TidBITS#813/23-Jan-06
=====================
If it feels like your telephone company, cable company, cell
phone provider, and ISP are all doing basically the same thing,
you're right, and Glenn Fleishman explores the ever-increasing
telecommunications convergence this week. Andrew Laurence
finds his bliss in some solitary jazz played through the
elegantly designed Sonos Digital Music System. And Apple
announces record quarterly profits, 60 percent of which come
from the iPod and other music-related efforts. In the news,
Apple announces a Mac OS X Universal logo developers can use
to identify universal binaries.
Topics:
MailBITS/23-Jan-06
Apple Posts $565 Million Q1 2006 Profit
Audio Bliss: Sonos Digital Music System
Communications Convergence: Outstripping Wires
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/23-Jan-06
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MailBITS/23-Jan-06
------------------
**Apple Introduces Mac OS X Universal Logo** -- With the Intel
Core Duo-based iMac available and the MacBook Pro to follow
shortly, Apple has announced a new logo program that developers
can use to identify universal binary programs that contain both
PowerPC and Intel code (most PowerPC-only programs will run on
the Intel-based Macs thanks to Apple's Rosetta technology, but
performance will likely suffer somewhat). The Mac OS X Universal
Logo Program comes with a license agreement and usage guidelines
that are extremely specific, so I'm not going to risk Apple's
legal wrath to display the logo on the TidBITS Web site; instead,
check it out on Apple's site to see what you should look for in
the months to come as more of the software we all use starts to
come in universal binary versions. [ACE]
<http://developer.apple.com/softwarelicensing/agreements/maclogo.html>
**Disney/Pixar Merger?** I don't have any inside information on
the possible Disney/Pixar merger currently circulating in the
rumor mill, but since the Washington Post asked me to comment,
I did. It's a good article, and since Mike Musgrove gave my
quote the last word, I had to pass it on:
"For Jobs, however, a prominent role at Disney could satisfy
some of his ambitions, analysts said. Adam C. Engst, publisher
of influential Mac news site TidBITS, said he could understand
how access to Disney, one of the top brands on the globe, would
appeal to Jobs.
"'Jobs is out to change the world - it's not about money for him,'
Engst said. 'The computer is not necessarily the means to change
the world anymore... popular culture is how you change the
world.'"
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/
AR2006011903190.html>
Apple Posts $565 Million Q1 2006 Profit
---------------------------------------
by Geoff Duncan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Well, it's official: Apple is no longer a computer company.
Apple posted its first quarter 2006 financial results last week,
with revenue of $5.75 billion and a profit of $565 million for
the quarter. The results are a 65 percent increase in revenue
over the same quarter a year ago, although the company's gross
margin was down to 27.2 percent from 28.5 percent a year ago.
International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter's
revenue. The results are the highest quarterly earnings and
revenue in the company's history.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/18results.html>
To be sure, Apple still makes Macs. The company shipped more than
1.2 million Macintosh computers, basically flat with Mac shipments
during the fourth quarter of 2005, but a 20 percent improvement
over the same quarter a year ago. Why the static quarter-to-
quarter sales figures? Sales in the Americas and among portables
were particularly weak, due to an aging notebook product line
and the public knowledge that Apple is transitioning from PowerPC
to Intel processors, no doubt causing some customers to defer
purchases until details of new Intel-based products became
available. (In case you missed it, Apple just announced Intel-
powered iMacs and MacBook Pro portables at Macworld San
Francisco.)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08392>
However, in revenue terms, the iPod success story is still
unfolding. The company sold more than 14 million iPods during its
first fiscal quarter amounting to $2.9 billion in revenue. This
figure is significant because roughly half of Apple's quarterly
revenue came from iPod sales alone. Roll in money from other music
products and services (e.g., the iTunes Music Store, etc.) and
Apple's iPod and music businesses accounted for roughly 60 percent
of Apple's revenue for the quarter. The quarter marks the first
time Apple's non-computer business has out-earned the company's
desktop, notebook, software, peripherals and services offerings.
Looking forward, Apple says it expects second quarter revenue
to be around $4.3 billion, a conservative figure which sent
Apple's share price into a bit of an after-market tumble.
The reasons for a cautious revenue figure include a possible
slowdown in iPod sales after the holiday buying season, and a
pause in Macintosh sales prior to the introduction of Intel-
based models. Some analysts are also cautioning the company
may not want to become too reliant on income from the turbulent
digital music player market.
Audio Bliss: Sonos Digital Music System
---------------------------------------
by Andrew Laurence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Let's get this out of the way: the Sonos Digital Music System is
expensive.
If you just want speakers for your iPod, I won't hold it against
you if you skip this article. However, if you've ever considered
installing speakers out on the patio and in the dining room,
all wired back to the hi-fi in the living room, maybe with those
nifty wall-mounted volume controls, go freshen your coffee and
set a spell.
At $500 for a does-it-really-need-so-many-features ZonePlayer
ZP100 and $400 for the if-only-they-were-all-like-this wireless
Controller CR100, Sonos probably costs more than you'll spend on
the computer hosting your digital music in the first place. Sonos
delivers what is easily the most complete music streaming system
on the market, one that tackles the problem as a complete solution
instead of making assumptions about what you might already have
or what format you store you digital music in. It just works,
right away, with no wrangling of MAC addresses or WEP keys or
IP addresses. I've looked at or written about a number of music
streaming solutions, but this is the first that made me comment
to my wife, "Wow, this is cool."
<http://www.sonos.com/>
**Hardware Extraordinaire** -- The ZonePlayer ZP100 is an
impressive piece of engineering, and it's amazing in its ambition.
Put simply, the ZonePlayer is the device that plays music; it's
designed to be a standalone music system, and it also integrates
with your existing devices. If you want one to be a room's sole
music source, just add a pair of 8 ohm speakers; the ZonePlayer
has binding posts and a 50 watt Class D amplifier. If you want
to supply digital music to the hi-fi, use the RCA variable-level
output jacks (there's a subwoofer pre-out if you need one).
If you want to add an analog device to the Sonos distribution
system, the ZP100 includes a set of line-level RCA inputs. Your
first ZonePlayer attaches to the network via wired Ethernet;
a four-port 10/100 Mbps switch is integrated into the unit.
All Sonos devices participate in a closed, proprietary wireless
mesh network called Sonosnet; each device is both a bridge and
an access point in this network. (Sonosnet is based on 802.11g,
and runs in the same wireless spectrum. It automatically selects
the least-used channel in your area so as to not interfere with
other devices. I noticed no impact on my 802.11g network, or
2.4 GHz cordless phone.
The ZonePlayer has grey plastics and an aluminum housing - the
combination reminds one of the Mac mini. It measures 10.2 by 8.2
by 4.4 inches (25.9 by 20.8 by 11.2 cm), weighs 10 pounds, and is
completely silent. Three buttons on the front control the volume
and mute; all other functions are controlled either from the
handheld Controller or the software Desktop Controller. It is
visually attractive and also subtle enough to disappear into
the background. I wouldn't hesitate to put one out in the open
(where guests and spouse would see it), or nestled in a bookshelf
or cabinet where lesser devices might have cooling issues; this
thing is engineered so that you needn't dwell on such details.
<http://www.sonos.com/products/zoneplayer/>
The handheld Controller CR100 is equally impressive in form and
function. The graphical interface is displayed on a bright 3.5
inch (8.9 cm) 320 by 240-pixel color LCD screen, with gorgeous
colors and icons, smooth animation, and a clean layout that
inspires thoughts of what might happen if the iPod and TiVo
were to mate. Nine backlit buttons (with a nifty PowerBook-style
ambient light sensor) control music playback and menu navigation,
supplemented by three "soft" buttons whose function varies
according to the item on screen. An iPod-style scroll wheel
with selector button offers speedy navigation through your music
library. The Controller's internal lithium-ion battery charges in
a couple hours and lasts several days between charges. It charges
with an included AC adapter, and a $50 charging cradle is also
available. (In my testing it lasted long enough that I couldn't
quite recall when I last recharged it - a few days, not quite
a week. Sonos claims two to five days, which seems about right.)
The Controller goes to sleep after being left alone for a user-
specified amount of time; it wakes instantly when you pick it up,
thanks to an internal accelerometer. A deep sleep kicks in after
a longer period; waking from this mode takes a few seconds, again
triggered by the accelerometer.
Sonos says the Controller is water resistant, with all seams
sealed with gaskets. I didn't deliberately test this claim,
but I didn't hesitate to use it near running water; its hefty
construction and rubber exterior instantly suggest that you
don't have to be timid. (However, I also didn't leave it where
the toddler might stumble across it. I would like to see a key-
lock feature to protect against just this eventuality.) One nice
touch is the slightly sticky rubber on its feet; when I tossed
the Controller on the counter, I was surprised to see that it
didn't skitter across it like most remotes. It stuck, right where
it landed.
<http://www.sonos.com/products/controller/>
Sonos supports most popular music formats: AAC, AIFF, FLAC, MP3,
Ogg Vorbis, WAV, and WMA. Internet radio stations are supported
as well, along with RealNetworks's Rhapsody service. (I didn't
test the Rhapsody service for this review.) Like all the non-Apple
streaming products, Sonos doesn't support music purchased from
the iTunes Music Store (unless you convert it to another format);
Apple's FairPlay digital rights management technology locks out
all streaming solutions except the AirPort Express.
**Music the Sonos Way** -- I tested a two-room starter system
($1,200) that includes two ZonePlayers and one Controller. I put
one ZonePlayer in the living room, its RCA output jacks providing
music to the stereo system and its RCA inputs pulling audio from
my DirecTV receiver. The other ZonePlayer went into the dining
room and powered a set of bookshelf speakers from atop a cabinet.
To make my iTunes library available to Sonos, I installed the
Sonos Desktop Controller application. The Desktop Controller asks
you to identify your music folder (you can have several folders
if you wish, even on several servers), and makes them available
on your network via Windows Sharing in System Preferences. (Sonos
accesses your music library via SMB file sharing. Pretty much any
device that serves SMB will do, be it Mac, Windows, Linux, or a
network-attached storage device.) Once the music is serving, you
need to link your ZonePlayers together; to do so, just press two
buttons on the ZonePlayer and select Add ZonePlayer in the Desktop
Controller (you can also do this with the handheld Controller).
When the ZonePlayers are available and labeled as music zones,
it's time to start the party.
Playing music and controlling the ZonePlayers are both easy with
the handheld Controller. The interface is a model of clarity,
the display is bright and crisp, and the buttons have excellent
tactile feedback. The Mute, Play/Pause, Next, and Back buttons
work as one expects. The scroll wheel efficiently navigates an
extensive library (Sonos gets bonus points for Power Scroll,
a soft button that lets you scroll through the alphabet), and
the Select button, well, selects whatever item is currently
highlighted.
The Zones button displays your list of music zones. So long as
the Controller is within wireless range of one ZonePlayer, you
can control any ZonePlayer on the Sonosnet. Each zone can play
from independent music queues, or you can join zones together such
that they play the same music. Party Mode joins all zones to a
single queue, so that the entire house hears the same music.
Music sources can be the Music Library (which comes from your
computer), Sonos Playlists (music queues which you have saved),
Internet Radio, or a ZonePlayer's line-in source. The Music button
toggles between the current zone's music queue and the Now Playing
screen. Now Playing displays a song's usual title/artist/album
information and album art (if available); if a line-in source is
being played, the source ZonePlayer's name and icon are displayed.
The Sonos experience, frankly, is superb. Installation and
setup are quick and painless, and the sound quality is excellent.
Playing different music in each room, from the same library,
controlled from anywhere in the house with the Controller,
is a delight. Each zone playing together in sync is a pleasure
not felt since my dad played ball games on in every radio in the
house - only now the entire record collection is "broadcast"
over Sonosnet.
My favorite Sonos trick is playing music from a line-in source.
Midway through my test of the system, DirecTV switched to XM Radio
as the provider for their music channels. Many evenings I had
XM's "Real Jazz" station playing in the kitchen (sourced from
the living room ZonePlayer's line-in inputs) as I made dinner,
all while my wife and son were listening to his Sesame Street
music in the living room (ripped from CD to MP3, stored on the
Mac mini in the dining room, playing on the stereo via Sonos's
RCA analog outputs). Bliss.
<http://www.xmradio.com/>
**More than the Sum of the (Displaced) Parts** -- I started
this review wondering how in the world Sonos's prices could be
justified. As I lived with the system, however, I came to realize
that it's probably the cheapest music distribution solution,
and certainly the easiest to comprehend.
I've considered putting in-wall speakers in the dining room,
as well as hanging speakers for the patio and garage. I've tried
to price out what it would take, from the very simple (speakers,
wire, and a speaker switch box) to the very spiffy (individual
amplifiers and volume controls). The options multiply in a hurry,
and expense gets obscene. Amidst this mass of confusion, Sonos
makes a great deal of sense - all you need is a ZonePlayer and
a set of speakers. (Any 8 ohm speakers will do; Sonos also offers
a set of bookshelf speakers for $180). Indeed, my local Best Buy
considers Sonos a competitor in the music distribution space, and
they display Sonos in the bourgeois home theater room, not out in
the proletariat consumer gear. Sonos's per-room cost of $500 seems
expensive at first blush, but when I consider all the factors that
suddenly disappear (wiring, amplifiers, volume controls, remote
controls), it becomes very attractive.
Plus, each ZonePlayer ZP100 includes a four-port 10/100 switch,
and Sonosnet tunnels your existing IP network to the switch.
Each room suddenly has wired Ethernet, a truly handy bonus indeed.
**A Bit of Hiss and Crackle** -- As with all solutions, Sonos is
not without imperfections. I tested the system in November 2005
with version 1.2 of the firmware and Desktop Controller software.
Analog line-in audio can be transmitted either uncompressed or
compressed; the former plays on remote ZonePlayers with a very
distracting half-second delay, while the latter shortens the delay
to 75 milliseconds (only noticeable when standing in the doorway
between rooms). In this version, you also can't re-order items in
a music queue. Lastly, the ZonePlayer ZP100 isn't ideal for a room
that already has a hi-fi stereo, with an amplifier that's already
hooked up to one's speakers.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, however, Sonos
announced new hardware and version 1.3 of their firmware and
Desktop Controller software. The new ZonePlayer ZP80 (shipping
this spring) is intended for playing music through a device with
an amplifier. The ZP80 adds digital audio output, and lacks the
ZP100's amplifier and speaker jacks. It is physically smaller
(5.4 by 5.5 by 2.9 inches, or 13.7 by 14 by 7.4 cm) and will sell
for a more approachable $350. Version 1.3 adds an option for line-
level analog output, along with full-screen album art and support
for the Apple Lossless and Audible formats, and you can re-order
items in a queue; it works on all ZonePlayer products.
<http://www.sonos.com/support/software_updates/>
<http://www.sonos.com/products/zoneplayer/zp80/>
**Summing Up** -- Sonos products are available at their Web site,
various online retailers, Tweeter, some Best Buy stores, and
high-end stereo shops. Put simply, it's the finest digital music
system I've seen. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, if you have
the need and the means, I highly recommend you pick one up.
[Recently a father for the second time, Andrew Laurence
appreciates any circumstance that affords Miles Davis
instead of Big Bird.]
Communications Convergence: Outstripping Wires
----------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
There was a day when telephone companies provided a dial tone,
cable companies offered television stations and specialty
channels, and Internet companies offered service over telephone
line-based modems. Recent events make it clear that those days
are long, long over.
You know, of course, that many different companies provide high-
speed Internet access over cable lines, phone wire, and radio
frequencies (Wi-Fi and many other standards). You may know that
telcos are offering cable TV-like services in many parts of the
world and are jumping through regulatory hoops to do so widely in
the United States using very-high-speed DSL or fiber-to-the-home
(FTTH). And you might even know that cable companies can sell you
phone services in some parts of the U.S.
What's probably unclear is how quickly all this will change.
**Cable Firms Go for Voice** -- Several major cable operators
(called MSOs for "multiple systems operators") recently penned a
deal with Sprint Nextel, the merged number-three cellular operator
in the U.S., to resell cell service to their customers. Any time
you can put more services on a single bill, you cut as much as
$20 in monthly service costs for maintaining a separate billing
account. It's easy for companies to find synergies that work
because of that.
<http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=8961>
But it's not just a single bill that's in play. The cable firms
will license TV programs they own to the Sprint PCS division to
stream over third-generation (3G) cell networks to new cell phones
on which you can watch programming on demand.
And it goes further: Sprint (among other cell companies) will
likely start offering handsets that have Wi-Fi and cell standards
built in to provide what's known as unlicensed mobile access
(UMA), a form of voice over IP and Internet telephony. With UMA,
instead of a cell phone hooking up with a nearby cell tower, it
senses a local (typically, an in-home) Wi-Fi network and connects,
using a bit of the Internet to then transmit calls to the cellular
operator's gateway and off into the phone system.
UMA can offer better-quality indoor calls, still a plaguing
problem for cell service, and enable operators to offer huge piles
of minutes for calls placed using UMA, which in turn can preserve
users who might otherwise switch to Internet telephony at home via
Vonage or another provider. In Europe, some existing cell systems
sense when a customer is using their home network versus another
Internet network, and pulls minutes from a home pool instead of
a roaming pool; this might also be the case with UMA, to help a
UMA-based plan replace a wired phone line without increasing cost
for calls made in the house.
**The Broadband Wireless Picture** -- But wait, there's more to
wireless than just that! Cable giant Comcast recently invested
in BelAir Networks via its capital development arm. BelAir makes
outdoor wireless broadband equipment used to build metropolitan-
scale networks for public and governmental access. BelAir
announced the investment the same day that it revealed its latest
products: wireless mesh access points that can be plugged directly
into cable wiring and use the power that already traverses cable
lines.
<http://www.belairnetworks.com/about_belair/press_releases_view.cfm?p_id=73>
With BelAir gear, a cable company could add a Wi-Fi network to
an entire city by connecting wireless access points into existing
cable lines up on telephone poles. There are a lot of "ifs" about
this: in the U.S., cable operators are governed by thousands of
local franchise boards which tax and constrain the operators with
specific requirements in return for rights of way on roads and
poles. Some franchise agreements may allow adding Wi-Fi access
points, some may restrict this, others are likely silent about it.
Many cities are already far along in their plans to have private
firms build municipal-wide Wi-Fi networks, however, and cable
companies may want to use their existing relationships and this
new technology to offer these new networks instead of allowing a
third player - after telcos and cable firms - to enter the local
broadband market. Current municipal-scale networks will likely
promise only about 1 Mbps each way, somewhat less the typical
normal downstream speed of DSL and cable, but price the service
at about the cost of dial-up today - $15 to $25 per month. (1 Mbps
is from 30 percent to 300 percent higher than the typical upstream
speed, incidentally.)
Metropolitan-scale networks will likely employ some or a lot of
mesh networking, in which Wi-Fi access points aren't individually
connected to some form of backhaul to a central network. Instead,
typically several access points are tuned to the same channel
and serve both as conduits for individual users and for data
to pass among each other. One of the access points is plugged
into backhaul that carries data to and from the network. The
disadvantage of most forms of mesh is that every hop across
the mesh network until it hits backhaul repeats the same data.
If user A connects to access point 1 which connects to access
point 2 which connects to access point 3 which connects to the
backhaul, every chunk of data from user A takes up air space for
the entire cluster of mesh nodes three times. This is why mesh
networks are typically used to extend a network and for redundancy
and failover (when a node fails, access isn't cut) but can't span
huge areas.
**Two and a Half Billion Vibrations per Second Can't Come Cheap**
-- Here's where Sprint Nextel comes into the picture again:
the two companies didn't just merge customers and operations,
they merged their spectrum portfolio. The two firms controlled
licenses for the 2.5 gigahertz (GHz) frequency band that covers
80 percent of the country. This band, with a starting frequency
just above the tail end of the unlicensed band containing
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, was originally licensed for educational
institutions and distance learning. It's a large swath of
beautiful and mostly unused space. (Licensed frequencies are
reserved to the license holders to use; unlicensed frequencies
can be used by anyone but only with equipment that's passed
certification by the FCC in most cases. Wi-Fi gear has been
certified, but can be used by anyone, anywhere in the U.S.)
Several years ago, Congress allowed the academic and non-profit
entities that controlled the regionally allocated frequencies to
sublicense to commercial firms in the hopes of jump-starting more
advanced telecommunications service. But many telecom firms were
uninterested, and the licenses were quickly snapped up by Sprint
PCS and WorldCom, with BellSouth and a fourth firm being lesser
players. (All four companies together owned 90 percent of the
licenses.)
Sprint and WorldCom nearly merged in 2000 partly to pool what
were seen as valuable licenses. Nextel bought WorldCom's 2.5 GHz
licenses out of bankruptcy in 2003, and the Sprint Nextel merger
was partly seen as a way to consolidate two smaller cell players
and partly, again, as a tool to consolidate those licenses.
The 2.5 GHz band is exciting to these carriers because it allows
higher power to be used than is allowed in Wi-Fi, thus increasing
range, and interference is impossible because the carriers own
all use of selected frequencies in regions the licenses cover.
Before the merger, Sprint and Nextel, along with separately held
Clearwire (a firm bought in 2004 by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw)
had been experimenting with broadband wireless over 2.5 GHz in
small markets around the U.S. Clearwire has started rolling out
low-broadband-speed service in places like my hometown of Eugene,
OR, and internationally in cities like Dublin, Ireland - areas
with little broadband choice and small service areas from
incumbents, but a good demographic to pay for their service.
Confusingly, the 2.5 GHz band is in the middle of a multi-year
set of spectrum reform negotiations among the FCC, incumbent
institutional holders who actually broadcast educational
programming on it, sublicense holders like Sprint Nextel,
and other interested companies. The 2.5 GHz band is inefficiently
organized for the digital era, being a vestige of analog
broadcasting and early data services. The new proposal would
preserve some existing licenses by moving them around, but open
up much more usage by other parties. This band might wind up
being critical for the deployment of WiMax, a broadband point-to-
multi-point wireless standard that's just starting to move into
the market.
WiMax is seen initially in urban areas as a replacement for leased
digital lines used by businesses, known as T-1 lines which runs at
1.544 Mbps. With WiMax, a central base station at a high point can
serve many receivers in an arc that can be fairly narrow. Some
early pre-WiMax deployments - devices are just being certified as
compliant with WiMax standards now - offer speeds higher than T-1s
for much less money. Putting in two T-1s typically doubles capital
and recurring costs with wired lines; putting in a broadband
wireless connect of 3 Mbps each way might cost just 10 to 30
percent more each month than a single T-1 with less installation
complexity, less capital outlay for hardware, and a quick install.
In rural areas, WiMax may be used for basic broadband where a
wired infrastructure doesn't exist.
**Your Television Is Ringing** -- You're probably holding your
head, thinking, "I just want to make phone calls and surf the
Web!" Don't worry. You'll be able to, just in more ways, with
potentially fewer bills, than ever before. Every time a set of
companies promises that convergence will reduce costs, you start
laughing, right? But this time, the number of different kinds
of firms involved in competing with each other for your business
might actually improve service and reduce overall costs.
For instance, my wife and I have shaved our combined local and
long distance phone and cell phone plans over the last two years
from about $300 per month (that includes all my business calling)
down to about $160, while adding unlimited calling within the U.S.
and to 22 countries at home, and a pool of minutes on our cell
plans that we rarely exceed (and use rollover minutes from other
months to avoid overages). To accomplish this, we switched long
distance from per minute to an unlimited flat rate voice over IP
calling plan, moved our cell phones from Verizon and AT&T Wireless
to Cingular because of its rollover minutes feature (unused
minutes are banked for up to 12 months), and got on the same
plan to reduce the cell cost, which also means minutes used
to each other aren't counted.
The coming convergence will be weird, confusing, and overwhelming,
but it's likely to mean that most people in the U.S. and many
people worldwide will see much higher downstream speeds for
Internet access without increased costs - we've seen some
of that already - and with cell calls and long distance all
coalescing into one flat monthly rate substantially below what
moderate users pay today. And that's a good thing.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/23-Jan-06
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The first link for each thread description points to the
traditional TidBITS Talk interface; the second link points to
the same discussion on our Web Crossing server, which provides
a different look and which may be faster.
**Calendar widget behavior** -- Readers notice a change in
the new Calendar Dashboard widget included with Mac OS X 10.4.4.
(2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2842>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/684/>
**iLife '06 comments** -- With the release of the latest version
of Apple's digital living suite of applications, readers report
their first impressions. (7 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2843>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/685/>
**Apple Adds 802.11a** -- One little-noticed improvement in
the new Intel-based Macs is support for the 802.11a flavor
of wireless networking. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2844>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/686/>
**Spotlight and iPhoto metadata?** Does iPhoto make the metadata
you assign to photos available to Spotlight? And if so, where is
it stored? (12 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2845>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/687/>
**Problems with iPhoto 6** -- A few readers run into difficulty
when converting libraries from older versions of iPhoto to the
latest version. (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2846>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/688/>
**Spotlight wildcards?** Tiger's Spotlight search technology can
be improved by using special text strings to narrow results.
(5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2847>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/689/>
**Postage on the Mac** -- Who uses stamps anymore? A variety
of options are now available for printing your own postage.
(4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2848>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/690/>
**Is MagSafe really original?** The new magnetic power connector
on the MacBook Pro is a novel change, but is it the first of
its kind? Maybe not. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2849>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/691/>
**Selecting software vendors** -- How can you tell if a particular
vendor is trustworthy, or even still developing the product you're
looking for? (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2851>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/692/>
$$
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