Archived Links for April 2007

04.21	Ars technica	Mac hacked for $10,000, Charles Jade: From Computerword, the bad news is a MacBook Pro has successfully been compromised through Safari. At CanSecWest, a security conference held in Vancouver this week, a contest was organized by Dragos Ruiu to break into a pair of MacBook Pros, the prize being a MacBook Pro.
04.21	Mercury News	Apple’s Steve Jobs likely to avoid criminal charges in options probe, Howard Mintz and Troy Wolverton: A Mercury News examination of a massive 2001 stock-options grant to Jobs that was backdated through bogus documentation - the central focus of the federal probe - shows there is scant evidence, if any, to support criminal charges against the Silicon Valley icon.
04.21	The Inquirer	Microsoft admits Vista failure , Charlie Demerjian: Dell announced that it would be offering XP again on home PCs. The second that Vista came out, Microsoft makes it very hard for you to sell anything other than Me II. This is classic abusive monopoly behavior, Microsoft wrote the modern book on it.
04.21	RDM	InfoWorld Publishes False Report on Mac Security, Staff: Nancy Gohring, writing for InfoWorld, delivered a misleading report yesterday on a Mac security exploit contest held at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, BC.
04.21	AppleInsider	Apple’s interface held to the fire in dubious suit, Aidan Malley: An Illinois-based company and its Nevada partner have filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., alleging that Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" treads on an interface patent that affects the operating system’s nearly universal use of tabs.
04.20	AppleInsider	Target stores to pick up Apple TV, Aidan Malley and Kasper Jade: Big-box retailer Target is poised to become the next third-party retailer to market Apple Inc.’s new Apple TV device at its brick-and-mortar retail stores, AppleInsider has learned.
04.20	TUAW	TUAW Interview series: Brent Simmons on the Leopard delay - does it change anything?, David Chartier: Apple’s announcement that Leopard has been delayed until October was quite the shocker, especially since we apparently have the iPhone to thank.
04.20	RDM	Where Is Apple Headed with the Mac?, Staff: What does Apple’s delay of Leopard mean for the company and Mac users? While certain analysts have been falling all over themselves to associate a serious threat of calamity and doom with a delayed Leopard, they haven’t offered any basis for their outcry. Here’s what is so suspicious about their claims.
04.20	TheStreet.com	Jim Cramer’s Stop Trading! Eyeing Apple, Staff: Cramer said the one tech stock he’s looking at right now is Apple ahead of Wednesday’s postclose earnings report.
04.20	MacDailyNews	Survey of Gen Y trendsetters reveals Apple is most trusted brand, Staff: Apple tops the list of most trusted companies in the eyes of today’s kids.
04.20	MacUser	The classy tramp stamp, Derik DeLong: There’s something just so visually attractive about a tramp stamp. I use attractive in the "I can’t take my eyes away" sense. Car accidents also fall into that category. As you can tell, I even get stuck when I’m talking about them. All thoughts left my head when I found an Apple themed one.
04.19	MacNN	More evidence of the Zune Phone?, Staff: The long-rumored Zune Phone has received a bit more supporting evidence in the form of another Microsoft filing, this time at the US Patent Office.
04.19	MacNN	Dell casts doubts on Vista, Staff: Dell today revealed that it will restore the option to use Windows XP on some of its home systems, marking a potentially damaging blow to Microsoft’s hopes for the newer Windows Vista.
04.19	Blackfriars	Why no third-party iPhone apps at launch? Two words: battery life, Staff: I had an epiphany last night about why Apple is restricting third-party software applications for its soon-to-launch iPhone: It’s about power.
04.19	The New York Times	Software by Microsoft Is Nearly Free for the Needy, Steve Lohr: In an effort to expand its global reach in computing, Microsoft plans to offer a stripped-down version of Windows, Office and other software for $3 to people in developing nations.
04.19	Personal Technology	Tips for Getting Past Some of the Hassles Of Buying a New PC, Walter S. Mossberg: Whew! The new Windows Vista operating system, five years in the making, is finally out and preloaded on new PCs from every major Windows computer maker. After months of uncertainty and delay, you can go forth with confidence and buy a new computer, right? Well, it’s not that simple.
04.19	ZDNet	Microsoft slams iPhone as irrelevant, David Braue: Apple’s soon-to-be-launched iPhone will be irrelevant to business users because it is a "closed device" and does not support Microsoft Office, a senior executive with the software giant said this week.
04.19	AppleInsider	iPhone could turn technology world on its ear, Prince McLean: As of February, awareness of Apple Inc.’s iPhone device had spread to nearly 50 percent of U.S. consumers, with a significant chunk of those people expressing sincere interest in buying the device without having first seen one in person, a broad market survey has shown.
04.19	Low End Mac	Project Quadra: Building a FrankenMac from a Quadra 700, IIci, and IIvx, Joseph Burke: This story starts out as the popular Macintosh IIci to Quadra 700 conversion, but it turns into something else entirely - a completely new beast never before seen in the history of FrankenMac evolution.
04.18	Low End Mac	Does the iPhone Plus Apple TV Point to the Future of Personal Computing?, Dan Knight: Sometimes it takes a while to put one and one together to make two. In this case, the iPhone plus Apple TV equals the future of computing.
04.18	Apple Matters	Four Apple Pundits You Should Never Read, James R. Stoup: They all have different styles, but in the end you can’t really trust any of them. Here they are, in no particular order: the top four pundits you should always ignore.
04.17	Apple Matters	Welcome Back to Apple-land, Matthew Bookspan: This week, I write this article from my new abode in San Francisco, California. It’s fun to be back in the Bay. I start working in Silly Valley tomorrow. I will begin using my first work- based Mac in over 14 years.
04.16	Mac Night Owl	The Leopard Report: Exaggerating the Impact of 10.5’s Delay, Gene Steinberg: We all believed that Leopard would appear on time, in the spring, precisely as Apple claimed, and most likely on the first day of the WWDC, on June 11. Any day now, Apple would call a press conference to reveal all the "top secret" information they’d withheld from us about Leopard since it was unveiled last June.
04.13	Apple Matters	Why Apple Will Never Make A Game Console, Tanner Godarzi: The prospect of Apple making a game console has been discussed before, but if Apple were to do such a thing it would entirely kill what the company is aiming for and thus become a failure.
04.11	CNN Money.com	Apple changes its iTune?, Paul R. La Monica: Since Apple launched its wildly successful iTunes music store back in 2003, CEO Steve Jobs has adamantly refused to offer a monthly subscription service. If you want to buy music from iTunes, you do it either by the single or the album, that’s it. But that could soon change.
04.11	AppleInsider	Apple’s iPod to hit half-billion sales mark before cool-off, Slash Lane: The addressable market for Apple’s iPod digital music players is so broad that the company will handily eclipse the 350 million unit sales milestone achieved by Sony with its Walkman players during the 80s and 90s before the first signs of fizzle set in, researchers at JMP Securities say.
04.11	Low End Mac	Satisfaction the Answer to Wasteful Consumerism, Dan Knight: Low End Mac loves the new hardware, but we’re all about getting the most out of whatever Mac you have. If you love to write on your Mac Plus, we’ll let you know how big a hard drive it supports, how to upgrade memory, and what versions of the Mac OS it supports. If you have a Mac Pro, we’ll also let you know how many drive bays it has, how much RAM you can stuff inside it, and what versions of OS X it supports.
04.11	Apple Matters	Free Your Creative Spirit: Get a Mac, Chris Howard: What if? What if you never bought a Mac? How different would your life be today?
04.11	Chron.com	My crystal ball is showing me a Mac stampede, Dwight Silverman: If Apple can capitalize on Vista’s "meh" factor with a killer, stable and attractive update of the Mac OS X in its upcoming Leopard version, due later this spring, and if it couples that with stylish, affordable hardware (it must find a way to erase the "Apple charges too much" impression), then the intense interest I’m seeing may turn into a stampede to buy.
04.10	CNET	Clock is ticking on Apple’s Boot Camp beta, Ina Fried: According to the terms, which are posted on Apple’s Web site, the software is licensed only until Apple comes out with a commercial release of Boot Camp, or until September 30, whichever comes first.
04.10	MacNN	Apple officially posts Apple TV ad, Staff: The advertisement for the Apple TV which quietly surfaced yesterday on CNBC has appeared on Apple’s website in four different qualities.
04.10	ZDNet	Microsoft naysayer bandwagon gets crowded, Larry Dignan: Over the weekend, blogger Paul Graham stirred up a Techmeme hornet nest when he declared Microsoft dead. Today, Goldman Sachs removed Microsoft from its "conviction list," the equivalent of a super-duper buy list.
04.10	Apple Matters	And They Said the Mac Was Intuitive, Matthew Bookspan: Well, it definitely isn’t in one regard. I was able to delete my usr (Unix) folder. Yes, my usr folder. How did this happen? Well, one of the programs I installed caused this lovely little Unix hidden folder to become exposed. Knowing that I already have a Users folder and the multiple Library folder(s), it seemed reasonable to delete it.
04.10	Mac Night Owl	Are Desktop Email Applications a Dying Breed?, Gene Steinberg: The other day, I downloaded a copy of Mozilla’s latest edition of Thunderbird, which is now at version 2.0RC1. Although not quite final, it’s pretty solid, with all the new features intact. But I have to wonder about the future of apps such as this, because you can get all or most of their features online, with a Web-based email client.
04.09	Low End Mac	10 Years of ’Think Different’: The Ad Campaign that Restored Apple’s Reputation, Tom Hormby: Dreyfus read a free-verse poem, "Here’s to the Crazy Ones", written by a Chiat/Day copywriter, Craig Tanimoto. This was used extensively throughout the entire campaign.
04.06	Electronista	iPods for every Michigan child?, Staff: Democrats (who love to tax and spend) are proposing that iPods and other MP3 players be given to every child in Michigan, according to an editorial in the Detroit Free Press.
04.06	Apple Matters	My Apple Switch Story, Tanner Godarzi: Every Mac user either grew up with the Mac or switched. I was a bit of the former but mostly the latter. Switching to the Mac has undoubtedly not only given me the joy of using great hardware with great software but also many other benefits (blogging for Apple Matters being one of them).
04.05	TG Daily	iPod takes a bullet, saves soldier’s life, Humphrey Cheung: According to a picture posted on Flickr, one lucky U.S. Army soldier was saved by his iPod after the music player took a bullet from an AK-47.
04.05	Computerworld	Harris Poll: Users balk at Vista upgrade, Gregg Keizer: Microsoft Corp. did a great job getting out the word about Windows Vista, a Harris Poll published yesterday said. But the marketing blitz hasn’t generated big sales.
04.05	Electronista	Apple’s new Mac Pro uses special-run Xeon, Staff: Apple’s updated Mac Pro uses a special version of Intel’s Xeon workstation-class processor, the semiconductor company said in an e-mail note. The 3GHz quad-core CPU at the heart of the fastest system is currently an unannounced model that sits at the top of the company’s performance range and is presently used only by Apple.
04.05	AppleInsider	Some Best Buy stores may feature walled-off Apple boutiques, Katie Marsal: Electronics retailer Best Buy, which announced Wednesday that it will be expanding its Mac pilot program to about 200 stores, is expected to introduce a radically improved store- within-a-store concept at some locations.
04.04	Low End Mac	The 8-core Mac Pro Value Equation, Dan Knight: Power hungry users, are you dissatisfied with Apple’s 3.0 GHz quad-core Mac Pro? Render jobs and video conversion taking too long? Well, the solution is at hand.
04.04	Backup Brain	This stupid stuff doesn’t happen on a Mac, Tom Negrino: I’ve got Windows Vista installed on my MacBook via Boot Camp. I also have Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux available via Parallels. That way I can use the MacBook to take screenshots for books for just about any OS I might care about, though it still amuses me that I have four different operating systems on one machine.
04.04	Macworld	One week with Apple TV, Jason Snell: I’ve spent the better part of the last year with a Mac mini sitting right above my TV set. It’s been my attempt to see what it’s like to have an Internet-enabled media playback device in my living room. But that Mac mini is no longer in my living room. Instead, it’s been relegated to a shelf in my office closet. That’s because at long last I’ve gotten a chance to hook up an Apple TV.
04.04	PC World	We’re Giving Away an Apple TV, Edward N. Albro: In the scramble to get an Apple TV in time for a quick review, we ended up buying two of them, one of which has never been removed from its shrink-wrap cocoon. We’d like nothing better than to pass this hermetically sealed entertainment powerhouse onto one of our loyal readers...but there is one little catch. To enter the contest, we’re asking you to do a little work.
04.04	Mac Night Owl	The Mac Hardware Report: The Eight-Core Odyssey, Gene Steinberg: The question lots of you were waiting for has finally been answered. There’s now an eight- core option for the Mac Pro, something that’s been a long time coming. But there’s a good reason why this product took so long to arrive, and it’s not because Apple was cooling its heels or developing a major upgrade for Apple’s professional desktop line.
04.03	Low End Mac	CGI Story: The Development of 3D Computer Graphics, 1974-94, Tom Hormby: Article explores the long history of the development of 3D computer graphics.
04.02	SeekingAlpha	Why Apple Inc. Will Hit $200 per Share in 2007, Stephen Coleman: I bought Apple on February 20, 2004 for a split-adjusted $11.19. I still own it. Today, at over $90, I consider the stock a screaming buy. Why?
04.02	PC Advisor	Apple sued over 1984 commercial, Simon Jary: When Apple’s award-winning ’1984’ commercial was used to create an anti-Hillary Clinton video on YouTube, we waited for some warning from Apple about its abused copyright. It’s a surprise, then, to learn that Apple itself was censored for abuse of copyright when the TV ad first aired before the launch of the company’s Macintosh computer.
04.02	FT.com	Brussels to target Apple’s iTunes site, Tobias Buck: Apple and several big music companies are facing a European Commission antitrust probe after Brussels issued formal charges alleging that the deals underpinning the sale of music through the hugely popular iTunes platform violated competition rules.
04.02	Think Secret	Leopard leaping in June, Staff: Apple is currently planning to release Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in June, mostly likely at or around its Worldwide Developers Conference, reliable sources report.
04.02	Blackfriars	DRM-free EMI songs on iTunes mean more differentiation for Apple, Staff: Record label EMI and Apple have reached an agreement that allows Apple’s iTunes store to carry a significant portion of EMI’s music catalog without Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions.
04.02	Apple Matters	Apple To Sell DRM Music? Say It Ain’t So!, James R. Stoup: Today Apple announced something big. They will now be selling high quality DRM free music from EMI, on iTunes. You may scream with joy now, I’ll wait.
04.02	Macworld	Family message center, Christopher Breen: Say good-bye to the days of hastily scribbled notes shoved behind refrigerator magnets. You can use an outdated Mac to keep track of your family’s comings and goings-it can serve as a messaging hub, an answering machine, a weather station, and the keeper of the family calendar.
04.02	Ars technica	The $300 Mac, Charles Jade: You have to wonder if anyone at Apple foresaw the unintended consequences of using a modified version of OS X on the Apple TV. It’s likely that hacks were expected. Certainly, that is one theory behind the Apple TV "repairing" itself and disabling modifications, but whether or not it was foreseen by Apple, the next logical step in hacking the Apple TV has taken place. Via Apple TV Hacks, there is now a how-to for running OS X on the Apple TV.
04.01	InformationWeek	Despite Vulnerabilities, Apple’s Mac OS X Weathers The Security Storm , Sharon Gaudin: While an increasing number of bugs have been found in Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, security researchers say it isn’t a high security risk and it’s still more secure than Windows XP.
04.01	Apple TV Hacks	Mac OS X running on Apple TV, Staff: semthex from Hackint0sh.org, in collaboration with AppleTVHacks.net has done it again! A complete replacement to the Mac OS X kernel has been built which allows the full version of Mac OS X to be run on an Apple TV.
04.01	Electronista	AT&T: iPhone to launch June 11?, Staff: Apple’s first cellphone should ship on June 11, according to a customer service manager at AT&T. The senior staffer at the company confirmed the date when reporter Declan McCullagh contacted them late Thursday.
04.01	Time	Apple Boots Up, Lev Grossman: Happy birthday Apple!
04.01	Autoboard	Steve Jobs presents first iPhone to Madonna?, Staff: Is it an iPod or an iPhone?
04.01	The Street.com	Can’t Compare Apples to Dells, Staff: "Jobs is a creative force," he told Gregg Greenberg, the host of Wall St. Confidential. "Dell is an efficiency of time and implementation and equipment force -- an operations guy."