The Lowdown on Apple and Tech News for Week 8

To celebrate Mozart's 250th birthday, a website is offering free downloads of nine symphonies. Each symphony is available at 192 and 256 kbps.

Apple's unveiling 'fun, new products' on Februay 28
After several fake Apple Special Event invites were posted on the Web, Apple officially sent out e-mail invitations to selected journalists to go to Apple's headquarters at Cupertino on February 28. Sent out on February 21, the e-mail teaser said, "Come see some fun, new products from Apple." The email showed a picture of iCal's icon with the date "February 28" shown. (I don't think Apple knows my site exists so I won't get into trouble. A poster at a forum I participate in already hinted last week that Apple has something big planned for the end of February or March. When prodded, he simply said that 'time will tell.' When today's mysterious email invites from Apple were made public, he again showed and said that this was the 'thing' he was hinting at and further added '(The) living room will never be the same.' This perhaps may indicate the much rumored Apple Multimedia Center. In my mind, it's perhaps a beefed up Mac mini with Front Row, Apple remote, TV connector, and DVR capabilities. Heck, throw in a built-in iPod dock.) Ihnatko rants about the 'fun' event. Apple has stopped accepting bulk orders for the Mac mini, but you can still make individual orders.


A picture of the supposed 'real' video iPod is being hotly debated. Is this real? Is this like what happened last year with the leaked pictures of the 5G iPod? As Apple fans (and haters) continue to debate about the existence of the video iPod, MobileMag is just so happy that Acer has beaten Apple to the punch in announcing a touchscreen PMP (I'm assuming that PMP means "portable media player." The idiotic author seems to think everyone knows what he's talking about.) Michael Kwan is so happy that Acer has outdone Apple in the announcement that he failed to realize Acer has yet to say when the unit will start shipping or how much it will cost. Michael Kwan, you're an idiot.

Update: The 'real' video iPod photo is a fake.

Shaw Wu predicts new consumer-oriented Macbooks and Mac minis, both of which will have Front Row and the remote. He also doesn't discount the possibility of full-length videos for the iTMS. He is not sold on the idea of the 'real' video iPod, saying that it's not yet ready for the prime time.

Safari's security hole
Another security problem on the Mac OS is again discovered, this time involving Safari. The problem lies with the option "Open 'safe' files after downloading" in Safari. 'Safe' files examples are those with '.jpg', '.pdf' and '.mov' extensions. The problem lies in a malicious shell script that is disguised as a 'safe' file, downloaded and then launched automatically by Safari. The shell script would then be executed in Terminal without the user's permission. People are advised to uncheck the check box in the General Tab under Preferences. People can also move the Terminal application to another location additional precaution. This security problem is also known to affect Apple's mail application. Apple is said to already be creating a fix for the hole.

Use your iMac as a reading lamp
InfoWorld claims that you can use the 20-inch Intel iMac as a reading lamp and still save on electricity. Apple rated the iMac's power consumption at 120 watts but the writer for InfoWorld found out that even when the iMac was utilizing 100% the Core Duo's core, power consumption was rated at a steady 95 watts. However, the writer took it a step further. He surmised that the LCD monitor was consuming 32 watts of power and subtracting that to the original value, the Intel iMac was just consuming 63 watts. This is with the two 2 GHz cores at 100 percent, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth active, 1 GB of RAM and 128 MB of GDDR3 graphics RAM running at full steam. (A follow-up test on the iMac's GPU will soon be posted.)

IMac reviews for the week:

Peter Nowak of the New Zealand Herald says it's hard to go back to his crappy HP laptop after using the 20" Intel iMac. Complaints include the price and some software having missing features compared to their Windows counterparts. "Over all, the iMac is something you may not want to try because if you do, you may never want to go back to your crappy old Toyota. "

"Apple's new iMac running the new Intel Core Duo microprocessor is the finest, most reliable, stable, elegant and intuitive personal computer available anywhere." - Mike Wendland, Mac News.

Even though Classic applications and Virtual PC will never run on the Intel iMacs anymore, Garry Barker (Sydney Morning Herald) still intends to buy the new 20" Intel iMac for the speed and for the fun using it.

PC World rates the iMac with a 76 (good), saying the non-native application cripples the iMac's speed improvement.

The Intel iMac has just been launched in the Middle East while in France, Macs own 15.4% of the French education market. There has been an increase of 37% in Mac sales between 2004 and 2005. Last month, Apple's website was rated as the world's tenth most popular website.

Several problems have come up and are being discussed at Macfixit.com.

Now, for the rest of the news...
Mac mini in a Toyota Prius. This is an ongoing project. The owner's got a touch screen and a has the Front Row working. He's going to fiddle with the audio next. Other cars that has been fitted with a Mac mini are: 2006 Infiniti M45, Audi A6, Ford F-150 and, 2005 Jeep Grand Cheroke. These Mac mini cars and other automobile related stuff can be seen on Leftlane News.

It's hard to imagine for something other than a Japanese company to dominate the digital music player market in Japan. You'd think the Japanese will only choose something from Sony or Toshiba or Panasonic. But that's not really the case. As of the end of 2005, Apple's iPod has 51.3% of the digital-music player market in Japan. This is up from 32% in 2004. The success of the iPod has been attributed to its design, ease-of-use, and the seamless integration with the iTunes application. The local competition may have the design and other pieces of hardware down to pat, but so far have missed the software part of the equation. Slick advertising campaigns and Apple's Japanese version of the iTunes Music Store also helped in the iPod's success in Japan. But the iPod's dominance is being challenged by mobile phones that double as digital music players and by carriers that allow music tracks to be downloaded using 3G. The music tracks use a compression method that are deemed to be better than the MP3 format. Creative wants to try to take on the iPod again.

Samsung has released their version of the iPod nano. It comes in 2- and 4GB models, does 3D audio, has a 1.8" inch coloured screen and a 35-hour battery life, and has one of those barcode names. But it doesn't have an FM tuner! Gasp! An iPod competitor without an FM tuner!

Dan Frakes asks: "Where's autofill for the rest of the iPods?" while Jeremy Horowitz of iLounge begs Apple not to move their tech support to India. Heh.

Apple's iPod gets free press in the Winter Olympics in Turin. The Baltimore Sun reports on iPod-using Olympians listening to metal when making up a new routine or to a heart-break song to win gold in snowboarding. A spokesman for the US Olympic Committee thinks that the whole thing with the digital music player is a sponsorship waiting to happen. At the end of the artice, the Baltimore Sun lists some players and the favorite tunes they like listening to.

IPod Garage's Zack Littleman wrote 'Seven days without an iPod makes one weak.' It is a narration about the week Littleman ignored his iPod.

TUAW asks readers on feedbacks regarding BrokenPod, a company that will buy broken iPods. They also posted a funny take on Apple's latest Intel ad. (Another funny clip.)

Another blatant knock-off of the iPod nano is again spotted. It even placed Apple's logo and the word 'iPod' in front of the unit. What's missing though is the screen. It's labelled as "4GB" but in only actually has 128MB of flash memory.

The University of Wales' department of Mathematics and Physical Sciences will start offering their lectures as podcasts.

NBC and iTunes is offering a free download of an episode of Conviction, a new legal drama. Get it here. Other new shows are: America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC), The X's (Nickelodeon), Project Runway (NBC), select episodes from Inside the Actor's Studio (NBC), and new sketches from Late Night with Conan O'Brien (NBC).

Thomas Hawk of eHomeUpgrade.com calls customers of Apple's iTunes Music Store as suckers, and advises readers to go to record stores, buy a CD from them, rip the CD and then return it to get 75% of what you spent back. Doesn't that sound like cheating? (I just made the mistake of clicking on this bait-boy's article. Damn.)

David Every of MyMac.com thinks John Dvorak has been tripping on acid (Others think Dvoral has been missing is medications). Every writes sound arguments in his rebuttal against Dvorak's conspiracy theory-filled ramblings.

OSx86 is 'back.' They explained that the site was not intended as a community for hackers but instead was for discussion on Apple's switch to Intel. Of course, for such a well-meaning website they posted links to hacks of the Mac OS. They maintain that they are innocent and they have removed the links to Maxxus's website. But another website was not as lucky. Last week, I mentioned AppleKeynotes.com, a repository for various Apple Keynote addresses. Unfortunately, the website has been shut down by Apple's Legal department. This must be due to the website violating Apple's copyright. TUAW reported on this. Apple should make these keynotes available in their website or perhaps on iTunes. (Maxxus launches a new site after Apple purportedly took action against him. And no, I'm not going to post it here.)

Steve Wozniak says Apple's switch to Intel is "like consorting with the enemy," and that the iPod is "distracting Apple from its focus on computing."

Gene Munster of Piper-Jaffray says that concerns about the impact of Apple's switch to Intel is unfounded. According to Munster, only 20% of Apple resellers have seen a slow down in Mac sales because customers are waiting for the news Intel Macs. The rest of the retailers said their Mac business has not been impacted. Post-holiday season sales of iPods have been expected to go down but resellers said the decline was just 'slight' as compared to being 'significant.'

Sir Paul McCartney loves mash-ups and gave everyone who toured with him last year a 5G iPod.

Cameron Moll passed up the chance to work at Apple so he can spend more time with his family and still do blogging.

Adobe's CEO still considers the Mac platform as 'still critical.'

Yahoo!'s digital music service wants record labels to allow them to offer DRM-free downloads. They said that this will help combat piracy. How desperate is that?

Google is discriminating againstMac users using Safari and do not want them to use their web page creation tool, Page Creator. (See what you can do with Gmail.)

"Death on the high seas" or "don't pass show your iPod shuffle when there are geeks about."

Windows running on Intel Macs... under VMWare.

List of freeware for the Mac.

MacRumor has a gallery of pictures of a virtual input device on a touch screen may look like. Several patents have already been applied by Apple on alternative modes of input and interface on a touch-screen.

Engadget calls Apple adding a "touch finger LCD" as the latest crackpot rumor."

Apple in The Incredibles.

How to...
... backup your Mac's entire harddrive.
... deal with multiple iPods and multiple computers.
... combine colors for great webpage design.

Is it the time for the electronic book? Will Apple be the one to bring it mainstream?

A company named iTab is turning iBooks into tablet PCs and selling them on eBay. They are selling 100 units for $1,500 each.

The inventor of the MP3 is now developing a tool that will help reduce software piracy. They plan to use digital watermarks to track how many times an audio file has been uploaded and downloaded in a peer-to-peer network.

JCurtis hates the idea of people coming into his cubicle to hover over his shoulder. They also scare the bejeezus out of him because he sometimes doesn't know they're there. So, he created a small program he calls Rearview Mirror, which uses his iMac's built-in iSight to see who's sneaking up behind him. The application takes the video input from iSight and displays it in Quicktime.

From Heading East: 10 Mac softwares that you shouldn't be without.

Q: Windows and Linux emulator for the Mac. Another emulator is OpenOSX's WinTel. It's now version 2.1 and costs $25.

GrApple has downloadable Aqua-ese Firefox themes.

The Paper CD Case website will create a PDF file that you can make into a paper CD case after printing and folding the paper. Doug Adams has created a script that will import your iTunes playlist into papercdcase.com. Adams also made the iTunes script that makes audio files bookmarkable. Visit Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes for more scripts.

Is it still worth it to go watch a movie in the US these days?