TidBITS#689/21-Jul-03
=====================
Is this the end of East Coast Macworld Expos? Adam returns
from New York with a first-hand account of the show's size and
atmosphere, as well as his list of superlative products. We also
mourn the loss of TidBITS translator Walter Van Lerberghe. In the
news, Apple posts a security update and a $19 million Q3 profit,
Dantz provides a firmware update for some PowerBook G4 optical
drives, Netscape lays off its developers, and iData Pro X
survives Casady & Greene.
Topics:
MailBITS/21-Jul-03
In Memory of Walter Van Lerberghe
Macworld Expo New York 2003: Highly Concentrated
Macworld Expo New York 2003 Superlatives
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/21-Jul-03
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-689.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2003/TidBITS#689_21-Jul-03.etx>
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MailBITS/21-Jul-03
------------------
**Apple Posts $19 Million Q3 Profit** -- Apple Computer announced
a $19 million profit for its third fiscal quarter of 2003. The
company shipped 771,000 Macs during the three-month period; that's
60,000 more than Apple sold in its previous fiscal quarter. While
iMac and iBook sales increased a bit, both PowerBook and Power
Macintosh sales dropped (the latter probably in expectation of
the not-yet-shipping Power Mac G5 models and the rumored 15-inch
aluminum PowerBook G4). Although international sales accounted
for only 39 percent of the quarter's revenues and Apple's margin
dropped to a still-healthy 27.7 percent, the company still has
over $4.5 billion in cash and short term investments, and expects
its fourth quarter will bring an increase in both revenue and
earnings. [GD]
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jul/16results.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07241>
**Not To Praise Netscape, But To Bury It** -- Following on AOL's
$750 million settlement and technology agreement with Microsoft
last month, AOL announced last week it was laying off 50 employees
at its Netscape Communications subsidiary while simultaneously
donating Mozilla trademarks, intellectual property, and some $2
million over the next two years to the Mozilla Foundation, a new
non-profit organization coordinating the Mozilla open source
project. AOL was quick to point out that its layoffs involved less
than 10 percent of its Netscape subsidiary; they didn't mention
that the terminated personnel constituted the entire Netscape
development team. AOL plans to continue supporting the Netscape
browser and portal site (and insists it is looking for ways to
leverage the Netscape brand), but it's now all-but-certain that
no updates, bug fixes, or development will take place on Netscape
software - which may be of no great consequence, given the minimal
market share owned by the Netscape browsers these days. Some
former Netscape coders may find new homes at the Mozilla
Foundation: perhaps that will bode well for its Mozilla and
Firebird projects (and, by extension, the Camino browser for
Mac OS X). [GD]
<http://www.mozilla.org/>
<http://www.mozillafoundation.org/press/mozilla-foundation.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07196>
**Security Update Fixes Screen Effects Problem** -- Apple has
released Security Update 2003-07-14, fixing a potential security
issue related to using a password when waking a Mac from a running
Screen Effects screensaver. The update, which requires Mac OS X
10.2.6, fixes a situation where an unauthorized user could gain
access to the computer when the password prompt was displayed.
Apple has posted the update as a 1.7 MB stand-alone download,
as well as made it available under Software Update. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120232>
**iData Pro X Opportunity** -- If you were intrigued by our review
of iData Pro X and have been thinking of trying out the software
for yourself, now is a good time (see "The Digital Shoebox: iData
Pro X 1.0.5" in TidBITS-675_). The recent demise of Casady and
Greene (which we noted in TidBITS-686_) has left iData Pro
developer Mike Wright without a sales channel. While working
out the details, he has upped the expiration date on the demo
version to 31-Dec-03. So if you'd like to try iData Pro X for
six months - free - nip over to his site and download the
1 MB demo. [MAN]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07145>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07247>
<http://www.coastalfog.net/idata/idata_main.html>
**Dantz Provides Optical Drive Firmware Updates** -- If you own an
older Titanium PowerBook G4 with a Combo or SuperDrive, and if you
also use Retrospect to back up data to CDs or DVDs, you may need
to upgrade the optical drive using a firmware update recently
released by Dantz. The firmware updaters work on Matshita optical
drives installed prior to January of 2003. To determine the
revision number of your drive's firmware, launch Apple System
Profiler, switch to the Devices and Volumes tab, and look under
the Bus heading. Be sure to read the directions at Dantz's Web
page for full details. [JLC]
<http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=28020>
In Memory of Walter Van Lerberghe
---------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
There are downsides to creating and participating in a strong
community - the inevitable sense of sadness and loss when a member
passes away. That happened for us last week with the death of
Walter Van Lerberghe, one of the key members of the volunteer
team that produces the Dutch translation of TidBITS. Seven years
ago, Walter first started to work with the French translation of
TidBITS; shortly afterwards he helped start and maintain the Dutch
translation, something he continued to do despite increasingly ill
health in recent years. We don't know how Walter died, but he had
been in hospital shortly before his death. Although he had written
on July 6th to say that he would let the rest of the group know
when he could start translating TidBITS again, that turned out
to be the last message any of us received from him. We'll miss
Walter, his editing of the Dutch translations, and the postcards
he sent whenever he was traveling. He was 68.
Although there's no replacing Walter, the Dutch translation team,
along with our long-standing French, German, and Japanese teams,
could use a few more volunteer translators. So if you'd like to
join a group of Macintosh enthusiasts in translating TidBITS into
Dutch, French, German, or Japanese, check out the pages below
for more information. And of course, if you're interested in
starting or restarting another translation, just let me know.
In particular, it looks like we may have a Brazilian Portuguese
translation starting up again.
* Dutch
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/nl/over-vertalen.html>
* French
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/fr/consignes.html>
* German
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/de/trans.html>
* Japanese
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/jp/join_us.html>
Macworld Expo New York 2003: Highly Concentrated
------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"So what do you think of the show?"
If I hear those words one more time, I swear I'll scream. This
Macworld Expo in New York City has felt a bit like a collective
therapy session, where everyone is trying to figure out how
everyone else is feeling. So let's work through a few facts
and observations before moving on to what I thought of the show.
First off, yes, the show floor was less than half the size of
previous years, occupying only one of the two cavernous halls
that it usually uses, and not even all of that one, if you peered
behind the curtains. (With apologies to the Wizard of Oz, "Pay no
attention to the space behind the curtains!") As I told people who
asked me what I thought of the show on the first day, when I'd had
several straight hours of presentations and meetings after the
keynote, "I don't know, since I haven't seen the show floor at
all yet. [Pause for a brief glance around.] Okay, now that I've
seen it all..." Unfortunately, the second hall wasn't completely
blocked off, emphasizing the small size of this year's show.
It's also true, and it was painfully obvious, that there were
many fewer exhibitors than in previous years, with large booths
in particularly short supply. Without the inclusion of Apple's
large booth, and the good-sized booths from Canon, Epson, and
Hewlett-Packard, the curtains would have been pulled in much
further. Plus, the number of exhibitors was boosted by last minute
fire sale prices on booth space that made attendance possible for
some companies that wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford
the space to exhibit. Even still, the lack of exhibitors meant
that many attendees left early instead of sticking around for
the entire three days.
Equally clear was the fact that attendance was far lower than in
previous years. Although the aisles were often crowded, with only
a single hall of exhibitors, it stands to reason that fewer people
could easily fill the available space. Compressing the show floor
into a smaller space helped keep the energy high, and IDG World
Expo also worked to shrink the conference rooms so lower
attendance wasn't noticed. My iPhoto session was standing room
only, but in a room that was smaller than in previous years.
Along with fewer people at this year's TidBITS Ice Cream Social
the night before Macworld, the main place I noticed the lower
attendance was at the keynote, since with Apple's Greg "Joz"
Joswiak gamely standing in for Steve Jobs, there was no need
to corral the media in a special holding area or to organize
block-long lines for the rest of the attendees.
Everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, commented on the size of
the show floor and the reduced number of exhibitors. My tongue-in-
cheek joke was that it was like the scene from the movie Spinal
Tap in which the band, on the way down in popularity, plays a gig
where they're billed below a puppet show: "If I've told them once,
I've told them hundred times... put 'Macworld Expo' first and
'Puppet Show' last." In a fit of extreme cleverness, I first
made that joke to a friend who was talking at the time to a guy
who turned out to be a sales rep for IDG World Expo. Open mouth,
insert foot, lather, rinse, and repeat...
So the show was an utter failure, right? Far from it.
I talked to many exhibitors, and almost without exception, they
ranged from quite happy to ecstatic about the number of people
who were coming by their booths and asking questions about their
products. Those companies selling products on the floor were
reporting lower sales than last year, but at levels that were
either in proportion with the reduced attendance or well above
what had been expected.
If you could get people to stop talking about how small the show
floor was, they seemed pretty happy about what they'd seen. I
found a number of companies with interesting products, and I'm
sure that if you were a real "creative professional" there were
even more products of interest.
For both attendees and exhibitors, there's no question that
expectations were pretty low, making it easy for the show to
exceed them. In some ways, it's a little too bad, since if IDG
World Expo hadn't panicked and started changing the name of the
show willy-nilly, it's entirely likely that there would have been
more exhibitors and a broader range of attendees. It's not as
though all Macworld Expos - even those since the return of Steve
Jobs - have had Apple keynotes that included scores of product
announcements; had IDG World Expo stayed the original course,
sans Apple, the show might have been larger.
So how was it possible that a Macworld Expo could end up being
a good show, without a Steve Jobs keynote, major new product
announcements from Apple, or even booths from Microsoft (present
only via a banner), Adobe (which had some rooms downstairs for
presentations), or Quark (which did a feature presentation)?
Perhaps, just as in Dr. Seuss's children's book How The Grinch
Stole Christmas, Macworld Expo isn't about all those material
things, but is instead successful based on something else,
something a little less empirical. Or perhaps that's just me
being fuzzy-brained in the early morning hours of a city that
never sleeps. But if the exhibitors were happy, and the attendees
were happy (even if they left early), then the only one left is
IDG World Expo, and I suspect their happiness will be tied purely
to the bottom line, which they aren't likely to reveal.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394800796/tidbitselectro00/ref=nosim/>
**Whither Macworld?** So all this begs the question of where
Macworld Expo will go in the future, at least for the East
Coast show. Honestly, I have no idea, and IDG World Expo wasn't
announcing anything on the show signage. Their Web site still
claims Macworld will be in Boston starting 12-Jul-04, but there
were rumors at the show of those plans falling through. I see
a few possibilities.
<http://www.macworldexpo.com/macworld2003/V40/index.cvn?id=10231>
* IDG World Expo could stick with the original plan and move
Macworld Expo to Boston next year, with or without a major
Apple presence. Although airfares to Boston are generally higher
than those to New York, Boston is a bit cheaper than New York
otherwise, while still being easily accessible to people on
the East Coast.
* IDG World Expo might be able to wiggle out of the commitment
with Boston and continue to put on a show in New York aimed
at graphic designers, desktop publishers, and audio and video
professionals. If this year's show worked, who's to say another
one next year wouldn't? In fact, after the first Macworld Expo
in New York in 1998, the subsequent show was planned for Boston
again, but those plans were changed midway through the year,
and New York has won out ever since.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04976>
* If the finances simply don't work out, IDG World Expo could just
roll up the carpet and cancel all future East Coast Macintosh
events, sticking purely with January's Macworld Expo in San
Francisco. That would be a shame.
We'll just have to wait and see what IDG World Expo decides to
do. Though this possibility doesn't seem likely, it would be
interesting if IDG World Expo decided to move away from the
monolithic shows and toward smaller regional shows that would
attract more local users and companies. The Los Angeles Macintosh
User Group used to put on a one-day event along those lines, and
it's not far from the Mac Mania cruise approach either. Those sort
of shows might not bring in the big bucks, but it doesn't look to
me as though the big bucks are out there to be brought in anyway.
PayBITS: Adam spent four days and hundreds of dollars to attend
Macworld, so if he saved you the expense, say thanks via PayBITS!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=ace%40tidbits.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Macworld Expo New York 2003 Superlatives
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Despite the low attendance, both on the part of exhibitors and
attendees, Macworld Expo didn't disappoint in the slightest when
it came to new and interesting products and events. Here are my
picks of the show.
**Best Non-Apple iApp** -- Greg Scown of Smile Software,
undeterred by Apple's inclusion of fax capabilities in Mac OS X
10.3 Panther, isn't resting on the laurels of his well-reviewed
fax utility PageSender. With designer Philip Goward of OnMyMac,
LLC, he has created Disclabel, an elegant application for Mac OS X
that helps you design and print labels (along with jewel case
inserts) for CDs and DVDs. Using an iApp-style interface,
Disclabel integrates with iTunes to extract track information
from playlists and with iPhoto to use your photos as background
art. Disclabel even supports AppleScript for completely automated
disc label generation. It supports oodles of templates for all
the common disc label stock you can buy, and it works with the
Epson printers that can print directly on CDs and DVDs. If you
put effort into making CDs and DVDs, you owe it to yourself to try
Disclabel. Disclabel costs $30 and is a 2.9 MB download for a demo
that puts watermarks on printed labels and can't share or download
new templates.
<http://www.disclabel.com/>
<http://www.smilesoftware.com/pagesender.html>
If you like the idea of Disclabel, you should also take a look
at Business Card Composer from BeLight Software, a new Ukrainian
company from some of the people who created ConceptDraw. Like
Disclabel, Business Card Composer provides a clean interface to
designing and printing business cards. Even I, with my minimal
design skills, was able to use it to make attractive business
cards in a matter of moments. Business Card Composer requires
Mac OS X, costs $40, and is a 6.2 MB download.
<http://www.belightsoft.com/composer/>
**Most Wired Receptionist** -- Can't afford your own personal
assistant to answer your telephone? Neither can we, but Parliant's
PhoneValet will do most of the work for far less. A combination
hardware and software product, PhoneValet is a USB device that
plugs connects your Mac to a phone line, and once set up, uses
caller ID with special Mac OS X software to announce who's
calling, log incoming and outgoing calls for reporting and billing
purposes, and initiate calls for you via voice commands from your
Mac. It's even scriptable, so you can have incoming calls trigger
custom actions. PhoneValet works with standard analog phone lines
(it supports multiple lines) and costs $130 for one line, with the
hardware for each additional line you want to support adding $90.
<http://www.phonevalet.com/>
**Toothiest USB Radio** -- Though it's not yet shipping, Griffin
Technology's RadioSHARK grabbed my attention right away. It's a
shark fin-shaped AM/FM radio that connects via (and is powered by)
USB, playing the received signal through your Mac's speakers and
optionally saving the audio to your hard disk. But what's cool is
that it's controlled entirely through software, so you'll be able
to set it to record radio shows at specific times - we're talking
TiVo for radio here! (Actually, it's more like El Gato's EyeTV for
radio, and there's of course no program guide information for
local radio, so you have to program it the way you program a VCR.)
RadioSHARK will also support capturing Internet streaming audio,
so you'll have a complete solution for moving radio to your iPod
for on-demand listening no matter where you are. You can pre-order
the RadioSHARK for $50; Griffin says it will ship within a few
months.
<http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark/>
<http://www.elgato.com/eyeTV/>
**Pivot This!** So ATI comes up with a hot new video card, the
Radeon 9800 Pro, with video specs out the wazoo. Parallel
pipelines, 32-bit per channel rendering, dual integrated 10-bit
per channel DACs, and so on. But what's unique about this video
card is that it can rotate what's on screen by 90 degrees in
either direction, or, for those times when you simply must browse
the Web while standing on your head, 180 degrees. But 90 degree
rotation is neat - all of Apple's monitors are great for wide-
screen video, but what if you want long-screen video for some
reason? Pop this video card in your Mac, attach your Apple Studio
or Cinema Display to a StudioLift or CinemaLift monitor arm from
Innovative Office Products, and you can rotate both the physical
monitor and your virtual desktop. The Radeon 9800 Pro, which costs
$400 or $500, works with Mac OS X's Quartz display technology to
do all the transformations on the fly, and the Mac simply believes
it has a 1200 by 1600 monitor, for instance, rather than a 1600
by 1200 monitor.
<http://mirror.ati.com/products/radeon9800/radeon9800pro/>
<http://www.lcdarms.com/LCDarms/7506.html>
**Most Harmonized Remote Control** -- If you're anything like me,
you have remote controls for the television, the TiVo, the VCR,
the cable box, and goodness knows what else. They all claim to
control other devices, but my experience is that each one has at
least one unique function, forcing you to keep all of them handy.
Worse than the clutter is the confusion of trying to explain to
all members of the household how to perform particular audio-
visual maneuvers: "To play a videotape, just change the channel
on the TV to 4 on this remote, switch to Line 1 input, and use the
VCR remote as you would normally. Got that?" Intrigue Technologies
has come to the rescue with a remote control that's not only
truly universal, but meets the exacting needs and desires of the
computer-savvy user. That's because the Harmony SST-768 remote is
programmable, in the sense that you can teach it a set of actions
necessary to accomplish a certain task. We're talking about macros
for your home theater.
A small LCD and roller wheel provide the main interface, augmented
by the standard complement of buttons. But how does it know how
to control the many different devices out there? A USB jack
connects to the Mac, where you use special software to download
remote definitions and even television program guide information.
At $300, the Harmony SST-768 isn't cheap (a show special of $135
made it one of the most popular buys at Macworld), but it very
well might be worthwhile for restoring marital harmony. A version
with fewer buttons - the Harmony SST-748 - costs only $200;
I can't tell if the lack of buttons would be problematic in
normal use.
<http://www.harmonyremote.com/>
**Hardest Act to Follow** -- Man, you have to feel for the guy.
Greg "Joz" Joswiak, Apple's VP of Hardware Product Marketing, must
have picked the short straw of standing in for Steve Jobs for the
Macworld Expo keynote. Despite a clever set of slides early on
where Joz admitted that he was indeed the love child of Apple
founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Jobs + Wozniak = Joswiak),
Joz didn't have the material Jobs normally marshals for a big
keynote. Nevertheless, Apple's announcement of a free upgrade
to Final Cut Express for now-orphaned Adobe Premiere users was
extremely well-received, as was the announcement that Soundtrack,
previously available only with Final Cut Pro, would now also be a
stand-alone product for $300. Joz's best moment came when showing
the power of the Power Mac G5 and the Xserve RAID to do live
compositing of video footage (overlaying a scene of him hamming
for the camera on top of a London street scene).
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jul/16fcp.html>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jul/16soundtrack.html>
**A Cheaper Alternative** -- Soundtrack too expensive for you at
$300? It's not completely comparable of course, but if you just
need to record and edit some sounds in Mac OS X (there's an older
version for Mac OS 9), Felt Tip Software's $50 Sound Studio is
worth a look. It supports 24-bit/96 kHz audio in either stereo
or mono, copy-and-paste editing, a variety of effects and
transformations you can apply to sounds, AppleScript support
for recording and playback, and much more. My favorite feature,
though, is the automatic starting and stopping of recording based
on timers or user-configurable audio levels. It can save in AIFF,
WAVE, System 7 sound, and Sound Designer II formats, and it can
import anything QuickTime can play, such as MP3 and AAC and audio
CD tracks. The free trial version works for 14 days (that's
14 independent days that you use it, not 14 contiguous days,
interestingly), plenty of time to see if it's what you need.
<http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/>
**Cutest Graphics Tablet** -- Always thought that graphics tablets
were too expensive to get if you didn't have a serious use for
them? Me too, until I saw Macally's iceCad, a $50 tablet with a
pressure-sensitive pen. It's not big, of course, with an active
area of 2.85 inches (7.24 cm) by 2.14 inches (5.44 cm), but it
worked fine at the Macally booth for me. The pen has two barrel
buttons and another button in the tip for the 1,024-level pressure
sensitivity. The pen's AAAA battery should last about six months
if you used it eight hours a day, since it turns off automatically
three minutes after you used it last. It works with the Inkwell
handwriting recognition built into Mac OS X, along with a variety
of graphics applications. Macally was also showing a slew of
other neat devices and accessories, such as retractable cables
for FireWire, USB, Ethernet, and telephone - ideal for reducing
the clutter in your laptop bag.
<http://www.macally.com/new/new_icecad.html>
<http://www.macally.com/spec/specialites/connecting/lp_1394.html>
**Squishiest PDF Compressor** -- Leonard Rosenthol of PDF Sages
may no longer be working on StuffIt, but compression is clearly
in his blood, as evidenced by PDF Enhancer, his utility for
compressing and optimizing PDF files. It was amazing to see the
level to which PDF Enhancer could compress bloated PDF files,
particularly if the highest image quality wasn't necessary. I
tried it on the Keynote-based iPhoto 2 presentation I gave at the
show (my presentation has a bunch of full-size photos dragged from
iPhoto into Keynote). After exporting my presentation to PDF in
Keynote, I was left with a 17.7 MB file, but when I asked PDF
Enhancer to shrink it for screen presentation (which left the
images a bit jagged, but completely recognizable), the resulting
file was 520K, a savings of 97.2 percent. PDF Enhancer isn't cheap
at $180, but if you work with beefy PDF files regularly (as many
of the creative professional types at Macworld do), it's worth
trying out the fully functional but time-limited demo.
<http://www.pdfsages.com/enhancer.html>
**Tackiest Training** -- Ever seen Mac luminaries like Andy
Ihnatko, Bob LeVitus, Shawn King, or John Welch at a user group
meeting or Macworld Expo presentation? They're a hoot to watch,
and now you can learn about the basics of Mac OS X from them
in the comfort of your own living room or office, thanks to the
just-released TackyShirt training DVD, "Mac OS X Disc 1: The
Basics". Actually, short of their Hawaiian shirts, the
backgrounds, and some transitions, there isn't much tacky about
this DVD at all, and it's a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed
the extensive post-production TackyShirt did for the DVD - it's
hilarious seeing Shawn and John talk about Mac OS X's folder
structure as document icons peek over the back of the couch
they're sitting on. TackyShirt's first disc of Mac OS X training
costs $40; you can pre-order the full four-disc set for $150 and
receive the first disc now.
<http://www.tackyshirt.com/dvd.html>
If you decide you like DVD-based training, check out Avondale
Media's line of similar, though less wacky, DVDs. Avondale Media
is Steve Broback, Jim Heid, and Toby Malina, and they also do
a good job of explaining how various programs work. Look for
training on Word X, Entourage X, Excel X, Adobe Photoshop, and
digital photography. Prices range from $20 to $50, and the running
time of different DVDs goes from 17 to 94 minutes. And of course,
there are always the training CD-ROMs from occasional TidBITS
sponsor MacAcademy for an even wider range of topics.
<http://www.avondalemedia.com/products.html>
<http://www.macacademy.com/volumes/>
**The League of Extraordinary Robots** -- Forget the League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen movie that's in the theaters right now.
For something neat that doesn't require special effects, check
out the Web site of the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots,
or LEMUR. LEMUR is a Brooklyn, NY-based group of artists and
technologists developing robotic musical instruments that play
themselves - the robots _are_ the instruments. At Macworld, LEMUR
was showing GuitarBot, which has four independently controllable
stringed units that can pick and slide extremely rapidly. You can
hear (and see) the GuitarBot in action in QuickTime videos on
the LEMUR Web site; it was extremely neat to see it playing at
the show, though it was hard to hear anything clearly among the
trade show floor din.
<http://www.lemurbots.org/>
<http://www.lemurbots.org/guitarbot.html>
**Latest Competition for FontBook** -- Mac OS X 10.3 Panther
hasn't even shipped yet, but companies are queuing up for potshots
at FontBook, the font-management utility in Panther. The latest
entrant is Alsoft, makers of that excellent disk repair tool
DiskWarrior, with version 3.0 of their venerable MasterJuggler
utility, now for Mac OS X. First Extensis claimed they're not
worried about FontBook competing with Suitcase (or their just-
purchased FontReserve), and now Alsoft is saying basically the
same thing. Honestly, I don't do enough with fonts to know how
MasterJuggler compares to Suitcase or the upcoming FontBook, but
if you're a font maven, give it a look. MasterJuggler 3.0 costs
$90; upgrades from previous versions are $58.
<http://www.alsoft.com/MasterJuggler/>
**Cleanest Screen** -- That's my iBook screen, thanks to RadTech,
which was showing off the versatility of their ScreensavRz, an
ultra-microfiber cloth that protects your laptop screen from
the oil left on the keys and can also be used with alcohol wipes
(included) to clean your screen. I'd never used one of those
screen protectors, so my iBook's screen featured a nasty set of
key imprints, but between the alcohol wipe and careful scrubbing,
RadTech's CEO managed to restore my screen to a pristine state.
(Gotta love a company whose CEO spends hours at Macworld cleaning
the screens of all comers.) It's worth poking around at other
stuff on their site as well, they have Ice Creme for eliminating
scratches from the acrylic surface of an iBook, tools for
adjusting your screen hinge tightness, and more.
<http://www.radtech.us/screensavrz-laptop.html>
**Coolest Apple Store** -- I realize I'm going out on a limb here,
since I've been to only three of the Apple Stores around the
country, but after Saturday's experience at the Soho store, I'm
giving it the nod. During the week, my iBook's Delete key broke
such that if I tapped it on the left side, the key popped off,
forcing me to stop writing and press it back on carefully. Hitting
the Delete key only on the right side proved impossible for me,
so I took the key off entirely and wrote most of this issue with
just the nub underneath. Since I was planning to be in Soho on
Saturday morning to check out the street artists, I brought my
Delete key into the Apple Store there to see if they could do
anything for me.
Growing bored with waiting for the guy in front me, I moved over
to watch the woman at the Genius Bar helping him. He was having
problems with moving Now Contact files from a somewhat battered
Titanium PowerBook G4 over to a new 17-inch PowerBook; since the
woman wasn't familiar with Now Contact, it was clearly going to
take her a while. When I suggested that I might be able to help,
having used Now Contact for many years, she gratefully let me take
over. After a bit of investigation I was well on my way to solving
the problem, so I passed her my broken Delete key and asked if she
could help. She disappeared into the back room, and as the man was
giving me his business card so I could email him details of my
iPhoto book, she returned with a brand new Delete key. My errand
a complete success, I was even more amused to see that the man I'd
been helping was a Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the
United Nations. Clearly I'll have to introduce him to TidBITS.
<http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/>
PayBITS: If Adam's picks for the show have made you salivate
with techno-lust, why not send a few bucks his way via PayBITS?
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=ace%40tidbits.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/21-Jul-03
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**Defragmenting and optimizing** -- Readers who do a lot of video
or graphics work continue to chime in about the effectiveness of
defragmenting hard drives. Also, if your Mac's performance does
improve after defragmenting or optimizing the drive, is the
improvement too small to notice? (23 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1992>
**Moving virtual memory swap files** -- The discussion of virtual
memory swap files continues, focusing some applications (like
Safari) that seem to leak memory and cause swap files to grow
uncontrollably. Some useful performance improvement tips here!
(32 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1998>
**Software Update operations** -- You can run Software Update from
a command line, but there can be complications when shutting down
or restarting from there. Also discussed is why Software Update
doesn't work for non-admin users and why Apple requires restarting
after many updates. (9 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2000>
$$
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