TidBITS#877/30-Apr-07
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/877>
Apple reported another strong financial quarter last week, with a
net profit of $770 million. At the same time, the company's stock
option backdating scandal advanced as the SEC brought charges
against two former Apple employees (neither of whom is named Steve
Jobs). Also this week, Web design is on our minds due to the
releases of MacRabbit's CSSEdit 2.5 and Panic's Coda, which Joe
Kissell runs through its paces. Joe also notes public betas for two
online backup services, a new initiative from Parallels, and the
first Mac beta version of yet another virtualization environment. In
other news, Apple releases Battery Update 1.2 for MacBooks and
MacBook Pros, and Rogue Amoeba updates its Fission audio
manipulation tool.
Articles
Battery Update 1.2 Issued for MacBook and MacBook Pro
Apple Reports Strong Q2 2007 Financials
DealBITS Winners: Open Door Networks' DoorStop X Security Suite
Wanted: Dutch Translators
Two Online Backup Services Announce Public Betas
Fission 1.5 Adds Full Audio Insertion
Virtualization Options Expand
CSSEdit 2.5 Makes CSS Even Easier
Coda Plays Web Developers a New Tune
Former Apple Employees Charged in Stock Option Backdating
Take Control News/30-Apr-07
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/30-Apr-07
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Battery Update 1.2 Issued for MacBook and MacBook Pro
-----------------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8970>
Apple has released Battery Update 1.2 for MacBook and MacBook Pro
models, and batteries for them, sold between February 2006 and April
2007. The update fixes some unspecified performance issues. Apple
notes the issues that prompt the update do not present a safety risk
(unlike the last year's major battery recall; see "Apple Recalling
1.8 Million Laptop Batteries," 2006-08-28). The problems appear to
be a mixture of hardware and software, since another support page
for the update notes a list of symptoms that could indicate a faulty
battery (my favorite is "Battery pack is visibly deformed," a slight
understatement compared to some recent photos of swollen MacBook
batteries).
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305256>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8653>
<http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/>
<http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=swollen%20macbook%20battery&w=all>
Be sure to run the update with the laptop's power adapter connected;
when other batteries are inserted, they will be automatically
updated. Apple also notes that Intel Core Duo-based MacBooks and
MacBook Pros gain an additional two years of warranty protection for
the battery. Battery Update 1.2 is a 244K download from Apple or via
Software Update.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305256>
Apple Reports Strong Q2 2007 Financials
---------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8966>
Thanks to the holiday sales that boost Q1 profits, there's no way
Apple's second quarter results could have competed with Q1 2007's
record-setting numbers (see "Apple Posts $1 Billion Profit for Q1
2007," 2007-01-22), but they're still awfully strong. For the fiscal
quarter ending 31-Mar-07, Apple posted revenue of $5.26 billion (up
from $4.36 billion in the year-ago quarter) and a net profit of $770
million (up from $410 million). Gross margin also increased
significantly, at 35.1 percent, up from 29.8 percent, showing that
Apple is making more from each sale.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/25results.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8816>
The strong numbers resulted somewhat more from 1,517,000 Macs sold,
up 36 percent over the year-ago quarter, than from the 10,549,000
iPods sold, a 24-percent increase. Macintosh sales accounted for
$2.27 billion in revenues (up 44 percent from the year-ago quarter),
whereas iPods contributed $1.69 billion (down 1 percent). The iTunes
Store, iPod services, and Apple's sales of Apple and third-party
iPod accessories accounted for $653 million in revenues,
outstripping the $309 million Apple brought in from sales of
peripherals and the $345 million from software.
It's interesting that Apple's unit sales of iPods grew by 24 percent
over last year's second quarter, but revenues dropped by 1 percent.
That would seem to imply that Apple is selling more of the cheaper
iPods. Also worthy of note is that the shift in popularity from
desktops to portables has continued. A year ago, the ratio of
desktop units sold to portables was 55 to 45 percent, where it had
been for at least a few quarters. But in Q3 2006, the ratio switched
to 40 percent for desktops and 60 percent for portables, and that
ratio has held steady ever since.
The share of Apple's sales that came from international markets
remained flat from Q2 2006, at 43 percent, mostly thanks to a strong
showing in Europe that outweighed a drop in Japan. The international
sales percentage dropped precipitously after Q2 2006 and has been
rising ever since.
DealBITS Winners: Open Door Networks' DoorStop X Security Suite
---------------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8960>
Congratulations to Michael Weyman of sympatico.ca and Stuart Munro
of assumption.edu, whose entries were chosen randomly in last week's
DealBITS drawing and who received a copy of Open Door Networks'
DoorStop X Security Suite, worth $79. But don't fret if you didn't
win, since Open Door Networks is offering everyone who entered this
DealBITS drawing a $15 discount on DoorStop X Security Suite through
09-May-07, dropping the price to $64. To take advantage of this
offer, enter coupon code "Dealbits2007" in the Comments field of the
order form when ordering. Thanks to the 802 people who entered this
DealBITS drawing, and we hope you'll continue to participate in the
future!
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8959>
<http://www.opendoor.com/doorstopsuite/>
<http://www.opendoor.com/order.html>
Wanted: Dutch Translators
-------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8973>
Last quarter Apple saw strong Mac sales growth in Europe, which
(among oodles of other things, I'm sure) means that there are more
Dutch-speaking Mac users than ever before. If you can translate
English into Dutch, our long-running and highly amiable volunteer
Dutch translation team is looking for some fresh faces. You can
learn more about what's involved and contact them on the Dutch
version of our Web site. As an incentive, note that TidBITS
translators receive all of our Take Control ebooks as thanks for
their efforts.
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/nl/tidbits-nl/over-vertalen.html>
Two Online Backup Services Announce Public Betas
------------------------------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8968>
In "Online Backup Options Expand" (2007-04-09), I mentioned two
potentially promising online backup services - Mozy and Bandwagon -
that were not quite ready for prime time. Last week, both services
announced that they are officially available for public beta
testing.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8923>
Berkeley Data Systems' Mozy offers unlimited online storage for a
mere $5 per month. Their Mac backup client, previously in a limited
beta, is now available for anyone to download. If you're not ready
to spring for the monthly fee or have only a few files to back up,
you can sign up for 2 GB of storage at no cost. Although the current
version of Mozy is a bit better than the one I looked at a few weeks
ago, it's still clearly a beta. Among the problems yet to be ironed
out are aggravating delays (over an hour on my test machine) in
opening the configuration window - every time you open it! - and
occasional hangs during backup or when attempting to cancel a backup
in progress. The Mozy download weighs in at 5 MB.
<https://mozy.com/>
Bandwagon DIY from Xackup uses storage space you've set up
separately on Amazon.com's S3 service to back up your iTunes content
online. When the beta program ends sometime in May, prices (not
counting storage space) will be $2 per month for the standard
Bandwagon DIY service and $3 per month for Bandwagon DIY+, which
also supports syncing iTunes content between two Macs. Bandwagon DIY
beta 1 is a 4 MB download.
<http://ridethebandwagon.com/>
<http://www.amazon.com/s3/>
Fission 1.5 Adds Full Audio Insertion
-------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8964>
Rogue Amoeba has released an update to Fission, the company's simple
audio manipulation program aimed at providing the most commonly
needed subset of audio editing features (for more details, see
"Fission Manipulates Audio Tracks of All Stripes," 2006-09-25, along
with Andy Williams Affleck's "Take Control of Podcasting on the
Mac"). Fission 1.5 extends the "trim, split, and clean up"
capabilities of the original version by adding support for audio
insertion, making it possible to copy and paste audio within a file;
combine audio from multiple files, regardless of audio format; and
drag and drop files from the Finder to append to existing audio.
Other new features in Fission 1.5 include the capability to increase
or decrease the volume of any file, full support for cue sheets,
auto-complete in Inspector fields, a Zoom to Selection command, and
the addition of the Album Artist tag in the Inspector. Updates are
free to registered users; new copies of Fission cost $32. It
requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is a 3.1 MB download.
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8685>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/podcasting-mac.html?14@@!pt=TB877>
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/features.php>
Virtualization Options Expand
-----------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8967>
For those interested in running Windows on an Intel-based Mac, this
week brought two interesting announcements. First, in the ongoing
battle of one-upmanship between Parallels and VMware, Parallels
announced a new initiative to help developers package and distribute
virtual appliances - prepackaged virtual machines containing a full
operating system and applications, configured to perform specific
tasks and ready to run without any setup. The Parallels Technology
Network provides developer support and documentation; developers who
submit virtual appliances that meet the requirements created by
Parallels can be listed in the Parallels Virtual Appliances
Directory, which is very much like VMware's Virtual Appliance
Marketplace.
<http://ptn.parallels.com/en/news/id,11293>
<http://ptn.parallels.com/>
<http://ptn.parallels.com/en/ptn/pva/home/>
<http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/>
Meanwhile, Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion now have another
competitor: Innotek's VirtualBox, a free, open-source virtualization
environment previously available only for Windows and Linux. Now
available in its first public beta for Mac OS X, VirtualBox lets
users of Intel-based Macs install and run numerous versions of
Windows, DOS, and Linux, as well as other Unix-like operating
systems. VirtualBox for OS X Hosts Beta 1 is a 16 MB download.
<http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/>
<http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/fusion/>
<http://www.virtualbox.org/>
<http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads>
CSSEdit 2.5 Makes CSS Even Easier
---------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8965>
It's not Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail, but
MacRabbit Software, delivering a significant update to CSSEdit,
their sleek and powerful tool for making, editing, and understanding
Cascading Style Sheets. (See "CSSEdit 2 to the Rescue!" 2007-01-29.)
It's easy to understand the theoretical elegance of CSS for building
modern Web sites, but when you're faced either with a blank page or
a jumbled-up mess of someone else's styles, CSS can seem
overwhelming. CSSEdit 2.0 went a long way toward making CSS less
forbidding, and the just-released CSSEdit 2.5 goes even further.
<http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8836>
Most obvious in CSSEdit 2.5 is the addition of horizontal tabbed
navigation in both the preview window and the editor window. I
usually need to have several pages from my sites open simultaneously
while working on the site's CSS definitions, since a change that
might work well on one page could cause trouble on another. This
capability existed in the previous version, but was more
rudimentary. Now, you can move the Safari-like tabs around, drag one
off the tab bar to open it in a separate window, drag one into
another window's tab bar to combine the two, and more. Also welcome
is a navigation bar where you can enter or edit a URL directly.
(The only hint of disappointment here is that CSSEdit 2.5 switched
to horizontal tabs from vertical tabs, which I prefer from using
OmniWeb as my primary browser. Vertical tabs can work better for
people who work with many tabs open because you can see more tabs
simultaneously and a scroll bar gives you a feeling for how many
tabs are open but out of sight. Horizontal tabs are difficult to
differentiate between, lack room for as much identifying
information, and hide feedback about how many open tabs aren't
visible in a menu.)
The feature I've been longing for most in CSSEdit arrived in this
update: an improved X-ray Inspector. Perhaps the hardest part of
working with pre-existing CSS is figuring out why a particular
element looked the way it did. Previously, CSSEdit's X-ray Inspector
showed the size of the selected element, with its margins (indicated
by arrows) and padding (indicated by dotted lines). It also showed
the DOM hierarchy, but what it didn't do was tell you which styles
applied to the element. Now it does, showing them in the cascade
order with the most relevant styles at the top. Clicking a style in
the X-ray Inspector selects the associated CSS code in the editor
window, so you can easily step through the code to see what styles
are being set and overridden.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-04/X-ray-Inspector.jpg>
The final major new feature is the Selector Builder, an
Automator-like interface to building selectors that apply styles to
specific elements in specific situations. I'm still wrapping my head
around the Selector Builder, not because it's so complex (it uses
English terminology wherever possible), but because I still don't
have a full understanding of the role of selectors in CSS. I think
the Selector Builder may be a significant help in this area, since I
can select an element I want to style, and use the X-ray Inspector
to create a new style for it using the Selector Builder. In the
past, I've had to muddle through achieving the results I wanted
essentially by trial and error.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-04/Selector-Builder.jpg>
CSSEdit 2.5 offers a number of other minor features, including a
font picker, improvements to its CodeSense auto-completion, and a
text shadow editor. Features that previously existed in CSSEdit 2.0,
but that I hadn't paid much attention to before, include a CSS
validator and a set of bookmarklets that make it easy to add a page
viewed in a Web browser to CSSEdit's preview window. I'm also
playing more with a feature called Milestones that lets you set a
stake in the ground, experiment freely with major style changes, and
return to the previously marked point easily if the experiment
doesn't pan out.
If you work with CSS at all, you need CSSEdit, and version 2.5 makes
the program even more compelling. It's a free upgrade for registered
users; new copies cost $30. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, is a
2.0 MB download, and works in a free trial mode for files of fewer
than 2,500 characters.
Coda Plays Web Developers a New Tune
------------------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8969>
I spend a fair amount of time doing Web development, and although I
have access to graphical tools such as Dreamweaver, I've long
preferred to do all my coding by hand - yes, even for complex CSS
layouts, tables, and forms; it's just the way I'm wired. But even my
two 20-inch widescreen monitors don't always provide enough pixels
to display all the windows I want to see at once: my text editor
(BBEdit), my FTP client (Transmit), a Web browser for previews
(Safari, at least for a first pass), Terminal for tasks like running
MySQL commands and fiddling with permissions on the server, and
frequently, yet another browser tab or window showing the online
documentation for PHP.
Clearly, the good folks at Panic have been spying on me, because
they used almost exactly that list of windows to illustrate the
problem that their new Web-development tool, Coda, is designed to
solve. For people like me who code Web sites manually, Coda combines
a highly capable text editor, a visual CSS editor, an FTP client,
WebKit-based previews, a terminal that supports SSH connections to
remote servers, and even online documentation for HTML, CSS,
JavaScript, and PHP - not just in a single application but in a
single window.
<http://www.panic.com/coda/>
It just so happened that I had a new Web site to create last week,
so I've spent a number of hours getting to know Coda with a live
project. Although I haven't delved deeply enough into the program
yet to write a comprehensive review, I want to share some of my
initial impressions. I can summarize them as follows: it's like
buying your dream car, only to find out that the seats are kind of
uncomfortable and there's no heater. Coda comes so close to being
great that its shortcomings are especially annoying. Having tried
this way of working, I'm loath to return to having four applications
open all the time - and yet I keep running into issues that irritate
me almost enough to give it up.
**A Quick Tour** -- The Coda window has multiple panes and tabs that
let you interact with any given site in numerous ways; although a
typical arrangement would be to have all of a site's elements in a
single window, you can open multiple windows - one for each site, or
even multiple windows per site.
Coda lets you specify, for each Web site, a local folder, a remote
folder, or both. (Remote folders are accessed using FTP, SFTP, or
WebDAV, with the usual array of security options, as in Transmit.)
You can edit your files locally and then upload them with a single
click or, if you prefer, edit files directly on the server. (At
least, that's how it appears: in reality, Coda caches a copy of each
remote file you edit and uploads it each time you save.) You can
add, remove, and rename files in a familiar list-view pane on the
left side of the window, and switch back and forth between local and
remote copies using tabs at the top of that pane. Click any file to
open it in a new tab in the window's main pane.
That larger pane, in turn, can contain multiple tabs, much like
Safari's. By default, new tabs display a full-featured text editor,
complete with syntax coloring for numerous languages, code
completion, optional line numbering and line wrap, HTML validation,
text clippings for frequently used blocks of code, and a
grep-capable find-and-replace feature. This editor is based on
SubEthaEdit, a collaborative text editor from TheCodingMonkeys that
the TidBITS staff uses frequently for projects that require
real-time group editing. In fact, you can share Coda documents with
SubEthaEdit users and vice-versa. I'd personally find it awkward to
edit a single HTML, CSS, or PHP file at exactly the same time as
someone else, but I can imagine situations where this would be a
useful feature for workgroups. Whether working individually or with
others, Coda can track each document's changes, but (like
SubEthaEdit) it displays only additions and changes, not deletions.
<http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/>
Because Coda's preview is based on WebKit, Web pages should appear
exactly as they would in Safari. You can also preview your work in
other browsers with a menu command or keyboard shortcut. Although
previews refresh instantly as you work, they're not editable; if
you're accustomed to working in a WYSIWYG Web-design program, you'll
have to fight the temptation to edit in Preview mode. While in
Preview mode, you can inspect a page's underlying hierarchy using a
DOM Inspector feature - hover over an element and it appears in
outline, with its logical structure shown in a status bar at the
bottom of the window. Also available in Preview mode is a JavaScript
console, complete with debugger support.
The visual CSS editor lets you change any element's attributes by
filling in a form (with helpful pop-up menus showing which options
are available where). It's helpful if you're uncomfortable editing
cascading style sheets manually or if you've forgotten some
parameters, and is similar in concept to (though perhaps not quite
as elegant as) MacRabbit's just-updated CSSEdit (see "CSSEdit 2.5
Makes CSS Even Easier," 2007-04-25).
<http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8965>
The Terminal mode connects you to the server of your choice
(typically, the one on which your site is hosted) using SSH; it can
also run a shell on your local computer, just as Apple's Terminal
utility does. It's just about what you'd expect from any terminal
emulator: nicely functional and straightforward.
The last mode is called Books; in it, Coda can display the contents
of No Starch Press's "Web Programmer's Desk Reference," which covers
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, plus the complete PHP documentation.
Unfortunately, this information is available only when online; if
you try to access it while on a plane (as I did last week), you'll
get an error message.
**Mixed Modes** -- Coda's interface has a way of subtly mixing
metaphors that nearly always manages to surprise me - and not in a
good way. For starters, the toolbar has buttons for Coda's six main
modes of work: Sites (for manipulating the files that make up a Web
site), Edit, Preview, CSS, Terminal, and Books. Given a document
(such as an HTML file) visible in a tab, clicking one of these
buttons, or pressing one of their associated keyboard shortcuts,
switches that tab's view accordingly. So, if you're looking at raw
code (in Edit view) and you click Preview, you see the final,
rendered page. That makes perfect sense. Similarly, if you're
looking at a style sheet in the visual CSS editor, you can click
Edit to view that same file as raw text. Again: perfect. But if
you're editing, say, an HTML file and you click Terminal, instead of
opening a new tab with a terminal session - or perhaps giving you a
view, within a terminal window, of that HTML document - you
_replace_ your current document view with a new terminal session.
(One could easily assume - as I did at first - that in so doing Coda
had closed the HTML document, since it's no longer visible. But it
hasn't; Coda thinks of that tab as still containing the same
document.) Similarly, if you click the Preview button while editing
a CSS file, you see a useless, word-wrapped text version of the CSS
file.
In other words: Coda's modes are a confusion between nouns and
verbs. Sites, Books, and Terminal are nouns; Edit and Preview are
verbs; and CSS means "Edit as CSS" - another verb. When you're
viewing an HTML document (a noun), it makes sense to switch back and
forth between an Edit mode and a Preview mode (performing either of
two actions with that noun). But an SSH shell session with your Web
server is not another view on that document - not another action you
take with that noun - and so that shouldn't be the kind of thing you
switch into, in the same tab, using exactly the same interface
metaphor.
Of course, you can open as many tabs as you want, and each tab can
have a different kind of thing in it. One can be an HTML file, one a
terminal session, and a third a PHP reference. And, in that HTML
file's tab, you can either toggle between Edit and Preview modes or
split the window (vertically or horizontally - even multiple times)
and have a different mode displayed in each one. Plus, you can not
only have multiple documents open at once, you can have a single
document open in multiple tabs at once. So, it's not that you can't
get Coda to display your information any which way you want. You
can. But it really needs a rethinking of those toolbar buttons and
the way it distinguishes between viewing modes (verbs) and data
types (nouns). All too often I ended up switching my view when what
I really wanted to do was open a new tab with a new type of data, or
vice-versa.
On yet another level of mixing, Coda's Sites view shows you all the
sites for which you've configured settings, but once you open a
site, that particular window can contain only files from that site.
So even though you can mix and match tabs, splits, and views in all
sorts of ways, you can't mix documents from two sites in a single
window. In my opinion, this is another respect in which Coda tries
too hard to force everything into a single window.
Can this confusion be fixed? Sure, but it may require some
rejiggering of the interface. As a quick, partial fix, Panic could
force Coda to open a new tab each time someone clicks the Terminal
or Books buttons. But better yet would be to stop treating nouns and
verbs as being equivalent "modes" - keep the noun-like interface
elements completely separate from the verb-like elements. When
you're looking at an HTML document (or JavaScript or PHP or
whatever), you should be able to choose between two verbs: Edit and
Preview. For CSS documents, the relevant verbs are Edit as CSS and
Edit as Text. My preference would be for each tab to be tied to one
kind of noun (file, terminal session, documentation). Those tabs to
which multiple verbs apply could switch modes - but the choices
would be constrained by what makes sense for a given type of data.
**Preliminary Conclusions** -- Apart from the interface weirdness and
a few cosmetic bugs, Coda performed for me as advertised. It enabled
me to create my site, quickly and easily, without switching
applications. But I can't shake the feeling that some important
things are still missing.
Panic has made no secret of the fact that they're deliberately
keeping each of Coda's modules fairly lightweight. They're fighting
feature bloat, and I respect that. The text editor isn't as
full-featured as BBEdit, and the FTP client doesn't have all the
bells and whistles of Transmit. Coda's main selling point is the
integration of all these features. That's fantastic, but here's the
problem: Panic's target market is Web-development geeks (like me!).
The kind of person who has a bunch of different applications open at
once to accomplish the sole task of hand-coding a Web site is also
precisely the type of person who relies heavily on all those obscure
features in a text editor or FTP client that Coda is missing.
To cite just a couple of examples, I kept finding myself wanting to
use BBEdit's Balance command, which highlights everything in the
current block of code - useful if you have deeply nested brackets,
parentheses, or braces and lose track of where something starts and
ends. And I missed BBEdit's Find Differences command, which compares
two versions of a document and highlights where they differ. I like
to use this when two copies of a file are out of sync - say, one on
a staging server and one on a live server - but doing so in Coda,
even if it had a diff feature, would break the one-window-per-site
model. (Coda does, by the way, let you open any of your files in an
external editor, but that defeats the purpose of the integrated
window.)
And then there was the realization that switching from one
application to another isn't any harder than switching from one tab
to another. Yes, that means more window clutter, but not so much
that Expose can't handle it. That's not to say Coda's benefits are
illusory. But it's also not quite the melding of BBEdit, Transmit,
Terminal, and Safari I'd envisioned when I started using it.
The question for me - and, I suspect, for other Web developers of my
ilk - is whether the integration benefits of Coda, minus its missing
features, are worth $80 (or $70 if you already own Transmit). If I
didn't already have BBEdit and Transmit, it would be a no-brainer:
absolutely yes. But since I already have powerful tools that work
well, the decision is less clear. You can decide for yourself with
Coda's 15-day free trial. Coda 1.0 is a 15 MB download, and requires
Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.interface
Former Apple Employees Charged in Stock Option Backdating
---------------------------------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8963>
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused two
former Apple executives in two instances of illegal stock option
backdating that Apple had previously disclosed after an internal
investigation (see "Apple Releases Stock Option Backdating Report,"
2007-01-08). Nancy Heinen, former general counsel of the company,
was charged with improper actions in two sets of options grants and
in altering company records to conceal what the SEC alleges was
fraud. The full complaint is available as a PDF.
<http://sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2007/lr20086.htm>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8803>
<http://sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp20086.pdf>
Former chief financial officer Fred Anderson was separately charged
with failure to ensure that Apple's financial statements were
correct through a lack of observation in the first of those two sets
of options grants. In that first set of grants, Heinen, Anderson,
and four other executives benefited. In the second, only Steve Jobs
stood to gain.
Anderson immediately settled the charges without "admitting or
denying the allegations," an approach the SEC allows when the agency
perceives public interests are served by closing the affair instead
of proving guilt or losing a case. Anderson will give up nearly $3
million in stock option gains and nearly $700,000 in interest and
penalties.
Stock options convey the privilege, but not requirement, to purchase
stock at a given price. Money is made by exercising the options
(purchasing them) and then selling when the options' price is below
the current market price of the stock. Options often come with a
restriction on how soon the underlying stock may be purchased.
In stock-option backdating, the date on which the option is granted
does not reflect an actual board meeting or other event at which an
option is granted. Rather, the option is set to a preferentially
cheaper price by choosing a date on which the stock is cheaper than
on the substituted option grant date, putting options immediately
"in the money."
Backdating is legal if acknowledged with proper record keeping,
including financial charges that result from what is essentially a
company gift of additional money captured from the stock market. The
SEC stated that nearly $40 million in expense was improperly
excluded from Apple's regulatory filings.
Apple earlier found several instances of backdating, but cleared
current management, including CEO Steve Jobs. The SEC said Apple
cooperated in the investigation, and it has no plans to charge the
company. Other charges against individuals could still come,
including Jobs and other members of current management.
Following the SEC's press release, Anderson's attorney released a
statement in which the attorney said Anderson informed Jobs about
potential accounting charges required for one of two grants to Jobs
that were later canceled and replaced with grants of stock that
required no exercise. Anderson's attorney said, in brief, that
statements made to Anderson turned out to be false, although the
attorney doesn't state it so bluntly. (So much for "neither admitted
nor denied" the charges.)
<http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070424006168>
Apple's board of directors, excluding chairman Jobs, released a
statement the day after Anderson's, expressing full confidence in
the company's own investigation and in Jobs.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/25statement.html>
While Anderson settled the charges, it's unclear precisely why, and
the release doesn't explain his decision. It's easy to speculate
that in Anderson's current role - alongside U2's Bono! - as a
founder and director of investment firm Elevation Partners,
protracted litigation would have been expensive and a distraction
from his other duties. In the settlement, Anderson admitted no
guilt, and can continue to serve as an officer and director of
public firms. He sits on the board of eBay.
<http://www.elevation.com/EP_IT_FLASH.asp>
<http://investor.ebay.com/documentdisplay.cfm?DocumentID=728>
The Associated Press says that Heinen will contest the charges.
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070424/ap_on_hi_te/apple_stock_options>
Take Control News/30-Apr-07
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8972>
**Extend the iPod's Capabilities with Advice in New Book** -- Much has
happened in the iPod world of late, so if you haven't been keeping
up on the many things you can do with your iPod other than play
music, check out the second edition of "Take Control of Your iPod:
Beyond the Music," by Steve Sande. Almost completely rewritten, the
134-page book covers the latest in iPod technology, explains the
basics for new users, and helps everyone find more ways to get the
most out of their iPods. You'll learn about over a dozen major iPod
uses, ranging from reading email and RSS feeds to running Keynote
and PowerPoint presentations.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/ipod-btm.html?14@@!pt=TRK-0025-TB877-TCNEWS>
Steve begins with colorful comparison charts of the various iPod
models to help you figure out which you have, since you may not
realize that the iPod you bought few years ago is considered a
"second-generation iPod" or you may have received your iPod as an
unidentified hand-me-down. After a brief look at charging, syncing,
and troubleshooting, Steve jumps into the many things you can do
with an iPod, including obvious uses like listening to podcasts,
watching video downloaded from the Internet, and exercising with the
Nike+iPod Sport Kit. But the real fun comes in putting an iPod to
less obvious uses like recording lectures or podcast interviews,
reading text-based electronic books, and displaying maps.
Owners of the first edition of the ebook should click the Check for
Updates button on the cover to download a free update (available to
those who purchased after 01-Sep-06) or to access an update
discount.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/30-Apr-07
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8971>
**Everybody Sync now** -- Michael E. Cohen's article about
SyncTogether brings up a question: is it possible to sync two
computers completely (or one user account on multiple computers)? (3
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1257/>
**Problems after Security Update 2007-004** -- A reader runs into
AirPort connection problems after running the latest security
update, and others are there to help. (7 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1258/>
**Using two anti-surge plugs** -- A combination of two
surge-protecting power strips blacks out a reader's house. Are the
plugs to blame, or is it the 20-year-old wiring in an old house in
France? (6 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1259/>
**Joel on VBA for Macintosh** -- Programmer and author Joel Spolsky
writes about the disappearance of Visual Basic for Applications in
the upcoming version of Microsoft Office, bringing up a discussion
of various automation systems. (11 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1261/>
**Getting Streaming Audio from Mac to Amplifier** -- A reader who
wants to listen to streaming music on his stereo system looks for a
solution, since the Apple TV won't stream music over the network. (8
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1262/>
**Apple Data Detectors (was: Re: Address Book utilities)** -- Talk of
this old Apple technology brings up the point that the company's
research and development is now so secret that you don't get the
same public sense of real technological innovation going on as
during the late 1990s. (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1263/>
$$
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