF), Adobe said in a statement Monday. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** When In The Uterine Empyrean They Told Me by Patrick Donnelly, Slate SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** No Suggestive Photos In Dating Agency Ads by Straits Times /It's the return of ASCII art. :-)/ **** The Love Guru Comedy Rated NC16 For Its Raunchy Humour by Boon Chan, Straits Times The censors have received feedback that the Mike Myer's film might be 'religiously sensitive,' said the Media Developement Authority in a statement on Tuesday. **** Watch What You Write, Singapore Media TOld by Malaysiakini The Malaysia high commissioner to Singapore has taken personal exception to a news article on Rosmah Mansor, the wife of deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, hinting this could well lead to bilateral relations being strained again. The article, 'First Lady-in-waiting', was published in English-language daily /Today/ on June 27. **** Scrap Car And Get PARF, COE Rebates In Cash From Sept 1 by Straits Times Reversing a rule that dates back more than three decades, the government will allow motorists to get their scrap and COE rebates in cash when they deregister their cars from Sept 1. The move, announced by the Land Transport Authority on Tuesday, is to make it easier for car owners to give up their cars and switch to public transport. **** Some Random Thoughts On Singapore On My Last Day Abroad by World Enough And Time The cost of living here must be astronomical, I think. **** Tampines Cycling Footpath Trial Stretched By 6 Months by Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times Minister for national development Mah Bow Tan said that while the majority of residents responded well to the trial, it will be extended so more can be done to ensure that cyclists and pedestrians have an easier time on footpaths. /The cynic in me thinks that the original trial did not meet the targets that enable cyclists to move onto pedestrian footpaths, so the trial is extended so that "things" can be "fine-tuned". The decision has been made; now it's just to make sure the evidence supporting the decision will exist in the next six months./ **** New Formula For Public Transport Fare Revision To Be Out This Week by Christopher Tan, Straits Times The previous fare formula was based on inflation, wages of commuters and the productivity of the transport operators, with weightage given to inflation. If that formula was still in place, fares could rise by 3.85 per cent - or about five cents per ride - from October. Next year, the increase in public transport fares could be far higher as inflation is now hovering at a 26-year high of 7.5 per cent. **** Diversity Through Migration by Philippe Legrain, Centre For Governance And Leadership The benefits of migration and diversity are significant. Ultimately, they are key factors of why cities are a catalyst for innovation and are so economically successful. Thus countries—and cities—that do not attract newcomers increasingly risk falling behind. **** Leaving No One Behind! by Huang Shoou Chyuan, nofearSingapore How do we ensure that it is going in the direction that we want to go? And that all of us will arrive in one piece - preferably better off than when we first left? **** Two Views Of Freedom Of Speech And Law In Singapore by Yeong Yoong Ying, Press Secretary to Minister Mentor, Singapore, and Andrew T. Cheng, Wall Street Journal Many opposition politicians routinely criticize government leaders, but are not sued because they have not uttered slanderous falsehoods. Contrary to your editorial, Singapore upholds free speech and the right to disagree, subject to the law. **** Easing The Train Crush by Leong Wee Keat, Today First parallel bus service to run from Monday, but commuters say trains may still be faster. /Of course trains will be faster. And that's why the new bus service should be priced cheaper than the train service, so that those who cannot afford the train service can opt for a cheaper yet slower transportation mode./ **** New Blood In Workers' Party by Zul Othman, Today **** Some Question If Singapore Is Ready For Free Debate At Upcoming Liberal Arts College by Channel NewsAsia Singapore may see its first liberal arts college soon, but with its emphasis on freedom of debate, some have questioned if Singapore's society is ready for the challenge. /We will never be ready for anything if we don't try./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Jul 2 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 2 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 2, 2008 Message-ID: <20080702171501.99653.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** AT&T Says Original iPhones Can Be Inactivated And Used As WiFi iPods by Slash Lane, AppleInsider Original iPhone owners who prefer not to give away their old iPhones after upgrading to an iPhone 3G can instead keep their devices and use them as WiFi-enabled iPods, AT&T has confirmed. **** CaliBrate 1.1 by Dan Frakes, Macworld It's easy to edit a single event in iCal, but what if you want to modify multiple events? **** Carriers Cheerfully Take Heat On iPhone Pricing by Matthew Trevisan and Matt Hartley, Globe And Mail For all the consumer griping over pricing plans for Apple Inc.'s new iPhones, the exclusivity contracts the big telecom carriers have signed with the computer giant to distribute the coveted touchscreen devices are paying off as planned. **** Is SproutCore Worth The Flash And Java iPhone Snub? by Tim Anderson, The Register **** Beware The Coming Of The Mac by Richard Adhikari, Internet News IT staff are not prepared to deal with Apple Macs, either from a management or a security perspective, as the overwhelming majority of desktops in the enterprise are Microsoft Windows boxes. **** Current iPhones Keep Cheaper Plan On Reactivation by Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS AT&T gave me an answer this afternoon: The current 2G iPhone plans will continue to be available for people who want to start up new service plans with someone's old phone. **** Apple, Execs Sued For Fraud From Backdating Scandal by MacNN A lawsuit was brought against several key Apple executives on Friday, accusing CEO Steve Jobs and several others of fraud, in relation to the stock option backdating scandal in recent years. **** How Apple Is Blurring The Line Between Marketing And Service by Pete Blackshaw, RCR Wireless News Service is marketing. As marketers struggle to "engage" consumers, service may well be the easiest ad msot gratifying starting point — and one with high sales conversion potential. **** MacBook Air Too Light For Its Own Good? by Barry Collins, PC Pro Admittedly, there's a fairly limited set of circumstances where it becomes a problem. But if Jonathan Ive could find it within himself to design an optional dead-weight attachment for the MacBook Air, I and the rest of the Sussex-bound commuters would be forever in his debt. **** Why Instinctiv Avoided The iPhone SDK by Matt Rosoff, CNET News.com I'm pretty skeptical about ANdroid's chances of changing the world. When buying a phone, are consumers really looking for a large choice of applications? No. They're looking for a cool phone that does a few things ver well, and a service provider that offers reasonable service int he widest possible range. **** What's The iPhone 3G Worth? by Laura M. Holson, New York Times **** Are iPods About To Get Cheaper? by New Zealand Herald To me, it would appear Apple would be very sensible to reduce the price of the iPod touch. Quite dramatically. If so, this should ripple on to effect the price of the small-screen iPod nano and the virtually control-free and screenless, ciip-on iPod shuffle. /Or, Apple can add new features to the iPods. Smallness (as in physical dimensions) and largeness (as in storage space) are two such features./ **** How To Hand-Down Your Old iPhone After Upgrading To iPhone 3G by AppleInsider **** AT&T iPhone Pricing: The Good, The Bad And The Complicated by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek It all makes my head spin: Why not offer a single, unlimited voice and data plan? And why, oh why aren't text messages included with data? **** Apple Posts iPhone 3G Guided Tour, "What's New" Highlights by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica The video covers everything from its "simple, sculpted design" to App Store and more. **** Microsoft Releases Remote Desktop Client 2 For Mac by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Remote Desktop Connection 2 includes muliple session support, allowing users to connect to multiple computers at the same time. **** iPhone 3G Questions, Answered by Dan Moren, Macworld Besides releasing rate plan details, AT&T has also posted answers to some of the lingering queries that new and existing AT&T customers might have about snagging themselves an iPhone 3G. **** ResizeMe Batch Image And Photo Editor Debuts by Peter Cohen, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Adobe PDF Now An ISO Standard by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK Adobe has handed over control of its Portable Document Format (PDF) format to the ISO (International Organisation for Standardization). **** Bloggers Take Aim At Google by Miguel Helft, International Herald Tribune **** Spam Experiment Overloads Inboxes by BBC News Surfing the web unprotected will leave the average web user with 70 spam messages each day, according to an experiment by security firm McAfee. **** The Spam Superhighway by Chris Wilson, Slate What's "port 25," and what does it have to do with internet junk mail? **** How Twitter Could Be Worth Nothing In A Year by Don Reisinger, CNET News.com It may be difficult to believe such a popular site could be worth nothing in a year, but the way I see it, it's certainly more likely than Twitter being worth $1 billion in that time. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Night Visions by Hilary Mantel, The Guardian I don't know whether the dreams of writers are better or worse than the dreams of other people, but I think perhaps they are different. **** For The Drama Of Roottop Dining, The City Is A Backdrop by Laura M. Holson, New York Times When the weather gets warm, Dana Haddad takes the fun up to the roof. **** A New York Expatriate's Magnificent Obsession: Pizza by Chris Ladd, New York Times Jef Varasano woke at 2.50 a.m. so he could get to his kitchen, measure precise quantities of water, flour, salt and yeast on a digital scale, and then mix them together. Sixteen hours later about 30 guests would be arriving, and they would want pizza. **** The (Hungry) Odd Couple Of The Nathan's Hot-Dog-Eating Contest by Sarah DiGregorio, Village Voice Training for July 4 with Eater X and Crazy Legs. **** Symphony Of Millions by Alex Ross, New Yorker Taking stock of the Chinese music boom. **** Why We Need Movie Reviewers by Erik Lundegaard, Slate Believe it or not, critically acclaimed films generally do better than critically panned films at the box office—if you measure their performance in the right way. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Attacks By Lee Kuan Yew Getting Weirder And Weirder by Chee Soon Juan, Singapore Democratic Party The outrageousness of Madam Yeong's lie borders on the comedic. Mr Lee Kuan Yew, or his counsel, is in possession of court transcripts and audio-recordings that would show whether I had uttered those words. He must now produce the part of the transcript that quotes me saying those words or he risks destroying his own credibility. **** Privie And Ayam Penyat No Complain Clause by Presenting The(new)mediaslut! Both food establishments have devied that the best way of addressing a complain is to take down the posts. While they have erased the unhappiness in the short term, the long term damage is done. **** Sg Politics Is Not Good For Anyone by Kaffein-nated The PAP responses these days have really gotten weirder and weirder. I have to contend with "Singaporeans are complacent", "What to do, it has happened", "Let's move on", "I am appalled and flabbergusted", "GST is to help the poor"... **** Dr Balakrishnan Says Internet Will Change How Politics Is Conducted by Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia Minister for community development, youth and sports Vivian Balakrishnan said politics in the future will be marked by a diversity of views, but a diversity of ideas will not necessarily lead to the discovery of truths. /Truths? Politics is never about truths. It is more about compromises./ **** Important To Build A Gracious Society by Tan Kin Lian, The Online Citizen Make our people feel that it is a privilege, and not a burden, to be a Singaporean citizen. **** Singapore Food Festival 2008 by Singapura Daily Makan Photo **** Use ERP Fees To Subsidise Fares by Kelvin Kwan Chee Hong, Today From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Jul 3 13:15:02 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 3 Jul 2008 17:15:02 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 3, 2008 Message-ID: <20080703171502.252.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** DJ Your Independence Day Party With Your Mac by Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet.com There are several ways to use your Mac to create a nice party atmosphere, here are some of the options. **** Sync Your iTunes Libraries by Joe Kissell, Macworld iTunes can easily share its content over your local network. Bt if you want a complete copy of your media library on more than on emac, you'll need to synchronize some files. However, merely copying, say, a folder full of AAC files from one Mac to another is not enough. **** 10 Things We Love About Apple by Chris Smith, T3 The design, the flair, the innovation, the iPod... need we go on? **** 10 Things We Hate About Apple by Duncan Bell, T3 The polo-necks, the smuggery, the price, Bono, Apple TV... Need we go on? **** Twitterrific 3.1 by Dan Moren, Macworld In ordr to /truly/ experience Twitter to the fullest, you really need to be using an external client, like the Iconfactory's truly excellent Twitterrific 3.1. **** Deveopers Satisfied With Apple's Enterprise Work by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Overall, Mac developers seem pleased with Apple's position on the enterprise market. While a little more promotion might be nice, focusing on growing the business seems to be in everyone's best interest. **** Ultrathin Laptop Showdown by David Haskin, Reseller News Although the other laptops also had their strengths, the bottom line is a clear win in usability and user perception for the MacBook Air. **** Why OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Should Leave PowerPC In The Cold by Seamus Byrne, APC If Snow Leopard is all about a bedrock for the future of computing, why do so many people still call for their legacy hardware to be supported? **** Hello: Macs Are About To Get Interesting Again by Pete Mortensen, Cult Of Mac The public is ready for Apple to really tear it up with a killer line of new computers. Incredible new hardware and emerging standards will push the limits of what we thought Macs could do. **** Apple On iPhone Plan Pricing: What's So Complicated? by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek So Apple called today, a little annoyed with my portrayal yesterday of AT&T's iPhone pricing. **** How To Launch An iPhone: A Tale Of Two Videos by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune What would AT&T's video — or for that matter, the July 11 launch — look like if they had been produced by the folks who designed the Apple Store? **** Some General Tips For Switch To Mac From Windows by Walter S. Mossberg, AllThingsD Here's a quick tip sheet explaining a few of the most common differences in the daily use of Windows XP, from which most people would be switching, and Apple's Mac OS X Leopard, which switchers would be adopting. **** iPod Commercials Are The New Ad Outlet For Music Artists by Kayla Faigoust, Tiger Weekly As the art form formally known as the music video dies on the shelves of MTV executives, one last music outlet exists in the form of Apple's iPod commercials. **** Google Talk Coming To The iPhone. Death Of The Text Message Approaching? by MG Siegler, The Industry Standard Google has unveiled a web-based version of its Google Talk instant messanging client specifically built for the iPhone. Quite simply: It's amazing — but it has limitations. **** The iPhone's Cross-Border Price Clash by Simon Avery and Matt Hartley, Globe And Mail The summer launch of the iPhone in Canada was supposed to be a time for Rogers Wireless Communications Inc. to celebrate. Instead, the company with exclusive rights to the hottest new tech gadget finds itself on the defensive, stung by public criticism over pricing. **** Apple iPhone Four Months Behind OS X In Patches by Brian Krebs, Washington Post It might surprise iPhone users to learn that the latest security update available for the iPhone dates back to February, and that a number of serious security vulnerabilities that Apple long ago patched in OS X remain unaddressed in the most recent version of the iPhone. **** Apple To .Mac Subscribers: Sync Bookmarks By Sunday by Philip Michaels, Macworld .Mac subscribers who want to keep any bookmarks they've saved through the online service should sync those bookmarks with their Mac by July 6, Apple said Wednesday. /And remember to send that one last iCard, too. :-)/ **** Acer, Apple, Dell, And HP Sued For Patent Infringement by Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek **** Adobe Releases Reader 9 by Peter Cohen, Macworld Acrobat 9 features native support for Adobe Flash, so PDF documents can now contain Flash video and other multimedia content. **** GraphicConverter 6.1.1 Adds New Features by MacNN The new features include decoding of all images with mime attachments, a set label in operator function and a sort by label and/or creation date option in the browser. **** Cocktail Utility Updated For Mac OS X 10.5.4 by Peter Cohen, Macworld Cocktail puts a graphical user itnerface on many of Mac OS X's advanced Unix functions that are otherwise accessible only by using the Terminal application and a command line interface. It combines maintenance tools and interface tweaks broken out into five basic categories. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Social Media Is The Future Of Politics... And Independence! by Huffington Post Just as media has grappled with, and now leverages, user-generated content, politics is experiencing its first brush with /viewer-generated-activism/. **** Five Realities Of Google Or Any Other Workplace Wonderland by Deb Perelman, ZDNet.com **** Google Ad Deal Is Under Scrutiny by Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post The Justice Department has opened a formal antitrust investigation into a deal struck last month that would allow internet titan Google to provide some search advertising for Yahoo, according to sources familiar with the inquiry. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Major Road Closures During Singapore's F1 Race by Leonard Lim and Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times With the Formula One race set to roll into town in late September, Singaporeans can expect extensive road closures in the City Hall and Marina Centre area. /With the government extracting huge amount of money from the hotels around the area, I wonder if the government is paying compensations to all the shops affected by the loss of human traffic during the race./ **** On Patriotism by Wary Of The Waves And in my whole 2 decades and a third of life in Singapore, no one ever told me what patriotism should mean to me. **** When The Media Starts To Smell Fishy by Mr Wang Says So And what about old media — would it reinforce only the "right" ideas? Well, perhaps you would say so. Especially if you belong to the ruling party and the state controls all the old media organisations. Including the ideas that the media organisations write about. **** Singapore Government's Comfort With New Media by This Lush Garden Within The government would appear to be working for the benefit of the dominant political party, rather than the other way round. **** Old And New Singapore by Stonemole I am always struck when I go to Singapore by the juxtaposition of old and new buildings all around the country. **** Why Doesn't Chee Sue MM? by Gabriel Sim, Simply Gab **** Of Governments And New Technologies by Tym Blogs Too So one is releasing information out there in the hope of getting something good back in return, while the other is still concerned with the Sisyphean task of outshouting the crazies. As a tax-paying citizen, I certainly know which project I'd rather my government be working on. **** The Illustrious Press Freedom Topic Again... by Perry Tong, A Singaporean Is the press then to be held liable and responsible for what is today a truth and proved to be a lie tomorrow? Or vice-versa? **** How 'Public' Is Singapore's Public Transporation System? by Alton Tan, The Online Citizen Will the government only finally step in when low/middle income citizens resort to bicycles as a form of transportation and public transport becomes nothing but a luxury for the poor? **** IBA Says It Did Not Send Letter That LKY Testified It Did by Singapore Democratic Party IBA has confirmed to the SDP that there was no such letter. According to the IBA its president did not write such a letter. The Law Society of Singapore has also denied that it has received any such letter from the IBA. **** The New Authoritarianism by John Kampfner, The Guardian A modern form of authoritarianism, quite distinct from Soviet Communism, Maoism of Fascism, is being born. It is providing a modicum of a good life, and a quiet life, the ultimate anaesthetic for the brain. **** Leave It To Our Readers To Judge by P N Balji, Today We will leave it to our readers to judge us on that. See Also: 'Treat With Much More Circumspection Allegations...' , by Dato'n Prameswaran, High Commissioner of Malaysia to Singapore. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Jul 4 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 4 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 4, 2008 Message-ID: <20080704171500.48115.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Review: SOHO Organizer 7.0.2 by Tom Negrino, Macworld SOHO Organizer allows for easy sharing of contacts, calendars, and notes in small groups, with good synchronization of that data to mobiled devices. Its contact and celandar features are far superior to Address Book and iCal, while remaining easy to learn and use. **** Review: iCal 3.0.3 by William Porter, Macworld It's a bit weak in the task-management department, but even business users may now find that iCal can manage everybody's calendars easily, effectively, and economically. **** Espy 1.0 by Roman Loyola, Macworld I'm one of those people who can't remember names, but I do remember faces. That's why I like GoGoalSoft's Espy, an address book that uses an iPhoto-inspired interface for sifting through your contacts. /I'll be frank: I cannot reember names, nor can I remember faces./ **** Dear Steve Jobs by Bettina Wohlgemuth I was wondering whether you have ever considered inventing an "Apple Family of the Year" award. I am asking because my family — being my hubby-to-be, our unborn baby (due at the beginning of September) and me - would perfectly qualify for it. **** Jobs 2.0 by Brian Caulfield, Forbes Pity whoever has to follow Steve Jobs at Apple. **** Decision Central by John Sheesley, TechRepublic Can you /really/ declare independence if you wanted to? I'm not so sure. **** Counterpoint: "Hello", Don't Change The Design by Leigh McMullen, Cult Of Mac The point: A classic is a classic. **** Early Photos Of Beijing Apple Store Emerge by MacNN The store is inside a commercial complex called The Village, also home to companies like Nike and Zara. **** Will Higher Data Plan Costs Hurt iPhone 3G Sales? by Roman Loyola and Christopher Breen, Macworld **** Gain Quick Access To Log Files In 10.5 by Rob Griffiths, Macworld Console is a front-end for all the various log files created by both OS X itself and the programs you use with the system. **** Apple Slashes $500 From MB Air SSD Price by Electronista Apple on Friday has quietly cut the price on the MacBook Air's solid-state drive by $500, bringing the price of the pre-built 1.8GHz model with the 64GB flash drive to $2,598 from its previous $3,098. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Google Told To Turn Over User Data Of YouTube by Miguel Helft, New York Times A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the web's largest video site by far. **** Why Application Developers Think CIOs Are Clueless by Mike Gualtieri, CIO.com >From being a control freak to being a vendor puppet, here are nine behaviors management needs to steer clear of or risk being labeled "clueless." MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** United States Of Anxiety by Trisha Ready, The Stranger The floods, the Calfornia wildfires, and the violence in Chicago are nothing compared to what the slow-motion disaster of a crumbling economy is doing to us. A personal account of a breakdown. **** Humor Isn't Funny by Paul Constant, The Stranger But Steven Segal is. (Kind of.) SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Chee Lies & Is Ungrammatical! by Mollymeek With no reference to any particular person, the manipulative use facts to cause others to form their own distortions; the foolish distort facts and eventually convince themselves of the veracity of their own distortions; and the wise arrive at truths by themselves. The bimbotic merely watches, half weeping, half laughing. **** Transcript Confirms Yeong's Dishonesty by Chee Soon Juan, Singapore Democratic Party You hide the fact ath I was referring to Mr Singh's wild conclusions, and that since /he/ was making all these allegations, /he/ might as well throw in these terms. Your letter was not even a case of taking my words out of context, it was a wholesale twist of imputing to me something I was not saying. It is childish, unbecoming and a gross lack of intellectual decency. **** Online Journey Planner To Help Commuters Plot Their Travel by Straits Times Launched by the Land Transport Authority and Transitlink on Friday, the online service integrates information on both buses and trains and will help commuters travel more seamlessly. **** Enforcement May Be Partly Lacking, Says NEA by S Satish Appoo, National Environment Agency, Straits Times We accept there will be areas where enforcement may not be adequate. We encourage the public to continue giving feedback on smoking-prohibition infringements they come across by calling our 24-hour hotline. **** A Justice System To Protect The Strong Or The Weak? by Gerald Giam, The Online Citizen The organ sellers — poor, rural Indonesians — were punished with the full force of the law, while their rich buyers may not even face prosecution. **** Chee Lies Again by Yeong Yoon Ying, Press Secretary To Minister Mentor, Today I enclose p. 115 of the verbatim court reporting transcript of the hearing on 28 May 2008. Line 11 onwards reads: Mr Davinder Singh: "... And to conclude on Dr Chee's submissions, he says that he doesn't wish Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Mr Lee Hsien Loong ill. In that same breath, he says he stands by The New Democrat article, which alleged that they are 'criminals, corrupt, and covered up matters in the NKF'. And under his breath he's now just said 'murderers and robbers'." Dr Chee: "And rapists, too, you might as throw it in, you know, right? Child molesters". Mr Singh: "And this is the man who says 'I don't wish them ill'." **** NSmen Go Through 7 Screening Tests by Sheralyn Tay, Today But government should do more, says top cardiologist, urging more heart checks. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Jul 5 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 5 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 5, 2008 Message-ID: <20080705171501.75810.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Who Would Wait A Week In Line For An iPhone 3G? by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune The WhoFarm, that's who, a newly formed publicity-seeking environemntal grop with a mission: to persuade the 44th president of the U.S. — whoever that turns out to be — to transform the White House's 17-acre lawn into an organic farm. **** Just How Fast Do You Want Your Computer To Be? by Charles Arthur, Mail & Guardian For most people, we've already reached the point where you don't need any extra processing power. /I don't agree. The reason that there are no real killer-app that demanded more CPU is that there is a fundamental change in Moore's Law. Instead of faster CPU, which application can easily take advantage of, we are looking at more CPU cores instead, which is difficult to take advantage of. Just ask Microsoft./ **** Where The iPhone Failed by Stephen Wildstrom, BusinessWeek This may end up being a big step back for consumer freedom of choice. **** Early iPhone Adopter On Fence About New One by Glenn Fleishman, Seattle Times None of this has yet triggered my early-adopter credit-card-disgorging reflex. **** Apple's Long-Term Strategy Paying Off by Stickybuffalo.com If other companies start following suit, Apple will finally have broken out of its tiny market share ghetto, and Windows will dwindle. **** Apple Lands Largest Corporate Client In Europe by MacNN Geerman newspaper publisher Axel Springer is migrating to the Mac platform and says it will replace all of its PCs with both Mac notebooks and desktops over the next five years, becoming Apple's second largest corporate client. **** My Mac Problem: Too Many And Too ALike by Matt Asay, CNET News.com Here in the Asay home we have a growing problem: Each year we add a Mac to the fold, making it increasingly more difficult to tell them apart. **** It's Already Begun: iPhon 3G Line Starting In New York City by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider Although it's not the first release and ample supply is expected, a queue has reportedly begun outside of Apple's Fifth Avenue retail store to buy iPhone 3G a ful week before its release. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Tech Site For News Junkies Launched By Dave Winer by Jack Schofield, The Guardian Now there's a fast-loading site that keeps you up-to-date with some new product news. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Fair Play For The CIA by James M. Murphy, The Times We must not forget that the CIA was formed in an era of civic trust and patriotism. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** George Yeo Says Singapore Must Not Get Involved In Malaysian Politics by Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia "We are not a participant. It's important we don't take sides in their domestic politics, indeed in the domestic politics of any neighbouring country. It is not wise and it will only complicate our bilateral relations. We deal with whoever is in power." **** Where Have All The 'Kopi Hows Gone? by Good Morning Yesterday At the time when guys of my generation were leaving school in the late sixties and seventies, coffee houses became very popular for young working adults. /My only memories of coffee house are those in the Hong Kong drama serial. :-)/ **** Ex-Singaporean Gopalan Nair Arrested by Channel NewsAsia Gopalan Nair, a former Singaporean who currently faces two charges for insulting two High Court judges, has been arrested for disorderly behaviour in public and for using abusive words against police officers. **** Poverty Looms In Isle Of Riches by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star If the PAP cannot improve the lives of the middle class and the poor, it could face a crisi in the 2011 election. **** What Should Be The Role Of Media? by My Singapore News We should have more opinionated pieces on issues local and foreign to give readers a chance to examine them more throughly and provoke into thinking a little more. /We should have all kinds of reporting — "objective" and opinionated./ **** Students' And Bloggers' Reaction To Vivian Balakrishnan's RI Lecture by The Online Citizen **** The State And The Media And Their Embarrassingly Passionate Embrace In Singapore by Mr Wang Says So No one really believes that the Singapore press has its own indepndent opinions. Certainly not the Malaysian government. **** Singapore's Poor Law by The Online Citizen The government's much-lauded Workfare Scheme might actually end up doing very little for low-income groups. It could result in wages for low-income groups continuing to be depressed by lessening the incentive of employers to pay better wages. /On a selfish level, I must wonder why I, as a taxpayer, must subsidise the rich tai-tais that employ cheap maids, the kopitiams that employ cheap cleaners, and the zhi-chai stall owners to emply cheap cooks./ **** Internet Start-Up Sues MediaCorp by K. C. Vijayan and Chua Hian Hou, Straits Times Legal tussle over online recordings of TV shows that web users can download. **** Why Extend Bike Trial When It's A Done Deal? by Cheang Peng Wah, Straits Times It is clear that much extra work is being done just to accommodate cyclists on footpaths so as to produce a successful trial. /We are now in the wayang phase./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Jul 6 13:15:02 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 6 Jul 2008 17:15:02 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 6, 2008 Message-ID: <20080706171502.84190.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple's iPhone Could Find Asia Tough To Crack by AFP With the phone already in circulation, the novelty factor will be less, which could emphasise the importance of pricing for the new model. And that could prove to be an obstacle. **** From Windows To Mac: Three Biggest Tips For Switchers by The Blog From Another Dimension Having helped several people make the switch from Windows to Macs, I have seen pretty clearly some common problems people have when making the switch. Walt Mossberg wrote a short article on this, and his observations are pretty spot-on, albeit abbreviated and limited. I just figured I'd do my own long-winded version. **** No Going Back When You're Hooked On Mac by Jo Stanley, Sunday Herald Sun Apple do a fantastic job at making things look really pretty, spacially efficient and usable for idiots like me. **** If You're Open To Growth, You Tend To Grow by Janet Rae-Dupree, New York Times At the beginning of each interview, Scott Forsall, senior vice president of Apple in charge of iPhone software, warned the recruit he couldn't reveal details of the project he was working on. But he promised the opportunity "to make mistakes and struggle, but eventually we may do something that we'll remember the rest of our lives." The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Electronic Papyrus: The Digital Book, Unfurled by Anne Eisenberg, New York Times **** What Happens After TV's Mainframe Era Ends Next February? by Doc Searls, Linux Journal MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** The Urge To End It by Scott Anderson, New York Times "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem," Albert Camus wrote, "and that is suicide." How to explain why, among the only species capable of pondering its own demise, whose desperate attempts to forestall mortality have spawned both armies and branches of medicine in a perpetual search for the Fountain of Youth, there are those who, by their own hand, would choose death over life? Our contradictory reactions to the act speak to the conflicted hold it has on our imaginations: revulsion mixed with fascination, scorn leavened with pity. It is a cardinal sin — but change the packaging a little, and suicide assumes the guise of heroism or high passion, the stuff of literature and art. **** Numerology by Jordan Ellenberg, New York Times "One to Nine" offers a different model for teaching math — discursive rather than linear, topical rather than abstract and remote, and, above all, manically energetic rather than repetitive and plodding. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Measures To Manage Traffic Congestion Are About Trade-Offs by Liang Kaixin and Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia Senior minster of state for transport Lim Hwee Hua said: "What I think this whole package says is that there are a lot of trade-offs that have to be made. At the end of it, we will have to decide whether our time... the quality of life is more important." **** Singapore's Property Boom Cooling: Analysts by AFP Singapre's booming residential property sector is finally showing signs of cooling but projects including two casino developments should underpin long-term prices, analysts say. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Jul 7 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 7 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 7, 2008 Message-ID: <20080707171500.15494.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple's Not So Secret Army by Brian Caulfield, Forbes Faced with a crush of media interst in the run-up to the new iPhone's launch July 11, some developers are talking to reporters, but they're begging off discussing specifics. Touchy topics span the technical details of their applications to the feedback they received from Apple. **** INQ Hack Goes Mac by Dean Pullen, The Inquirer I like the no-fuss OS, the bells and whistles, and the ability to work for longer than ten minutes without my disk rotating at maximum velocity for an eternity. **** Segway Top Designer Moves To Apple by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK **** Apple And Adobe Bully Small Busiensses Over Name Rights by Daniweb These companies fail to understand there is a bright line between a trademark violation and using the trademark in a legitimate fashion to promote a business that's a natural off-shoot of the brand. **** Service And The Fifty Percent Rule by Ross Mayfield It is curiously obvious that complex products not only need after-market support, but giving it equal treatment increases profit through customer satisfaction and loyalty. **** Apple MacBook: Change Is In The Air by Brooke Crothers, CNET News.com The Air shouldn't change too much. With a simple performance upgrade, it would be an even more remarkable computer. **** The Disruptive Potential Of GPS On The iPhone 3G by Charles Jade, Ars Technica GPS makers will no doubt be coming to the same realization that those selling MP3 players are now experiencing, and that PDA makers have already been forced to deal with. Convergence is a bitch. **** iPhone To Be Costliest In India On Lack Of Subsidy by Rajesh S Kurup, Business Standard The much-awaited 3G iPhone is likely to cost a fortune in India, unlike in global markets, with Indian service providers unlikely to subsidise the gadget, like AT&T in the US and O2 in Germany. /At this point, this is just speculation or rumor. However, what is interesting is that the speculated unsubsidised price of the iPhone is "at least double the amount of that in the US", while AT&T's price is thrice the subsidised price. (And yes, I noticed the qualifier "at least".)/ **** The iPhone And TiVo - The Digerati Is Out Of Touch by Adam Turner, iTWire 100MB per month is about right for the entry level plans. If you're just checking your email, dipping into Google Maps and doing a little web surfing such as reading blogs on the train, then 100MB per month should meet your needs. **** Apple Opens Nation's Largest Store At WEM by Rosemary Westwood, Edmonton Journal Hoots, hollers, high-fives and a lineup hundreds of people long sounds like Commonwealth Stadium on game day. But that was the scene outside Edmonton's new Apple Store at 10 a.m. Saturday as the tech giant opened its sixth and largest Canadian outlet to anxious fans. **** PhotoTiles 1.0 Tiling Software Released by MacNN Limit Point Software has released PhotoTiles 1.0, an application used to create a single image of a tiled group of cells that can be images of other visuals. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Technology Reshapes America's Classrooms by Jason Szep, Reuters >From online courses to kid-friendly laptops and virtual teachers, technology is spreading in America's classrooms, reducing the need for textbooks, notepads, paper and in some cases even the schools themselves. **** ISV Creates Open-Source Alternative To Twitter by Briony Smith, Computerworld Wikitravel and Certifi.ca founder Evan Prodromou launched last week an open-source microblogging tool that will give users — including those int he enterprise — an alternative to industry leader Twitter. **** Google's Inner Conflict by Josh McHugh, Portfolio.com As the search-engine giant expands into more and more areas, the outside affiliations of its board members may start to become problematic. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** 2B Or Not 2B? by David Crystal, The Guardian Some people dislike texting. Some are bemused by it. But it is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adapt language to suit the demands of diverse setings. There is no disaster pending. **** Head Fake by Jonah Lehrer, Boston Globe Like many other antidepressants, Prozac increases the brain's supply of serotonin, a neurotransmitter. The drug's effectiveness inspired an elegant theory, known as the chemical hypothesis: Sadness is simply a lack of chemical happiness. The little blue pill cheer us up because they give the brain what it has been missing. There's only one problem with this theory of depression: it's almost certainly wrong, or at the very least woefully incomplete. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore, Democracy Or Dictatorship? by Buzz Asia Why is all this oppression necessary in a peaceful and prosperous country like Singapore where citizens otherwise enjoy so many freedoms? Mr Chee has his own theory that the answer lies with strongman Lee Kuan Yew himself. **** Temasek Seeks Bids For Senoko, Its Second Utility Sale In 2008 by Nesa Subrahmaniyan and Dinakar Sethuraman, Bloomberg Temasek Holdings Pte, Singapore's government-owned investment company, put the city-state's largest utility up for sale after an auction of a smaller generator this year drew bids from groups that include banks. **** It's Confirmed - Singapore Has Incomplete Number Portability by Techgoondu By disallowing true number portability, this simply goes against the initial reason for implementing what IDA calls 'full number portability' - which is to empower consumers with choice and presumably promote and liberalise the local telco market. **** Day 145: Singapore by Around The World In 180 Days Yes, in some respects it is the ultimate police state, reminiscent of The Village in the TV series The Prisoner. On the other hand, the people are happy and prosperous, crime is very low, and the country has the highest rate of home-ownership in the whole of Asia. Worth keeping in mind the merits of benign dictatorships. **** Singapore Bakery Titan Started At The Bottom by Tor Ching Li, Wall Street Journal "The F&B industry is a very tough business, so you have to be really passionate about it and be willing to start from the bottom. A solid foundation is necessary before being able to excel and stay with it." /Hard work and passion: there's no luck in being successful. Just the readiness to seize on opportunities./ **** NSman Gets Over 9 Years Jail, 18 Strokes For Having Rifle, Bullets And Knife by Jermyn Chow, Straits Times Full-time national serviceman Dave Teo Ming on Monday was sentenced to a total of nine years and two months jail, and 18 strokes of the cane on three charges of being in possession of a rifle, live bullets and knife. **** One United People by Insane Polygons So as National Day draws closer each day, I asked myself all those years of blindly reciting the pledge - is this the best we that we can do? Is this the best that we can do? Is this the best that the government can do? **** NightRider And Nite Owls by Leong Wee Keat, Today **** 'We'll Keep Driving' by Leong Wee Keat, Today Motorists are certainly keeping closer tabs on the cost of driving, as fuel prices and parking charges also climb. **** Market-Based Pricing Has Cost Buyers Dearly by See Leong Kit, Straits Times This market-based pricing approach caused new flat prices and resale flat prices to chase each other in an upward spiral, affecting buyers of both new and resale flats. /Has the government lost its sense of serving the poeple, and is now just running like a commercial entity? Should we just rename the PAP government to Temasek government?/ **** Iras Sorry For Service Lapse by Deanna Choo, Inland Revenue Authority Of Singapore, Straits Times Iras will not hesitate to apologse for lapse and did so in Madam Cheah's case. **** Pre- Or Post-Paid Still Not Free To Port by Ng Sook Fun, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, Straits Times Full mobile number portability is offered only within those respective service offerings. /Why does it seem that the IDA is being pulled by the nose by the telcos? Why is full number portability so hard that after more than a decade, there are still so many gotchas for the customers?/ **** Expect To See More Of These Gantries In Coming Months by Christopher Tan, Straits Times Besides the half dozen announced for spots along roads such as Commonwealth Aveneue, Alexandra Road and Serangoon Road, 16 more are planned for the new Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE), which will run 12km from East Coast Parkway in the south to Tampines Expressway in the north. According to a Land Transport Authority (LTA) spokesman, however, they will not all be switched on at the same time, unless the average speed dips below 45kmh in the tunnels. **** Fresh Call For Qantas To Share Lucrative LA Route by Scott Rochfort, Sydney Morning Herald The stranglehold of Qantas on the Australia-US route faces a fresh challenge after the Victorian government called on its federal counterpart to grant Singapore Airlines and other "third country" airlines access on the lucrative route. **** Of Complacency And Leading By Example by Leong Sze Hian, The Online Citizen Are we being complacent in shouldering our responsibiity by not leading by example? From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Jul 8 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 8 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 8, 2008 Message-ID: <20080708171501.7988.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Expo 2007 Dates Announced For September by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica This year's Apple Expo is once again being held across the pond in Paris at the Porte de Versailles. While Apple will no longer be attending, big names like Microsoft, Epson, Nike, Mini, and Kensington will be. /Conference organisers have to be ready for two potential changes: Apple will withdraw from all trade shows, and Apple may well organize its own trade show. (It already does WWDC successfully.)/ **** Japan To Get 3G iPhone From 7 AM On Friday by Martyn Williams, Macworld On Friday the iPhone will go on sale in more than 70 countries (sic). New Zealand is likely to see the first launch followed by Australia an then Japan. /No, the majority of the 70 countries will not have iPhone this week./ **** Browser Security: IE Vs Safari Vs Firefox by Kenneth van Wyk, Datamation Although Safari has been losing pretty pathetically in my other categories here, its integration with OS X is a work of genius. **** MobileMe Steals Live Mesh Thunder by Tim Anderson, The Register MobileMe is a lesser thing in concept, but if it works as promised, it will deliver more value sooner for individuals. **** Keep Track Of Your Stuff The Easy Way by Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle When you consider all the time you'll save, and all the items you won't be losing, Delicious Library 2 is a bargain. **** Id Software CEO Speaks On Apple And Gaming by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK Hollenshead explains he's seeing Apple make a much bigger investment in the gaming sector, and observes the appearance of developers from Electronic Arts and Id Software at WWDC 2007. **** Secrets Of The Mac Trackpad, From iBook To MacBook Air by Ryan Faas, Computerworld While almost anyone who has ever used a laptop knows the basics of using a trackpad as a pointing device, not everyone knows about all the features that Apple has added to its trackpads over the years. **** Pimp My Code, Part 15: The Greatest Bug Of All by Wil Shipley, Call Me Fishmeal It's a bug we should have caught. We should have spent the time to get the images in the 10,000 item file. I messed up. Software is written by human. Humans get tired. Humans become discouraged. They aren't perfect beings. As developers, we want to pretend this isn't so, that our software springs from our head whole and immaculate like the goddess Athena. Customers don't want to hear us admit that we fail. **** Apple-Rogers Falling Out: A Story Too Good To Be True? by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune **** MobileMe Launching On July 9Th Between 6PM-12AM PT by Arnold Kim, MacRumors.com Apple has announced the launch date and time for their MobileMe service. **** Under The Hood: The iPhone's Gaming Mettle by Touch Arcade What gear gives the iPhone its game? **** Frenzied Demand For Apple's New 3G iPhone by Richard Wray, The Guardian Demand for the new 3G version of the iPhone has outstripped supply, and O2, Apple's exclusive UK mobile phone partner, says it has run out of stock for customers wanting to pre-order the device before it goes on general release on Friday. **** Apple Stores To Open At 8.00 AM Friday For iPhone 3G Launch by AppleInsider US-based Apple retail stores will join those of AT&T by opening at 8.00 a.m. local time on Friday, July 11th, to usher in the new iPhone 3G, the company said Monday. **** Woe, Canada by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Don't let the suits fool you, they are trying to rob me blind. **** The Tyranny Of "Free" by Dan Moren, MacUser This is economics at its most basic. Seriously. It doesn't get any more basic than this. **** Butterflies Are Free, So Why Aren't iPhone Apps? by The Macalope, CNET News.com The Macalope keeps hearing from so-claled analysts how the future will be ruled by ad-based software services that everyone will love because they'll be "free!" (with ads!). Personally, he thinks you can keep your Buy n Large future. He's happy to pay for a better user experience. /Somewhere, in a retirement home, a young Bill Gates is smiling./ **** Six Of The Best: Mac OS X Menu Extras by Craig Grannell, Cult Of Mac We present our favorites from the slew of apps vying for a place in your menu bar. **** Media Catalog 4.0 Adds Quick Look Support To Indexing App by James Wickboldt, Macworld Developer Robert Kuilman updated Media Catalog Monday, adding drag support and Quick Look features to the media indexing application. **** Committee Calls For More Content For Elderly, Children In Chinese TV Shows by Channel NewsAsia The Advisory Committee for Chinese Programmes wants to see more content for the elderly and children, and fewer commericalised variety shows and dramas capitalising on inappropriate themes. **** Sequence Ships For Mac OS X by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK App4mac has introduced Sequence for Mac OS X, a tool with which to capture and save an image or a movie of your screen to your computer. **** Europa Universalis: Rome Game Ships For Mac by Peter Cohen, Macworld A turn-based strategy game, Europa Universalis: Rome puts players in the role of the leader of a Mediterranean civilization during the era from the first Punic War through to the start of the true Roman empire. **** Add-On Brings Inline PDFs To Firefox 3 by MacNN Google Code project owner 'Colesbury' has released FIrefox Mac Plugin. Based on the PDFKit in Cocoa, the open-source Mac-PDF plugin allows users to view full .PDF documents within the browser itself. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** They Don't All Really Need Laptops, Do They? by Christopher Dawson, ZDNet.com Shared rooms and roaming teachers require portable computing and the stereotypical smoke-filled teachers' lounge is now a place for staff to ongregate with their laptops and prepare materials and curriculum together. **** Why You'll Have A Long Wait For Microsoft's Next OS by Ed Bott, ZDNet.com If we look at Midori as Windows NNT, it has the potential to coexist alongside the Windows Vista/Windows 7/Server 2008 line for at least five years. **** Wall Street Keeps Cautious Eye On Yahoo by Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News.com MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** In The Fourth Grade by Charles Grosel, Slate **** Lens Magic by Terry Rossio, Wordplay For 11 years, every day, I had been unknowingly staring at the future main set of the film I would someday co-write, Priates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Did that give you a chill? **** The Keepers Of The Moon by Guy Gugliotta, New York Times In the lab, the Moon rocks look nondescript — dark gray basalt, a whitish mineral called anorthosite and mixtures of the two with crystals thrown in. Yet nearly 40 years after the Apollo astronauts brought the first rocks back to Earth, these pieces of the Moon are still providing scientists with new secrets from another world. **** Dan Neil On New Ways To Die In Style by Dan Neil, Los Angeles Times If you're not interested in a traditional American burial, no problem. There are so many other ways to go. **** How Disasters Help by Drake Bennett, Boston Globe Natural disasters can give a boost to the countries where they occur - and sometimes, the more the better. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Gopalan Nair Trial Set For Sept 8 by Jeremy Au Yong, Straits Times **** Malaysia, Singapore Discuss Malaysian Workers' Safety Issues by Bernama Minister of human resources Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said he had proposed that the employment-related agencies in both countries cooperate closely so that the safety of Malaysian workers could be better protected. **** Peranakan Museum A Hit Among Singaporeans by Bernama **** Singapore And Israel Eye Buying Lockheed Fighter by Jim Wolf, Reuters Singapore has shown interest in possibly buying up to 100 of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft over coming decades, matching Israel's tentative plans, the general in charge of the program for the Pentagon said on Monday. **** Improving Thai-Singaporean Relations At The People Level by Pavin Chachavalpongpun, The Nation What went wrong was that Singapore simply overlooked the mounting importance of pluralism in Thailand. Both Singapore and Temasek need to do more homework on the reality and nature of Thai politics. **** Young And Old In Singapore Want More Political Openness by Gerald Giam, The Online Citizen **** Your Profile Has Broken Rules Of Use by Liew Hanqing, New Paper **** 7Th Storey: No Other Choice by Geoffrey Lim, Land Transport Authority, and Andrew David Fassam, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Today The tunnels of Downtown Line 1 (DTL1) have to swing clear of the Rochor Flyover foundations. Second, the current Bugis Station is built on a diaphragm-walled foundation comprising deep and heavily-reinforced concrete walls. This limits the locations the DTL1 tunnels can pass below without compromising the existing station's foundations. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Jul 9 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 9 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 9, 2008 Message-ID: <20080709171501.93828.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Rumour Control - Apple Versus Rogers by Kris Abel, CTV Enjoy the crazy rumours for their entertainment valu, but please don't be so quick to take them seriously. **** Fifth Avenue Closing On 10Th; App Store Up Early? by MacNN Apple's flagship American store, the Fifth Avenue location in New York City, will temporarily close on July 10th, Apple has announced. **** The Day My MacBook Died by Joel Evans, Geek.com That was it. No commotion, no negotiation, just calm, cool, and confident. I felt reassured that my MacBook would come back soon and now I wait for its arrival. What I really do find most amazing is how I honestly felt like the Apple employees were just as upset as I was that my MacBook wasn't working. **** Name Mangler 2.0 by Dan Frakes, Macworld If you've got a bunch of files that need renaming, Many Tricks' Name Nalger 2.0 is my favorite tool to use. **** AT&T Lays Down The Law For Apple by Tom Yager, InfoWorld For better or worse, carriers run the wireless game, and nothing can move faster than they want it to. **** Mac Vs. Windows Laptops by James A. Martin, PC World Don't buy into the old argument that Mac laptops are categorically mre expensive than Windows machines. Sometimes that's true—but they're often on par with, or cost less than, their closest Windows laptop equivalents. **** iPhone Line Forms In Japan At Softbank Flagship Store by MacNN **** Refresh Your Mac by Logan Kugler, PC Magazine This simpel process will revitalize your Mac, bringing back the zippy performance it displayed on day one. **** Apple Expects 15-Minute Setup Process For New iPhone by Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg Apple Inc. will start selling its new iPHone at 8 a.m. nationwide on July 11 and plans to activate U.S. customer accounts with AT&T Inc. within 15 minutes. **** Newer, Faster, Cheaper iPhone 3G by Walter S. Mossberg, AllThingsD If you've been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge, if you can live with the higher service costs and the weaker battery life. **** For iPhone, The 'New' Is Relative by David Pogue, New York Times It's not so much better that it turns all those original iPhones into has-beens. Indeed, the really big deal is the iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store, neither of which requires buying a new iPhone. **** Apple's New iPhone 3G: Still Not Perfect, But Really Close by Edward C. Baig, USA Today It's cheaper, faster and a lot friendlier for business. Apple's blockbuster smartphone already had nifty features such as visual voicemail, a splendid built-in video iPod and the best mobile web browser I've ever used. With GPS newly added to the mix, this handheld marvel has no equal among consumer-oriented smartphones. **** Live From Abbey Road: Recording History by Jonny Evans, Apple What's key is that Live From Abbey Road's relatively small seven-person core production unit can manage to film, edit, colour correct and export the entire show using one set of tools. **** Only U.S. Apple Retail Stores Getting iPhone 3G by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com If you want an iPhone 3G outside of the U.S., you won't find one at the Apple store. **** Apple Just Gave Out My Apple ID Password Because Someone Asked by Marko Karppinen, MK&C **** Apple May Have Shipped 2.5 Million Macs In Spring Thanks To Vista by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider The poor reception of Windows Vista, along with a strong Mac OS X, will help Apple continue to ship Macs at three times the industry average by the end of spring, according to BMO Capital Markets. **** Freeverse Releasing More Than A Dozen iPhone Games by MacNN **** No iPhones For Canadian Apple Stores? by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld **** REALbasic 2008 Release 3 Ships by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld **** O2: Apple To Blame For iPhone 3G Ordering Woes by MacNN "We have been working continously with to get as much stock for the UK as possible," says O2 sales director Steve Shurrock. "Unfotunately, they have only been able to supply a small proportion of the number of phones we asked for, because they are launching simultaneously in 22 countries." The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Plat'Home Launches Coffee-Cup-Sized Linux Network Box by Dave Rosenberg, CNET News.com Plat'Hoe claims that their devices "can be installed in minutes." And because of their small size, offices without server rooms — or server rooms that are overcrowded — can easily use them. **** Web Must Stay Open, Says Web Inventor by Computerworld UK Government, business and academics must do more to ensure the web remains an open platform, says Sir Tim Berners Lee, the founder of the world wide web. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** You Are Not Reading Enough by Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle Has the internet killed the joys of sitting down with a good book? **** Train In Vain by Ben Jervey, Good Europe and Asia have figured it out, so why is the American rail system still so unspeakably awful? **** Great American Pyro by Bruce Reed, Slate Here in the District, we couldn't shoot off firecrackers over the Fourth because they're too dangerous, but we can now keep a loaded pistol by our bedside, ready to shoot down prowlers in self-defense. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Malaysia Not Threatened By Singapore's Purchase Of Jetfighters - Air Force Chief by Bernama **** Singapore Government Dismisses Human Rights Allegations In IBA Report by Irene Ngoo, Straits Times The Singapore government, responding to human rights allegations by an international association of lawyers, on Wednesday dismissed them as without substance and feeble. The Singapore government said the association did not justify its 'grave allegation' of bias with evidence, and slammed its statement as 'a feeble justification'. **** Singapore's Minister Mentor Slips Up Under Oath by Asia Sentinel It was the kind of error that would earn a Singapore opposition politician a trial for perjury, probably with a heavy fine and perhaps a jail term. But when Lee Kuan Yew testified in the recent trial of opposition leader Chee Soon Juan probably "misspoke" - told a crucial untruth, deliberate or not. **** Singapore Falls Short On Rights: Lawyers' Group by AFP Despite its impressive economic development, Singapore fails to meet international standards for political and human rights and there are concerns about the independence of its judiciary, an association of lawyers said. **** Regulate, Not Ban, The Sale Of Human Organs by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread The problem isn't what to do about organ trading. The problem is why poverty and inequality are so severe. **** Singapore Cracked Up! by Feed Me To The Fish **** Higher ERP And More Gantries... by Lee Lilian, The Itch To Write Aren't taxis public transport? Why make it so difficult for this group of Singaporeans to make a living? /On a macro level, taxi is simply not an efficient public transport, compared to buses and trains. If one taxi journey makes the same level of congestion as a private car, then the congestion tax should be the same./ /The government shouldn't have any obligations to make sure taxi drivers can make a living. The obligation by the government should be that if taxi drivers want to switch career, there are jobs waiting for them./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Jul 10 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 10 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 10, 2008 Message-ID: <20080710171500.11764.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple's Latest Opens A Developers' Playground by John Markoff and Laura M. Holson, New York Times Wem Apple opens its online App Store for iPhone software on Thursday, Steven P. Jobs will be making an attempt to dominate the next generation of computing as it moves toward internet-connected mobile devices. **** A First Look At The App Store by Peter Cohen, Macworld Here's a first look at the new service and how it works. **** Apple Releases iPhone Configuration Utility For Corporate Environments by Dan Moren, Macworld **** Apple TV 2.1 Software Supports Remote App, MobileMe by Jason Snell, Macworld **** New Zealand Kicks Off iPhone 3G Launch by Philip Michaels, Macworld **** Mobile Me Opens For Business (And Pleasure) by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK **** iTunes 7.7 Released, Free iPhone Remote Via App Store by iPodNN The new version is designed to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G as well as download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. **** PopChar X 4 by Philip Michaels, Macworld If you spend a lot of your work day dealing with text, having a tool that helps you quickly insert special characters can be a real productivity booster. **** Apple To Open Beijing Store On July 19 by Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service Apple will open a retail store in Beijing on July 19, stepping up its presence in China three weeks before the start of the Summer Olympic Games. **** Criminal Probe Of Apple Options Is Ended by Justin Scheck and Nick Wingfeld, Wall Street Journal The Justice Department has ended its criminal investigation of backdated stock options at Apple Inc., deciding not to bring charges against the company or several current and former executives it had been probing for two years, people familiar with the case said. **** App Store For iPhone Already A Hit With Developers by Jefferson Graham, USA Today With 500 programs launching internationally Thursday night, "This is the biggest launch of my career," says Jobs. **** Rogers Bows To Demands, Cuts iPhone Data Plan Cost by CTV.ca Rogers Wireless has slashed the cost of using an iPhone in Canada following an outcry of customer complaints over the price of its data packages. **** Greenpeace Pans iPhone 3G "Not Green," Like First by MacNN Greenpeace is again calling Apple out on its enviromental practices, citing that the iPhone 3G uses the same toxic building materials that it found in its breakdown of the original device. **** Fake Steve Jobs Calling It A Day by Tom Krazit, CNET News.com Dan Lyons, the former /Forbes/ writer and soon-to-be /Newsweek/ writer, announced Wednesday in a rambling post that he's shutting down the tech industry phenomenon known as The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. **** PowerTunes Organizes Multiple iTunes Libraries by Peter Cohen, Macworld PowerTunes lets you create multiple iTunes libraries, organize your music among multiple music folders, share music and libraries between multiple users on a single machine and more. **** Home Sweet Home For Mac OS X by MacNN Home Sweet Home allows gamers to act as home designers. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Yahoo's Desperate Search Times Call For Open Source by Larry Dignan, ZDNet.com **** Twitter Nation by Brian Braiker, Newsweek Microblogging is huge, but should anyone care? MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Employees Only by Erin Bremer, City Magazine I had arrived at 4 p.m. to experience a daily ritual that takes place in hundreds of restaurants across the city, and in thousands more across the country: family meal. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** More Seamless Transfers For Commuters With New Fare Structure by Christopher Tan, Straits Times Public transport commuters whose journeys include transfers will enjoy lower fares from a fourth quarter. This is because the government is phasing in a new system that calculates fares according to distance, regardless of the number of transfers. See Also: Commuters To Gain From Sharing Of Higher Productivity In The Revised Formula , by Public Transport Council, Singapore Government. (Note: PDF document.) **** A Tale Of Two Organisations by Ned Stark, Winter Is Coming The Singapore government has shown a rather hobbesian view towards criticism; which may yet bode ill for us in the future. **** Here's The Magnitude Of Checkpoint Security by Eunice Chu, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, Straits Times The millions of travellers want speed and convenience. The security arrangements put in place have to take that into account. **** Analysts Favour New Fare Formula As Inflation Is Taken Into Account by Chio Su-Mei, Channel NewsAsia Transport analysts favour the new fare formula that was announced by the Public Transport Council (PTC) on Thursday because it takes into consideration the inflatio rate and changes to wages. **** Tang Wee Sung Slapped With 3 Charges In Kidney-For-Sale Case by Hsnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia CK Tang chairman Tang Wee Sung was slapped with three charges in court on Thursday for his role in the kidney-for-sale case. If convicted of all three charges, he could be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to three years. **** The International Bar Association And Its Report On Singapore by Mr Wang Says So It's always the same stuff. Just a matter of cutting and pasting and shifting the words and sentences around, to achieve the desired degree of politeness or hostility, in each particular case. **** Upgrading Is Not The Way To Fight Inflation by Hard Hitting In The Lion City Now on some degree I agree with finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, after all Singapore's economy suffered a 6.6% decline in the second quarter. What I disagree with him is what's being done to help Singaporeans cope with growing inflation. **** Singapore May Revise 2008 Inflation Forecast Of 5-6 Pct - Minister by Thomson Financial Singapore may revise its 2008 inflation forecast of 5 to 6 percent if oil and food prices continue to escalate, minister for finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam said late Wednesday. **** Singapore Economy Grows At Slowest Pace In Five Years by Shamim Adam, Bloomberg Singapore's economy expanded at the slowest pace in five years in the second quarter, as manufacturers cut production amid declining orders and accelerating inflation crimped spending. **** Our System Speaks For Itself by Chen Hwai Liang, Press Secretary to Prime Minister, Today The Singapore model is not a free-wheeling Western liberal democracy. But it is an honest and open system, with an independent judiciary upholding the rule of law. Singaporeans are free to express their views, challenge the government, and content in free and fair elections. But that does not give them the right to defame others or break the law. **** Singapore Could Face Another Round Of Inflation If Firms Raise Wages by May Wong, Channel NewsAsia Finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has warned that Singapore could face another round of inflation if companies increase wages to help workers cope with the higher cost of living today. /Let's see. Choice number 1: I receive a raise, and there will be another round of inflation. Choice number 2: I don't receive a raise, and there may or may not be another round of inflation. Thank you, Mr Finance Minister, I think I'll be safer with choice number 1./ /(Of course, this message is not directed at the employers. This message is directed at the employees, saying, hey, it's okay if you don't raise wages. The government will support it, and the government will tell the people to support it.)/ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Jul 11 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 11 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 11, 2008 Message-ID: <20080711171500.31522.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Meet Canada's First iPhone Buyer by Oliver Moore and Matt Trevisan, Reporton Business Christian Meagher yawned as he did his fifth interview of the morning. Minutes away from being the first person to buy the new iPhone in Canada, he'd been up all night and was having trouble staying excited. **** Canada's iPhone Addicts Finally Get Their Fix by Linda Nguyen, Hollie Shaw and Brendan Kennedy, Finance Post/Ottawa Citizen/Edmonton Journal **** iPhone 3G Review by Ryan Block, Engadget There are always things that could be improved, features to be added, fixes that should be applied — but from first to second gen, from year one to year two, Apple has proven itself a relentless upstart in the mobiile space, and is showing no signs of slowing down. **** iPhone 2.0 Software Review: Forget 3G, It's Code That Counts by Gizmodo **** The iPhone Haters by Brian Braiker, Newsweek For a small, disparate group of passionate technophiles, Steve Jobs & Co. can do no right. **** Minireview: Bejeweled 2 For iPhone by Charles Jade, Ars Technica The game of Bejeweled is fun to play and the iPhone is probably the best mobile platform made for it to date, and yet /Bejeweled 2/ is not nearly as good as it could have been. **** Apple Statement On MobileMe Transition Delay by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK The service was expected to be fully operational by now, but things have clearly not been going according to plan. And Apple has now confessed to problems. **** Apple Extends iTunes To New Countries by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK However, if you've hungry for music and media you won't find this in the new iTunes Stores - they're App Stores designed to support the iPhone 3G. /We started asking whether iTunes is suitable name when Apple added movies and TV shows. Now, we essentially have iTunes Stores that do not even sell music, movies or TV shows. Still iTunes Stores, eh?/ **** London Launch Of iPhone 3G Marred By Software Problems by Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service Software problems marred the launch of the iPhone 3G at Apple's flagship store in London, where customers had difficulty activating their new phones. **** TinyCal 1.3 by Dan Frakes, Macworld **** Pandora For iPhone Shows The Device Will Be More Like A Mac, Less Like An iPod by Pete Mortensen, Cult Of Mac The fact that Apple has made room for someone else to deliver media to the iPhone really announces to the world that it is a platform for other companies to make money. **** 11Th Hour Settlement In iPhone Dispute by Matt Hartley, Globe And Mail After striking an eleventh-hour deal with Apple on Wednesday night, the president and founder of Tornoto-based Comwave Telecom Inc. is pleased with the way his legal odyssey with the computer maker has ended. **** Asia Customers First In Line For Next-Generation Apple iPhone by AFP Apple fans across Asia lined for hours to get their hands on the new iPhone Friday, looking to be the first to own a gadget the company hopes will be as big a worldwide smash as the iPod. /For the purpose of this article, Australia and New Zealand are also part of Asia./ **** The App Store, Day One by John Gruber, Daring Fireball On the iPhone's App Store app, at the bottom of the details page for every app is a downloads count. Given that the only way to downoad a non-free app is to buy it, it more or less puts sales figures out in the open. **** Why I Won't Spend Money On The App Store by Don Reisinger, CNET News.com It's just that I think there will be so many great free apps in the store that I won't even need to worry about paying for software. **** Battle Of The iPhone Apps: MySpace Vs Facebook by Paul Glazowski, Mashable **** More Consumers Make The Switch To Macs by Beth Snyder Bulik, Advertising Age Blog after blog chronicles the move from Windows to Mac operating systems. **** 3G iPhone: The Business Perspective by Natasha Lomas, CNET News.com The iPhone—and its app store—has bags of potential as a business tool—so in the not too distant future it will undoubtedly be disrupting a fair amount of workplaces, and work practices. **** iPhone OS 2.0 Unlocked by Gizmodo **** Crowds Greet iPhone With Enthusiasm At Japan Sales Launch by AFP Japan's Apple fans traded sleep and comfort for the thrill of being the first to buy the iPhone, with many camping out days before the launch. **** The iPhone Naysayers, One Year Later by Jake Widman, The Industry Standard Remember the iPhond naysayers? The experts, observers and competitors who said Apple's mobile phone wsa too expensive, overhyped, or otherwise lacking? Well, the /Industry Standard/ went back to seven of the critics — including John C. Dvorak, Dan Gillmor, and Steve Ballmer — and asked them what they think now that the iPhone has proven itself a hit with consumers and turned the mobile world upside-down. **** Apple Users Angry Over MobileMe Outage by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Apple's revamped online service, MobileMe, remained unavailable to users throughout much of the day Thursday, prompting some angry complaints on the company's support forums. **** iPhone Gaming: A Lack Of Controls? by Craig Grannell, Cult Of Mac My concern is that the genius of Apple's lack of physical controls for most applicatoins might be its undoing in the games world. **** 500 iPhone Apps, But Why These? by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica We have talked to several developers, some with several apps that didn't make the cut and have made some guesses as to what Apple's process was. **** Apple Remote: Remote Control Done Right! by Bbum's Weblog-O-Mat Having bi-directional, fully stateful, communication between the remote and the media playback device is a gigantic game changer. **** Crossword Puzzles Come To The iPhone by Joanathan Seff, Macworld **** EA Announces iPhone Game Lineup by Peter Cohen, Macworld The first three native EA Mobile iPhone games from EA are Scrabble, Sudoku and Tetris. **** Three New iPhone Calculators by Jason Snell, Macworld Here on the first day of the App Store's existence, what do we find? Three alternatives to Apple's built-in calculator. **** Race Motorcycles With Wingnuts Moto Racer by Peter Cohen, Macworld Freeverse Software's debut game on the iPHone is a challenging 3D vehicle racing game called Wingnuts Moto Racer. **** Twitterrific Adds iPhone Version by Jason Snell, Macworld Twitterrific displays tweets from your contacts and lets you send tweets. **** Exposure Brings Flickr To Your iPHone by Dan Moren, Macworld The most fascinating feature of Exposure by far is using the iPhone's built in location service to browse pictures that were taken near your current location. **** Use Jott To Record Your Thoughts by Rob Griffiths, Macworld **** Sketches Lets You Draw All Over Your iPhone by Dan Moren, Macworld LateNiteSoft's Sketches lets you draw all over your iPhone, including on pictures that you import from your iPhone's photo albums or camera. **** Circulator Tracks Your Swaps by Jason Snell, Macworld Circulator lets you track of what stuff of what stuff you've borrowed and what you've lent, including the day the loan started and the due date of the item in question. **** Ambrosia Announces Three New App Store Games by Peter Cohen, Macworld Ambrosia Software, long-time Macintosh utility and application developer, announced Thursday that it has launched three iPhone games with the introduction of the App Store. Ambrosia's kicking off its iPhone application releases with Aki Mahjong, mondo Solitaire and Mr. Sudoku. **** Mobile Game Maker Jirbo Makes Big iPhone Play by Peter Cohen, Macworld **** Remote Lets You Control iTunes From iPhone, iPod Touch by Dan Moren, Macworld Among the first programs available in Apple's newly launched App Store is a free application called Remote, developed by Apple itself. Remote lets you control your iTunes library or an Apple TV all from your iPhone or iPod touch. **** Taking Screen Shots With iPhone 2.0 by Jason Snell, Macworld If you've ever seen something interesting on your iPhone's screen and wanted to capture it—or, more practically, you're someone who writes about the iPhone and has lamented its inability to take screen shots—you'll be happy about a small feature in the iPhone 2.0 software. **** A Heads-Up On Purchasing Things In The App Store by Rob Griffiths, Macworld When you click Buy in the App Store, you buy /immediately/. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Making A Modern 3-D Movie by Kate Greene, MIT Technology Review /Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D/ shows off Hollywood's most advanced technology. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Behold The Silent Majority by Singapore Kopi Tok The views of the vocal few are important, but let's not forget about those of the silent majority. /Did anyone ask what the silent majority really want? Are you sure, for any particular issue, there is even a silent majority?/ **** 19 Facing Charges Of Illegal Assembly To Claim Trial by Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia Nineteen people facing charges of illegal assembly near Parliament House earlier this year intend to claim trial. **** ComfortDelGro Taxis To Impose 30 Cents Surcharge From July 17 by CHio Su-Mei, Channel NewsAsia >From July 17, passengers on Comfort and CityCab taxis will have to pay a 30-cent surcharge per journey. Singapore's largest taxi group ComfortDelGro said this is to help its cabbies cope with increases in diesel costs. **** Singapore Slowdown by Blowin' In The Wind Singapore seems to be caught in a perfect storm from which not even its government's fabled economic management can bail it out. **** In Singapore, They're Making A Meal Out Of Gastrobars by Joan Koh, Time In Singapore, a cluster of gastrobars, as they're called, are becoming dining destinations in their own rights, dishing out the likes of /o-toro/ sashimi and Boston lobster to famished partygoers. **** So, You Want To Just Check Off Features? by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu >From Techgoondu , on the new Zen X-Fi from Creative: It has most of what the pricier - and longer - Apple iPod Touch has and more. Wi-Fi? Check. Video playback (including DivX and WMV)? Check. SD card slot for additional expansion? Check. Wait, there's also built-in FM and a microphone. Well, let's start to check other things. Macintosh support? Push e-mail/contact/calendar (Mobile Me)? Exchange? iTunes-like powerful smart playlist? Bookmarkable audio, automatically? Two-way sync of bookmarked location? Two-way sync of play count and last play information? One-click podcast subscription? Web browser? Email? PDF viewer? Microsoft Office viewer? YouTube? Dictionary? H.264 video? App Store? Third-party applications? The statement by Techgoondu, "Would you pay twice as much for with less stuff just to look cool" is simply wrong. Yes, the Creative product may well be cheaper, and it has some features that the iPod touch do not have. But, remember, there are also other "features" that iPod Touch have over the Zen X-Fi. It's not just about coolness. iPod touch do not have less stuff. (I am not saying Creative Zen X-Fi is not a good product. I don't know, not having used one, having only see the specs as posted by Creative. What I am saying is that Creative Zen X-Fi do /not/ have all the features of an iPod Touch. Not even "most" of the features. And no, I'm not talking about being cool.)

Permanent Link to This Post **** The Blame Game by The Online Citizen **** 'All-You-Can-Eat' Season Pass by Neo Chai Chin, Today Heavy users of public transport have been asking for it, and soon, an integrated season pass for commuters could become a reality. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday that such a season pass would likely be introduced by the end of this year. **** Do Ads Teach Wrong Values? by Teh Jen Lee, New Paper The commercials are meant to be funny, says Swensen's restaurant. But some viewers say they promote the wrong values. **** Let's Have Booths For Those Who Want A Puff In Public by Today Why not build smoking booths with air purifiers in public places, like they have done in Japan? /I hope we'll reverse the laws in the near future, such that smoking is only permitted at destinated places./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Jul 12 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 12 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 12, 2008 Message-ID: <20080712171501.80706.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Police Step In As London Apple Store Closes Early by Lexton Snol, Macworld UK Flanked by police officers Apple staff effectively closed the London Apple Store today in the middle of the afternoon. **** UK iPhone 3G Launch - Now Things Get Even Worse by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK Activation nightmares plague iPhone owners, new and old. **** Review: Wingnuts Moto Racer For iPhone by Peter Cohen, Macworld **** Apple Releases Flood Of New Games For iPhone And iPhone 3G by Victor Godinez, Dallas Morning News Well, I guess Apple does care about games. **** iPhone, Third-Party Applications And Settings.app by Lukas Mathis, Ignore The Code The current situation is confusing, as it is never clear where a particular application's settings can be found. /I don't have an iPhone to play with, but it seems that developers should (re)design their applications to suit the iPhone's HIG and capabilities./ **** It's Worth The Hell by Robert Scoble, Scobleizer It's worth the hell. Apple and AT&T will do just fine after fixing all the bugs that caused today's debacle. **** Activating Your iPhone 3G: What You Need To Know by Jonathan Seff, Macworld **** iPhone: Not So Easy Or Painless by Duncan Martell, Reuters **** Engadget's Sloppy Journalism On The New Phone by Dan Gillmor, Center For Citizen Media **** iPhone 2.0 Includes Critical Security Fixes by Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Apple disclosed Friday that the iPhone 2.0 software, which can be downloaded by users of the previous-generation iPhone, fixes some bugs in the browser and networking software in that earlier device. Some of the browser bugs are serious and could give attackers a way to sneak malicious software onto the iPhone. **** Review: Remote For iPhone And iPod Touch by Dan Frakes, Macworld Remote works well with iTunes, but it's a godsend for Apple TV—especially if, like me, you've got a massive music collection. **** Microsoft Ahead Of Apple, Ubuntu In OS Update Reliability by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com **** iPod Touch Software 2.0 - Well Worth Upgrading by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com Overall, a worthwhile upgrade. Still, having to pay for an update that contains security updates sucks a bit. /Apple should really change the iPod touch's accounting, so that customers can get new software free./ **** How The "Apple Tax" Boosts Prices On iPod & iPhone Accessories by Joel Johnson, Popular Mechanics The advent of the "auth chip" made it impossible for any third-party company to produce iPod-compatible gadgets without dealing first with Apple—the only company selling the chip. **** A Day In The Line: QUeuing Up For The iPhone 3G Launch by Danny Dumas, Wired Lining up in front of the San Francisco Apple store during the wee hours on Friday morning, Wired.com correspondents talked to a litany of fascinating iPhone fans, geeky tech-heads and even some cynics. **** Apple Releases iPhone And iPod Touch Software 2.0 by AppleInsider **** The Real Price Difference Between The Old And New iPhone by David Pogue, New York Times "For reasonable interest rates, the /new plan is cheaper/." **** iPhone Launch-O-Mess-O-Rama by The Macalope, CNET News.com **** Review: Super Monkey Ball For iPhone by Peter Cohen, Macworld Super Monkey Ball is all about the racing, the core component of hte game's GameCube predecessor. But the mini-games and multiplayer games that make the GameCube game fun when you're having a party are all absent—something for Sega to work on for the next installation, for sure. **** Review: Tap Tap Revenge For iPhone by Peter Cohen, Macworld It only makes sense that one of the most popular games to be developed for "jailbroken" iPhones would see life anew as an official App Store release. **** Original iPhones Come Back To Life As iPod Touches by Dan Moren, Macworld **** Review: Engimo For The iPhone by Peter Cohen, Macworld 3-D puzzle game gets multi-touch controls. **** I See You, iPhone Remote by Jason Snell, Macworld I keep seeing these little iPhone names pop up in my iTunes, then disappear back into oblivion. Over and over. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Can You Trust Your Business To Google's Cloud? by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Mandela: His 8 Lessons Of Leadership by Richard Stengel, Time Mandela is the closest thing the world has to a secular saint, but he would be the first to admit that he is something far more pedestrian: a politician. **** Mall Together Now by Firoozeh Dumas, New York Times It reminded me of a science experiment in grade school: the teacher put big rocks in a jar, then when you thought it was full, she added some smaller rocks. Then when you thought it was full, she added water. This mall was just missing the water. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Judge: No Question Of 'Factual Guilt' After Acquittal by K. C. Vijayan, Straits Times A High Court judge has taken issue with the government's position that people acquitted of crimes may not necessarily be innocent. /This is what I wrote back in May, 2008: Innocence and guilt must be binar description, otherwise, the idea of "innocence until proven guilty" doesn't work. But it must work./ /"Innocence until proven guilty" is something that we, as citizens, must continue to uphold, despite the blurring by the government and the local media./ **** MHA Says No Intelligence To Suggest Mas Selamat Is In Indonesia by Channel NewsAsia Singapore's home affairs ministry says that to date, there has been no intelligence or information to suggest that escaped Jemaah Islamiyah leader Mas Selamat Kastari is in Indonesia. /What is notable is what MHA didn't say: that there are any evidence Mas Selamat is still in Singapore./ **** As Cosmopolitan As It Gets by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star Singapore is becoming increasingly foreign - demographically speaking. The overall impact has been an economically and socially flourishing island state. **** New iPhone 3G Puts Apple In The Game by John Gaudiosi, Reuters Apple Inc's new iPhone 3G and accompanying App Store is set to put the company known for technology innovation into another lucrative space — gaming. **** Singapore JI Leader May Be In Indonesia: Police by Reuters Asked whether Kastari might be hiding in Indonesia, Indonesian police chief Sutanto told reporters: "It's possible." **** In Singapore's Cultural Oasis, East Does Meet West by William Littler, Toronto Star What better place to mount a cross-cultural festival bringing together art and artists from around the globe, including Canada? **** There Is A Conspiracy To Do Us In, Says MM Lee by Sue-Ann Chia, Straits Times "We are not stupid people. They give us all these advice... Who are they? Have they ever run a country, created jobs for community and given them a life? We have and we know what it requires." /There is a serious lack of reflection from the PAP leaders./ **** Does The Attorney-General Know What's In The Law Books? by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread The attorney-general should not be using 377A at all and should not be defending the need for it on the basis of sexual abuse of minors. **** Where's The Line Between Serving The State And Serving The Party? by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread Woon preferred to merely label others as "fanatics" and then trying to save himself by saying he was mainly referring to foreigners. This is quite typical of what those who are obliged to serve the state find themselves reduced to — having to fend off the PAP's critics without seeming partisan. **** The Feeder Bus System: Enough To Make You Swear by mrbrown So what if you have the fastest train service in the world, but the /wait/ for your feeder bus, the last bit of your journey, is longer than the train ride itself? **** Reform Party: We Shall Liberate The People by Selene Cheng, The Online Citizen Jeyaretnam said he hoped to "educate, energise and empower" the people, and "liberate them from their captivity" so they realised their "powers and responsibilities". **** Fare Restructuring: Robbing Peter To Pay Paul by Lim Boon Hee, Straits Times It is criminal to make commuters of direct routes pay more to offset the profits lost from multiple transfers by this new distnce-based fare structure. /WIth the hub-and-spoke method of planning for routes, the majority of the passengers will have a direct route./ **** Singapore's Success Due To Integrity, Says Kuan Yew by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama Singapore has become successful and earned the respect of the world community today because it has been governed by able leaders who have high integrity and are not corrupted, former prime minister Le Kuan Yew said Friday night. **** Going To Malaysia? White Cards Are Back by New Paper Signs have been put up at immigration booths to alert travellers that it will soon be necessary to fill up the cards again. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Jul 13 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 13 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 13, 2008 Message-ID: <20080713171500.17720.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Steve Wozniak Out Of Line At iPhone Store? by Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com According to Doug and Patrice Broussard, Woz actually never waited in line at all. The couple said the Apple co-founder lounged on some of the mall's nearby sofas for about four hours and them ambled up to the front of the queue when the store opened at 8 a.m. and simply cut in line. No discussion. **** Review: Mondo Solitaire For The iPhone by Peter Cohen, Macworld I can't help but feel that it might benefit from a bit more polish and refinement. **** Web Sites Adapt To iPhone by John Markoff, International Herald Tribune When Steve Jobs introduced the Apple iPhone 18 months ago, he contended that viewing the web on it was comparable to browsing on a desktop personal computer. As it turns out, Jobs may well have understated the quality of the iPhone web experience. Visiting web sites that have been redesigned for the iPhone is often a quicker and more pleasing experience than it is on those increasingly cinema-style desktop displays. **** 20 Cool iPhone Apps by BRad Reed, Network World **** Apple Stores Have iPhones; AT&T Is Mostly Sold Out by Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg Almost all of Apple Inc.'s stores in the U.S. reported they will have the iPhone 3G to sell, a day after thousands lined up to buy the handset and emptied most of AT&T Inc.'s inventory. **** After Slow Start, My iPod Touch Is A Happy 2.0 Camper by Louis Gray **** European Retailers Sell Out At iPhone 3G Launch by Prince McLean, AppleInsider **** Apple Releases MobileMe 1.1 For Leopard by Jeff Gamet, Mac Observer **** Try For A Taste Of iPhone's Success by Duncan Stewart, Financial Post In the short term, I think the single best way for Canadian investors to make a bet on the iPhone's success is to buy ROgers. **** 'Worth The Wait' by John Boudreau, San Jose Mercury News For many iPhone fans, the 3G launch is not just a sale but a happening. **** Zen Pinball: Rollercoaster by Spanner Spencer, Pocket Gamer **** Review: The iPhone 3G Was Worth The Wait by Ryan Faas, Computerworld The iPhone 3G packs quite a punch, both in its design and in the 3G and GPS capabilities. Combined with the new features available to all iPhone owners, it is a generational leap forward that raises the bar for what a mobile device can be. **** Mac OS X Update For MobileMe 1.1 by Mat Lu, The Unofficial Apple Weblog **** Confessions Of A Guy Who Stood In Line 7 Hours To Buy An iPhone by Mitch Wagner, InformationWeek I used to wonder what kind of person stood in line for the better part of the day to buy a product when it first became available. Now I don't have to wonder — I am the one. **** Apple Says Yellow-Tinted iPhone 3G Screen Deliberate by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider **** Careful With That iPhone, Or You Might End Up In Kazakhstan by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica Some data that gets lost when you drag photos from iPhoto into the Finder. **** Review: Exposure For iPhone by Kelly Turner, Macworld Connected Flow's Exposure puts the world of Flickr, Yahoo's popular photo-sharing service, at your fingertips with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to not just show off your own photos, but also to explore the latest snapshots from your friends and the larger Flickr community. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** In House, Tweets Fly Over Web Plan by Michael Falcone, New York Times What started as a microprotest on Mr. Culberson's Twitter page became a macroconflict on Capitol Hill with the two sides feuding on blogs, BlackBerrys and the old-fashioned way — face-to-face meetings in the halls of Congress. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Splendid Isolation by Cheryl Strayed, Washington Post A summer stripped of all the things a teenage girl could want turned out to be exactly what she needed. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** MOH Says Singapore Should Not Write Off Organ Trading by Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia Health minister Khaw Boon Wan has not rejected the idea of legalising organ trading in Singapore but he said it must be studied more carefully. When organs are obtained from outside the family, Mr Khaw said, this means the success rate may fall further if Singapore allows organs to be bought or sold, as family members may stop donating them under the Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA). **** SMA Against Legalising Human Organ Trade by Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia For the Singapore Medical Association (SMA), after much internal discussion, it has come to a collective stand that it does not support legalised organ trading. **** Power-Point Hogs At Cafes Rile Customers by Aw Cheng Wei and Priscilla Goy, Straits Times Two chains are okay with those who power up their devices in their outlets, but malls are less tolerant. **** Maintain Fares For Direct Services by Christopher Tan, Straits Times If the 'cost burden' has to be shared, perhaps the government should shoulder part of it. **** Is MM Lee Playing The Same Old Record? by The Online Citizen Is minister mentor Lee Kuan Yew trying to create fear, or anxiety, among Singaporeans? DOes what he says deserve serious consideration? /Reminds me of Microsoft in the bad old days./ **** Guilt & Innocence In The Criminal Legal System by Mr Wang Says So In the end, we just have to accept that the criminal legal system is imperfect. Some factually guilty persons may be found legally innocent. Some factually innocent persons may be found legally guilty. Life is inherently too complicated for such things to never happen. THe criminal legal system has to constantly work towards minimising such risks, that is all. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Jul 14 13:15:03 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 14 Jul 2008 17:15:03 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 14, 2008 Message-ID: <20080714171503.89402.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Sells 1 Million iPhone 3Gs In First Weekend by AppleInsider Despite widespread activation problems, Apple said Monday that it sold its one millionth iPhone 3G on Sunday, just three days after the new handset launched worldwide on Friday, July 11. **** Review: RapidWeaver 4.0 by Tim Haddock, Macworld RapidWeaver 4.0 strikes just the right balance between customizability and ease of use. If you find iWeb limiting, Dreamweaver intimidating, and hand coding impossible, give RapidWeaver a try. **** Apple Has No Excuse For iPhone/MobileMe Disaster by David Zeiler, Baltimore Sun This would be a humiliation for any large company, but it's worse for Apple, which has built its public image on a foundation of superior design and customer service. **** TopXNotes 1.3 by Philip Michaels, Macworld **** Can The New iPhone Revolutionize Radio? by Larry Magld, CBS News If this does catch on, it could be incredibly disruptive to both the terrestiral and the relatively new satellite radio industries. With the internet, stations no longer neeed transmitters, satellites or hard-to-get-FCC licenses to broadcast to mobile listeners. /It's like podcasts, but live./ **** Last.fm For iPhone Launches, Rocks. by Pete Mortensen, Cult Of Mac With Pandora and AOL Radio, it has officially made the iPhone superior in every way to a satellite radio — unless you care about Howard Stern. **** Hypenotized By Apple by Michael Mace, Mobile Opportunity Apple's PR miasma is also starting to twist the thinking of people in the tech industry who ought to know better. **** Apple May Have Sold 425,000 New iPhones After Debut by Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg Apple Inc. may have sold as many as 425,000 of its new iPhones in the first three days after the handset made its debut, in line with projections even after a technical breakdown seemed poised to stall sales. **** Review: iPhone 3G by Jason Snell, Macworld **** Did Woz Cut The Line For His iPhone 3G? by Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet.com Woz claims that he was /invited/ to the front of the line and didn't cut. **** Review: Tipulator For iPhone by Dan Moren, Macworld Tipulator's user interface is pleasant and friendly, and while it works well enough, for such a simple process, it sometimes seems like overkill. **** Lord Of The Rings by Simon Tsang, Sydney Morning Herald In many respects, the biggest difference between the iPhone 3G and its competitors won't be the device itself but two new online services Apple is launching called App Store and MobileMe. **** iPhone 3G: On The Line In Seattle by Jeff Carlson, TidBITS It wasn't a party, but it wasn't a slog, either. **** Tip: Updating iPhone To 5A347 Reduces Yellow Tinge by Clint Ecker, Ars Technica **** 3G iPhone's Mediocre Battery Life Still Beats Rivals by Yardena Arar, PC World The battery life on Apple's new 3G iPhone isn't great, but it beats that of other 3G smartphones we've seen. **** The New iPhone Still Has A Battery Problem by Joe Nocera, International Herald Tribune For heavy cellphone users - and who isn't these days? - the battery is going to need a charge by lunchtime. Good luck with that. **** Year Of Call Waiting Comes To An End With iPhone by Colleen Cason, Ventura County Star Watchers of the tech scene have predicted the demographic for this new version of the iPhone would skew older. Older and wiser, they had been burned by Betamax and Quadraphonic sound. **** Developers Furious Over App Store "Line Cutting" by Macenstein It seems several different companies have renamed their iPhone games to begin with either a space, a quotation mark, or some other symbol so that they appear first in the list of 197 games on the iPhone portal to the App Store. **** MobileMe Settling In, But Users Still Unhappy by Stephen Withers, iTWire The situation regarding .Mac's Groups and HomePage features is still unclear. **** Walkthrough: Exhcange ActiveSync On Your iPhone 2.0 by Rene Ritchie, The iPhone Blog It's just that simple... which is really the point. **** Extending Battery Life On The iPhone 3G by Mitch Wagner, InformationWeek Most of tips boil down to turning off features you're not using. Turn off 3G, location services, push e-mail, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth if you're not using them. Adjust brightness. Minimize use of third-party applications like games that prevent the screen from dimming or shutting off, and applications that use location services. **** iPhone 3G: The First 48 Hours by Melissa J. Perenson, PC World I've become accustomed to being frustrated—an experience I'm not used to associating with Apple. Of course, much of the frustration emanates as much from the inadequacy of the AT&T network as it does from the iPhone's issues. **** MobileMe's Push Services Detailed, No Mac To MobileMe 'Push' by Arnold Kim, MacRumors.com In order to use the advanced Push capabilities of MobileMe from your Mac, you need to enable "Automatic" synchronization by selecting it in the MobileMe control panel. **** Two Days After 3G Launch, Crowds Persist by Philip Michaels, Macworld We're getting anecdotal reports that Apple Stores still have lines of would-be iPhone shoppers over the weekend (though nothing like the block-long queues you would have seen on Friday). The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Yahoo Again Spurns A Microsoft Offer by Michael J. de la Merced, New York Times MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Mary At The Tattoo Shop by Marcus Jackson, New Yorker **** When Human Rights Extend To Nonhumans by Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times We like to think of these as absolutes: that there are distinct lines between humans and ainmals, and that certain "human" rights are unalienable. But we're kidding ourselves. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** PTC Says Public Transport Fare Hikes Likely To Be Less Than 1.8% by Imelda Saad, Channel NewsAsia Singapore's Public Transport Council said commuters here are likely to face fare hikes of under 1.8 per cent or even less. Chairman Gerad Ee gave this assurance as bus and train commuters brace themselves for an impedning fare hike to be announced in two months. **** Mrbrown's Guide To Bicycle Commuting In Singapore by mrbrown Contrary to what the government wants you to think, the bicycle is not just for recreation and getting around in your estate. It is a very viable form of transport. Now go out and ride safe. And above all, have fun. **** New E-Payment System And IU Units For Road-Users by Susan Ferroa, Channel NewsAsia **** New Formula Protects Profits For Transport Companies by Leong Sze Hian, The Online Citizen How much is enough for our transport companies? And why doe the Public Transport Council seem more interested in protecting the profits of these companies than the welfare of the commuters? /I think the government's position is very clear in this case: the government will protect the public transport companies in earning "reasonable returns", so that the companies will continue to invest in the public transport industry. Critics of this policy, I believe, must show either that the profits generated by the companies is significant higher than "reasonable returns", given the amount of investment required and the amount of risks taken, or that this policy created more harm than good for the commuters and the public transport industry. I don't think this article made any advances in criticising the existing policy./ **** Changi's T3 Offers Choice Of 'Body Scanner' Or Physical Searches by Karamjit Kaur, Straits Times The problme, at least for some travellers, is that the millimetre wave scanner also produces image sthat outline body contours too clearly for comfort. **** If Soccer Had Been A CCA by Today It sometimes boils down to the unwillingness of some schools' administrators to work out what's best for the children instead of what's only good for the school. **** Can A Few Good Men Continue To Make Singapore? by P N Balji, Today /Unfortunately, the PAP government had essentially reduced political and civil service jobs to simply high-paying jobs. People who have the passion and the calling are not going to apply for jobs that make them seem like they are just going after big money./ **** School Bus Fares Going Up On Aug 1 by Grace Chua, Straits Times School bus operators, butten by skyrocketing diesel price, could soon start charging parents $10 to $15 more a month to ferry schoolchildren. **** Low-Cost Asian Airlines Thriving On Silver Linings by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, International Herald Tribune The gloom that has descended on much of the world's aviation industry is far from affecting everybody, and some Asian low-cost airlines are drawing up expansion plans, looking at opportunities where others see losses. **** Singapore Flyer Crowds Skipping The Shops by Judith Tan, Straits Times Shops and restaurants around the Singapore Flyer say they are losing money because most visitors head straight for the newly minted ride and skip their businesses. **** Response To Minister Gan On The Lowly-Waged Worker - A Letter To The Editor by Huang Shoou Chyuan, nofearSingapore Consider a minimal wage for certain sectors where locals may conceivably work in. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Jul 15 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 15 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 15, 2008 Message-ID: <20080715171501.1546.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Headline RSS Newsreader Debuts by Peter Cohen, Macworld **** iPhone "Silent" Switch Is Ignored By Many Applications by Mark Jaquith Many applications, including Apple-made applications, simply /ignore this switch/ and will gladly send their noises to the external speaker, angering everyone on the plane, or waking your sleeping wife (this one actually happened to me). The only safe way to silence the iPhone is to enable the "silent" switch and plug in some headphones. /As the writer observed, Apple has to allow applications — such as alarm clocks — to ignore the silent switch. But, please don't abuse this, app authors, please?/ **** The Kubler-Ross Of iPhone by Jason Perlow, ZDNet.com **** The Second Coming: Ars Goes In-Depth With The iPhone 3G by Jacqui Cheng, David Chartier and Clint Ecker, Ars Technica It's great as a consumer device, but with enterprise users' expectations having been raised this time around, we feel it still has quite a ways to go. **** The Elephant In The Living Room by John Siracusa, Macworld Apple could succeed where TiVo has failed. In addition to its technology and design prowess, Apple has shown that it's willing and able to take on the powers that be. **** Comic Boom Lets Kids Write Their Own Comics by MacNN Comic Boom includes unlimited drawing placement, allowing kids to quickly design four-panel comic strips to post on blogs, websites or saved sas PDF or JPG files. **** iPhone's Location-Aware Apps by Brady Forrest, O'Reilly Radar **** Bugging by Craig Hockenberry, Furbo.org The tools that developers use to analyze and debug problems are sorely missing at this point in time. **** Apple Sends The Wrong Signal To iPhone Customers by Philip Michaels, Macworld Apple should certainly be proud of the fact that it sold a million iPhone 3Gs in the device's first weekend—but how about a word or two of appreciation for the patience of the folks who endured a tremendous amount of inconvenience to enable Apple to hit that mark? And while we're at it, maybe Apple could also reassure its customers that it will look into what went wrong on Friday so that it will minimize the chances of repeating those mistakes at future product launches. **** Big Media Strikes Again With iPhone by John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine A few opinion makers, hand-selected by Apple to get phones in advance with the expectation of a glowing review, and the editors think this is just peachy? And they wonder why blogs are so popular. Perhaps it's because you ca get a less-corrupted opinion. **** Bugs Abound In iPhone 2.0 Operating System, Apps by Brian X. Chen, Wired Instead of happily tapping their touch screens, many iPhone users are using their fingers to point accusingly at Apple - and the developers of iPhone applications. **** New iPhone Applications Are Buggy But Have Great Promise by Saul Hansell, New York Times One behind-the-scenes aspect of the phone that I think shows some level of thoughtful design is that applications can very easily link to other aspects of the phone. **** Crank Down MobileMe's 15 Minute Sync Time by Dan Moren, MacUser It appears that you can teweak that setting if you don't mind venturing into the dark realms of .plist editing. **** iPhone App Market: A Look Into One Niche by Jeff Smykill, Ars Technica There is one application that I am looking forward to: an eBook reader. Unfortunately, creating one may be a lot harder than it seems. **** Apple Explains Missing iPhone Features by Sascha Segan, ExtremeTech Why isn't there cut and paste? Apple has a priority list of featuers, and they got as far as they could down that list with this model, Apple product head Greg Joswiak said. **** The Best Free App Store Games (So Far) by Peter Cohen, Macworld There are some really cool games you can download that won't cost you a penny. **** Apple: 10 Million Apps, 1 Million iPhone 3Gs by Peter Cohen, Macworld Apple indicates that more than 800 native applications are now available for download from the App Store, with more than 200 available for free. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Google/Viacom Agree To Preserve User Anonymity In Data Shakedown by Michael Arrington, TechCrunch **** Enterprises Become The Battleground For Social Networking by Paul Krill, InfoWorld **** Sony's PlayStation 3 Gains Ground On Xbox With Games by Michael White, Bloomberg **** How CAPTCHA Got Trashed by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Computerworld The wiggly words are now must useful for malware authors. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** The Lion And The Mouse by Jill Lepore, New Yorker The battle that reshaped children's literature. **** Visiting The Real Ranch by Sally Ball, Slate **** Answering Terror With Terror by Louis Bayard, Salon In "The Dark Side," Jane Mayer chronicles the terrible, destructive decisions the Bush administration made in the name of fighting terorrism. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** White Card Ruling Back In Force From Aug 15 For Entering Malaysia by Diana Othman, Straits Times THe High Commission of Malaysia in Singapore confirmed the renewl of this requirement on Tuesday, after some confusion over the move, which was to be enforced on Wednesday. **** Singapore Central Bank Dollar Buying To Depress Money Rates by Kevin Yao, Reuters Singapore's depressed money market rates will stay that way for a while as the central bank continues to buy dollars to limit currency appreciation, flooding the market with money, analysts said on Tuesday. **** Singapore Retail Sales Growth Salows As Inflation Hurts Spending by Shamim Adam, Bloomberg Singapore's retail sales growth slowed in May as consumers bought fewer cars and spent less on furniture amid the fastest inflation in 26 years. **** Venerable Shi Ming Yi Resigns As CEO Of Ren Ci Hospital by Channel NewsAsia Ren Ci Hospital CEO Venerable Shi Ming Yi voluntarily resigned on Monday, according to a statement from the hospital. **** Stage 2 Of Downtown Line Rail Network To Be Ready By 2015 by Channel NewsAsia The 16.6 km-long line comprises one depot and 12 stations stretching from Rochor, along Bukit Timah Road and Bukit Panjang. /I still don't understand why LTA refused to extend this line all the way to Choa Chu Kang or Yew Tee. The little Bukit Panjang LRT is not going to able to take the additional load from people transferring between the North-South line and Downtown line. Is this a case of penny-wise pound-foolish?/ **** Do Foreign Sports Talents Make Us Feel Weak? by Les Tan, Red Sports No self-respecting coach will ever choose a player just based on the player's place of birth. **** Judging Singapore's Judiciary by Wall Street Journal Singapore is unlikely to reform its political or judicial system anytime soon. But when the country is ready to join the ranks of modern democracies, the IBA's recommendations provide a good checklist of how to do so. **** Head Of Ren Ci Hospital, Venerable Shi Ming Yi Charged In Court by Channel NewsAsia Head of Ren Chi Hospital, the Venerable Shi Ming Yi has been charged with alleged forgery, conspiracy and misue of funds. **** Malaysia Does Not Give In To Singapore, Says Nazri by Bernama Malaysia does not give in to Singapore to the extend of sacrificing national interests when dealing with the island republic. Instead, it prefers negotiations and referring to the law to resolve issues or disputes with Singapore. Minister in the prime minister's department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said the move had been taken in dealing with several Malaysia-Singapore issues. **** Dragon Boat Tragedy: Victims' Families Seek Apology by Judith Tan and Carolyn Quek, Straits Times The families of the five paddlers who died last November in Cambodia want the Singapore Dragon Boat Association to admit it had failed to insist that life jackets be worn for the race and apologise for this. **** Fellow MPs To Share Ward Responsibilities by Lin Yanqin, Today Mr Lim Boon Heng, minister in the prime minister's office and Jurong GRC MP, said the other four MPs in the five-member GRC will take care of the late Dr Ong's Bukit Batok ward and would be meeting to discuss the sharing of the responsibility. There is not a requirement under the Parliamentary Elections Act should a GRC seat be vacated between General Elections, law professor and nominated MP THio Li-ann said. **** Singapore Central Bank Warns Of Downside Risks To Markets by Koh Gui Qing, Reuters Singapore's central bank said it is closely monitoring financial markets in the wake of the risis surrounding U.S. mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and warned of significant downside risks in global financial markets. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Jul 16 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 16 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 16, 2008 Message-ID: <20080716171500.79593.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple's MobileMe: Mobile Life Without Exchange by Tom Yager, InfoWorld iPhone will have to earn its reputation as an enterprise device by mating with Exchange Server as seamlessly as my BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices do. But iPhones also has to satisfy th eneeds of one, two, or five users. MobileMe puts Apple on an ambitious path toward that goal. **** Apple Won't Crumble by Tony Poulos, TelecomTV **** Apple Botches iPhone Patching, Says Researcher by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Apple took more than three months to patch an iPhone vulnerability, even though it had technical details of the bug and had crafted a fix for Mac OS X, the reseacher who reported the flaw said Tuesday. **** Firefox Makes An Impression With Mac Users by John O'Brien, Courier Mail One of Firefox's advantages over Safari is its thriving ecosystem of plug-ins. **** Is The iPhone 3G Bad For Mac? by Casey Chan, The iPhone Blog There was a 'Mac-line' for people who weren't interested in the iPhone 3G but wanted to buy a Mac, play Frisbee with the MacBook Air, get free WiFi, or just do whatever you do at the Apple store. That line was at lesat a 30 minute wait—to just get into the store! /I'm pretty sure everything will be back to 'normal' real soon now. And I'm betting that there are people in the Mac-line who are just interested in taking a look at the iPhone, and not buying either a phone or a computer./ **** Exchange And iPhone... A Complete Mess! by David Ciccone, Mobility Today Apple completely failed here and they should be embarrassed to tell their enterprise customers this is a full featured email device. **** Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility Disappoints by Andrew Garcia, eWeek Apple's first-generation configuration tools for back-end management and policy controls are woefully under-featured when compared to modern mobile device management platforms. **** App Store "Line Cutting" Issue Quietly Fixed by David Dehlquist, MacUser Take that, cheaters! **** Apple Quietly Releases iPod Touch 1.1.5 Update by Christopher Breen, Macworld If you own an iPod touch that hasn't been updated to version 2.0 and would like the update, just plug your iPod touch into your Mac and decline the 2.0 update. **** Copy And Paste by John Gruber, Daring Fireball Writing the code to implement a system-wide clipboard isn't the hard part — the hard part is coming up with the right UI design for it. /There are at least two criteria in evaluating which feature to add in a newer software release: how important or critical the feature is, and how easy or difficult to implement. I am guessing that the fact that copy-and-paste is not a critical cannot-function-without-it will-be-killed-by-Blackberry feature, plus the general difficulty in getting a right UI are why it got pushed down the to-do list./ **** iPhone 3G Unlocked With SIM Card Adapter by Gizmodo **** Apple iPhone 3G (8GB/16GB) by Jeremy Horwitz, iLounge **** Minireview: MLB @ Bat For iPhone/iPod Touch by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica The bottom line is that this application is very well done. It performs well, the stability is about as good as you can ask for on this platform at this time, and the UI is a pleasure to use. **** Xcode 3.1 Brings Security, Performance, And UI Improvements by Erik Kennedy, Ars Technica The final release adds support for SDKs for additional platforms (read: iPhone/iPod touch), gcc 4.2 and llvm-gcc-4.2 as alternate compilers, an integrated property-list editor, user-interface improvements to a variety of tools, and a number of performance improvements and bug fixes. **** iPhone 3G: Sold Out In 21 States by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune **** Review: iPhone 2.0 Software Update by Dan Moren, Macworld The iPhone 2.0 software is full of the kind of refinements that you'd expect from a second-generation Apple product. **** Is The iPod Touch 2.0 Update Worth $10? by Christopher Breen, Macworld Yes. Yes, it is. **** Apple Cancels Plans For UK iTunes Price Cuts by Lexton Snol, Macworld UK Apple has scrapped plans to cut its UK iTunes prices, despite promising to do so at the start of the year. **** Apple Files Suit Against Mac Cloners by MacNN Apple has begun legal proceedings against Psystar, documents confirm. See Also: Apple Suit: Psystar's Mac Clones Must Be Recalled , by Ina Fried. Apple's list of grievances against Mac clone maker Psystar spans 16 pages, but, in the end, its argument boils down to the one expected. Psystar, Apple says, had no right to do what it did, and should be stopped and forced to pay. **** Apple's MobileMe Problem Child by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK Problems remain with MobileMe, with users signing to test the service claiming to have been charged full price; plus last-minute feature removals and more. See Also: Apple Delays iDisk File Sharing, MobileMe Issues Continue , by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Microsoft Tells Congress Yahoogle Will Own 90% Of Ad Market by John Timmer, Ars Technica MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic by Jane Sigal, New York Times Even if you couldn't be on the Champs-Elysees for Bastille Day on MOnday to watch seven parachutists float down in front of president Nicholas Sarkozy, you can still celebrate the greatness of France with a new local tradition. Eat a hamburger. **** In Manhattan, Sliders For All Tastes by Florence Fabricant, New York Times Are they greasy but lovable little staples of down-market fast food? Or are they trendy, high-end bar food fussed over by chefs and served with fancy ketchup on miniature brioche buns? Right now, at restaurants in New York and elsewhere, they are both. Take your pick. **** Unhappily Ever After by Karen Springen, Newsweek Remember when children's books frolicked through tales of ponies and princes? The latest kid-lit craze is stories about living through the apocalypse—now. **** I Choose My Choice! by Sandra Tsing Loh, The Atlantic The fruits of the feminist revolution? Sisterhood, empowerment, and eight hours a day in a cubicle. **** Earth Scars by Richard Stone, and photograph by Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic Magazine Asteroids and comets in nearby space pose a constant threat to our planet. Can we avert catastrophe the next time around? SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** NZ Cartel Charges Filed Against Airlines - Cathay, Singapore, Aerolineas by New Zealand Herald **** Booking A Taxi? Just Call One Common Number From July 21 by Straits Times The common taxi booking number will complement the taxi companies' call booking systems, which will continue to be in use. The call will first be routed to one selected taxi company's call centre. If the lines there are busy, the call will automatically be re-routed to another taxi company's call centre. **** Repeat After Me: Innocence Until Proven Guilty by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu This article by Andrew Loh in The Online Citizen shouldn't be published in the manner it is published. Venerable Shi Ming Yi has not been proven guilty, but this article has strong implications that he is guilty. Even though Mr Loh is careful in stating that "the monk's guilt is yet to be ascertained", the photograph of Shi Ming Yi is pasted just underneath the headline "Even if these men fail...". Further into the article, Andrew Loh wrote "let us not forget the very good work which the other volunteers and staff at these organisations are doing" — the "these organisations" refer to Ren Ci's medical facilities, implying that Shi Ming Yi /is/ guilty. Shi Ming Yi may well be proven guilty in the near future, but let's presume he is innocent now.

Permanent Link to This Post **** How HDB Flats Are Priced Affordably by Kee Lay Cheng, Housing & Development Board, Straits Times Currently, a new four-room flat can cost close to $300,000 to develop, taking into account land, building and other costs. This is signficantly higher than the subsidised price of a four-room flat in Punggol/Sengkang sold by HDB at about $200,000 to $260,000. /Again, note what the government didn't say. The government did not say that a new four-room flat cost $300,000 on average to build. It may well be comparing the development cost of a 4-room flat in Chinatown versus the selling price of a 4-room flat in Punggol./ **** The Singapore Model by Michael Teo, The Guardian To worship a western model as the only way, and dismiss all other solutions as authoritarian or undemocratic, is surely the ultimate anaesthetic for the brain. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Jul 17 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 17 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 17, 2008 Message-ID: <20080717171500.53755.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Shows Off First China Store, Divulges Retail Plans by Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service "This is the first of many stores we will open in China," said Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice president of retail. He later added that Apple will open stores "in Beijing, in Shanghai and beyond." **** iPhone Aps: When 2.0 Means 1.0 by Jason Snell, Macworld Apple may have updated the iPhone. But the App Store is brand new — and it shows. **** Apple's Novelty Shop by Brian Caulfield, Forbes Play around with Apple's App store and one thing is clear: So far it's mostly about playing around. **** Dooza 1.1 by Dan Miller, Macworld There are plenty of painting and drawing programs for Mac kids, but plasq's Doozla is one of the best I've seen. **** The Loopt Debacle by Justine Ezarik, Tasty Blog Snack **** Plugging Into A Little Good Will by Frank Bruni, New York Times "We'll just bring the charger cord," Gary said, "and plug the phone in the restaurants we visit." "Right," I said, "I'm sure they're going to let us do that." **** Apple's New App Store For iPhone Stuff Is Addictive by Edward C. Baig, USA Today The App Store turns the iPhone into an important new computing platform. **** Apple Climbs Into Third Place In U.S. PC Market by Mark Hachman, PC Magazine Apple again cracked the top three in U.S. PC sales for the third quarter, according to surveys released Wednesday by both Gartner and IDC. **** In Sync To Pierce The Cloud by David Pogue, New York Times **** Localisations Are A Hassle by Sven-S. Prost, Quarter Life Crisis Once you automate more of your UI work, you reduce the number of eyes seeing it before being shipped. As a consequence bad UI experiences will increase as users get to use an absolutely virgin UI. **** 3 iPhone Media Apps (That Feel A Little Like Magic) by Merlin Mann, 43 Folders Today I want to point you to three applicatins that make me feel like I'm a music fan of the very-near-future — where personalized data flies through the air, phones play rock music bassed on your personal preferences, and everybody listens to Silkworm on moving sidewalks and in tricked-out rocket cars. **** Minireview: Scrabble For iPhone/iPod Touch by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica If you love Scrabble, then it is easily worth the $9.99 price tag. If you are only a casual Scrabble fan, you may want to wait until the WiFi multiplayer version comes out. **** AirRadar Detects Wi-Fi Networks by Dan Moren, MacUser AirRadar lets you scan the area for Wi-Fi access points and provides you with details on their signal strength, whether or not the network is secured, and will even identify the strongest network for you. **** Where To Eat? Ask Your iPhone by Frank Bruni, New York Times On Saturday night, the day after the iPhone 3G came out, I recruited a friend who had purchased one to join me in an experiment. For more than four hours we hopped around the city, asking Urbanspoon to suggest somewhere good to eat. **** The New Apple Walled Garden by Nik Cubrilovic, Tech Crunch The problem with Apple is that the blind demand is driven by a distorted reality, so those same developers who poured thousands of hours into the BSD kernel now turn around and purchase an iPhone running that code, but it is now tied up in DRM, licenses and restrictions placed there by others. **** Two Steps Forward And One Big Step Backing Up by Rob Griffiths, Macworld This is the cause of my syncing angst—that little progress bar—which is part of a fun game I like to call the "iPhone Backup Lottery." **** How To Save Time By Typing Less by Kirk McElhearn, Macworld Tricks to make you a keyboard efficency expert. **** iPhone 2.0 Adds Support For Embedded YouTube by Dan Moren, Macworld You tap on an embedded YouTube video, and it launches the iPhone's YouTube application and plays said video. **** Review: Best Sudoku Apps For iPhone And iPod Touch by Dan Frakes, Macworld I tested every iPhone Sudoku app and picked out those worthy of your iPhone's screen. (It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.) **** Apple Apologizes For MobileMe Launch, Extends Subscriptions by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Apple spokesman, Bill Evans, told /Macworld/: "We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge." The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Google's Android Platform: Not So Open After All by Ryan Paul, Ars Technica MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Turf War by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Americans can't live without their lawns—but how long can they live with them? **** Golden Bull by Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic We are living in a golden age of the pseudo-meaningful stunt. **** The Big Picture by Peter N. Miller, The New Republic There is no replacement for the human trace, and no way to grasp its meaning without a trained imagination. **** To Catch-22 A Predator by Maria Luisa Tucker, Village Voice On Ward's Island, it's legal limbo for men who probably deserve it. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Uniqueness Of Perfection That Sits To Our North by Michael Backman, The Age Singapore's leaders cocoon themselves against challenge and seem affronted by scrutiny It's as if they haven't done a good job in building Singapore. But they have, and that is the frustration. Why must they act as if they haven't? As you read through the measured paragraphs of the IBA report, you can almost feel the pleading; the advice to a friend: "you're wealthy, you're educated, you're like us now. Take that final step — join us — the community of civil, prosperous socieities. Do it, before you embarrass yourself more." But this friend is too proud to listen. **** Meek Reflections, Bold Suppositions by Mollymeek We must fear change. We must change. We must fear change when it's not directed by the PAP. We mus tembrace change when it's directed by the PAP for we must stay relevant in this world. This is one of the basic messages that we get all the time, directly or indirectly. Absurdity. **** Shades Of Grey Part 2.5 by Perry Tong, A Singaporean **** Can We Tweak The Formula? by Today The key implication here for the Public Transport Council (PTC) and public trasnport operators is that should there be an increase in public transport fares, they have to, at the same time, raise overall quality standards which are visible to commuters. **** Violence: The Lesser Evil? by Ethel Chong, Today Intimate scenes of Tony Leung's character and his wife are censored, yet the battle scenes are more than gratutious. /As a society, we seems to be able accept violence more in our arts than nudity. We are okay to allow our children to see people dying unnaturally than people loving naturally./ **** Improving Public Transport - An Express Alternative by Tan Kin Lian, The Online Citizen **** Smart Cabs To Implement 30-Cent Fuel Surcharge From August 1 by Chio Su-Mei, Channel NewsAsia The move by Smart Automobile comes in the wake of a similar announcement by ComfortDelGro last week. /It doesn't make any sense for Smart not to follow suit./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Jul 18 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 18 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 18, 2008 Message-ID: <20080718171501.61801.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple In No Rush To Bring iPhone To Russia, China by Maria Kiselyova and Sophie Taylor, Reuters For now, Apple has given tacit consent to the informal supply chain by adding Russian and Chinese language options. **** Why Does Open Source Need A Villain? by Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet.com Don't make Steve Jobs out to be more than he is. Stop worrying about what he's going to do to open source. Make him worry about what open source is going to do to him. /However, Apple is not in the businesses where open source is of any significant threat. Except maybe Safari. But Safari is given away free; it is to support the real business of MobileMe./ **** Apple's Beijing Retail Store Opens by CCTV.com Consumers in Beijing will soon be able to access Apple products directly from the company itself. **** Apple Needs To Slay Its iPhone Dragons by Charles Arthur, The Guardian /Bottom line, Apple's iPhone still have a lot of room for improvement, especially if you are looking at it as a computer that does phone functions./ **** MobileMe And iWeb Woes Continue by Charles Jade, Ars Technica "If you are a .Mac user and are trying to publish iWeb content via this MobileMe(ss), you can forget about it for now. It doesn't work. Period." **** iPhone 3G GPS - Is It Too Small In The Antenna Department To Be Any Good? by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com **** Apple Seen Ordering 20% More MacBooks by Electronista **** Invoice 3 Adds Smart Coloring by Peter Cohen, Macworld Aimed at small business users who need to create invoices to bill clients for products and services, Invoice lets you create colored invoices, keep track of payments, use drag and drop to create and arrange invoices, maintain currency conversions, save selected invoices as PDFs, create recurring invoices, manage smart folders and smart counters and more. **** 21 Great Technologies That Failed by Jeremy A. Kaplan and Sascha Segan, PC Magazine We took a look back over the years at some of the greatest flops to come out of both Microsoft and Apple, technology that failed not because it was lacking in brilliance but often because it was simply ahead of its time. **** Apple's Earnings Dance by Brian Caulfield, Forbes **** Write On One Computer, Deploy Everywhere by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu No, I don't believe in cross-platform GUI code. Never seen one that is good enough. But, wouldn't it be great if I can start using my Macintosh to write Windows application? MFC, WTL, ATL, .Net and plain Win32. Pretty please? (Yes, I've actually used Visual C++ for Macintosh. If you don't know what this is, you should be thankful. Worse than Bob.)

Permanent Link to This Post **** Designing A UI To Do Cut And Paste Is Easy? by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu If you think that designing the UI for iPhone to do cut and paste is easy, just take a look at the mess which is Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Permanent Link to This Post **** 10 Reasons To Switch From PC To Mac by Technospeedia Mac is ready to use out of the box. **** The MobileMe Disaster Continues: Now It's Not 'Exchange For THe Rest Of Us' Anymore by Paul Thurrott, SuperSite For Windows Apple has a history of over-promising and under-delivering and they get a total pass on this with the press. **** Has Apple Lost Its Mojo? by Mike Elgan, Internet News The handful of recent stumbles by Cupertino is just a temporary rough patch, right? **** Apple Fails BlackBerry Test by Paul Taylor, Financial Times The two most glaring problems from a business perspective are the lack of a physical Qwerty keybaord and, as most other commentators have noted, rather disappointing battery life. **** Demographics Is Destiny by Fraser Speirs If you haven't got it already, it's time to move your head to this place: iPhone OS is Apple's mainstream platform for 2012 and beyond. It's a bold prediction, but the numbers seem fairly clear. **** Hands Off iPhone Talking In My Car by Rick Fay, TidBITS **** iPhone 3G Shortage To Last Two To Four Weeks, Analyst Says by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Customers looking for an iPhone 3G may have to wait up to a month for Apple to boost its orders with suppliers and refill the pipeline, a Wall Street analyst said Thursday. **** RiftVault Security Software Reaches 1.0 by Peter Cohen, Macworld RiffVault secures credit card numbers, documents and other data using 256-bit AES encryption combined with SHA-256 hashing. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Google Deliberately Sells Fewer Ads - And May Have Gone Too Far by Saul Hansell, New York Times **** Who's Going To Fund The Next Steve Jobs? by James Freeman, Wall Street Journal Is the great American financial engine that gave the world Intel and Google grinding to a halt? **** Debugging Multiprocessor Code by Jakob Engblom, EE Times MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Kick Over The Scenery by Stephen Burt, London Review Of Books When an art form or genre once dismissed as kids' stuff starts to get taken seriously by gatekeepers - by journals, for example, such as the one you are reading now - respect doesn't come smoothly, or all at once. Often one artist gets lifted above the rest, his principal works exalted for qualities that other works of the same kind seem not to possess. Later on, the quondam genius looks, if no less talented, less solitary: first among equals, or maybe just first past the post. That is what happened to rock music in the late 1960s, when sophisticated cirtic decided, as Richard Poirier put it, to start 'learning from the Beatles'. It is what happened to comics, too, in the early 1990s, when the Pulitzer Prize committee invented an award for Art Spiegelman's /Maus/. And it has happened to science ficitoin, where the anointed author is Philip K. Dick. **** The Art Of Dying by Brendan Kiley, The Stranger How one guy in Seattle is changing what happens when we die. **** Selected Poems By Kay Ryan by Kay Ryan, New York Times **** Knowing Me, Knowing ABBA by Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon How did a cheesy Scandinavian pop group in jumpsuits and blue eye shadow become as seriously beloved as the Beatles? SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Higher Fares On 11 Premium Bus Services by Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times The increases, ranging from 30 cents to 60 cents, come as transport operators are feeling the pinch from rising fuel costs. **** Raising The Bar by The Economist A rare slip-up in court by Singapore's elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew. **** Hunger Strike Protest by Eastcoastlife Sheila mentioned that an MOE officer (from public affairs probably) told her editor who was on good terms with them, "we have a good relationshiop going on, don't pursue the matter further." **** New Committee Set Up To Ensure Stability In Long Term Food Supply by Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia Among its plans, the new inter-agency committee will examine Singapore's farming policy while investing in food production overseas. **** Retailers At Changi's T3 Say Business Bad, 6 Months After Opening by Imelda Saad, Channel NewsAsia Some shops said takings have dropped by up to 70 per cent, compared to when T3 first opened early this year. **** George Yeo Gives Asean... C Grade For Its Hnadling Of Myanmar Issues by Leslie Koh, Straits Times **** Allow Teachers To Teach, Or Many Will Keep Quitting by Christopher Tan, Straits Times Many became disillusioned as when they started they wanted to be an educator but they eventually became more of an administrator. **** Ren Ci Suffers Sharp Drop In Donations by Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times Donations to Ren Ci Hospital and Medicare Centre have pluged. It collected just $1.1 million in the last seven months, down from the $9.3 million that came in over the same period last year. **** But We Aren't Even Staying! by Travelpod We had to walk 30 steps outside the buidling on Singapore soil from the arrival hall to the departure hall. Seriously, couldn't a tunnel have been built? **** ABC Correspondent Facing Drug Charges In Singapore by ABC News **** The Dark Side Of Paradise by Sholto Byrnes, New Statesman Put bluntly, liberal democracy has no historic roots in the Asean countries; and after independence there were plenty of reasons why more authoritarian forms of governemnt swiftly became the norm. **** No One System Of Government Can 'Tick All The Boxes' by Matt Pasterfield, Today What you gain on the one hand, you lose with the other. /It's seldom a zero-sum game. How do we know we can't tick more boxes, unless we try?/ **** Why Cruise Empty, Cabby? by Thomas Koshy, Today Why not allow taxis, which now cruise empty past bus stops, to pick up those waiting for feeder buses and drive them to the nearest hub for a flat charge of $1 or less? Wastage from empty cruising would be cut dow. Taxi drivers would have a new revenue source. Commuters would have a shorter wait. /There is a serious gap in the market between public bus/train service and taxi. LTA need to open up the market for competition beyond just premium buses which have too many rules and regulations./ **** Singapore Companies Should Work Collectively, Says Lee by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama Singapore companies should work collectively when taking on new markets if they want their overseas ventures to thrive, prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said Thursday. **** Navigating Singapore's New Media Environment by Gerald Giam, The Online Citizen We Singaporeans need to cease being observers on the sidelines, and take the future in our own hands. **** SDBA Reiterates Not Responsible For Cambodia Dragon Boat Tragedy by Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia While it said it fully respected the families' right and prerogative to express their wishes, it said the question of responsibility had been fully investigated with the findings made public. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Jul 19 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 19 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 19, 2008 Message-ID: <20080719171500.93214.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Distant And Remote by John Gruber, Daring Fireball Any time you need to type on Apple TV, if you have the Remote app open on your iPhone, the keyboard will appear and you can just type on your iPhone instead. **** AT&T Mistakenly Announces Free Wi-Fi For iPhone Users... Again by Marguerite Reardon, CNET News.com **** Review: Apple Blows Its Chance With MobileMe by Edward F. Moltzen, ChannelWeb MobileMe is not what you'd expect from Steve Jobs' Apple. The company simply overpromised and underdelivered. **** Free Software Foundation Vs iPhone by Rafe Colburn, rc3.org I think it was easier for Apple to reduce its packaging and do a better job of recycing old parts than it will be for them to give up some of the controls they're exercisig over the iPhone platform. **** Firefox Update Fixes Mac Security Issue by Peter Cohen, Macworld Firefox 3.0.1 corrects a Mac OS X-specific issue invoving malformed GIF files. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** One Person's News, Delivered By Twitter by Steve Outing **** Look For The Silver Lining by The Economist Piracy is a bad thing. But sometimes companies can turn it to their advantage. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Spreading The Word, Through Pamphlets by Lisa Anne Auerbach, Los Angeles Times Interested in changing people's lives? Forget writing a book or teaching a class. Consider being the author of a tract instead. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Does Not Take Sides In Neighbours' Domestic Politics, Says Singapore FM by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama Singapore's key principle in its relations with its neighbours is not to take sides in their domestic politics, foreign affairs minister George Yeo said. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Jul 20 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 20 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 20, 2008 Message-ID: <20080720171501.55409.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** La La La La La I Can't Hear You by Atomicbird One of the most useful sources of information for a software developer on any platform is... other developers working on the same platform. The ability to discuss issues with other developers, compare notes, and get questions answered is extremely valuable. But none of that is allowed for iPhone developers. **** Motorola Sues Ex-Executive For Going To Apple by Justin Montgomery, InformationWeek The suit claims breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. **** If You Work For Apple, We Need Your Help... by Dave Thomas, PragDave So, to write a book about the iPhone SDK, you have to download it. In order to download it, you have to accept the agreement. And the agreement says that the download will contain confidential information that you can't pass on to third parties. That makes it hard to publish the book. **** iPhone 3G Jailbreaking Tool Goes Live by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider The well-known iPhone Dev Team has released one of the first utilities to jailbreak iPhone 3G and let it run unsanctioned apps, albeit one with more than a few catches. **** Building On To The iPhone by Zachary Abrahamson, The Hartford Courant Two Connecticut software developers are among those looking to take advantage of the App Store, where iPhone users can choose from hundreds of additional features for their phones. **** Apple Retail Invades China This Weekend (Photos) by Sam Oliver, AppleInsider **** Microsoft's Windows 95 Architect Is A Happy Mac Convert by Lonnie Lazar, Cult Of Mac Software engineer Satoshi Nakajima, the lead architect of Microsoft's Windows 95, picked up a Mac for the first time two years ago. He was so impressed, he says he'll never touch a PC again. **** Apple Sends Another MobileMe Apology E-Mail And Extension by Arnold Kim, MacRumors.com Apple made one other mistake that it is now apologizing for. Apple had been preauthorizing charges up to 121 GBP to European customers who signed up for a free MobileMe trial. **** MobileMe Outages, Maintenance Persist Into 2Nd Week by MacNN The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** To Save Gas, Shoppers Stay Home And Click by Stephanie Rosenbloom, New York Times TO go shopping these days, more Americans are trading in their car keys for a keyboard. **** Android Losing Its Mojo Fast by Garett Rogers, ZDNet.com **** Linux Torvalds On The "Four-Letter Word" Called "Innovation" by Matt Asay, CNET News.com In open source, we need more talented /executors/ to achieve dominance. Sure, we can innovate, but that's not really the point. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Search For Alien Life Gains New Impetus by Marc Kaufman, Washington Post When Paul Butler began hunting for planets beyond our solar system, few poeple took him seriously, and some, he says, questioned his credentials as a scientist. That was a decade ago, befure Butler helped find some of the first extra-solar planets, and before he and his team identified about half of the 300 discovered since. **** The Next Kind Of Integration by Emily Bazelon, New York Times With its decision in Meredith, the court was forcing Louisville to rethink the way it would assign elementary-school students and, in the process, to confront some tricky questions. Is the purpose of integration simply to mix students of different colors for the sake of equity or to foaster greater familiarity and comfort among the rces? Should integration necessarily translate into concrete gains like greater achievement for all students? If so, is mixing students by race the most effective mechanism for attaining it? **** 'Eating Skillfully' by Dawn Drzal, New York Times WHat makes "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper" a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy is its demonstration, through one person's intense experience, that food is not a mere reflecton of culture but a potent shaper of cultural identity. **** Worst Person I Know by Ann Hodgman, New York Times Ah, the mother-in-law, that staple of stand-up comedy routines. Does she still have any power left after decades of pummeling? In Mameve Medwed's new novel, "Of Men and Their Mothers," she certainly does. Ina Pollock, Maisie Grey's loathsome ex-mother-in-law, can raise the reader's pulse with a single phone call — or, in this case, a series of messages left when there was no chance Maisie would be home. **** I'm Y.A., And I'm O.K. by Margo Rabb, New York Times My literary novel about death and grief, which I'd worked on for eight years, was a young adult book? SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Private Doctors Must Seek Accreditation Before Performing Liposuction by Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia Liposuction was previously unregulated, leading to calls to plastic surgeons on the health ministry to tighten rules on the procedure. **** Withdrawal Of Six SBS Transit Premium Services by Singapore Bus Page **** How Does Singapore Make Its People Live In Harmony? by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama According to its former prime minister Goh Chok Tong, the primary reason was that Singapore had a fair and just government. **** Reshaping Education With 'Teach Less Learn More' Strategy by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star A quiet evolution is beginning to sweep across Singapore schools on a scale that has even taken parents by surprise. **** Free Durians For The Picking by Frankie Chee, Straits Times It's durian season now, but some Singaporeans prefer to head to the jungle for their fix. **** More Firms Are Playing 'Happy Families' by Jamie Ee Wen Wei and Gabriel Yue, Straits Times Rise in number of companies with policies to improve work-life balance. **** Obama: Dissent Does Not Make One Unpatriotic by Gerald Giam, Singapore Patriot So much of his speech is applicable even to Singapore and Singaporeans. **** A Day In The Life by The Online Citizen What is perhaps the more worrying development over the past months is the increasing chance that the government's competency could start coming into question. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Jul 21 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 21 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 21, 2008 Message-ID: <20080721171500.69111.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Review: Internet Cleanup 5.0 by Joe Kissell, Macworld Internet utility suite produces mixed results. **** Converting From PC To Mac by Dan Kaufman, The Age I began setting it up, moving all my documents, music and photos over from my PC using a flash drive, before the horrible realisation dawned; Apple Mail doesn't import Outlook email files. **** Apple May Say iPod, Mac Boosted Profit; iPhone Sales Deferred by Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg Apple decided not to include last quarter's iPhone sales in its report because older models sold during the period lacked updated software. **** Ten Free Mac OS X Programs That Make The PC To Mac Switch A Breeze by Ultimate Technology Base Having recently made the switch to a Mac myself, I've put together a list of the top ten free Mac OS X programs that made switching from a PC to a Mac a breeze. **** iPhone 3G Availability Plummets by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G supply dropped dramatically over the weekend, as the company's own inventory tool showed fewer than 9% of its stores had any phones to sell on Sunday. **** iPhone 2.0 Performance Issues: Contacts by Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet.com Apple's buggy Contacts application has effectively hobbled an integral feature of the iPhone and it's also brought down Mail and SMS with it. **** Remembering When Hell Once Froze Over by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu If I remember my history correctly, Apple's iPod used to support MusicMatch software on Windows. Pretty soon, it was dropped when iTunes for Windows was unveiled. So.... guess how long Apple's MobileMe will support Internet Explorer? Notice that Safari is already on Windows...

Permanent Link to This Post **** My Son, The Blogger: An M.D. Trades Medicine For Apple Rumor by Brian Stelter, New York Times For eight years, Arnold Kim has been trading gossip, rumor and facts about Apple, the notoriously secretive computer company, on his web site, MacRumors.com. It had been a hobby — albeit a time-consuming one — while Dr. Kim earned his medical degree. **** AppleTV: Not Mainstream, But Then Again Neither Are DVRs (Yet) by Robert Seidman, TV By The Numbers If Apple announces a DVR in Apple TV it will upset a few people. If it announces Slingbox functionality it also will rub some folks the wrong way. It's too bad that is the way it is, but because it is, it's not easy for Apple and I believe that's why it has played Apple TV down so much. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Twitter's Growing Pains by John Borland, MIT Technology Review Plauged by service outages, the microblogging site rebuilds its infrastructure. **** Smaller PCs Cause Worry For Industry by Matt Richtel, New York Times The personal comuter industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Last Year I Killed A Man by Vaughan Thomas, The Guardian The impact was only a matter of seconds in coming, but those seconds felt like minutes. This wasn't how it was meant to be. It wasn't how I had imagined it during my years as a Central line train driver. **** A Child With A Problem, A Family With An Excuse by Janet Maslin, New York Times Jennifer Haigh has a great gift for telling interwoven family stories and doing justice to all the different perspectives they present. **** The Teacher by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, New Yorker **** Never Mind by Dorothea Tanning, New Yorker **** Why I Hate Summer by Rachel Shukert, Salon Sweaty thighs sticking to plastic chairs? Miserable barbecues and forced merriment? Thanks, but I'll pass. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Choose To Pay ERP by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu Raymond Lim, minister for transport said : "Only 24 per cent of drivers incur ERP charges daily, and the majority who do not pay ERP would be better off as a result of the 15 per cent road tax deduction." Okay, first a nit-pick: Notice his said 24 percent incur charges daily. That simply means that there are other drivers who will incur ERP charges throughout the week, except maybe not daily. Also, I wonder if the use of the term "daily" means every single day, or just Monday to Friday. Nevertheless, the essential point is valid. Someone who drives daily between Ang Mo Kio and Raffles Place should pay more than someone who drives daily between Yishun and Woodlands. It doesn't make sense to have the same ERP tax applied across all drivers.

Permanent Link to This Post **** Singapore Not Facing Stagflation, But Inflation Will Remain High by Ng Baoying, Channel NewsAsia The Singapore economy is not facing stagflation, according to the senior minister of state for trade and industry, S Iswaran. Speaking in parliament on Monday, he noted however that inflation will remain high and will not return to previous lower levels anytime soon. **** Keeping Gridlock-Free Roads Vital To Vibrant Economy: Minister by Straits Times Keeping Singapore's roads smooth-flowing is vital to a vibrant and productive economy, said transport minister Raymond Lim on Monday. That's why it would not be prudent to freeze the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges - even in thse times of escalating fuel prices and rising cost of living - as thie does not mean that the motorists will incur no costs. **** Look At Security Lapses In Perspective: Shanmugam by Straits Times 'Perfection is the ideal to aim for. But imperfection is the reality we have to work with everyday.' **** Our World-Class Public Bus Transport System by Alice Cheong In Wonderland **** S$1m Reward For Information Leading To Capture Of Mas Selamat by Channel NewsAsia The million dollar reward has been put up by two private individuals who approached the home affairs ministry. **** PM Calls For Deeper Understanding Of Asean's Relevance by Straits Times "The more our populations understand that Asean is relevant to their well-being, the deeper will be their sense of belonging and community, and the more we will be able to achieve in our integration efforts." **** The Legalization Of Organ Trading - Government Going Down A Slippery Path by Urbanrant By allowing organ trading, the Singaporean government seems to be saying that wealthy but otherwise unhealthy people can simply buy a replaceable part from a poorer person. /This article, I think, is not making an "slippery slope" argument./ **** MOH Offers Ren Ci List Of Potential Chief Execs by Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times The health ministry has suggested 'a couple of names' as potential candidates to head Ren Ci Hospital and Medicare Centre, health minister Khaw Boon Wan said yesterday. /Yes, the MOH is that confident that Ming Yi will be proven guilty./ **** Raffles JC May Offer IB Diploma By 2010 by Jane Ng, Straits Times Raffles Junior College is looking at offering a broad-based two-year diploma covering everything from philosophy to science as an alternative to the A levels. **** ASEAN Ministers Urge Burma To Release Suu Kyi by Radio Australia ASEAN foreign ministers have expressed deep disappointment over the extension of the house arrest of Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. **** No Business At T3? Time For Better Viewing Galleries by Today The unique feature of an airport is the sight of aeroplanes, but sadly the authorities of Changi Airport seem to be missing out on this point. /My daughter was quite disappointed when we couldn't see a single plane the last time we went to T3. (It was at night.) Of course, she was even more disappointed when she discovered that daddy cannot just simply buy us some tickets to go Hong Kong Disneyland on the spot there and then. :-)/ **** Asean Must Move On Human Rights by Pokpong Lawansiri, Bangkok Post THe Asean human right sbody now in its formative stages should not be merely a window dressing mechanism; it should be able to carry out significant monitoring, investigation, and protection work, and should be empowered to conduct fact-finding missions and access human rights victims. **** Steamboat Meal Leaves Her Fuming by Hedy Khoo, New Paper It was the hottest steamboat buffet she ever had - literally. That was because the air-conditioning and lights were switched off - while she and other customers were still eating. /The restaurant is Bei Shan Chuan Spicy Seafood Restaurant at VicoCity./ **** Supperclub Coming To Substation by Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia Crooners, stunt performers and daredeveil magicians - they are just some of the 20 acts hoping to perform at SupperClub, a restaurant, bar concept space started in Amsterdam with branches worldwide. **** Khaw Says Key Problem To Legalising Organ Trade Is Exploitation Of Donors by Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia "The key problem is exploitation. So if you can find a way to eliminate exploitation or minimise exploitation to a low level, isn't that a better outcome, than pretending that the problem doesn't exist but the exploitation continues?" From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Jul 22 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 22 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 22, 2008 Message-ID: <20080722171501.82589.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Developer Installer Solution Ships by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK Excel Software has introduced its developer-focused ClickInstall 1.0 software for Mac OS X. **** Review: IPNetSentryX 1.6.5 by Joe Kissell, Macworld Although IPNetSentryX is a sort of jack of all trades when it comes to firewall software, its most salient distinguishing characteristic is that it uses adaptive rather than fixed rules. **** Apple Shines On Minneapolis Firm's iPhone App by Emma L. Carew, Star Tribune After Apple opened its online application store, DoApp's "myLite Color Strobe and Flashlight" program quickly broke into the store's top 10 free downloads. **** Plopp 1.2.5 by Roman Loyola, Macworld Impara's Plopp is a drawing tool for kids that not only makes 3-D easy, but it makes it fun, too. **** Apple Pushes MobileMe Surprise To XP, Vista Via iTunes Update by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Apple Inc. installed a control panel applet for its MobileMe online sync and storage service on Windows XP and Windows Vista systems when they were updated to iTunes 7.7 - the second time this year that it's bundled new software with an update for an existing program. **** MobileMe Competition by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu I wish Microsoft's Live Mesh can offer some real competition to Appel's MobileMe. I am not hopeful, but I do wish. Even Google right now does not offer such a comprehensive package of convenience.

Permanent Link to This Post **** In Age Of iPhone, Computers Walk The Plank by Allan Hoffman, The Star-Ledger Apple's latest iPhone signals a new era, with a shift in the center of the computing world away from the full-fledged computer and onto the hand-held device. **** Investors Eye Health Of Apple's Steve Jobs by Dhanya Skariachan, Reuters **** Apple Hints At A 'Product Transition' And A New Product Soon? by Arnold Kim, MacRumors.com In the conference call, Apple executives repeated referred to a "product transition" that may affect Q4 revenue numbers. /If I have to bet, I'd say new notebooks, with many of the MacBook Air features migrating to the MacBook Pro and MacBook lines./ **** Apple Earnings Call - Steve Jobs' Health Is Private, No Plans To Leave Apple by Leander Kahney, Cult Of Mac "Jobs has no plans to leave Apple. Steve's health is a private matter." **** Free VirtualBox For Mac Now A Virtual Contender by Alan Zisman, Low End Mac VirtualBox for Mac has grown up; while it lacks every feature available in its commercial virtualizer competitors, it offers good performance, networking, and USB support. **** Some MobileMe Customers Without E-mail For 4 Days by David Zeiler, Baltimore Sun Apple gets points for acknowledging the issues and trying to make it right, but that will do little to placate people who just want the service to work as promised. **** Mobile Safari Speed Improvements "More Than A Feeling" by Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica **** Apple Reports Record Third Quarter Results by Macworld UK Apple shipped 2,496,000 Macs during the quarter, representing 41 per cent unit growth and 43 per cent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The company sold 11,011,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 12 per cent unit growth and seven per cent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. **** Apple: iPhone Coming To 20 More Countries Aug 22 by Philip Michaels, Macworld Even as it struggles to meet demand in existing markets, Apple plans to introduce the iPhone 3G to new countries next month. The company said that the latest iPhone would go on sale in 20 additional countries by August 22. **** KavaTunes Takes iTunes Online by Jonny Evans, Macworld UK Access your music using a web browser. **** You Control Update Improves Leopard iCal Support by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld You Software updated its custom menu creation utility, You Control. The new version provides support for iCal calendars served via a CalDAV server. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Private Clouds by George Crump, InformationWeek **** Hi-Tech Is Turning Us All Into Time-Wasters by Michael Day, The Guardian Mobile phones and emails are triggering the 'distraction' part of the brain. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** A Look Back At The New Age by Paul Beston, Wall Street Journal Tom Fels's "Farm Friends," although a 1960s memoir, does not really belong to his generation's self-celebratory tradition. It concerns a group of people who, in the manner of 19th-century utopian communities, lived on a communal farm in western Massachusetts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. **** Siren by Paul Breslin, Slate **** Mirrors Don't Lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes. by Natalie Angier, New York Times To scientists, the simltaneous simplicity and complexity of mirrors make them powerful tools for exploring questions about perception and cognition in humans and other neuronally gifted species, and how the brain interprets and acts upon the great tides of sensory information from the external world. **** Want To Know How To Lose Me As A Friend? Just Buy Me A Book And Say: 'This Is So You' by Mark Ravenhill, The Guardian So me! Crunch! Flop! Aghh! Instantly, the book loses its power. **** Paradise Unpaved by Franke James, My Green Conscience We unpaved our paradise and it's gorgeous! SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** My View On SIngapore by Beneath The Line People in Malaysia are always given the idea that Singaporean is racists and apply double standards against the Malays. Malays in Singapore are treated badly and all preferential treatment is given to the Chinese and Indian. My personal experience and through conversation with Singaporean themselves is a stark contrast fromt he rumors we Malaysia hear back home. They are actually living in harmony. **** Political Logic by Aaron Ng, Hear Ye! Hear Ye! We really should give our ministers the best ossible experience of being an average Singaporean. **** Oral Answer To Parliament Question On Whether The Government Has Received And Verified Any Information That Mas Selamat Kastari Is Now In Indonesia; And What Is His Assessment Of Such An Outcome On The Reputation Of Singapore by Ministry Of Home Affairs, Singapore Government We will do our utmost to find Mas Selamat whatever it takes. If Mas Selamat has escaped abroad, we will work with the relevant foreign counterparts to track him down and bring him back into custody in Singapore. We have done it before; we will do it again. **** Singapore June CPI Estimated At A New 26-Year High Due To Strong Oil Prices by Thomson Financial Soaring oil prices likely pushed Singapore's inflation to a fresh 26-year high in June, when the rise in consumer prices may have hit its peak, before it decelerates in the second half of the year as the effect of the goods and services tax hike wears off, economists said on Monday. **** Light-Touch Approach To Regulate Internet Has Served Singapore Well: Minister by Straits Times The government's light-touch approach to regulate the internet has served Singapore well, and this has led to much public discourse and buzz in the cyberspace, said minister for information, communications and the arts Lee Boon Yang. **** Singapore Cancels ASEAN Song-And-Dance: Surin by AFP Singapore has cancelled ASEAN's traditional night of skits and stage acts by ministers at the end of their annual talks, ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said Tuesday. **** Another $1.7B Of Public Buidling Projects Deferred To Ease Resource Crunch by Straits Times National development minister Mah Bow Tan disclosed this in his written reply to a question from an MP in Parliament on Monday. But he gave the assurance that projects that are essential to meet SIngapore's economic and social needs, such as key infrastructural development, will proceed as planned. **** Make Money: Singapore Nature Parks Show You How by Seen This Scene That If indeed this fugitive is still hiding somewhere in these parks and greenery, residents who enjoy dreaming of hw to make money on this Money-No-Enough island now have a uniquely Singaporean chance: make money as you enjoy the fresh air, wide open spaces and rejuvenating greenery of our parks. **** Coming Nearer To Residential Areas: Dorms For Foreign Workers by Straits Times New domitory sites for foreign workers may be located nearer residential areas as Singapore becomes more built up, said national development minister Mah Bow Tan. He urged Singaporeans to be more understanding and accommodating as 'foreign workers are here to contribute to our economic growth.' **** NAC To Review Singapore Arts Fest by Straits Times The National Arts Council will review the organisation and form of the Singapore Arts Festival to improve its programming and delivery, said minister for information, communications and the arts Lee Boon Yang. The challenge is for the festival to evolve a programme mix that would continue to meet the goals of artistic and audience development, and to enhance its international position and influence. **** Singapore Plans New Measures To Boost Birth Rate by AFP Singapore is working on a slew of new measures aimed at boosting the city-0state's flagging birth rate, the government said Monday. **** No Offence In Hsien Loong's Remark, Says Rais by The Star Malaysia does not take offence to a comment made by Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong on the country's political situation, said foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim. **** Affordable HDB Flats: Costings Don't Add Up by Steven Yeo, Straits Times That means land (and other costs) on which a single block of flats stands costs $15 to $20 million. Can it cost so much? **** Government Property Vacant For Years by Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times Government chalets left to go to seed and unleased for over 14 years and other buildings and tracts of land left empty for years on end - these have come to light in the Auditor-General's annual report. **** Singapore Claims Zone Around Pedra Branca by Nazry Bahrawi, Today Two months after being awarded its claim over Pedra Branca, Singapore is going ahead to claim an Exclusive Economic Zone around the island. Dr Balaji Sadasivan, senior minister of state for foreign affairs, told Parliament the "precise coordinates" would be announced at an appropriate time. **** Why So Silent, PAP Town Councils? by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen What are these investments and their returns or yields used for, if not to help residents in time of need? /Under the "Town Councils Act ", town councils must "establish and maintain... separate sinking funds for improvements to and the management and maintenace of residential property and of commercial property."/ /Furthermore, the sinking funds cannot be used except for "the purposes of meeting expenses or liabilities properly attributable to that sinking fund." A strict reading — if I understanding correctly, but I am only a layman — seems to imply that the sinking fund cannot be used to "subsidize" regular public service that the S&C charges are used to pay for. If a reduction in S&C charges results in operational charges higher than revenue, town councils cannot, by law, tap into the sinking funds for the shortfall./ /The question we should be asking is: can town councils reduce S&C charges without compromises in public services that residents are not willing to forego?/ /For a start, the town councils must start sending annual financial statements to all their residents. After all, residnets are the major stakeholders. With the financial statments, residents can be better informed on the financial standings of their town councils and make better decisions on who to vote in general elections./ /But, town councils do not have the power to use the sinking funds to "help residents in time of need." For that, one has to go to the Parliament. Town councils do not ahve the power to change the percentage of funds channeled into the sinking funds. For that, one has to go to the Ministry of National Developement./ **** SE Asia Begins Negotiations To Set Up Rights Body by Manny Mogato, Reuters The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has begun negotiations for the creation of a human rights body, a senior Philippine official said on Monday, with hopes of cncluding talks in Bangkok next July. **** $5.5M 'Lost' To Save Durian Tree by Desmond Ng, New Paper That's the cost of a bungalow which developer must forgo to retain tree in present spot. **** HOTA To Be Amended To Increase Donors by Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia Health minister Khaw Boon Wan told Parliament on Monday that the changes will include removing the age limit on cadaveric donors, and could also allow financial compensation by third-parties to altruistic donors. **** Singapore Rejects US Assessment Of Its Record On Human Trafficking by Channel NewsAsia Singapore has rejected the US State Department's assessment that Singapore does not meet the "minimum standards" of the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000. It described the assessment as "unjustified." See Also: Trafficking In Persons Report: Singapore , by U.S. Department Of State. Singapore is a destination country for women and girls trafficked for the purpose of labor and commerical sexual exploitation. Some women from India, Thailand, the Philippines, and the People's Republic of China who travel to Singapore voluntarily for prostitution or work are subsequently deceived or coerced into sexual servitude. A significant number of foreign domestic workers in Singapore faces the unlawful confiscation of their travel documents, restrictions on their movement, confinement, and/or physical or sexual abuse. Some Singaporean men travel to countries in the region for child sex tourism. The government did not prosecute or convict any trafficking offenders during the reporting period, and did not take adequate measures to protect victims of trafficking, particularly foreign domestic workers subjected to forced labor conditions. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Jul 23 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 23 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 23, 2008 Message-ID: <20080723171501.80426.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** What's Behind Apple's MobileMe Meltdown by Alexander Wolfe, InformationWeek Apple should have staged the conversion from .mac to .me. It not only make technical sense, but it fits in with the Apple ethos. **** Review: Acrobat 9 Pro by Pariah S. Burke, Macworld Narrowly focused update features moderate enhancements. **** Scribbles 1.2.1 by Heather Kelly, Macworld Sometimes you just need to doodle, to be creative and make a little art without the complications of Illustrator or the mess of Crayolas. **** A Shopping Trip To The App Store For Your iPhone by Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret, Wall Street Journal There are way too many interesting apps to review here, but these are some we liked. **** Talk Of Chief's Health Weighs On Apple's Share Price by John Markoff, New York Times In recent weeks, Mr Jobs has reassured several people that he is doing well and that four years after a successful operation to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer, he is cancer free. People who are close to Mr. Jobs say that he had a surgical procedure this year to address a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight. These people declined to be identified because Mr. Jobs had not authorized them to speak about his health. **** Staying Power: The Case For Two Resilient Tech Stocks by James B. Stewart, Wall Street Journal Attention, bargain hunters: Two technology darlings are on sale at steep summer discounts, Apple and Google. **** Sometimes The Customer Is Wrong by Timothy Lee, TechDirt Refusing to serve iced espressos may be a good business strategy. /As Guy Kawasaki once wrote, if Apple had listened to its customers, the Macintosh will simply be a faster MS-DOS machine./ **** More About Deleting Features by Brent Smmons, Inessential.com The problem is 100 times worse when it comes to /deleting/ features. **** Apple Step Up China Retail Push by Loretta Chao, Wall Street Journal Apple's approach seems to be working, with sales growing apace even as the company on Saturday opened its first full-service Apple store in China, in Beijing. Over the past two years, more Apple reseller have begun popping up in China's sprawling computer malls. **** After A Four Hour Wait, I Got An iPhone by Etan Horowitz, Orlando Sentinel Don't believe the Apple availability page. **** On Keyboards by Tim Bray, ongoing There's a design flaw in Apple's current lineup of Mac keyboards; easily fixed though. **** The Real Issue About Steve's Health by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek Idle, speculative and uninformed talk is feeding fear uncertainty and doubt, that is not worth serious consideration. Even so, given what's publicly known about Jobs' medical hidostry, questions about the condition of his health are certainly fair to ask, and the ones who should be doing the asking are Apple's outside directors. **** Open Tech Offers A Different Twist On The Apple Clone by Jeff SMykil, Ars Technica While the company will preinstall Ubuntu 8.0.4 or Windows XP, the computer the company claims to be Apple-compatible won't actually be able to do so with Mac OS X. **** Why Q3FY08 iPhone Revenues Won't Be Up Very Much by MacJournals Isn't accounting /fun/? **** Apple Device Security: Big Temptation To Dumb-Down by Merlin Mann, 43 Folders Is four digits (or a trivial password) enough to protect your irreplaceable private data? Are you willing to assume that risk? It's unbelievable that the question even needs to be asked. **** Apple Updates iLife Apps by Peter Cohen, Macworld **** Traveling WIth The iPhone 3G by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld The addition of GPS made the iPhone much more effective for traveling and MobileMe is a godsend. **** Microsoft Offers First Hints At Anti-Apple Marketing Blitz For Vista by Slash Lane, AppleInsider Microsoft this week offered a window into the first phase of a mega million dollar advertising campaign designed to clear up 'misconception' about the quality of its Windows Vista operationg system exacerbated by in-your-face marketing efforts on the part of longtime rival Apple. **** If You Don't Like AAPL's "Steve's Health Is A Private Matter" Statement, Then Sell by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet.com The bottom line is that if you're an Apple investor and you don't like the "Steve's health is a private matter" statement made by CFO Peter Oppenheimer then there's only one thing you should do - sell your Apple stock and invest in a company that you trust more. **** Third Quarter Earnings: The Analysts Speak by Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek The main concern will be the warning over gross margin in Apple's fourth fiscal quarter ending in September and into fiscal 2009. **** Securing Your iPhone 2.0 by Glenn Fleishman, Macworld Software update offers dramatic security improvements, though gaps remain. **** Finale 2009 Music Notation Software Ships by Peter Cohen, Macworld New in Finale 2009 is streamlined workflow interface that makes it easier to create and enter music, move and edit what you've written. **** Now That We Have The App Store... by Christopher Breen, Macworld ... isn't it about time that Apple put those iLife "Shop For" commands to good use? **** Stop Telling Me What I Already Know by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu On Windows, MobileMe will always pop up a dialog telling it cannot do any sync whenever I do not have internet access. Which is a real irritation, if you ask me.

Permanent Link to This Post **** Copy-And-Paste: Now More Than Ever by Dan Moren, Macworld With the addition of the App Store and third-party applications, the problem of how to move data around the phone has increased exponentially. **** Default Folder Update Improves Word 2008 Compatibility by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Among the changes specific to Word are a fix for Spotlight keyword saving so that it works in Word 2008 Save As dialogs. The update also fixed a problem that caused Default Folder X to not include folders in its Recent Folders list when saving in Microsoft Word 2008. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Tech Trends: Simplicity Wins by Patricia Sellers, Fortune "Simplicity is essential if our society is to reap the full potential of technology." MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** A Dish That Gets Fuzzy Reception by Jane Black, Washington Post Chef Stefano Frigerio braces himself when he puts rabbit on the menu at Mio. It's only a matter of time before someone complains. **** George W. Bush: "Awesome!" by ANdrea Higbie, Salon The president has used "awesome" to describe everything from dead soldiers to the pope. How did a slang word trickle up to the highest office in the land? **** Paul Bocuse Could Make French Fast Food The Next /Nouvelle Cuisine/ by David Appell, Los Angeles Times How do you say 'to go' in French? Superstar chef Bocuse says he 'saw the opportunity to feed thousands of people going to the cinema' — and others in France are following his lead. **** March Of The Tourists by Julia Whitty, Mother Jones Polar Earth is thawing. Does it matter if the visiting hordes don't understand? SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Johoreans Describe Singapore Maritime Claim As An Act Of Provocation by Bernama Johoreans Wednesday protested the statement by Singapore claiming a territorial sea and an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around Batu Puteh and described it as an act of provocation. Puteri Wangsa State Assemblyman Datuk Abdul Halim Suleiman said Malaysia should be trapped by the provocation, a tactic the republic used regularly. "Signapore is using this dirty tactic to provoke Malaysia and make us lose focus to find documents and evidence to reclaim Batu Puteh," he told Bernama here Wednesday. **** Singapore Pushes Back Pushy Press At ASEAN Meeting: Don't Trample The Kids! by Associated Press The rule-obsessed government of Singapore on Wednesday issued a stern advisory to the media: Behave! **** Rewarding Capture by Chemical Generation Singapore Despite the government's refusal to admit that the fugitive must have escaped Singapore by now, the reward is actually meant for Mas Selamat's support network in Indonesia. **** Transcript Part VII - M. Ravi Vs. LKY by Martyn See, No Political Films Please, We're Singaporeans **** Human Rights And The Government Baby Incentives - Part 1 by Mr Wang Says So If you choose to view babies merely as future economic units, and women merely as economic-unit-producing machines, then the questions becomes - do you, as a government, really dare to bite the bullet? And put yourmoney into this very long-term, risky investment? **** Singapore Inflation Holds At 26-Year High Of 7.5% For 3Rd Month by Shamim Adam, Bloomberg Singapore's inflation held at a 26-year high for a third straight month in June, increasing pressure on the central bank to allow further gains in the currency at a time when exports are slowing. **** No Change To Section 377A Enforcement by Today The police do not actively enforce against consensual gay sex and this "basic approach" has not changed, said home affairs minister Wong Kan Seng, despite a man being charged recently under Section 377A. **** Primary One School Registration - Citizens Vs Permanent Residents by Urbanrant 40 to 80 hours of volunteer service takes precedence over 2.5 years of active service plus 13 years of reserved services, does it make sense? **** Keep Foreign Visitors Abreast Of Policy Changes by P. George, The Star Such a move on the part of the Immigration Department will only reinforce the perceptions that Malaysian government agencies are prone to policy flip-flops. **** 'Talk To Us First On Batu Puteh' by Mazwin Nik Anis, The Star The city-state should not make unilateral decisions when it comes to Batu Puteh although the rocky outcrop officially belongs to the republic. Foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said it was only proper for Singapore to inform a joint technical committee, set up by the republic and Malaysia, on any decision made. **** A Charitable Cause by Tan Kin Lian, The Online Citizen I hope that these suggestions can help towards a charitable cause. /I agree with most of the writer's points; but I also believe that government should not be involved./ **** $1 Million Bounty For Capture Of Mas Selamat - Why The U-Turn? by Singapore Kopi Tok **** Full-Day Bus Lanes To Be Extended To Three Locations by Patwant Singh, Channel NewsAsia THe locations are Orchard Road, between Orange Grove Road and Anguilia Park; Orchard Boulevard, between Grange Road and Paterson Road; and Serangoon Road, between Buffalo Road and Balestier Road. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Jul 24 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 24 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 24, 2008 Message-ID: <20080724171500.8278.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Why iPhone 2.0 Won't Yet Rule The Roost In The Enterprise by Galen Gruman, InfoWorld The 13 key omissions Apple must fix before it can really compete with BlackBerry and Treo. **** iPod Touch Update Coming Soon? by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu Why is the Apple store still selling iPod touch /without/ the 2.0 software and the App Store goodness? Could it be a new iPod touch — or a brand new replacement — is coming soon, so Apple doesn't bother to update the Apple Store with new iPod Touches?

Permanent Link to This Post **** Steve Jobs' Diets Secrets by Brian Caulfield, Forbes While Apple employees eat healthy, Jobs takes it to an extreme, one employee says, eating dark green vegetables such as broccli and asparagus, grilled or steamed. **** MobileMe's E-Mail Outage Costs Apple A Customer by David Zeiler, Baltimore Sun Apple gets points for acknowledging the issues and trying to make it right, but that will do little to placate people who just want the service to work as promised. **** Apple Appoints Hong Kong Agency by Dedric Lam, Shanghaiist Hong Kong based agency Eight Partnership has just been appointed to handle Apple's creative marketing in Asia. **** The Trouble With Software People by Paul Rako, EDN When you think about it, almost every major development in the last decade has been the result of overcoming the problems that software managers cause. /As the saying goes, make it simple, but no simplier than what is needed./ **** Review: MobileMe 1.1 by Jeff Carlson, Macworld Overhauled .Mac service gets pushy—and that's a good thing. **** Apple's Blind Side by Matt Haughey, A Whole Lotta Nothing This is one of the few times I have to say Windows has it right (and has had right for many years) — it is extremly easy to find a way to bump the entire OS to larger more legible fonts with just a couple clicks, but I'm not seeing it anywhere on a Mac running Leopard. **** Why We Still Need The iPhone App Black Market by Gizmodo The most innovative, game-changing apps might not ever make it to your squeaky clean iPhone. **** First iPhone App Cracked? Super Monkey Ball For All? by MacNN A group of hackers say they have cracked Apple's close Fairplay DRM on Sega's Super Monkey Ball for iPhone. **** Apple's MobileMe Is Far Too Flawed To Be Reliable by Walter S. Mossberg, AllThingsD If Apple does get MobileMe working smoothly, it could be a terrific service. But it's way too ragged now. **** The Mac Switch by J. Shirley I found myself getting more done and in less time. **** The Apple Imprint On Open Source Continues by Matt Asay, CNET News.com I'm increasingly of the mind that open-source developers appreciate the excellence of Apple's products. **** Apple Tells Us Everything Without Saying Anything by Jim Goldman, CNBC The simple truth is this: Apple knows that it must disclose Jobs' health status if it is somehow material to the company. By not disclosing his health issues, and calling them a private matter, Apple is tacitly telling all of us that whatever is ailing Jobs is not seroius enough to be material to the company. **** Why Apple And China Are Simply Incompatible by Mike Elgan, Datamation Apple succeeds because customers love the products and the brand. But in China, brands mean little to most potential customers, and hardware even less. Chinese consumers prize value above all. /On the other hand, status, and the toys that come with status, does mean something in China, I believe./ **** Stop The iPod Touch's Constant Beeping by Adam C. Engst, TidBITS Apparently, the new version of Mail feels the need to beep every time a new message comes in, and that's a problem given that MobileMe's "push" option for email means that new messages are being received constantly. Maddening! **** Get An iPhone In 3 Days From AT&T by Lonnie Lazar, Cult Of Mac AT&T has authorized stores in its Northern California region to begin taking iPhone pre-sale orders with a promise of 72hr availability, according to the manager of one of the region's busiest stores. **** Researcher Warns Of Unpatched iPhone Bugs by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld Security vulnerabilities in the iPhone's e-mail application and Safari web browser can be used by phishers to dupe users into visiting malicious sites or by spammers to flood the phone's inbox with junk mail, a researcher warned Wednesday. **** The Mac Keeps Driving Apple by Philip Michaels, Macworld What still stands out about Apple's third-quarter performance—for me, at any rate—is just how well the company's Mac business did. **** Apple Launches "What Is 3G" International Commercial by MacNN The new iPhone 3G commercials feature similiar aspects, but are stylized differently depending on the country in which they are aired. **** The Case Of THe Massive iDisk Archive by Christopher Breen, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Software Piracy Hurts The Open-Source Community Too by Todd R. Weiss, Computerworld When stolen proprietary software is used by consumers, that's a lost opportunity for open source software makers to get their own software onto the computer hard drives of new users. **** Find A Parking Space Online by Kristina Grifantini, MIT Technology Review This fall, San Francisco will implement the largest mesh network for monitoring parking to date. **** Google Opens Knol Website, A Wiki With Bylines by Eric Auchard, Reuters Google Inc opened its website Knol to the public on Wednesday, allowing people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopedia Wikipedia, which allows anonymity. **** Helping The Almost-Journalists Do Journalism by Dan Gillmor, Center For Citizen Media If we can get this right, the advocates and think tanks will have more crediblity. The public will have more credible information sources. Isn't that what we all want, and need? MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Read Giles Coren's Letter To Times Subs by Giles Coren, The Guardian Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose. **** Scully Have I Loved by Rebecca Traister, Salon Fox Mulder was brilliant and sexy in "The X-Files" — but it's Dana Scully who has my heart. **** Supply-Side Education by David Glenn, The Chronicle Of Higher Education What explains the growing gap in wages? SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Gopalan Nair Claims Trial To Abusing Police, Disorderly Conduct Charges by Elena Chong, Straits Times **** Singapore's Central Bank Ups Inflation View Once Again by Jan Dahinten and Koh Gui Qing, The Guardian Singapore's central bank on Thursday raised its 2008 inflation forecast to 6-7 percent, the third upgrade this year, and warned that price pressures will persist despite a slowdown in economic growth. **** Navigating Choppy Waters by New Straits Times Be that as it may, the fact that what appears to be a routine regurgitation of standard policy can ruffle diplomatic feathers serves to show that it does not take much to make waves between two countries with a lot of contentious issues to settle. **** Malaysia To Wait For Technical Report, Says Rais by Mazwin Nik Anis, The Star Malaysia will wait for the report from a technical committee before deciding on Singapore's claim to territorial sea and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around Batu Puteh. "There is no question of intimidation or untoward expectations," foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said when clarifying a report quoting him as saying that Malaysia would have to study Singapore's recent decision on Batu Puteh to see if the matter was intimidating. **** Win-Win Subsidy For Public Transport by Yeung Wing Chuen, Straits Times **** Singapore's Bid To Claim Territorial Sea Around Batu Puteh Unlawful, Says Legal Expert by Bernama An international law professor said Wednesday that it was unlawful of Singapore to want to claim a territorial sea and an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around Batu Puteh, the rocky outcrop awarded to the republic by the International Cour tof Justice last May in settling an ownership dispute with Malaysia. Prof Dr Abdul Ghafur Hamid, international law lecturer at the International Islamic University, said the move was ocntrary to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982. UNCLOS stated the rocks which could sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf, he said. See Also: Pedra Branca EEZ: Singapore's Claim On Shaky Ground , by Evangeline Majawat, New Straits Times. **** First Proper Housing For Maids To Open In Sept by Lim Heng Laing and Arlina Arshad, Straits Times A dormitory for maids, the first of its kind here, will open in Woodlands in September, a development that has been welcomed by activists championing their cause. **** Feeding Our Babies To The Economy Monster by Andrew Loh, The Online Citizen Perhaps what is needed to solve the problem of a declining birth rate is to see Singaporeans first and foremost and always as people, human beings - and treat them as such,. It is, as the prime minister said, about values. /Believe in its people, that what the government need to do first./ **** 24 Hours After US Watches 24 by Hedirman Supian, Today Singapoeans will be the first in Asia to watch the latest episodes of top television shows from the United States, although the premium they will have to pay for this privilege remains to be seen. /Can I get this on my iPod too? Singtel? Starhub? Apple?/ **** Jurong MPs To Rotate Responsibilities by Zul Othman, Today Every six months, constituents of the late Dr Ong CHit Chung's Bukit Batok ward will see a different Member of Parliament (MP) from the Jurong GRC, of which it is a part, taking care of their zone's affairs. /The other GRCs should take note: If Jurong can do it with one less MP, other GRCs can also simply shave off one MP, and save more than $10,000 per month! Do it for your country! :-)/ **** Singaporeans, Let's Give This Practice The Chop by Aditi Shivaramakrishnan, New Paper We all know how Singaporeans often reserve tables at foodcourts, most of hte time with packets of tissue paper. Some may tolerate it. Not Mr Steven Lee, who works in the CBD area. He wants this habit to stop, saying it reflects poorly on Singaporeans. /If "reservation-by-tissue-paper" is stopped, we'd just have "reservation-by-butt". (One person sits at the table, while others go buy food first.)/ /No, the "correct" way to do it, in my opinion, is to have the food-court operator taking orders at the entrance, and assigning tables to people. And yes, food-court operators will increase rentals, and the increment will be passed on to the customers./ **** Singapore Ranked Fifth Most Expensive City In Asia by Heather Tan, Channel NewsAsia Singapore is now the fifth most expensive city in Asia, according to Mercer Worldwide Cost of Living Survey. Tokyo is the costliest Asian city, followed by Seoul, Hong Kong and Osaka. /And unlike the other cities, there's no easy escape. You can't lower your cost of living by moving to a cheaper area./ From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Fri Jul 25 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 25 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 25, 2008 Message-ID: <20080725171500.40223.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Bugs & Fixes: Dealing With iPhone App Bugs And Crashes by Ted Landau, Macworld Here's a primer on how to navigate your way out of app trouble. **** Peeking Inside The iPhone by Sramana Mitra, Forbes Apple has the entire semiconductor industry wrapped around its little finger. **** MetaX 2.4.5 by Jonathan Seff, Macworld It's an invaluable tool if you plan to put your DVD collection on your Apple TV. **** Apple Fails To Patch Critical Exploited DNS Flaw by Rich Mogull, TidBITS Apple has not yet provided a patch, unlike dozens of other companies that make or distribute operating systems or DNS server software. **** Making The Transition From PC To Mac by Craig dos Santos, A Search For (My) Life I've been a Windows user my entire life, and some old habits die hard. **** Time To Spend Spend Spend by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu When your OS stinks, you go buy a new OS. (And perhaps a CEO or two.) When your online strategy stinks, do you go buy Google? (Is MobileMe such core to Apple's strategy that they have to build it themselves?)

Permanent Link to This Post **** Introducing The Anti-iPhone by Wayne MacPhail, Rabble I mean, God love open source folks. Their hearts are int he right place but, man, a lot of open source software is the worst looking, unusable junk I've ever seen this side of a Microsoft WIndows ME hack-a-thon. /I'm more or less convinced that UI design is not compatible with wisdom-of-the-crowd. Just like you typically don't see good movies directed or written by a committee./ **** Apple's MobileMe: The Medium Is The Mess by Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post What's both sad and, perhaps, ultimately encouraging is that Apple and its users have been through this before. **** Aurora Feint iPhone App Delisted For Lousy Security Practices by Gizmodo According to their forums, if you opt-in to the community feature, Aurora Feint looks through your contact list, sends in /unencrypted/ to their servers, and matches you up with your friends who are currently playing right now. **** Virginia Tech Building Supercomputer Out Of 324 Mac Pros by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica Virginia Tech's Center for High-End Computing System is building a new cluster, this time using 324 Mac Pro towers, that will have a theoretical computing capacity of 29 teraflops. **** Apple's MobileMess by David Pogue, New York Times The real problem is how Apple is responding. For a company that's so brilliant at marketing, it seems to have absolutely no clue about crisis management. **** iPhone Developers Have A Way To Run (Small) Beta Programs by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica The ad hor method allows any developer to authorize up to 100 iPhones to run an application without going through the App Store. **** Steve Jobs Gassing Up The Gulfstream Again by Peter Kafka, Silicon Alley Insider Perhaps he's been jetting off to China and/or Russia, where Apple still doesn't have iPhne deals with carriers. **** Neil Young Takes On The iPod by Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune In the iPod age, music sound quality has been dumbed down to "Fisher-Price toy" levels, rock star and tech enthuisast Neil Young said Wednesday. **** Review: OmniFocus For iPhone by Christopher Breen, Macworld If you seek a powerful (though sometimes challenging) mobile applcation for creating action items and orgnizing them within contexts and project—and one that also acts as an extension of an even more powerful desktop application—OmniFocus for the iPhone can clearly help you get that done. **** Not So Fast, 3G by Dan Moren, Macworld We wanted to look a little further into the matter and find out if the iPhone 3G really twice is as fast as its predecessor. **** Review: Final Cut Server 1.1 by Mike Curtis, Macworld Advanced asset management and workflow software for video content creators. **** Jumsoft Releases Personal Finance Tool, Money 3 by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Tim O'Reilly: Internet Innovation Requires An Open Web by Ryan Paul, Ars Technica **** Web Integration On A Grander Scale by Steve Outing, Editor And Publisher We've reached a point where we have to go beyond user comments as the sole means of interaction on news articles. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Prowling In The Land Of Unequal Opportunity by Richard Eder, New York Times The point is that the best of the pieces are something quite different from journalism. They are small absurdist gems. **** Buy Shanghai! by Patricia Marx, New Yorker A city for sale. **** To Starbucks, A Closing; To Newark, A Trauma by Kareem Fahim, New York Times The green aprons, the blond wood, the safari-themed coffee art and the chalkboards. From Chula Vista, Calif., to Bangor, Me., all Starbucks are more or less the same. And that's how the company wants it. But every store, as it turns out, is not quite the same. **** The Balcony Is Closed by Roger Ebert, Chicaco Sun-Times I remember what Gene said to me in that dressing room before the Carson Show: "Roger, we're a couple of kids from the Midwest. We don't belong here." SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore Says It Doesn't Take New Position On Pulau Batu Puteh by Zakaria Abdul Wahab, Bernama Singapore said Friday that it did not take a new position when senior minister of state for foreign affairs Balaji Sadasivan responded to questions by members of Parliament about Batu Puteh on Monday. The foreign affairs ministry said Singapore first stated its claim to a territorial sea limit that extended up to a maximum of 12 nautical miles and an exclusive economic zone in the ministry's press statement on Sept 15, 1980. This was reiterated in another press statement by the ministry on May 23 this year following the International Court of Justice judgment on sovereignty over Pedra Branca (Batu Puteh) and Middle Rocks, it said in a clarification to media queries on the issue. **** Why Clear My Dirty Dishes? It's The Cleaners' Job by Elizabeth Wilmot, Straits Times An effort to get patrons at a food court to return their trays has had dismal results so far. /Maybe some monetary reward will help move things along, eh?/ **** SMRT Posts 6.2% Increase In Net Profit For Q1 FY209 by Channel NewsAsia SMRT said it saw increased ridership on its commuter trains, but its bus and taxi operations were hurt by rising fuel costs. **** Government To Announce Details Of Changi Airport Corporatisation Soon by Channel NewsAsia The corporatisation of Changi Airport is imminent, with details to be announced soon, said prime minister Lee Hsien Loong at the official opening of Changi Airport's Terminal 3 on Friday. **** Inflation Brakes Asian Construction by Raphael Minder, Financial Times Asian governments, faced with the highest inflation for a decade or more, are shelving billions of dollars worth of landmark infrastructure projects and shifting funds to more immediate economic assistance. **** Kudos For Malay-Language TV Programmes Here by Today "Even as broadcasters strive... to remain competitive... a balance should be struck betweens taying commercially viable and fulfilling their social role." From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sat Jul 26 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 26 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 26, 2008 Message-ID: <20080726171501.2431.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Apple Staarting To Restore MobileMe Email Access, Some Email Lost by Arnold Kim, MacRumors.com Apple admits that while the majority of email messages will be fully restored, approximately 10% of messages received between 5.00 a.m. PDT on July 16th and 10.20 a.m. PDT on July 17th have been lost. **** Open Tech: Apple Can't Stop Us From Making Mac Clones by Brian X. Chen, Wired An official from Open Tech has said the company is confident it can sell its Mac clones and avoid a lawsuit from Apple. He wasn't so confident that he was willing to let us publish his full name, though. **** Apple's Culture Of Secrecy by Joe Nocera, New York Times On Thursday afternoon, several hours after I'd gotten my final "Steve's health is a private matter" — and much to my amazement — Mr. Jobs called me. "This is Steve Jobs," he began. "You think I'm an arrogant who thinks he's above the law, and I think you're a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong." **** Big Shiny Apple by Roberto ROcha, Montreal Gazette Everyone's MacHappy in Montreal as the Apple flagship opens on Ste. Catherine St. **** V.C. Advice To Entrepreneurs: It's Not All About The iPhone by Claire Cain Miller, New York Times Venture capitalists told mobile entrepreneurs to broaden their focus and build applications for all phones. /But make sure you have a presence in the iPhone./ **** Are Things Going Rotten At Apple? by John Ridley, NPR Better if they could get back to the days when their end-to-end experience really worked end-to-end. /Cannot handle demand? A good problem to have, but a problem nevertheless. What's more worrying to me is the inability of MobileMe to perform, given that there is no evidence really of major influx of demand over the last month./ **** Teaching Audio Engineering While On The Road With Ozzy by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld "There are two prerequisites to becoming a great audio engineer," said Greg Price. "First, you have to play an instrument and second, you have to use a Mac." **** Prepping Web Images With iWatermark by Neale Monks, TidBITS It does everything an impage prep program needs to do with minimal fuss. Simply as a resizing and reformatting tool it would earn its keep; that it adds watermarks as well is icing on the cake. **** Copy & Paste References Spotted In Existing iPhone Frameworks by AppleInsider One developer has stumbled upon references to copy and paste in the frameworks of Apple's first beta of iPhone Software 2.1. **** Review: NetNewsWire For iPhone And iPod Touch by Dan Frakes, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Microsoft Tries To One-Up Google PageRank by Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com A big part of Google's rise to search engine leadership was an algorithm called PageRank that assesses a specific page's importance by how many other eb pages link to it and by the importance of those linking pages. Microsoft reserchers and academic collaborators, thoug, detailed an idea this week it calls BrowseRank that seeks to bring more of a human touch to that assessment. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Will I Am by Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Heavens to Murgatroyd! What could William Shakespeare, bard of Avon, possibly have in common with the cartoon characters Lilo and Stich, Mickey Mouse and Buzz Lightyear? If you read "My Name Is WIll," a lusty, pun-drunk first novel by the professional wiseacre and award-winning cartoon producer Jess Winfield (who had a hand in the above-entioned entertaiments), you will indubitably find out. But be "vewwy, vewwy careful." **** Branded by Farhad Manjoo, New York Times That we are, as a nation, consumed by consumerism will surprise few. But as the journalist Rob Walker points out in "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are," few of us will admit that we frequently succumb to salesmanship, and that marketing produces in us needs we never knew we had. **** Seeking Perfection In The Kitchen Of A 4-Star Restaurant by Harry Hurt III, New York Times At my request, Eric and Chris Muller arranged for me to get a firsthand experience of Le Bernardin's exquisite attention to detail during two seven-hour lunch and dinner shifts. **** Not All Bad News by The Economist Newspapers are thriving in many developing countries. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** SM Goh Confident PAP Will Eventually Win Back Hougang by S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia "In your walkabouts, check on the estate maintenance. If Mr Low has done a good job, give him credit for it. If there are deficiencies, point them out to the residents. In short, play the role of an effective opposition in Hougang." "Eventually I believe we will win Hougang back, but whether we do or not, I think (we should) serve the people. That's what we are here for." **** Historical Documents May Be Hidden And That Hinders Claiming Them: Sidek by Bernama One of the problems of obtaining historical documents taken abroad was that they were difficult to locat eand there was a posibility that were being hidden by certain quarters. National Archives director-general Sidek Jamil said that was one reason and not that the countries concerned did not want to cooperate. **** 'I've Never Considered Fleeing': Bailed Lloyd Speaks Out by Caroline Marcus, The Age A legal source in Singapore said prosecutors were "scraping the bottom of the barrel" to add new charges in order to make an example of the correspondent. "Recreational drugs are not accepted and anything to do with it, (the Singapore government) will come down like a ton of bricks," said the source. **** Do Not Test Us, Rais Cautions Singapore by Bernama Singapore has been told not to test Malaysia through its claim of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around Pulau Batu Puteh as such action is tntamount to "stirring a hornet's nest", foreign minister Datuk Seri Rais Yatim said Saturday. "If you want to negotiate, lets negotiate. THere is no need to encroach, no need to test the market or our waters," he told reporters. **** Singapore Visitors Fall For First Time In 51 Months: Government by AFP The number of visitors to Singapore fell 4.1 percent in June, the first monthly decline after more than four years of gains, the city-state's tourism board said. **** The Unusual Suspects by Ramesh William and Zaki Jufri, Azia City Singapore Getting to know three of our city's most famous "eccentrics." **** Temasek Sold '5M Merrill Shares', Not Half Its Stake by Grace Ng, Straits Times /The Sraits Times/ understands that Temasek has in fact not sold half its stake -it only apeared to do so due to a reporting glitch. **** Dilemma Over Organ Sales by Seah Chiang Nee, The Star For many, the idea of people selling their kidneys is disgusting. To them it is an ethics issue. However to the large numbers of kidney sufferers and their loved ones, it is survival. **** Accused Reporter Peter Lloyd Steps Out In Public by Lisa Davies, The Mercury In his first appearance in public since his arrest last week, there was no evidence of the ebullient on-air persona that Aunty's viewers know so well. **** Temasek Continues To Hold 87 Million Merrill Lynch Shares Sources by Dow Jones Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. continues to hold 87 million shares in Merrill Lynch & Co., nearly the entire stake it purchased in December 2007, two people familiar with the matter said Friday. An online article dated Thursday stating that Temasek had sold 87 million shares is erroneous, the people told Dow Jones Newswires. **** PSC, A*STAR Clarify Scholarship Policies Following Philip Yeo Remarks by Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia The Public Service Commission (PSC) said all government scholarships, including those awarded by the Public Service Commission and Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), are awarded strictly on merit, regardless of family background. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Sun Jul 27 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 27 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 27, 2008 Message-ID: <20080727171501.74568.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** The Apple Retail Experience by Geek Nirvana **** Stephen Fry, Apple And The BBC by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC Oh dear, have we been failing to give enough coverage to Apple? Those of you who are frequent visitors to this blog will be aware that every time we do write about Mr Jobs' company, war breaks out between the Macaholics and the rest. The Apple fans accuse us of being insufficiently respectful of the wondrous gifts emanating from the shrine at Cupertino, the non-believers stifle a yawn and complaint hat we give this minor business far more attention than it deserves. See Also: Dork Talk , by Stephen Fry, The Guardian. The BBC's technology site is so afraid of looking as though it "favours" Apple in some way that it has been failing to file legitimate stories for fear of the anti-Apple community, because, believe it or not, there are people out there who think the launch of yet another Nokia or WinMob Apple-a-like should be given equal prominence. **** Apple Stores Now Open At 8 A.M. To Handle iPhone 3G Demand by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider All of Apple's US retail outlets are now in a permanent launch mode and will open as much as two hours earlier each day to accomodate the unprecendented demand for the new iPhone. Also, at least some locations are now giving customers rainchecks for the day's iPhone 3G stock. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** Blogging's Glass Ceiling by Kara Jesella, New York Times **** We Never Usd To Have A Telly, SO We'll Live Without A Laptop by Hunter Davies, The Times Computers have not really changed the world, not the way railways did or penicillin. At their best, they're a tool. Mostly they're a game. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Dark Prophet by Mark Feeney, Boston Globe Paranoia came naturally to Philip K. Dick. Bedeviled by drug abuse, mental illness, and the bill collector, he had good reason to think people might be out to get him. **** What We're Seeing Is The Creation Of A New Art Form by Naomi Alderman, The Guardian There's one simple case for the importance of the ebook reader. It's made by the teetering piles of books around my flat, by the bookshelves two or three deep, adn by the harrowing sifting sessions, sending a few precious volumes to the charity shop to make room for more. **** Ice Free by Stephan Faris, New York Times While most of the world sees only peril in the island's meltwater, Greenland's independence movement has explicitly tied its fortunes to the warming of the globe. **** Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? by Motoko Rich, New York Times Just what it means to read in the digital age. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Of Airports, Nudity And An Insult To Men by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread It's just typical of Singapore that unexamined biases corrupt policy decision. **** PAP's Eric Low Says Hougang Remains Under-Served by S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia **** Speakers Cornered Screens In Public by Martyn See, No Political Films Please, We're Singaporeans /Speakers Cornered/, passed clean by the Board of Film Censors in April, finally received its first public screning yesterday at the Substation Arts Centre. **** Armed For A Fresh Battle by Nelson Benjamin, The Star J.B. Jeyaretnam: The executive makes decisions and policies without any consultation with the people. And what is worrying is that there's no check on the executive, partly because Parliament is int he control of the PAP. And even now, with just two opposition members in parliament, Parliament passes laws and abrogates the powers of the court... The courts are not protecting the rights of the citizens. There is this question of freedom of speech in assembly. The constituion grants it, but government says no. Elections in Singapore are not free and clear, as there is no election commission in Singapore. Parliament is no longer a body that is separate, independent and able to control the executive. **** CNG Car Drivers Run Out Of Patience by Alvin Lim, Straits Times Their long-suffering gripes: long queues, too few stations too far away, 10 minutes to fill up, up to a two-minute wait between cars, shut down of pumps during thunderstorms, and now, rising CNG prices. **** The iPhone 3G Has Landed Here by Grace Chng, Straits Times Loyal iPhone fans have either gone to Hong Kong or asked friends going there to buy the phone for them. /Turns out the iPhones in Hong Kong are not locked to a particular telco. The price of a no-contract iPhone: S$1,600, or about US$1,200./ **** Who Dare To Cancel National Day Parade? by Cai Shenjiang, Lianhe Zaobao From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Mon Jul 28 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 28 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 28, 2008 Message-ID: <20080728171501.34749.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** iPhone, App Store Problems Causing More Than Just Headaches by David Chartier, Ars Technica **** Review: ClamXav 1.1 by Scott McNulty, Macworld ClamXav 1.1 is an able antivirus program that will keep your Mac protected, though it doesn't offer all the features that more-expensive programs do. Free is hard to beat, though, and while ClamXav might be slower than other programs, and might slow down your Mac a bit, it's just as accurate. **** Narrator 2.0.2 by Dan Miller, Macworld Paste your text into it, assign the program's "characters" to their lines, and then hear your text come to life. **** Lost In The Clouds by Rich Parr, MIT Technology Review MobileMe is facing problems endemic to cloud computing. **** Could iTunes User Suffer The Same Fate As Yahoo Music Users If iTunes Were To Fail? by Leslie Poston, Mac.Blorge.com In the end there is no grat solution on the consumer side to the potential problems with DRM when the issuing company goes belly up. MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Clara by Roberto Bolano, New Yorker She had big breasts, slim legs, and blue eyes. That's how I like to remember her. I don't know why I fell madly in love with her, but I did, and at the start, I mean for the first days, the first hours, it all went fine; then Clara returned to the city where she lived, in the south of Spain (she'd been on vacation in Barcelona), and everything began to fall apart. **** Before The Storm by Louise Gluck, New Yorker **** Ancient Anecdotage by Kathryn Starbuck, New Yorker SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Singapore's 'Australand Shocker' Down Under by Gwen Robinson, Financial Times Singapore Power laid out A$8.14bn i cash for the Alinta east coast assets last August and then failed to flip it into SP Ausnet. THis has left Singapore Power lumbered with A$17bn in debut and the same power assets are today probably worth about A$6bn. Singapore Inc's Temasek meawhile ploughed A$400m into ABC Learning at $7.30 a share 12 months ago and has watched almost 90 per cent of that evaporate. **** On National Day, Underlying Philosophy On Migration And Helping The Poor In Singapore by The Anti Neo-Democracy Theorist **** Police Question Activists Over Kangaroo T-Shirts by Singabloodypore Three human rights defenders have been called up for questioning by the police for contempt of court. **** Government, Grassrots And PAP Are Strange Bedfellows by BothSidesOfTheJohorStraits Goh is alluding to the situation that the government departments and grassroots would serve a PAP-ward happily and perhaps not so in an opposition ward. **** The Importance Of Being Earnest by The Online Citizen The government's efforts to restore public confidence in the charity system are laudable. But now it should be prepared to devote considerably more money and attention to make them work better, rather than relying on the notion - one that it has itself requently rubbished - that individuals can be relied upon to realise the vital importance of being earnest. **** No Suggestion That Pay Hikes Will Harm Economy by Chin Sau Ho, Ministry Of Finance, Straits Times Mr Tharman had not suggested that wage increases in general would contribute to inflation or would harm the economy. What he cautioned against was wages rising faster than productivity in order to keep pace with local inflation. **** Singapore Parking Less Expensive Than Many Cities Worldwide by DPA Parking in Singapore's prime area is not cheap but less expensive than in many other cities worldwide, ranking 52nd out of 138, a published study said on Monday. **** SM Goh, Please Love Your Country More Than The PAP by Choo Zheng Xi, The Online Citizen The People's Association (PA) is the umbrella organization that funds all grassroots organizations. THe PA website states that its mission is to "bring people together to take ownership of and contribute to community well-being" and strengthen racial harmony ties. Nowehre in its mission statement do we see Mr Goh's goal of keeping the PAP in power. **** Goh Chok Tong's Remarks On Role Of Opposition Raises Many Alarm Bells by Ng E-Jay, Sgpolitics.net Singapore needs political opposition that will challenge, not preserve, the PAP's grip on power. **** Monday Manifesto: Is Singapore The Canary In The Mine? by Leo Lewis, The Times Latitude in monetary and fiscal policy is crucial - and yet when the softly spoken, British-educated Mr Tharman talks of Singapore's striking economic vulnerabilities, he emphasises the need for social cohesion, a force, he says, that has helped to make his country so attractive for investment and without which one of South-East Asia's most impressive economic stories would surely unravel. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Tue Jul 29 13:15:01 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 29 Jul 2008 17:15:01 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 29, 2008 Message-ID: <20080729171501.36020.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Red Marble Games Releases Democracy 2 Game by Peter Cohen, Macworld Democracy 2 puts you in the role of the elected head of a country. You must implement policies and resolve your nation's problems, all to improve your nation's standing in the world without disenfranchising the voters that put you in a position of power. **** SonicMood 4.8 by Christopher Breen, Macworld Playing a combination of moody synthesized instruments and digitized nature sounds, the highly configurable SonicMood generates the kind of relaxing audio ambience that will soothe even the most restless insomniacs. **** Adobe Releases Photoshop Lightroom 2 by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Among the changes made in the new version of Lightroom is the ability to visually organize images across multiple hard drives. **** Steve Jobs Walks Into The Rap by Jim Goldman, CNBC Calling New York Times columnist Joe Nocera with an "off the record" health update was a big mistake, completely unnecessary, and serves only to fan the flames. **** The Promise Of Apple Storage by Drew Robb, Enterprise IT Planet.com A few weeks ago, Apple decided that it was no longer cost effective to continue to manufacture its own storage hardware. Instead, it has opted for an OEM agreement with storage vendor Promise Technology. **** Anti-DRM Protest At Apple Stores; Verizon On iPhone 3G's Impact by Aidan Malley, AppleInsider The Free Software Foundation is asking supporters to book a Genius Bar appointment at an Apple retail store on Friday or Saturday and ask the technicians questions about the company's broader corporate policy regarding iPhone 3G and its software under the belief that any copy-protected hardware or software is "defective." **** The Seal On Apple's iPhone SDK Is Leaking, Even Within Apple by Tom Yager, InfoWorld Apple tolerates discussion among iPhone developers as long as they know it's wrong. **** Apple Updates Apeture by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld According to Apple, the Aperture 2.1.1 "update supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues." **** iPhone NDA: Doing More Harm Than Good by Chris Foresman, Ars Technica The NDA has become a source of frustration for the growing development community. **** Troubleshooting MobileMe Calendar Syncing by Christopher Breen, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** How Cool Is Cuil? by Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** For Marriage, The Honeymoon's Over by Carlin Romano, Chronicle Of Higher Education Till death does the confusion last. Can anyone, in or out of a marriage, explain what it is? **** Swifts by Dan Chiasson, Slate **** Anything But Clear by Kenneth Chang, New York Times Philip W. Anderson, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Princeton, wrote in 1995: "The deepest and most interesting unsolved problem in solid state theory is probably the theory of the nature of glass and the glass transition." He added, "This could be the next breakthrough in the coming decade." Thirteen years later, scientists still disagree, with some vehemence, about the nature of glass. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Pulau Batu Puteh: We Never Yielded To Singapore Before The ICJ, Says Deputy Foreign Minister by New Straits Times **** A Personal Baby Insight From Mr Wang by Mr Wang Says So Many women say that they do not want children because they want to focus on their careers. You must have heard that quite often. What you'll rarely hear in Singapore is a woman saying that she truly loves her job and is passionate about it. **** Record Number Of Older People Working In June 2007 by Imelda Saad, Channel NewsAsia A record number of older Singaporeans were employed in June last year, according to the latest report by the Ministry of Manpower. Most sought empoloyment because of financial considerations and found jobs in administrative as well as support services such as in the cleaning, security and F&B industries. **** Worker Loses Appendage In Singapore Every Three Days by DPA A worker in Singapore loses a hand or finger every three days, a startling statistic revealed at a forum on protecting limbs at the workplace, news reports said Tuesday. **** Singapore's Temasek Confirms Investment In Merrill by Saeed Azhar and Kevin Lim, Reuters Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings said on Tuesday it had increased its investment in Merrill Lynch as part of the U.S. broker's latest fund-raising effort. **** A Matter Of Interpretation by Benjamin Cheah, The Online Citizen Nothing in the law states that the Law Society must wait for the government to submit anything to it before acting. /Of course, as with almost anything else, there's the law, and then there's the unwritten law./ **** Overworked And Understaffed by Arlina Arshad and Teh Joo Lin, Straits Times Overtime hours pile up and the number of unclaimed leave days is mounting among officers of the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA). It does not help that about 600 ICA officers quit last year, twice as many as in 2003 - and finding replacements has been tough. **** Senior Library Officer-In-Charge Had No Authority To Be Compassionate? by Today If the second officer had no authority to make a simple decision, why was she given the task of taking charge of the library that morning? **** Escalator And Other Paralyses by Au Waipang, Yawning Bread Are Singaporeans waiting to be served? From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Wed Jul 30 13:15:02 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 30 Jul 2008 17:15:02 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 30, 2008 Message-ID: <20080730171502.70912.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** SoundSource 2.0 by Christopher Breen, Macworld This simple utility adds a menu-bar item that lists all available Input, Ouput, and System audio options. **** Apple's Cult Of Secrecy Begins To Bug Its Developers by Charles Arthur, The Guardian Consider that there's an estimate 1,000+ aps on the iPhone App Store - of which about 100 are reckoned to be even worth the disk space. How is Apple going to improve the ratio? Not via an NDA. **** Apple Finishes Restoring MobileMe Mail by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld Apple has completed the process of restoring mail service to MobileMe customers that found themselves without email over the past week or so. **** How To Configure And Deploy The iPhone 3G For Business, Part 1 by Ryan Faas, Computerworld Here I offer advice on how best to activate, configure and deploy the iPhone. **** Apple Should Take Its Retail Act On The Road by Philip Michaels, Macworld Airports offer a nice opportunity to Apple to open a new front for its retail efforts. **** CampTune Shuffles Space Between Mac, Windows Partitions by Peter Cohen, Macworld CampTune helps Mac users with Intel-based systems running Boot Camp to redistribute free space between their Mac and Windows partitions. **** Forget The E-mail Woes - MobileMe Simply Too Pricey For What It Does by David Zeiler, Baltimore Sun Adding a few more apps would go a long way toward fulfilling th epromise of a fee-based Apple-run online service. **** Apple Admits New MobileMe Problem by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld **** This, That, And The iTunes Store by Christopher Breen, Macworld Random thought son recent iTunes Store happenings. **** Five Lightroom 2 Features That Should Excite You by Rick LePage, Macworld The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** 50 Years, 50 Gaint Leaps: How Nasa Rocked Our World by Rob Sharp, The Independent Today, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration marks its first half-century of exploration and discovery. But missions to the Moon and beyond are only part of the story. Without Nasa's scientists, life on Earth would be very different indeed. **** HP, Intel And Yahoo Shoot For Clouds by Shaun Nichols, vnnet.com Three of the biggest names in the tech world are joining forces for a new cloud computing initiative. **** Finders And Seekers by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, Livemint.com MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Touched By A Vampire by Laura Miller, Salon Preteen girls — and their grown-up moms — are sinking their teeth into Stephenie Meyer's gothic "Twilight" books by the millions. Move over, J.K. Rowling. **** The Rise And Rise Of The First Novel by Claire Armitstead, The Guardian The novel, we have always been told, is a form that requires patience, perseverance and the sort of life experience that is unavailable to most twentysomethings. **** Out Of Sight by Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly For the 140 students lucky enough to attend the Texas School for the Blind, life is about team sports, class plays, /American Idol/ parties, and prom night. In fact, it's the one place where they can see themselves for who they areally are: typical teenagers. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Avoid Swimming At Pasir Ris Beach For A Year As Water Is Unclean: NEA by Shobana Kesava, Straits Times The water there carries a high level of Enterococcus - a bacteria found in faeces. **** RSI. Audld Lang Syne. by Woohoo **** Ruminations Of An Overseas Singaporean by Maria Siow, Channel NewsAsia A country that begins with a clean slate and no historical baggage (except with our cloest northern neighbor) is a great recipe for nation building. But willi t be an equally good recipe for nation-bonding, and nation-togetherness in the midst of turbulence and turmoil? **** Stop All NETS Admin Fees! by The Moley Prophet NETS said that charging an administrative fee to consumers is against its policy, yet it did not stop ComfortDelgro from doing it. **** SPH Gets Niche Licence For Web TV Service by Bryan Lee, Straits Times Razor TV will focus on local content offering both live and vide-on-demand programmes. /Will SPH learn from its previous mistakes?/ **** Merging Of Mainstream And Social Media? by Walter Lim, Cooler Insights Contrary to popular belief, many young folks do get their news from mainstream media players in Singapore. **** Temasek Ploy Pays Off At Bank's Cost by Sundeep Tucker, Financial Times Announcing Teamsek's landmark $4.4bn capital injection in Merrill Lynch last December, John Thain, the bank's chief executive, hailed the Singapore state investment agency as "savvy investor with a proven track record of achieving strong investment returns". Seven months later and Mr Thain has been proved right — though at a heavy cost to the troubled US investment bank. Temasek had negotiated a reset clause, which meant that if Merrill were to issue new stock at less than $48 a share within 12 months, the bank would compensate the Singapore investor for the ddifference for each share held. The result was that Merrill had to hand back $2.5bn, which Temasek plans to re-invest immediately along with a fresh capital injection of $900m. **** Heartland Shoppers Hit Hardest By Nets Fee Hike by Jessica Lim and Daryl Tan, Straits Times Some mom-and-pop stores in the heartland are passing on an increase in Nets fees to consumers, despite being barred from doing so. **** NSP Wants To Rejoin Opposition Alliance? by Loh Chee Kong, Today According to sources, the NSP made the unofficial approach last month to SDA chairman and veteran Potong Pasir MP Chiam See Tong. **** Morning Shift And Being Singaporean by Joanne Leow, Channel NewsAsia Funnily this always makes me acutely aware of being in Singapore, this waking before dawn and before your circadian rhythms tell you to. From applesurf at myapplemenu.com Thu Jul 31 13:15:00 2008 From: applesurf at myapplemenu.com (applesurf at myapplemenu.com) Date: 31 Jul 2008 17:15:00 -0000 Subject: [MyAppleMenu] Jul 31, 2008 Message-ID: <20080731171500.49168.qmail@voot.pair.com> MyAppleMenu ==================================== **** Five iTunes 7.7.1 Bug Fixes Detailed by Adam C. Engst, TidBITS Some trawling through Apple's discussion forums yeilded actual information. **** Levelator 1.4 by Christopher Breen, Macworld This free tool, optimized for speech, makes a noble effort to crrect uneven volume levels. **** Why Cut-And-Paste Is Difficult On The iPhone by Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu This post by John Gruber illustrates why it is not easy to do cut-and-paste on the iPhone: all the obvious gestures are already being taken and already have meaning in the iPhone touch interface. Rumors indicate that the iPhone wil have cut-and-paste soon. I sure hope Apple didn't compromise too much.

Permanent Link to This Post **** Comal ISD Teachers Enjoying Mac Experience by Jason Gordon, Hill Country Times "I've always heard wonderful things about Macs, and I can't wait to use all of the available applications with my students." **** MacBooks Are A Writer's Tool - Don't Mess With The Keyboard by John Martellaro, Mac Observer **** Apple Releases iTunes 7.7.1 Update by Arnold Kim, MacRumors.com "iTunes 7.7.1 includes fixes to improve stability and performance." **** A Tags-Eye View Of Apple's Changing Technology Focus by David Morgenstern, ZDNet.com Posted in the Ci Sense company blog is widget that presents a tag cloud view of Apple's trademarks from the past 10 years. **** MobileMe Email Complaints Continue by MacNN Despite Apple's pronouncement that all is well with MobileMe, user complaints continue on the company's support forums. **** OS X Users Vulnerable - Apple Still Don't Get Security by Bart Busschots, International Mac Podcast Apple's pathetic patching record means that I'd go so far as to cal it professional negligence to deploy OS X Server in a corporate environment. **** New Life For Old Macs by James Dempsey, Macworld What do you do with that old G4 or G5 Mac? **** A Few Tricks, Apps For Disabling Lengthy iPhone Backups by David Chartier, Ars Technica Thankfully there are a few simple workarounds, but as usual, they have a catch. /Bascially, no backups anymore./ **** Secure Your DNS Since Apple Hasn't by Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS Proceed at your own risk! This process worked for me, but it may not for you. You likely want to have a full backup in place. **** Apple Warns Resellers Of Mac And iPod Drought, Says Load Up Now by Kasper Jade, AppleInsider Apple in recent days issued an advisement bulletin to some of its channel partners hinting at a manufacturing ramp down of iPods and certain Mac notebook models, which will result in limited supplies of those products int he coming weeks. **** iPhone 3G Owners Reporting Mysterious Cracks by MacNN The damage appears to consist mostly of hairline fractures, typically around the volume and vibrate controls, but also in some cases around corners, speakers or the headphone jack. The Tomorrow Weblog ==================================== **** How To Give Your Child An Allowance, The Mobile Way by Bob Tedeschi, New York Times It only seems that the $400 surprise bill is a rite of passage for every parent naive enough hand a child "a credit card with an antenna," as one cellphone network executive describes it. Now, the major cellular networks either feel the parent's pain or have had enough of parents calling and sharing that pain with customer service representatives. **** Google Testing "AdSense For Games" In Bid TO Shake Up In-Game Advisting by Dean Takahashi, Venture Beat MyAppleMenu Reader ==================================== **** Double Trouble: Are Breast Enlargements Imitation Or Mutilation? by Bethan Cole, The Independent Surely, like facial wrinkles, we need to learn to love the slight imperfections that ageing bestows. These are signs that our bodies have travelled and worked and experienced emotions, not scars or disfigurements that should be erased. **** The Great Vegan Honey Debate by Daniel Engber, Slate There is no more contentious question in the world of veganism that the one posed by honey. SingaporeSurf ==================================== **** Health Care In Singapore by Niko Karvounis, Taking Note Singapore's health care experience isn't an argument for consumer-driven medicine, but for targeted government interventions and smart, timely, regulation of over-treatment. **** Singapore's Population Up Almost 200,000 Between 2006 And 2007 by Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia **** Pushing Up Wages To Offset Inflation Risky Move, Warns NTUC Chief by Lee Siew Hua, Straits Times "Instead of pushing wages up to fully offset inflation," said labour chief Lim Swee Say, "we must continue to link built-in wage increase to productivity gain and help our people through various non-wage measures." /So, instead of bosses helping employees cope, taxpayers are to foot the bill./ **** Your Education And Other Miscellaneous Regrets by Mr Wang Says So Young Singapreans don't generally grow up with the idea that they should explore and discover their own individual interests and strengths. Instead, they grow up being told that they should seek to excel in what the school wants them to excel in. /Education should be about learning what to learn. There's always time — no matter if you are 16, 26, 36, or even 46 or 56 years-old — to pursue one's interests and calling. Just don't be too comfortable with the material stuff./ **** Singapore's Unemployment Rate Rises To 2.3% In Q2 by Channel NewsAsia Singapore's unemployment rate rose to 2.3 per cent in the second quarter after seasonal adjustments amid economic uncertainties, according to estimates from the Ministry of Manpower. **** Singapore's Success Not About PAP Or Opposition by See Leong Kit, Straits Times Politicians must make up their minds once and for all whether to continue breeding 'yes-man' citizens who will let them govern 'their country their way', or sincerely nurture thinking Singaporeans who will team up with them to govern 'our country our way'. **** ERP Rates And Nixon's Wrong Turn by Today Transport minister Raymond Lim outlined how price controls — and also wage controls — are not only short-term solutions for society as a whole, but cause underlying problems to become worse. **** This Is Not Home Schooling by Shila Naidu, New Paper School told to stop taking in students exempted from Compulsory Education Act. But school's founder says she's providing a place for children who can't cope in national schools.