TidBITS#713/19-Jan-04
=====================
Macworld Expo news continues to fill this issue, with our look at
a number of products and booths that caught our attention. Adam
also relates what's going on with his spam, and with the Habeas
anti-spam service. And Geoff Duncan looks at Apple's recent Logic-
derived audio application announcements. In the news, Apple posts
a $63 million first quarter profit, Research Design's Papyrus
becomes free, and AppleWorks and iCal receive minor updates.
Be sure to enter our DealBITS drawing for a copy of Cocoatech's
Path Finder!
Topics:
MailBITS/19-Jan-04
DealBITS Drawing: Cocoatech
Spam Volume Increases, Habeas Spoofed
Apple Clarifies Logic at NAMM
Macworld Expo SF 2004 Superlatives
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/19-Jan-04
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MailBITS/19-Jan-04
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**Celebrating Martin Luther King Day** -- Here in the U.S., it's a
national holiday - Martin Luther King Day. Despite the fact that
offices and schools are closed, it's not a holiday that invites
the drawing inward of many other holidays. Instead, Martin Luther
King Day is meant as a day for community service initiatives and
programs promoting interracial cooperation: a day on, not a day
off. However you choose to observe the holiday, and whether or
not you live in the U.S., I recommend spending, as I did, a few
moments listening to Martin Luther King's own words, as archived
by The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford
University. [ACE]
<http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/>
<http://thekingcenter.com/holiday/>
**Apple Posts $63 Million First Quarter Profit** -- Apple Computer
posted a $63 million profit on just over $2 billion in revenue
for its first fiscal quarter of 2004, boosted by strong sales of
laptop computers and increasingly obligatory iPod digital music
players. Apple's gross margin was 26.7 percent, with international
sales accounting for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue (although
the strong Euro boosted Apple's sales in Europe). Apple also
tucked some money away: the company now has just under $4.8
billion in the bank.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jan/14results.html>
Apple says it shipped 829,000 Macs and 730,000 iPods during the
quarter - and could have sold more iPods if it had been able to
keep up with demand. More than 200,000 of the Macs sold were
iBooks and 195,000 were PowerBook G4 systems. Both figures are
substantially higher than totals for a year ago and lend some
credence to CEO Steve Jobs's claim that 2003 would be "the year
of the laptop." Sales of other lines - eMac/iMac and Power
Mac - weren't as strong as in the third quarter, although the
introduction of Power Mac G5 systems let the high-end systems
show a year-to-year gain, where iMac and eMac sales declined
both year-to-year and quarter-to-quarter. [GD]
**AppleWorks Updates Span Platforms** -- Apple has released a trio
of minor updates for AppleWorks, its integrated productivity
software that includes word processor, spreadsheet, page layout,
graphics, database, and presentation capabilities, as well as
compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats. Three updates
are available, depending on your operating system and version.
AppleWorks 6.2.9 for Mac OS X adds support for mice with scroll
wheels, improves printing, and enhances the reliability of
the presentation environment. AppleWorks 6.2.8 for Mac OS 8.1
through 9.x and the Mac OS X update resolve issues with Web-based
templates and clip art on networks using proxy servers. AppleWorks
6.2.1 for Windows, as well as both of the Macintosh updates,
improve the spreadsheet module.
All three updates, available for free to users of AppleWorks 6.0
or later for Macintosh or 6.1 or later for Windows, are available
online. The Macintosh downloads are 16 MB, and the Windows
download is 6 MB. [MHA]
<http://www.apple.com/appleworks/update/>
**iCal 1.5.2 Released** -- Apple today updated iCal, its calendar
and personal organizer application, to version 1.5.2. The Info
drawer is now optionally detachable, you can assign alarms or add
notes to To-Do items, and alarms now include an option to display
a message 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. Also new is the
capability to publish and subscribe to calendars on servers
located behind firewalls, as well as more keyboard shortcuts.
iCal supports events in multiple time zones, and has received
other stability and performance improvements. iCal 1.5.2 is
available now via Software Update, or as a 6.3 MB download. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/ical/>
**Give Me Death and Give Me Liberty** -- Research Software
Design's bibliography and note-taking program Papyrus was
reviewed four years ago in "Best Footnote Forward: Papyrus 8.0.7"
in TidBITS-514_; a couple of years later, development ceased.
(Coincidence? We hope not!) Now the program has new life: the
developer, Dave Goldman, is giving it away free, and you can
download it at RSD's new Web site. Papyrus runs under System 7
or higher, including Mac OS X's Classic environment. [MAN]
<http://www.researchsoftwaredesign.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05781>
DealBITS Drawing: Cocoatech
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Could there be a more difficult program to compete with than
the Finder? After all, it's not just ubiquitous, but for most
people, it is the Macintosh interface. But the Finder has its
shortcomings, and if you'd like to have a slew of tweaky options
and capabilities that the Finder doesn't provide, Cocoatech's Path
Finder is worth a look. It can show the full contents of many file
types in its preview drawer, provide a drop stack to simplify
moving items between folders while in column view, put a Trash on
your Desktop, and a lot more. It also builds in numerous common
utilities, including a PDF viewer, a terminal, an image editor and
viewer, and a disk image creator, among others. For lots of folks,
Path Finder is serious competition for the Finder.
<http://www.cocoatech.com/pf.php>
In this week's DealBITS drawing, we're giving away two copies of
Path Finder, valued at $34 each. Those who aren't among our lucky
winners will receive a discount price. Enter at the DealBITS page
linked below, and be sure to read and agree to the drawing rules
on that page. As always, all information gathered is covered by
our comprehensive privacy policy. Lastly, check your spam filters,
since you must be able to receive email from my address to learn
if you've won.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/cocoatech.html>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
Spam Volume Increases, Habeas Spoofed
-------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The volume of spam I receive has continued to rise inexorably,
to the point where I'm averaging between 500 and 600 spam
messages per day, and that's just what's getting past our rather
conservative server-side filters (including the MAPS RBL+).
Luckily, Michael Tsai's SpamSieve is doing a swell job of
identifying and extracting the spam from my Eudora mailboxes;
it's currently 99.6 percent correct in identifying spam.
Unfortunately, in that remaining 0.4 percent of mistakes are
some 230 false positives I've manually identified since September
2003, and although the likelihood of SpamSieve erroneously
identifying good mail as spam continues to drop, it's not perfect.
<http://www.c-command.com/spamsieve/>
I say all this in part to raise the alarm that where I am today
with receiving spam, many of you will be in six months or a year.
It's gotten to the point where just retrieving the spam has
become a burden if I'm traveling and don't have a fast Internet
connection. Also, I can no longer sort through my Junk mailbox for
false positives; pulling a good message or two from a few thousand
spam messages is just too hard and time-consuming. As a word of
advice then, please try to write normally to make sure your mail
to me doesn't look like spam to a Bayesian filter; I simply can't
guarantee I'll see anything that SpamSieve identifies as spam.
Interestingly, SpamSieve missed a few more messages than it
usually does this week. When I checked to see why, I realized it
was because I had set SpamSieve to honor the Habeas headers that
can be used legally only by legitimate senders (such as TidBITS),
but some spammer had forged those headers to sneak past SpamSieve
and similar Habeas-specific filters. Habeas issued a statement
saying that they were aggressively tracking down the spammer (the
spam itself appears to have originated from a distributed set of
zombie PCs taken over in a past virus attack). Despite the fact
that Habeas has reportedly successfully sued some spammers in
the past, this seems to be the most flagrant misuse of the Habeas
headers so far. Habeas must bring down this spammer - and any
that try the same trick - in a timely fashion to maintain user
confidence in the Habeas headers as a mark of legitimate mail.
<http://www.habeas.com/pipermail/technical-discussion/2004-January/
000026.html>
Although we have the necessary technologies, ranging from Bayesian
analysis and whitelists to challenge-response and real-time
blackhole lists, to control aspects of spam at an individual user
or even individual server level, the vast variety of email systems
that speak the basic language of open, trusting SMTP has ensured
that spam will overwhelm increasingly large chunks of the Internet
email infrastructure. Our older mail servers are staggering under
the load even now, and I cringe every time I hear the horror
stories from one of my ISPs about their Herculean efforts to keep
legitimate mail flowing while under the onslaught of thousands of
zombie spam-delivering machines.
There are no easy solutions. In an upcoming issue, Brady Johnson
will give us a look at the effect the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
will likely have on the volume of spam. There are various Internet
standards organizations working on the problem as well, but from
my discussions with John Levine of the Anti-Spam Research Group of
the Internet Research Task Force, they have no magic bullets
in the works. And for all of us who think we have the answer
(the so-called "Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem,"
or FUSSP), it's worth reading the final link: "You Might Be An
Anti-Spam Kook If...," whose author's tongue was only partially
lodged in his cheek.
<http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html>
<http://asrg.sp.am/>
<http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html>
Apple Clarifies Logic at NAMM
-----------------------------
by Geoff Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At last week's NAMM show in Anaheim, CA, Apple Computer announced
a repackaging of its Logic professional audio applications to
follow a two-tiered approach, just like Apple's Final Cut video
editing products. At the high end, the $1,000 Logic Pro 6 is a
rebundling of Logic Platinum 6, plus software instruments and
audio-processing plug-ins which were previously sold separately.
Meanwhile, the $300 Logic Express 6 targets students, educators,
and the semi-pro/serious amateur market by offering a smaller
(though not inconsiderable) collection of professional quality
tools, effects, and capabilities at a lower price. If users need
more capabilities, Logic Express projects can be shifted over to
Logic Pro. By simplifying the Logic line - which most recently
included Logic Audio, Logic Gold, and Logic Platinum plus a small
herd of separate add-on software packages, all offered in various
combinations - Apple hopes to clarify its pro-level audio
products, avoid confusion with its new audio-oriented Soundtrack
and GarageBand, and parallel its offerings in pro-level video
software. Apple says the new Logic projects will be available
this March.
<http://www.apple.com/software/pro/logic/>
<http://www.apple.com/software/logicexpress/>
<http://www.apple.com/soundtrack/>
<http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/>
**It's Only Logical** -- It's difficult to discuss audio products
without getting into impenetrable technical specs for both audio
software and hardware, and encountering partisanship which makes
the Mac versus Windows debate seem civil and witty. But for the
uninitiated, the Logic applications enable users to assemble and
mix audio and MIDI sequences, as well as apply sophisticated audio
processing and effects. These are the kinds of programs used by
professional recording studios and engineers to produce music,
soundtracks, and other audio-related projects. (Similar products
on the Mac currently include Avid/Digidesign's various Pro Tools
offerings, Mark of the Unicorn's Digital Performer, and
Steinberg's Cubase products.) Apple acquired Logic when it
bought the German company Emagic in mid-2002 and converted it
to a wholly owned subsidiary.
<http://www.digidesign.com/>
<http://www.motu.com/>
<http://www.steinberg.net/en/start/>
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/jul/01emagic.html>
Generally, Logic Express 6 can be described as a somewhat
stripped-down version of Logic Pro 6. Logic Express 6 supports
fewer tracks, buses, and input channels (basically, the number
of real-time parts which can be managed separately in an audio
project), and lower digital audio resolution (24-bit/96 KHz,
which is essentially DVD-quality audio, whereas high-end projects
sometimes use 24-bit/192 KHz, which Logic Pro 6 supports). Logic
Express 6 also lacks the capability to mix to surround sound and
includes far fewer effects and software instruments. That said,
Logic Express offers substantial capabilities, many of which
weren't available in any form in the digital audio world only
a few years ago: with knowledge and creativity (and work!), users
can certainly produce professional-quality projects with Logic
Express 6. Logic Pro 6, conversely, offers flexibility and
extended capabilities needed in higher-end professional settings
like recording and video scoring studios, where having unlimited
tracks, handling heaps of plug-in effects, mixing to 5.1 or 7.1
surround sound, and choosing from a wide variety of software
instruments are sometimes of great importance.
<http://www.apple.com/software/logicexpress/comparison.html>
**Twang that Drum** -- At NAMM, Apple also previewed new software
which will work with future versions of Logic. Two are software
instruments: Sculpture and UltraBeat. Sculpture synthesizes the
waveform of a vibrating string or bar (and, naturally, enables the
user to twiddle all sorts of parameters like the size and material
of the item, its environment, and how it's being excited - bowed,
struck, maybe even wiggled with a magnetic field.) It might seem
that something like Sculpture is a neat way to replace acoustic
instruments like a violin or vibes with software equivalents,
but that's not true: more likely, Sculpture will be most useful
creating fodder for richer, never-before-heard sounds which have
some characteristics of real world items.
UltraBeat starts from a series of drum "voices" and enables the
user to apply different types of synthesis and processing to
create new sounds: some might sound remarkably like real-world
instruments, and some aren't going to sound even remotely
percussive. Percussionists face no new threat here: UltraBeat
is most likely to appeal to producers of various forms of
electronic music.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jan/15nextgenaudio.html>
**My Loop Goes to Eleven** -- Apple also previewed GuitarAmp, a
full-featured guitar amp simulator which will integrate directly
with Logic. (Presumably, a stripped-down version provides the amp
simulations in Apple's GarageBand and GarageBand Jam Pack.) The
idea of an amp emulator is that you plug a guitar into your audio
interface directly, and use GuitarAmp to simulate the sound of
your guitar played through various types of amps - and you can
change and modify your choices long after recording a guitar
track, if you like. (Yes, the sounds and designs of guitar amps
vary enormously, and amp emulators _are_ easier to cart around
than dozens of amp and speaker cabinet combinations.) Apple says
its models represent the best-known guitar amps and offer
"impeccable" emulations, enabling users to choose various speaker
cabinets, microphone placement techniques, and various front-panel
controls. The main difficulty GuitarAmp may face is that it's not
a new player in this arena: amp emulators have been around for
several years, with companies like Line 6, DigiTech, Yamaha, and
others regularly releasing amp emulators which are easier to haul
to a gig (and cheaper!) than a Mac. Moreover, while amp emulators
have the advantage of flexibility and convenience, in professional
circles they're not universally loved: many players and engineers
who want good guitar tone would rather use a real amp in a real
room, consenting to amp emulators mainly due to time or budget
constraints. But for project studios and home recording, they
can be a godsend - particularly because they can produce
screaming loud guitar sounds without disturbing the neighbors.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jan/15nextgenaudio.html>
Apple also announced that future versions of Logic will support
Apple Loops, which seem as if they will be available in two
varieties. The first is basically a loopable bit of audio and/or
music: the Apple Loops which ship with GarageBand to provide
backing and rhythm tracks are a good example. Presumably, future
versions of Logic will be able to search through libraries of
these tracks (based on metadata about instrumentation, genre,
and even mood), import them, and manipulate them directly (apply
effects, expand or shrink them, etc.). Apple also commented on
a "software instrument" form of Apple Loops which, in addition
to raw audio and metadata, may contain MIDI performance data
and processing parameters. In theory, one could change the
instrumentation and some sonic characteristics of these Apple
Loops within Logic.
**Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty** -- With its NAMM announcements,
Apple will be offering a semi-consolidated line of music-making
products aimed at amateurs and hobbyists (GarageBand),
videographers needing to do some audio processing (Soundtrack),
students, educators, and mid-range users (Logic Express), and
high-end professionals (Logic Pro). Open questions include
how third-party developers will respond to Apple's pro audio
offerings, and what impact that response will have on the
professional audio market. (How many users of Adobe Premiere
do you think are happy with Apple's foray into the professional
video market?) With Apple developing both Mac OS X and pro audio
applications for Mac OS X, companies like Avid, Mark of the
Unicorn, and Steinberg may have to seriously question seriously
development of their pro-level audio applications for the Mac.
(Pro Tools and Cubase have strong Windows versions products
already; Digital Performer has always been Mac-only.)
The situation is confounded by Mac OS X. Until Mac OS X 10.2
Jaguar, professional audio under Mac OS X was essentially limited
to stony silence occasionally punctuated by irritating squawks,
kernel panics, and tumbleweeds blowing through the center of town:
the operating system simply lacked many capabilities required by
the pro audio market. For many people - myself included - even Mac
OS X 10.3 Panther is _still_ not a viable platform for pro audio
work due to lack of developer support. (In turn, developers have
quietly noted it's hard to support an operating system with
critical, unresolved issues in its audio architecture.) I know
several studios which are still running Mac OS 9 and hoping their
computers don't fail before a conversion to Mac OS X is feasible
(I got a panicked call from one several weeks ago); similarly,
I know of studios which have abandoned the Mac and studios which
have reverted back to Mac OS 9 from Mac OS X due to insurmountable
problems with allegedly working solutions. Logic itself hasn't
been immune from problems under Mac OS X, but, being owned by
Apple, it's clearly in a privileged position as far as resolving
issues with Mac OS X. And Apple, naturally, has more interest
in enabling its own products than helping other companies compete
against them.
I, for one, hope Apple's efforts with Mac OS X and Logic are
aimed at re-establishing the Macintosh as the premiere platform
for producing digital music, promoting a healthy industry, and
enabling a variety of solutions both from Apple and third parties.
Otherwise, Apple may well find itself the king of all the lone
and level sands it can survey.
Macworld Expo SF 2004 Superlatives
----------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Apple may set the agenda for Macworld Expo with Steve Jobs's
leadoff keynote, and a few developers may receive a few minutes
of keynote time (as did Microsoft's Roz Ho, who said at the end of
her presentation that - take note for the future - "we're looking
forward to another 20 great years of working together"), but many
of the most interesting products are to be found only on the show
floor. Here are a few that caught our eyes.
**Schweet!** If you own a Power Mac G4, or a blue & white Power
Mac G3, take a look at GeeThree's $130 Sweet Multiport, which uses
one of your Mac's open front drive bays and an empty PCI slot to
provide a slew of front-mounted ports, including 2 FireWire ports,
1 USB port, and a 5-in-1 memory card reader. The PCI card connects
to your existing FireWire and USB ports, but provides two more
FireWire and USB ports as well. The memory card reader supports
CompactFlash, IBM Microdrive, Memory Stick, Secure Digital,
and MultiMediaCard formats; the only format not supported is
SmartMedia, which is in decline because it maxes out at a paltry
128 MB. The Sweet Multiport is compatible with Mac OS 9.1 and
later, and Mac OS X 10.1 and later. No drivers are necessary,
and the memory card reader works with iPhoto. [ACE]
<http://www.geethree.com/>
**Griffin Gadgets** -- The Griffin Technology booth has become a
required stop at every Macworld Expo, since Griffin pulls out all
the stops to showcase neat technology they're working on, even if
it's not yet available. This year, Griffin's Andrew Green showed
us the SightLight, a clever little LED-based light that fits
around an iSight camera to improve your look in iChat AV video
chats. It has several brightness settings and is powered from
FireWire. It's due out in a few months for $40. Also cool was
the iTalk, another pre-release device that turns your iPod into
a voice recorder. The Belkin iPod Voice Recorder hasn't gotten
rave reviews for quality, and although some of that is limited
by the iPod itself, the iTalk may prove better. It's also $40
and due out in April; if you pre-order now you can save $5. [ACE]
<http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/sightlight/>
<http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/italk/>
**Mac Answering Machines** -- Short for "phone link," Phlink is a
new product from Ovolab, an Italian company staffed by veteran Mac
developers Alberto Ricci and Alessandro Levi Montalcini. Phlink
consists of a small USB device that plugs into your Mac and into
your phone line, and custom software that turns your Mac into a
flexible answering machine and automated response system. You can
create multiple voicemail boxes, store all the messages on your
Mac, and even forward them automatically via email. Automated
response systems can be essential for businesses, but I could see
Phlink being a ton of fun for individuals too: "Press 1 to leave
a message. Press 2 to start global thermonuclear war. Press 3 if
you're my mother." Phlink can tie AppleScript-based actions to
each response, use speech synthesis to provide feedback or
responses to callers, and, since it understands caller ID, Phlink
can play custom greetings or trigger different actions based on
who is calling. Small offices and households could put Phlink
to great use, but the audience that might benefit the most from
Phlink's capabilities would be students sharing a house, thanks
to support for multiple voicemail boxes for each resident, and
email forwarding for those who might not be home much of the
time. Phlink costs $150 and requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.
<http://www.ovolab.com/phlink/>
Phlink isn't alone, and Parliant Technology, makers of the
PhoneValet telephone utility, also announced PhoneValet Message
Center, an add-on that integrates with the PhoneValet call log to
provide multiple voicemail boxes, call recording (complete with
automatic notification for the other party), notes about stored
recordings for easy searching, and more. PhoneValet Message Center
supports multiple lines and works even when no user is logged in
to Mac OS X. Parliant expects PhoneValet Message Center to ship
within the first three months of 2004; you can pre-order now for
$200, or receive PhoneValet now for $130 with an additional $70
charged when PhoneValet Message Center ships. Upgrades for
existing PhoneValet users can also be pre-ordered for $70. [ACE]
<http://www.parliant.com/pvmc/?l=1>
**Most Effective Demo** -- It's not always easy to demonstrate
your product on the Macworld Expo show floor - just ask some of
the audio and speaker vendors whose gear gets drowned out by the
surrounding noise. But Apple hit on a fun and effective way to
demo iChat AV: a line of iSight-equipped Macs featured live video
chats with Apple call center employees in Sacramento, CA and
Austin, TX. You could put on a pair of headphones and converse
with someone hundreds of miles away to get a sense of how well
iChat works (including the full-screen video mode). Despite the
surrounding noise, it was easy to carry on a conversation through
the iSight's microphone. When a Mac became unoccupied, the
employees held up laser-printed signs that read, "Hello from
Austin, Texas!" or "Put on the headphones!" [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/ichat/>
<http://www.apple.com/isight/>
**Wi-Fi Tunes** -- At last year's Macworld Expo, we highlighted
the Ethernet-only SLIMP3 music player from Slim Devices and the
Wi-Fi/Ethernet HomePod, designed by Gloo Labs and marketed by
MacSense. The SLIMP3 proved to be one of 2003's hottest geek
devices, and Andrew Laurence reviewed it for us in "SLIMP3: MP3,
Get Thee to the Hi-Fi" in TidBITS-676_. The HomePod didn't make
it out in 2003, but in the interim underwent a complete redesign,
so it now looks more like an iPod than a piece of stereo gear
and features a backlit LCD screen with an iPod-like interface
controlled by a jog wheel. It lets you play your iTunes music
on your stereo, streaming it over a wired or wireless network,
or playing it locally on small speakers built into the case.
MacSense is finally shipping the HomePod for $250.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07046>
<http://www.macsense.com/product/homepod/>
Slim Devices hasn't been idle all this time either, and late in
2003, they released Squeezebox, the next generation of the SLIMP3
player in a sleeker form factor. Squeezebox comes in both Ethernet
($250) and Wi-Fi ($300) models, and streams your digital music
collection over your network from your Mac, also integrating with
iTunes. Which to choose? At the moment, the decision seems to come
down primarily to the form factor you prefer, though we hope to
be evaluating these devices in the future. [ACE]
<http://www.slimdevices.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07150>
**Kind of Blue** -- We love to discover product prototypes at
Macworld - devices which may or may not end up for sale, but are
being shown in proof-of-concept stage. This year, the device of
choice appeared to be audio receivers that enable you to broadcast
your music from a computer or iPod to a stereo via Bluetooth
wireless networking. Both Griffin Technology and XtremeMac showed
off working prototypes. Neither product was shipping, and release
dates and final pricing (or even a product name, in the case of
Griffin) have not yet been set.
<http://www.griffintechnology.com/>
<http://www.xtrememac.com/>
While Bluetooth audio components are intriguing, some of us on the
TidBITS staff are hoping the technology ushers in the next logical
step: Bluetooth wireless headphones. There are only so many times
we're willing to put up with untangling iPod earbud cables, or
snagging them on a drawer knob when standing up from our desks.
Of course, while we're looking ahead to the future, we'd love
such a headphone to switch over to act as a wireless headset
automatically when our Bluetooth-enabled phones receive calls!
[JLC]
**Make That Acrobat Sit Down** -- It's becoming inevitable that
every Macworld Expo brings another interesting product from
Greg Scown and Philip Goward of SmileOnMyMac. This time around,
they were showing PDFpen, a $30 utility for editing PDFs that
offers many of the features found only in the $450 Adobe Acrobat
Professional. You can extract pages, crop them, insert text
and images (like a scanned signature), and mask the sending
information of a fax (received in the company's PageSender
software, for instance) to retransmit it back out. PDFpen
requires Mac OS X 10.2.5 or later, and is a 1.6 MB download.
[GF]
<http://www.smileonmymac.com/pdfpen/>
**Toastiest Tchotchke** -- Kudos to Roxio for their, umm, tongue
in cheek giveaway of custom Jelly Belly packets containing
jellybeans in buttered toast and jam flavors. We tore ourselves
away from debating whether the toast flavor was truly weird in
a jellybean to check out the new capabilities in the Toast 6
suite of software, including burning video discs directly from
DV camcorders, making slick slideshows from still photos, backup,
compression, and encryption of data, and sharing of CD and DVD
players across a network. Toast 6 costs $100, with $10 (download)
and $20 (boxed product) rebates available at the moment. [ACE]
<http://www.roxio.com/en/products/toast/>
**Inexplicable Exhibitors** -- Sure, Quark didn't come to Macworld
Expo, but they never do these days. More disappointing was the
lack of the humorous Mac-unrelated organizations that didn't make
repeat appearances from last year, including Andersen Windows
("The best windows for Mac users!") and the IRS ("Free audits;
just slide your badge here!"). In their place was Discover (the
credit card company) offering as a signup enticement - get this -
a free digital watch. All we could think of was the line from the
late Douglas Adams about how humans were so amazingly primitive
that they still thought digital watches were a pretty neat idea.
Another head-scratcher came from the appearance of Acura, which
had parked several cars inside Moscone Center and was proudly
displaying signs labeling Acura the official automotive sponsor
of Macworld Expo, or something equally incomprehensible. Next
year: Tinactin, the official anti-fungal cream of Macworld Expo!
[ACE]
**The Power Browser** -- Safari's a pretty neat Web browser, but
we're watching the Omni Group's forthcoming OmniWeb 5, which
promises to meld the rendering speed of Apple's WebKit framework
(which powers Safari) with a slew of fabulous browsing features
we've been agitating for years. OmniWeb 5 will store and index the
full text of every Web page you visit, enabling you to search your
personal browsing history far more fully than is possible in any
browser now. It can also use the full text cache to tell when page
content changes, providing you with a collection of changed sites
to visit quickly and easily. And it tracks how many times you
visit every page and presents you with a collections of most-
visited sites, much along the lines of the iTunes most-played
playlist. Then there is tab support, in a drawer instead of across
the top of the page, site-specific preferences (so you can block
pop-ups on most, but not all, sites), and workspaces that remember
and automatically load a specific set of pages. Add to this an
auto-complete feature that looks at the full URL and the title of
the page, and you have a browser that will be well worth the $30
Omni will charge when it ships in a few months. This is the sort
of competition we like to see for Apple's bundled applications;
users win when each developer tries to outdo the other. [ACE]
<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/5/>
**Share and Share Alike... Via USB** -- Tired of having to connect
your printer or scanner to your laptop every time you want to use
them? Or perhaps you want to share them among an entire office?
Apple's AirPort Extreme Base Station introduced USB printer
sharing, but Keyspan's forthcoming USB Server provides sharing
of up to four of any standard type of USB devices to an entire
network of Macs. You connect to the devices over an Ethernet
network, so AirPort-enabled laptops gain full access via the
wireless network as well, assuming you're bridging wireless to
Ethernet. The USB Server's device support includes even USB input
devices like mice and keyboards, and USB storage devices like hard
drives, although you must first set which Mac should virtually
connect to those type of devices (nonetheless, the concept of
a shared USB mouse that moves the pointer on every Mac on the
network is quite amusing, in a MacHack kind of way). The USB
Server will cost $130 when it ships in the first quarter of
2004. [ACE]
<http://www.keyspan.com/news/news.040108USBServer.spml>
**FileMaker Synchronization** -- Imagine you need to share a set
of FileMaker databases with a set of colleagues, but you're
not all connected to the same network to use a shared server.
WorldSync's new SyncDeK product solves this problem by extracting
just changed data from a FileMaker database - at the field level,
with conflict detection and resolution - packaging it up in an XML
file, and replicating it to other users via email. That's cool,
but what excites me is that since SyncDeK is written in Java and
uses XML for data interchange, WorldSync could write appropriate
plug-ins (or, better yet, publish a public specification on how to
do so) to enable synchronization of data within other applications
as well. With some effort, SyncDeK could fulfill the promise of a
general purpose synchronization engine that Apple's iSync has so
far left relatively empty. [ACE]
<http://www.syncdek.com/>
<http://www.apple.com/isync/>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/19-Jan-04
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**Alternative word processors** -- It's largely a Word world, but
alternatives to Microsoft's dominant word processor abound on
the Mac - depending on what you need, of course. (36 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2138>
**The Musical Trojan Horse** -- So was Adam on target with his
article about how the iPod and the iTunes Music Store are Apple's
Trojan Horse for introducing the Mac to an entirely new audience?
(3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2139>
**Recording from vinyl** -- Is it time to convert your LP records
into bits (the digital kind, that is; a sledgehammer will do
nicely otherwise)? Readers relate their experiences with various
software and hardware solutions, and a musically inclined TidBITS
technical editor teaches a short class in importing audio.
(11 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2140>
**Unicode support** -- Many programs claim they "support Unicode,"
but how good and how extensive is that support? (5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2141>
$$
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