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Apple releases iMovie 3.0.1 and iPhoto 2.0

Apple today released iMovie 3.0.1 and iPhoto 2.0 available for download for Mac OS X by Software Update. They are 85 MB and 33.3 MB, respectively.

They can also be downloaded directly from http://www.apple.com/iphoto/download/ and http://www.apple.com/imovie/download/.

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Griffin Releases Version 1.0 of Final Vinyl and gPort Serial MIDI Driver

New MIDI driver brings OS X Compatibility to all gPort connected MIDI Serial

Interfaces. Final Vinyl can be used

to record instruments, microphones, tapes and any other analog source.



Griffin Technology, Inc. today announced

the release of Final Vinyl version 1.0. Final Vinyl allows the recording of

vinyl records using just the Griffin iMic or PowerWave and a turntable.

Previously, the entire stereo system would be needed. Now, the record player

can be connected directly to an iMic or PowerWave. Final Vinyl can be used

to record instruments, microphones, tapes and any other analogue source. It

includes a 10-band equalizer that is capable of significantly altering and

enhancing the sound input. It also allows editing of audio via a new

waveform-editing window. Final Vinyl is available now for free download at

www.griffintechnology.com.

Final Vinyl includes several features that make recording easier. Cue

Marking allows the real time entry of song track marks. Using Cue Marking, a

user can set all the beginning and ending points of songs and have Final

Vinyl manage the separation of each song into individual files – ready to

burn to a CD. Final Vinyl can also dynamically set and adjust audio levels.

This feature ensures that the recording level of the source music is always

properly adjusted to its optimum point.

Final Vinyl is designed to work exclusively with the Griffin iMic or the new

Griffin PowerWave. The iMic adds high quality stereo input and output to any

USB based Macintosh. The Griffin PowerWave includes audio input and output

plus adds an integrated 30 watt amplifier. With the combination of an iMic

or a PowerWave and the new free Final Vinyl software, recording an entire

album collection has never been easier or more affordable.

Griffin Technology also announced the release of the gPort Serial MIDI

Driver for 10.2.3. This driver allows most serial MIDI devices to operate

with Apple's Core MIDI software and OS X when connected to the Griffin gPort

or g4Port. Now owners of legacy serial MIDI interfaces like the classic

Opcode Studio 5, MOTU’s Midi Time Piece and others can move up to Mac OS X

without having to upgrade their vital core MIDI interface.

"Our music customers have always depended on our popular gPort and g4Port

internal serial port adaptors. They wanted the faster newer computers but

insisted on retaining the impeccable timing they’ve grown to trust from

their serial based MIDI interfaces. Now with the gPort Serial MIDI Driver

and the new OS X 10.2.3, they can continue to explore the newest OS and the

wonderful new software available while still relying on their trusted Serial

MIDI interface." said Waldo LaTowsky, Griffin MIDI Specialist.

Pricing & Availability

Final Vinyl Version 1.0 for OS X and Griffin gPort Serial MIDI Driver for OS

X 10.2.3 are available immediately as a free download at

www.griffintechnology.com.

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MindVision Software Releases FileStorm 1.5

MindVision Software, the leading developer of software

delivery tools for Macintosh, today announced the release of FileStorm 1.5

and FileStorm Pro 1.5 for Mac OS X. The newest version of FileStorm adds

improved functionality, extensive customization capabilities, and increased

compatibility. Not only does this new version provide an extensive set of

capabilities not available in other disk image utilities, it is now also

the only tool that can create a disk image or CD on Mac OS X 10.2 that is

completely backwards-compatible on Mac OS X 10.1.

FileStorm and FileStorm Pro are easy to use tools designed to quickly

package and deliver Mac OS X software products - making it easier than ever

to create disk images, CD's, and installers for electronic distribution.

FileStorm delivers the capability to easily control the look and feel of

disk images or CD's with customized backgrounds, icon placement and much

more, all from a rich WYSIWYG visual user interface.

FileStorm 1.5 adds enhanced options for controlling the size, selection,

and alignment of icons on disk images. FileStorm disk images can now be

assigned multi-language license agreements that are displayed to the user

when the image is mounted. There are also more options for disk image

creation, including the ability to choose from multiple formats (DMG or

IMG), create read-only and read-only compressed images, and additionally

post-process encode (GZip, BZip, MacBinary, and BinHex) your images to make

them ready for downloading from your web site.

FileStorm 1.5 also features a much improved interface for disc burning that

supports additional burners, allows selection between multiple burners, and

controls burn speed, post-burn verification, ejection, and desktop mounting.

FileStorm Pro 1.5 installers are very flexible and have more options than

ever for customization. The installer look can now be tailored with a

custom installer background. Additionally, FileStorm installers and

uninstallers can be configured to execute shell scripts not only during

installation, but also at launch and at exit of the installer. Also, the

installer now performs much more extensive version checking of an existing

file before replacing it during installation.

For a full listing of enhancements or to download and purchase FileStorm

and FileStorm Pro, please visit the MindVision web site at

http://www.mindvision.com/filestorm.

About MindVision Software

Founded in 1987, MindVision is a recognized industry leader specializing in

software delivery systems for Macintosh and Windows. Installer VISE has

long been the industry standard installer for the Macintosh, and is

recognized as an excellent choice for Windows. Thousands of software

companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Netscape, Macromedia, AOL,

Connectix and FileMaker have come to rely on our software to deliver

professional, easy-to-use installers to their customers.

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iClip - a multi clipboard utility for Mac OS X

Go beyond the limitations of a single Clipboard!



Inventive, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of iClip, a utility that helps users get past the limitations of a single Clipboard. iClip allows users to quickly copy & paste and drag & drop various clippings to and from its multiple "clipping bins" so that they can be easily accessed in the applications they're using.



iClip features:

• can be oriented either vertically or horizontally



• adjustable clipping bin sizes



• clippings can quickly be dragged & dropped from your applications onto iClip and back again



• clippings can also be copied & pasted to and from iClip



• is always readily accessible because it floats above all windows



• can easily be collapsed or hidden

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iLife now shipping

It has been reported that Apple has begun shipping its orders for iLife 1.0 today, for both U.S. and international orders. Most speculate that iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 will be available for download on Friday.

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Apple 20'' disply incompatible with MacOS 9

MacInTouch reports that Apple's new 20" Cinema Display isn't compatible with MacOS 9, as confirmed by the specs listed on Apple's info page about that display, which lists 10.2 as the minimum system. Readers report that the display won't function when booted in 9, although classic does work.

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Apple Introduces 20" Cinema Display at Breakthrough Price

Continuing its industry leadership

in flat panel display technology, Apple∆ today introduced the 20-inch Apple

Cinema Display∆, a professional-quality, wide-format active-matrix LCD with

1680-by-1050 pixel resolution at a breakthrough price of $1,299 (US). A

perfect complement to Apple's new Power Mac∆ G4 desktops and ideal for

demanding color work, the all-digital 20-inch flat panel display provides

more work area than Apple's previous 22-inch Cinema Display.



Apple also dramatically reduced the price of its 23-inch Cinema HD Display,

with 1920-by-1200 pixel resolution-enough to view High Definition

Television (HDTV) content with room to spare-from $3,499 (US) to an amazing

$1,999 (US). Widely regarded as the finest quality flat panel display in

the industry, the 23-inch Cinema HD Display is now within the reach of

almost every professional user. Apple also reduced the price of its 17-inch

Studio Display∆, providing 1280-by-1024 pixels, from $999 (US) to just $699

(US).

"The new 20-inch Cinema Display, with its 1680-by-1050 resolution, offers

more pixels than our previous 22-inch product," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's

vice president of Hardware Product Marketing. "We've priced it very

aggressively at $1,299 (US) so that almost everyone can now afford a

stunning, widescreen Cinema Display."

Apple's Cinema Display features an active-matrix, liquid crystal display

that incorporates a pure digital interface to deliver superior,

distortion-free images that never need adjusting. Like the current 17-inch

and 23-inch flat panel displays, the new 20-inch Cinema Display is designed

for use in the most demanding color environments. Using the industry's best

wide viewing angle technology, Apple flat panel displays provide maximum

color quality even when viewing images off-axis.

With a broad color gamut that stays consistent edge-to-edge, Apple flat

panel displays are easy to calibrate using measurement devices such as the

GretagMacbeth Eye-One calibrator to create ColorSync∆ profiles for use with

Apple's ColorSync or other color management systems, such as Integrated

Color Solutions, Inc. Recognized providers of innovative tools for

advancing color management technology, ICS relied solely on Apple's Cinema

Display and breakthrough Cinema HD Display to develop Remote Director 2.0,

the first display-based proofing system to be certified by SWOP

Incorporated. The prestigious SWOP certification means Remote Director 2.0

can be used to approve jobs for press production on-screen without the need

for hard-copy proofs providing significant time and cost savings for print

professionals.

The Cinema Display is less than two inches thick while providing a wide

format design (16:10 aspect ratio), allowing customers to easily view a

full 11-inch by 17-inch two-page spread, a complex illustration or view a

DVD movie, making it the ultimate display for the creative or technical

professional. Based on Apple's award-winning design, the Cinema Display

offers the innovative Apple Display Connector (ADC) that carries the

digital video signal, USB data and power over a single cable to simplify

setup and minimize cable clutter on the desktop. The Cinema Display also

provides a self-powered, two-port USB hub for easy connections to

peripherals.

Pricing & Availability

Apple's 17-inch (diagonal) Studio Display, new 20-inch (diagonal) Cinema

Display and 23-inch (diagonal) Cinema HD Display are all available now

through the Apple Store∆ (www.apple.com), at Apple's retail stores and

Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $699 (US),

$1,299 (US) and $1,999 (US), respectively.

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Unsanity Releases WindowShade X 2.1.2

Jan 28, 2003 -- Unsanity LLC announces a minor update to WindowShade X. This minor update fixes several bugs including X11 compatibility.



WindowShade X 2.1.2

Description: Brings WindowShade functionality into Mac OS X.


Download: http://www.unsanity.net/windowshade-x-212.dmg


Changes in this version:

• Rewrote the part for Cocoa applications from scratch.
  
  
• Exclude list is enhanced so it is now possible to exclude Microsoft Office X applications, among others.
  
  
• Updated with Application Enhancer 1.2.1.
  
  
• Fixed the issues when minimizing the windows for X11 applications.
  
  
• Fixed a bug causing an unattended drawer to hang on screen after minimizing to Dock a windowshaded window.
  
  
• Fixed a bug with window expanding issues after disabling WindowShade X.
  
  
• Fixed a bug with sounds not playing when doing all windows minimization.
  
  
• Fixed a bug with sheets in Microsoft Word X (fix only works under Mac OS X 10.2).
  
  
• Fixed a bug with disappearing rename field in the Finder (it still is present in different form, due to a bug in Finder itself).
  
  
• Fixed a bug with Mail.app not being able to double-click a message after s minimizing of a main window.
  
  
• Fixed a bug with Mail.app disabling certain menu items after minimizing of a main window.
  
  

Unsanity LLC is the creator of other popular haxies such as Application Enhancer, WindowShade X, FruitMenu, Xounds, Dock Detox, Silk, Cee Pee You, and ShadowKiller. Unsanity is dedicated to providing quality software for the Macintosh community.

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Interarchy 6.1 released

Interarchy, the popular Mac FTP client, has been updated to version 6.1.

Interarchy 6.1 adds Rendezvous support and fixes several bugs. This upgrade is free to Interarchy 6.0 owners.

For more information or to download a copy, visit www.interarchy.com.

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Apple announces new PowerMac G4s

Apple today announced speed-bumped Power Mac G4s based on XServe architecture, featuring a choice of a single 1 GHz, dual-1.25 GHz or dual-1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 processors with prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,700.

The new models feature FireWire 800 & Bluetooth and support Airport Extreme. The 1 GHz model features a NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics card, while the others have a Radeon 9000 Pro.

The standard configurations are:

• 1GHz PowerPC G4 / 133MHz system bus / 1MB L3 Cache / 256MB PC2100 266MHz DDR SDRAM / 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive / Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) / NVIDIA GeForce4 MX with 64MB DDR SDRAM
  
  

  
  
  

• Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 / 167MHz system bus / 1MB L3 Cache per processor / 256MB PC2700 333MHz DDR SDRAM / 80GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive / Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) / ATI Radeon 9000 Pro with 64MB DDR SDRAM
  
  

  
  
  

• Dual 1.42GHz PowerPC G4 / 167MHz system bus / 2MB L3 Cache per processor / 512MB PC2700 333MHz DDR SDRAM / 120GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive / SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) / ATI Radeon 9000 Pro with 64MB DDR SDRAM
  
  

Software includes Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), iLife, including iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD (requires SuperDrive), QuickBooks for Mac New User Edition, FAXstf, Art Directors Toolkit, Microsoft Office v.X Test Drive, FileMaker Pro Trial, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, Graphic Converter, QuickTime, iChat, DVD Player, Mail, Microsoft Internet Explorer, EarthLink, Acrobat Reader and Apple Developer Tools

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YourSQL - The simple MacOSX program for MySQL

Magister Ludi releases YourSQL version 1.0, a free, Open Source MacOSX

application that lets everyone create a MySQL database from the Mac with a

few mouse clicks. It even supports activation of some of the more advanced

features of MySQL, such as indices, without requiring advanced technical

knowledge from the users.



YourSQL is the first Open Source Aqua-compliant application for MySQL

developers to reach version 1.0.

With YourSQL you can create and modify complete MySQL databases for typical

database-driven web sites without resorting to complicated command-line

tools. YourSQL's elegant database browser further provides instant access

to all databases on your network, whether they are installed under MacOSX,

Linux or Windows.

A special feature allows the creation on one-column indices and primary

keys. Indices are the secret behind the famed speed of MySQL, and by

allowing their creation by the click of a toolbar button, this technique

has become within reach of all web site developers.

With the advent of MacOSX, the Mac has become an obvious choice of platform

for web developers, unifying the graphical, user-oriented work of the Mac

universe with the back-end, advanced database functionality of the

Linux/Unix realm, from which MySQL is born.

To make the transition complete, true Aqua-compliant, MacOSX native

applications are needed for creation and editing of the traditional Unix

services which are being ported to MacOSX in this period.

YourSQL fills this gap regarding MySQL.

The application can be downloaded from:

http://www.mludi.net/YourSQL

Magister Ludi s.r.l. is a human-factors centered software and training

house based in Milan, Italy, specialized in Computer Based Training for the

Aviation industry and development of graphical interfaces and user-friendly

software for the web.

Also check out CocoaMySQL.

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Get an iLife

This week, Apple will unveil iLife, their award-winning software for Digital Music, Photography, Moviemaking and DVD Creation, taken to the next level. MacCenter of Fort Lauderdale is having a special all-day event on Saturday, with presentations and demonstrations on how to "Get an iLife".

"Get an iLife" Event Schedule Saturday, February 1, 2003
12:00 PM	iLife Overview
01:00 PM	iLife Demo
02:00 PM	iLife Overview
03:00 PM	iLife Demo
04:00 PM	iLife Overview
05:00 PM	iLife Demo
06:00 PM	Giveaway Drawings!

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OpenEXR for Mac OS X

OpenEXR is a high dynamic-range image file format developed by Industrial Light & Magic for use in computer imaging applications.

OpenEXR has already been used by ILM on 4 major motion pictures -- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Men in Black II, Gangs of New York, and Signs -- and is also being used on several other movies currently in production.

OpenEXR's features include:

• Higher dynamic range and color precision than existing 8- and 10-bit image file formats.
  
  
• Support for 16-bit floating-point pixels. The pixel format, called "half," is compatible with the half datatype in NVidia's Cg graphics language and is supported natively on their new GeForce FX and Quadro FX 3D graphics solutions.
  
  
• Multiple lossless image compression algorithms. Some of the included codecs can achieve 2:1 lossless compression ratios on images with film grain.
  
  
• Extensibility. New compression codecs and image types can easily be added by extending the C++ classes included in the OpenEXR software distribution. New image attributes (strings, vectors, integers, etc.) can be added to OpenEXR image headers without affecting backward compatibility with existing OpenEXR applications.
  
  

• IlmImf, a library that reads and writes OpenEXR images.
  
  
• Half, a C++ class for manipulating half values as if they were a built-in C++ datatype.
  
  
• Imath, a math library with support for matrices, 2d- and 3d-transformations, solvers for linear/quadratic/cubic equations, and more.
  
  
• exrdisplay, a sample application for viewing OpenEXR images on a display at various exposure settings.
  
  

For more information and to download the source, visit http://www.openexr.org/.

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Microsoft SQL Server vulnerability

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 contains a vulnerability that allows remote attackers to create a denial-of-service condition between two Microsoft SQL servers. This was responsible for a widespread internet slowdown earlier today.

Description

The SQL Server Resolution Service (SSRS) was introduced in Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to provide referral services for multiple server instances running on the same machine. The service listens for requests on UDP port 1434 and returns the address and port number of the SQL server instance that provides access to the requested database.

In addition to providing referrals, the SSRS is capable of replying to "ping" messages from other SQL servers to confirm its presence on a network. When the service receives such a message, it replies to the transmitting host with an identical reply message. In normal operation, the SSRS service is responsible for replying to ping messages sent by an SQL Server and does not initiate them. However, an attacker can create a forged ping message to one instance of the SSRS (Victim A, port 1434) that appears to originate from another instance (Victim B, port 1434), causing Victim A and Victim B to continuously exchange messages. This cycle will continue to consume server and network resources until one of the servers stops sending packets for one of several reasons, including a restart of the SQL Server, a reboot of the server host, or a network failure.

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to initiate a denial-of-service attack between two affected servers.

Solution

Microsoft has published Security Bulletin MS02-039 to address this vulnerability. For more information, please see



http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-039.asp

As a workaround, system administrators can use a firewall to block port 1434/udp at an appropriate network border, thus preventing external attackers from exploiting this vulnerability.

For more information, visit http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/370308.

This is yet another reason to use alternatives such as MySQL.

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Code your way to world domination!

Sillysoft announces the LuxAgent SDK and Lux version 1.3. Lux brings the classic game of world domination to the modern age. Put your strategery to the test against ten different enemy agents on over a billion different worlds!

Everyone has taken over the world by utilizing the tried and tested point-and-click method, but now there's another way. Sillysoft is proud to introduce the LuxAgent SDK, with everything you need to code your own AI for Lux.

The SDK includes detailed API documentation as well as the full source code of all the agents that ship with Lux. This example code is licensed under the GNU GPL. (The programming language used is Java).

The SDK can be found at http://sillysoft.net/LuxAgentSDK.php

To accompany the SDK, Sillysoft has also released version 1.3 of Lux. In addition to supporting third-party AI's, version 1.3 introduces multiple board themes (with instructions to make your own), a record book, and a fresh 20 game trial period.

Lux is being distributed as shareware. The demo version is limited to 20 games.

Registration costs $10 US.

Details and screenshots are available at http://sillysoft.net.

Or download Lux directly from http://sillysoft.net/Lux.dmg


(mirror: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dsacks/Lux.dmg)

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Terragen for Macintosh

The first public beta of Terragen, a high-quality photorealistic landscape generator, is now available for Mac OS X and MacOS 9 with CarbonLib.

Terragen for Macintosh has some unique features that the PC version does not. Some of these features will likely make their way into the PC version at some point in time, but many of them will remain unique to TG Mac. For more information on what Terragen can do in general, please visit the official Terragen website.

Terragen for Macintosh takes advantage of QuickTime, OpenGL, AltiVec, and AppleScript.

For more information and to sign up for the public beta, visit http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/mac/index.html.

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Apple iLife Delayed Until Next Week

Although not officially acknowledged by Apple yet, iLife has been delayed until next week (possibly February 1st). iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 downloads have also been postponed until later on as well. Speculation has it that Apple will release Mac OS X 10.2.4 first. (The new OS is already installed on new shipping PowerBook G4 12").

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PowerBook 12'' Hard Disk Swap

This page illustrates how to open a 12" PowerBook and replace the hard drive. Note that this will void your warranty. Do it at your own risk!

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Happy Birthday, Macintosh

19 years ago today, on January 24, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh.

The original Macintosh sold for $2600, with an 8 MHz 68000 processor, 128K of RAM, and a single floppy drive. The only software available when it originally shipped was MacPaint, MacWrite, which were soon followed by Microsoft Basic & Multiplan.

I bought my first Macintosh (Serial number F4040USM0001) a month later. Since then I've owned a Mac Plus, SE/30, IIsi, PowerMac 6100, PowerBook 100, Duo 270c, Motorola StarMax, Blue & White G3/350, iBook SE/466 (Graphite), G4/500 AGP Minitower (which I'm now using), and a 2001 iBook (Dual USB).

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Easily toggle graphics in Mail

Two recent Apple KnowledgeBase articles discuss how HTML graphics in mail relate to spam and how to turn HTML graphics on or off. Instead of making a trip to the Preferences window to change the HTML graphics option, here's a simple AppleScript to toggle that option.

Create the following script and either run it as an application or place it in your scripts folder to run from the script menu.

tell application "Mail"



	set showgfx to not (download html attachments)



	set download html attachments to showgfx



	if showgfx is true then



		say "Graphics on"



	else



		say "Graphics off"



	end if



end tell

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12'' Powerbooks arrive at dealers

Several Apple dealers, including MacCenter of Fort Lauderdale have received shipments of 12" PowerBook G4s. As far as I know, only the Combo Drive model seems to be available.

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Experimental version of Phoenix for Mac OS X

An experimental version of Phoenix for Mac OS X is now available from http://www.kmgerich.com/misc.html. Note that this isn't a Mozilla.org product. Please don't contact Mozilla.org regarding this build as it is not supported.

Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.

Note that this isn't a finished product and is less stable than Chimera.

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iCommune will be reborn

The author of iCommune has decided to give it a new future independent of iTunes.

Here's what the next version will be:

• a stand-alone application that manages network accessible music libraries
  
  
• able to generate and manage playlists for your favorite mp3 player
  
  
• able to communicate with and control your mp3 player using AppleEvents
  
  
• Rendezvous-enabled
  
  
• built with a robust indexer and XML format that properly handles non-ASCII characters
  
  
• completely free of any Apple proprietary code or interface use
  
  
• completely open source under the GPL
  
  

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Rainjul Announces Aizai Best New Channels Contest

Rainjul announces its Best New Channels contest. Rainjul will be giving away ten free copies of Aizai to the creators of the best new channels on the Aizai Channel Service Network. Channels will be judged on most original, inventive and just-plain-fun. No purchase is necessary to particpate. Contest starts January 23, 2003 and ends March 1, 2003. The winners will be announced on March 15, 2003.









Aizai is the first technology to allow individuals and groups to view, create and distribute digital photos, movies, music, web pages, documents and folders via virtual television channels. Aizai runs on Apple Computer's Mac OS X Jaguar.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE









Contact:




Steven W. Schuldt




Rainjul L.L.C.




Telephone: 860-868-1773




Fax: 916-405-3379




Email: swschuldt@rainjul.com




www.rainjul.com/aizai/














Rainjul Announces Aizai Best New Channels Contest









FOLSOM, CA, USA, January 23, 2003 - Today, Rainjul announced its Best New Channels contest. Rainjul http://www.rainjul.com/aizai/ will be giving away ten free copies of Aizai to the creators of the best new channels on the Aizai Channel Service Network. Aizai is the first technology to allow individuals and groups to view, create and distribute digital photos, movies, music, web pages, documents and folders via virtual television channels. Aizai runs on Apple Computer's Mac OS X Jaguar.









"Aizai has been called the next step in web publishing and surfing. We're going to be giving free copies to the creators of the ten most original, inventive and just-plain-fun new channels on our network," said Steven W. Schuldt, creator of Aizai, "there's never been a better time to launch your own channel."









The Best New Channels contest begins today and ends March 1, 2003. Winners will be announced March 15, 2003. No purchase is necessary to participate. Technical support is available through the website.









Aizai, downloadable as a demo, comes complete with Aizai Global Tuner and Aizai Global Broadcaster. A single user license costs $29.95 (US) and can be purchased via Kagi or PayPal. Registered users of Aizai get five starter channels on the Aizai Channel Service Network. Aizai runs on Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar or higher.









For more information: http://www.rainjul.com/aizai/




Contact: swschuldt@rainjul.com or 860-868-1773

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A Better Finder Select 3.0 beta 1 for Mac OS X released

PUBLICSPACE.NET is pleased to announce version 3.0 beta 1 of its "A Better

Finder Select" Macintosh Finder enhancement.



This is the first version of the popular Finder file filtering utility for

Mac OS X. The product has been rewritten from scratch to take full

advantage of Mac OS X's powerful Cocoa programming interface. This first

version already includes wildcard and regular expression file name

matching, invocation via Finder contextual menu or drag & drop, persistent

settings, etc.

A Better Finder SELECT is shareware and costs $9.95. Upon popular demand,

we now also offer forever upgrades and licenses.

The new version can be downloaded from:

http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderSelect/

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

A Better Finder Select is a contextual menu plugin for the Macintosh Finder

that allows power users to filter file selections based on a range of

criteria.

The simplest selection method is via partial file name matches, e.g.

"select all files which end in '.gif'", or "select all files which contain

the word 'web'". Unix-style wildcard matches such as "image*.gif" provide a

more powerful alternative, but it is the regular expression matching ,

familiar to BBEdit , Grep or Perl users that provide the ultimate file

selection mechanism.

If all this sounds a bit complicated to you, don't worry. A Better Finder

Select features a simple and intuitive user interface. Simply download it

and give it a try! You soon won't want to live without it!

A Better Finder Select is the ideal companion for " A Better Finder Rename", which allows users to rename multiple files quickly and effectively. In

the same tool series, "A Better Finder Creators & Types" allows you to

redefine file-to-application associations by setting the file's creator and

type codes.

Together the tools of the A Better Finder series (according to MacGadget)

provide "a lean, mean file handling machine".

FEATURE LIST

Many powerful search features:

• use UNIX-style wild cards to select files, eg. *.doc, image*.gif, etc.
  
  
• use Grep or Perl-style regular expressions
  
  
• select all files that contain a particular character string
  
  
• select all files that begin with a particular character string
  
  
• select all files that end in a particular character string
  
  

• fully integrated with the Finder via the contextual menu
  
  
• drop the files onto the application icon
  
  

• interactive and automatic modes
  
  
• persistent settings (the tool will automatically remember your last
  
  settings)
  
  
• fully integrated with the Macintosh Finder
  
  

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Unsanity Releases Application Enhancer and APE SDK Updates

Unsanity LLC announces the immediate availability of Application Enhancer 1.2.1 and Application Enhancer SDK 1.2.1.



Application Enhancer 1.2.1

Description: System which allows for modules to modify and enhance the way applications behave and operate.


Download: http://www.unsanity.net/ape-121.dmg

Changes in this version:

• Enhanced APE Manager preference pane so the links in the module information panes can be clickable.
  
  
• Holding down the Shift key at login now will display an "Application Enhancer disabled" message.
  
  
• Expanded the Application Enhancer SDK (available as a separate download for software developers).
  
  
• Fixed two small memory leaks.
  
  

Description: Software Developers Kit to create APE modules.


Download: http://www.unsanity.net/apesdk-121.dmg

Application Enhancer is distributed at no cost, but the modules which use it are priced as each developer sees fit. For a list of APE modules, please visit:

http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/ape/

http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/

Contacts:

Public Relations:

feedback@unsanity.com

General:

unsanity@unsanity.com

Unsanity LLC


http://www.unsanity.com/


521 South 100 East


St. George, UT 84770


USA

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''Welcome Safari User''

If you visit Apple's web site with Safari, you'll now see a Safari icon at the top with the words "Welcome Safari User".

I hope this doesn't mean Apple will offer features that only work with Safari and/or eventually lock out other browsers or limit functionality.

Right now the Mac has several excellent browser alternatives, including Chimera & OmniWeb. I hope Apple doesn't crush the smaller developers with Safari.

Yesterday, Mike Pinkerton, one of the Chimera developers, mused about possibly giving up on the project. It would be a great loss if Apple's promotion of Safari kills one of the best browsers currently available.

In its current form, Safari isn't completely usable as my primary browser. In particular, it has a problem with logging in to PHP-Nuke based sites such as MacMegasite and MacMerc as well as many others.

Also, and this is a matter of personal choice, I really dislike the way Safari manages bookmarks. When you switch to the bookmark view, you can't see your web page at the same time, as you can in most other browsers where bookmarks open in a drawer. Also, most of the bookmarks listed in the view aren't included in the bookmark menu unless you specifically put them there. Since I use the bookmark menu as my primary way to access bookmarks, I find that a major pain.

On the plus side, I do like Safari's integrated Google search and Snapback feature.

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G4 DDR RAM PC2700 is recognised as DDR PC2600 in Apple Hardware Test 1.2.6

In using the only Hardware Test Available to me Apple Hardware Test 1.2.6, I have been surprised by the lack of reality in the Description of the DDR PC2700 Apple approved RAM from my supplier here in Surfers Paradise Australia.



After running the test numerous times I have received the Description on the RAM mofules by the Test as DDR PC 2600 RAM.









This surprised me after being sure that the only RAM for this machine that should be used is DDR PC2700.









After contacting support here in Australia, and not receiving a satisfactory answer, I am bemused by the fact that the stickers on the RAM clearly state DDR-PC2700.









Why I ask is a new G4 Dual Processor 2x1G, 3 months old, not able to tell me specifically the correct nature of the the RAM installed in my machine.









I ask why is there no Alternative Test available for OS 10.2.3 to verify these details?









I have had the RAM replaced twice to see if there is any improvement and receive the same message. DDR-PC2600.









I find this not only very annoying but a downright nuisance considering the claims made by Apple about their wonderful new operating system which is incapble of being verified.









Does anyboby have a serious explanation for this phenomena?









I hope someone does, because Apple don't.









Pablo

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Over 1 million downloads of Safari

Apple today announced that they have had over 1 million downloads of Safari in less than 2 weeks since January 7th. Jobs quotes that "Mac users have discovered that Safari beta release is already the fastest browser on the Mac and possibly the best browser in the world."

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Many Games affected by QuickTime 6.1

Since the release of QuickTime 6.1 by Apple, many games (namely by Aspyr and Feral ) have been broken. They have since posted updates to their games such as F1 Championship Season 2000, Sim Theme Park, and more. You can find these updates on their web sites (linked above).

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Review: ATI Radeon 9000 Pro

I just wrote a review of ATI's new Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition video card.

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ATI Radeon 9000 Pro

Since upgrading to Jaguar, I found that I missed the benefits of Quartz Extreme on my G4/500 AGP minitower due to its underpowered ATI Rage 128 Pro video card. After looking at several video options, I decided on ATI's new Radeon 9000 Pro.





The card features 64M of RAM and supports dual monitors with both DVI and ADC connectors at resolutions of up to 1900x1200. A DVI-to-VGA adapter is included for use with older monitors (such as my ProView LCD display).





Installation took less than 5 minutes and was completely painless. When I turned on my machine, the first thing I noticed was the "shadow" cursor, indicating that Quartz Extreme is supported.





My first test was iTunes Visuals, which were limited to 15-20 FPS with my old video card. With the Radeon 9000 I saw rates of 40-60 FPS. I also noticed that scrolling & window dragging seems much more snappy.





Apple's X11 shows a very noticeable performance increase, and when I use DesktopEffects to run my screen saver on the desktop, the slowdown is minimal. With the old video card, my machine was completely unusable when I ran Desktop Effects. Tony Hawk 2 runs much more smoothly and textures such as grass look a lot better than they did with the Rage 128 Pro.





The board sells for $168 or less (I got it for $158 from MacWarehouse). If you have an older G4 with an AGP slot, this is an excellent upgrade that will give you a nice performance boost at a reasonable price.

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Speed up your web surfing with Apache

Mac OS X's built-in web server can act as a caching web proxy to speed up your web surfing by caching graphics and other page elements locally.

To enable Apache's built-in caching proxy server, edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf (note that it has to be edited as root or you won't be able to save changes). If you're not familiar with Unix editors such as Emacs or Vi, you can use TextEdit app by typing:

sudo open -a TextEdit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf

After you save the changes, restart Apache by entering the following command in the terminal window:

sudo apachectl restart

Next, go to your network preference panel, switch to the proxies tab and enter 127.0.0.1 and port 80 for the web proxy. Make sure the web proxy check box is checked and click Apply Now.

You should then be able to access all web sites normally, but you should see faster loads when you return to a site as the cached graphics are loaded locally.

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Apple posts net loss of $8 million

Apple∆ today announced financial results for its fiscal 2003 first quarter ended December 28, 2002. For the quarter, the Company posted a net loss of $8 million, or $.02 per share. These results compare to a net profit of $38 million, or $.11 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenues for the quarter were $1.47 billion, up 7 percent from the year-ago quarter, and gross margins were 27.6 percent, down from 30.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 43 percent of the quarter’s revenues.

The quarter’s results included a $17 million after-tax restructuring charge and a $2 million after-tax accounting transition adjustment. Excluding these non-recurring items, the Company’s net profit for the quarter would have been $11 million, or $.03 per share.

Apple shipped 743 thousand Macintosh∆ units during the quarter, about even with the year-ago quarter.

“We have a very strong new product pipeline for 2003, which we kicked off by introducing the two most advanced notebook computers in the industry last week at Macworld,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re going to keep investing through this downturn and continue to move our products and distribution channels ever further ahead of our competitors, so that when the economy rebounds we will be positioned for growth.”

“We were extremely pleased with our ability to achieve our revenue target for the first quarter while reducing channel inventories by 11 percent within the quarter,” said Fred Anderson, Apple’s CFO. “Continued strong asset management enabled us to increase cash to over $4.4 billion. Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2003, we expect revenue to be relatively flat with the December quarter, and expect a slight profit for the quarter.”

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iCommune threatened by Apple

The author of iCommune, a music sharing plugin for iTunes, has received a "Notice of Breach and Termination of License" letter from Apple, stating that he violated the license to the Device Plug-in API which iCommune uses. For the time being, he's making the download unavailable, while he tries to sort things out with Apple. Any good lawyers in the house?



Here's a copy of Apple's letter:

Subject: Notice of Breach and Termination of License




Dear Mr. Speth,

It has come to our attention that you are distributing a software program

called iCommune that violates the terms of the Apple Computer, Inc. iTunes

Device Plug-In SDK Agreement you executed. The iTunes SDK materials are

licensed only for the purpose of enabling the Licensee's hardware device

identified in the agreement to interoperate with iTunes. The iTunes SDK is

not licensed for use in a software program for sharing of music over a

network. Your distribution of this program is a violation of the license

agreement and of Apple's intellectual property rights.

Due to your breach of the agreement, Apple hereby gives notice of

termination of your license agreement pursuant to Section 7.2 of the

agreement and demands that you cease distribution of the iCommune program

immediately and return the iTunes SDK materials to Apple.

Please contact me as soon as you receive this notice to confirm that you are

taking immediate action to cease violating the agreement, and in particular,

to cease distributing your iCommune software.

Sincerely,

[deleted]


Sr. Director, Products Law


Apple Computer, Inc.

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Rainjul Open Sources Aizai Internet Channel Server for Mac OS X Jaguar

Today, Rainjul L.L.C. released Aizai Open Channel Server, an open source version of its internet channel server software. Aizai is the first technology to allow individuals and groups to view, create and distribute digital photos, movies, music, web pages, documents and folders via virtual television channels. Aizai runs on Apple Computer’s Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).

“Aizai has been called the next step in web publishing and surfing and we're committed to opening this amazing technology. The Aizai Open Channel Server is available for free download starting today," said Steven W. Schuldt, creator of Aizai, "we're giving developers an entirely new platform on which to build next-generation products and services."

The Aizai Open Channel Server conforms to the newly released CHTP-A draft specification. "We chose to build the Open Channel Server on the premiere web services platform, Apple's WebObjects," said Mr. Schuldt, “now everyone in small business, education, government and corporate environments can explore deploying their own channel service networks and establishing new kinds of public or private information services.“

Aizai, downloadable as an expiring, fully functional demo, comes complete with Aizai Global Tuner and Aizai Global Broadcaster. A single user license costs $29.95 (US) and can be purchased via Kagi or PayPal. Registered users of Aizai get five starter channels on the Aizai Channel Service Network. Aizai runs on Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar or higher.

For more information: http://www.rainjul.com/aizai/




Contact: swschuldt@rainjul.com or 860-868-1773

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CocoaMySQL

CocoaMySQL is a free, open source application to manage MySQL databases (locally or over internet). It lets you add and remove databases and tables, change fields and indexes, view and filter the content of tables, add, edit and remove rows, perform custom queries and dump tables or entire databases.

CocoaMySQL is written in Cocoa and Objective-C and uses the SMySQL framework by Serge Cohen (no relation) to connect to the MySQL-Server. It is distributed under the GNU Public License and is therefore absolutely free (including the source code).

Features

• connect to multiple MySQL-Servers locally or over internet (document-based application)
  
  
• quickly connect to favorite MySQL-Servers
  
  
• create and drop databases
  
  
• create, drop and duplicate tables or change table names
  
  
• create, change or drop fields and indexes
  
  
• view, sort and filter table content by fields and keywords
  
  
• add, edit and remove rows
  
  
• perform custom queries
  
  
• dump tables or entire databases as backup- or CSV-files
  
  

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Buy a new PowerBook

In this article, Dan Knight advises against buying the new 12" and 17" PowerBooks because they won't boot OS 9. I say go ahead and buy one - I plan to do so in the next few months.



Dan says:

My advice is that you avoid the two new PowerBooks and any X-only Macs until you know that all of your hardware and software will work just fine under Mac OS X -- and until there is a good selection of diagnostic and repair utilities that run under OS X and can boot from a CD.

The few times I've booted 9 I find myself crippled by being unable to use many of my applications which are OSX only. I also lose access to my email & contacts since I use Mail.app and Apple's address book.

I plan to replace my 500 MHz iBook (Dual USB) with a 12" PowerBook. This is almost exactly the machine I wanted: basically a G4-based iBook with all of the advantages plus the speed of a G4. It could even replace my G4 minitower (the original 500 MHz AGP model) as my primary system since it's faster and supports an external monitor.

I never liked the 15" TiBook because of the fragile case & limited airport range and the 17" PowerBook is just too big to travel with. A 12" PowerBook, like my old iBook, is a perfect travel companion.

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BESTCapture Plug-in v1.1 for REALbasic

BESTCapture Plug-in enables REALbasic developers to quickly and easily add

audio and video capture features to their applications. Whether you need

single image capture, audio recording, or full blown video capture,

BESTCapture Plug-in can meet your needs.



Version 1.1 adds the following new features:

• Save and Restore User Settings
  
  
• Black Level
  
  
• Brightness
  
  
• Contrast
  
  
• Hue
  
  
• Saturation
  
  
• Sharpness
  
  
• White Level
  
  

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e-CryptItEngine 7.0 for REALbasic

e-CryptIt Engine is a REALbasic plugin to do encryption, encoding,

compression, checksums and hashing.



Main features:

Encryption:

• e-CryptIt - (Chained) (PPC, Carbon, x86)
  
  
• Blowfish ECB unchained mode
  
  (64 bit blocks - up to 448 bit key) (PPC,Carbon, x86)
  
  
• Blowfish CBC chained mode
  
  (64 bit blocks - up to 448 bit key) (PPC,Carbon, x86)
  
  
• Twofish ECB unchained mode
  
  (128 bit blocks - 128,192 and 256 bit keys) (PPC,Carbon, x86)
  
  
• Twofish CBC chained mode
  
  (128 bit blocks - 128,192 and 256 bit keys) (PPC,Carbon, x86)
  
  

• e-CryptIt Flexible (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• Base64 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• BinHex (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• MacBinary III (PPC,Carbon)
  
  
• AppleSingle / Double (PPC,Carbon)
  
  
• UUCoding (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  

• Zip on strings (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• Zip on filestreams (.z format) (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  

• CRC32 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• Adler32 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  

• MD5 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• SHA (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• SHA1 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  

• HMAC-MD5 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  
• HMAC-SHA1 (PPC,Carbon,x86)
  
  

• Added a BlowfishECB class (This replaces the old functions).
  
  
• Added a BlowfishCBC class which adds a CBC chained
  
  Blowfish encryption to the plugin.
  
  
• Added a TwofishECB class which adds a ECB unchained
  
  Twofish encryption to the plugin.
  
  
• Added a TwofishCBC class which adds a CBC chained
  
  Twofish encryption to the plugin.
  
  
• Added a IEncryptionAlgorithm Interface which BlowfishECB
  
  BlowfishCBC, TwofishECB and TwofishCBC implement.
  
  
• Removed the old function based BlowFish ECB encryption
  
  and all the ByRef string referencing relating to it.
  
  
• Added new example projects for the new algorithms.
  
  
• The ZStream class is now implemented with native
  
  MacOS calls rather that MSL calls making it 35% smaller on
  
  Carbon and 50% smaller on PPC.
  
  
• Fixed a bug with the ZStream that made it crash when used
  
  on OS 8.6.
  
  
• Fixed a minor memory leak in the ZStream constructor.
  
  
• The ZStream now Implements the IStreamWriter and
  
  IStreamReader Interface.
  
  
• The ZStream now can take IStreamReader and IStreamWriter
  
  as a constructor parameter, which add the ability to
  
  do in memory compression and decompression.
  
  

Bj‡rn Eir√ksson


bjorn@einhugur.com


Einhugur Software


einhugur@kagi.com


www.einhugur.com

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Solutions Etcetera Announces SuperEdit 4.1

Solutions Etcetera announces SuperEdit 4.1. Solutions

Etcetera announced today the availability of SuperEdit 4.1, a free upgrade

to SuperCard's powerful static editing environment.



"We're delighted to announce that with SuperEdit 4.1, full card and

background editing have now been implemented making the SuperCard/SuperEdit

combination the most powerful editing solution available in card based

authoring environments." said Scott Simon, director of product development

for Solutions Etcetera. "SuperEdit provides a fast and effective

environment for editing projects without script execution. This means

projects with idle handlers or other scripts that may get in the way of

editing at runtime are a snap to work with. It also means that making major

changes to projects such as copying complete menu sets or windows from one

project to another is as simple as copy and paste. SuperEdit's "Run"

command instantly launches your project into the SuperCard runtime for

testing of script based functionality, and closing your project returns you

to SuperEdit just as fast. "

The SuperEdit 4.1 Update is available now from the SuperCard web site at:

http://www.SuperCard.us/

For more information contact Solutions Etcetera:


http://www.SolutionsEtcetera.com


email: info@SolutionsEtcetera.com

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Simple Video Splicer Goes Open Source

Simple Video Splicer (SVS) is a basic video editing tool for

cropping/joining movies, images, and audio. Since iMovie 3 will finally be

able to do everything that SVS can do, the author has decided to make the project

source code openly available.



SVS and it's source can be found at http://www.chipersoft.com/svs.html

and http://www.chipersoft.com/svs_source.html.

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Free Mac Stuff

To celebrate a great first year, MacMerc is giving away loads of free stuff. The highlight for developers will probably be BBEdit, but there is lots of other stuff that would come in handy. You can only enter once, and the form will be up until midnight Friday.

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Safari update available

Apple has released an update to their Safari web browser, bringing it to beta version 51 (the initial release was v48).

There are no change notes, but I assume this fixes the problem that caused a few people to lose data by command-clicking on a download link. It doesn't fix the problem with logging into sites such as MacMegasite and MacMerc.

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Griffin unveils iTrip FM transmitter for iPod

After this weeks preview at Macworld

Expo in San Francisco, Griffin Technology, Inc. officially announces the

iTrip, an FM transmitter for the Apple iPod. Designed specifically for the

iPod, iTrip allows users to play the music from their iPod to any FM radio.

Users can now enjoy their iPod music collection in their cars or through any

home stereo.



The iTrip introduces several unique design innovations and industry firsts.

Super compact in size, the iTrip rests atop the iPod and attaches securely

to the headphone jack. The iTrip requires no batteries. It draws its minimum

power requirements directly from the iPod. Unlike other FM transmitters, the

iTrip is not limited to a few fixed frequencies. Users are able to select

stations from the entire FM band for complete flexibility. The iTrip will

retail for $35 and be shipping in Spring Ã03. Pre-orders are now being taken

at http://www.griffintechnology.com.

Griffin also announced that the long awaited PowerWave is now shipping. The

PowerWave is an extremely adaptable USB audio interface. The unit includes

high quality RCA stereo inputs and outputs, as well as providing real-time

headphone monitoring and stereo microphone input for recording scenarios.

The PowerWaveÃs compact 30-watt amplifier adds further functionality by

powering any set of un-powered speakers directly from the desktop. It also

is the only non-Apple device capable of driving the popular Apple Pro

Speakers. The PowerWave is $99.99 and is available now.

Special Macworld pricing on the PowerWave, iCurve and PowerMate has been

extended through the weekend. The iCurve is available for $5 off for a total

price of $34.99 and includes free shipping. The PowerWave is also available

with free shipping. The PowerMate USB Controller has a show special price of

$39.99, thatÃs $5 off the regular price of $45. These exclusive show

specials are available only online at http://www.griffintechnology.com until

6:00 PM CST Monday, January 13.

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Keynote File Stucture

I was lucky enough to get my hands on Keynote, so I figured I'd show everyone the cool new XML file structure. It really is XML based, and seems to be a great system. Hopefully some 3rd parties will jump on the bandwagon soon!

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QuickTime 6.1 Now Available

QuickTime 6.1, which is now available through the software update panel, delivers a number of quality and performance enhancements for audio, video, and full screen playback.



Enhancements include the following:

• MPEG-4 video provides more accurate rate control and improved visual quality.
  
  
• AAC includes new encoder controls and new bit rate options.
  
  
• DV includes significant encode and decode performance improvements.
  
  
• QuickTime Pro users will enjoy enhancements in full screen playback, including newly enabled keyboard shortcuts for movie control, faster entry and exit, and improved playback performance.
  
  

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OpenOSX Announces Apple X11 Compatibility

OpenOSX today

announced complete product compatibility with Apple's new X11 application;

bringing full Quartz graphic acceleration to the OpenOSX Product line. The

OpenOSX products that utilize X-Windows, the "UNIX" standard graphical

environment, will benefit from Apple's X11 application directly.

The OpenOSX products that utilize X-Windows are: OpenOSX Gimp, OpenOSX

Grass GIS, OpenOSX Office and the just released OpenOSX FilmGimp. These

products will benefit in dramatic performance and aesthetic improvements

when using Apple's X11 application in place of OroborOSX and/or XDarwin.

OpenOSX's product line is designed to not overwrite an existing version of

X11, including Apple's, Tenon's or OpenOSX's.

OpenOSX's diverse product line compiles and supports otherwise complicated,

tedious and unsupported Open Source software and system configuration by

simply clicking the product. No other software or additional experience is

required, even for OpenOSX's most complicated installations.

OpenOSX will continue to develop, market and support their OpenOSX XFree

product for those who may want a legacy installation of X-Windows, complete

with source code packaged on CD-ROM. The OpenOSX XFree product is the only

OpenOSX package that will directly conflict with and overwrite and existing

version of Apple's X11 application.

A complete OpenOSX Apple X11 compatibility statement is available at:

http://OpenOSX.com/support/Apple-X11.html.

For more information about OpenOSX, visit the OpenOSX web site at:

http://OpenOSX.com/.

OpenOSX is a company dedicated to serving, and expanding, the Macintosh

community. Founded on the premise that many computer users are intimidated

by the UNIX command-line, OpenOSX committed itself to one mission- bringing

popular Unix software to both the "Unix-challenged" and the seasoned, Mac

inclined system administrator in a friendly, Mac environment.

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eZediaQTI Interactive QuickTime Authoring Software

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA - January 8, 2003 - eZedia Inc., a leader in digital media software technology, announced today the release of its newest product, eZediaQTI.





eZediaQTI is cross-platform interactive QuickTime authoring software for creating rich internet content and movies. Users can now quickly combine and enhance video, graphics, animation, sound, VRs, and text to create web sites, internet banner ads, online presentations, and interactive videos - with no programming knowledge required.

"With over 100 million copies of QuickTime Player currently in distribution, eZediaQTI will definitely have a strong impact with this market," said Stefan Embleton, the President and Chief Executive Officer of eZedia Inc. "eZediaQTI is the first software of its kind to give users a quick-and-easy way to create interactive QuickTime movies, and then uploaded to the web. To date, only LiveStage Pro users had these high-end capabilities. Now, with eZediaQTI's drag-and-drop environment, all levels of users can easily author interactive QuickTime movies, at the click of a mouse."

eZediaQTI retails for $99, with a limited-time introductory price of $79. eZediaQTI can be purchased online at www.ezedia.com, and is available for Mac OS X, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

About eZedia Inc.

Founded in 1994 by Stefan Embleton, eZedia Inc. has become a leader in digital-media software technology. The company derives its name from the phrase "easy media", underscoring its corporate focus on the delivery of easy-to-use and easy-to-learn digital media authoring and development products. eZedia's management team includes industry veterans from Electronic Arts, Rolls Royce, Bristol Aerospace, Boeing, and the Music Publishing Division of Oxford University Press.

eZedia's growing family of products currently includes eZediaMX, eZediaQTI, eZeMatte for iMovie, eZeScreen for iMovie, eZeClip for iMovie, eZeMotion for iMovie, and the eZedia Plug-in Bundle for iMovie. More information about eZedia Inc. is available at www.ezedia.com.

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Share your iTunes music over the network

iCommune is a plug-in which extends Apple's iTunes software to share music over the network. Your friends' music libraries appear in the iTunes source list. You can browse their collections, and choose to download or stream their music. It also allows you to make your own music library available to others.

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REALbasic 5 For Macintosh To Ship with Enhanced Jaguar Support

REALbasic 5 makes creating software fun and easy, builds smaller

applications, improves support for Jaguar, adds powerful new Internet

capabilities, comprehensive Unicode support, and easy team development.



Macworld Expo, January 7, 2003. - REAL Software announced today REALbasic 5

for Macintosh, the powerful, easy-to-use tool for creating your own

software for both the Mac and Windows. This new version of the

award-winning software includes enhanced support for Mac OS X version 10.2

"Jaguar" including drawers, brushed-metal windows, and toolbars. REALbasic

5 for Macintosh will ship in February. REAL Software will be previewing

REALbasic 5 in their booth at Macworld Expo, #3261.

"More enterprise customers are considering the Macintosh", said Geoff

Perlman, President and CEO of REAL Software. "They need strong

cross-platform tools and the ability for teams to easily collaborate on

large projects. We're making sure REALbasic provides what they need."

REALbasic 5 sports powerful new Internet communications capabilities

including email and http classes, SSL, and UDP communication. Teams can

easily collaborate on large projects with fine control over which member is

working on what aspect of the project. REALbasic's new two-pass compiler

provides new language features, smaller built applications, and an improved

debugger. A tool for converting Visual Basic projects will also be included.

"cast:stream has emerged as a leader in the Enterprise Communication and

e-Learning arenas," said Chris Kawalek, Chief Technical Officer of

Caststream, Inc. "REAL Software has proven to be a great partner in

developing our award-winning product and we're eagerly anticipating the

release of REALbasic 5 to provide additional enhancements to our customers."

Later in the first quarter REALbasic 5 customers will receive a free update

with enhanced database features. It will include a new database engine with

improved SQL support, enhanced reliability, and much greater flexibility.

They will also receive a new Oracle plug-in providing connectivity to

Oracle 9i.

Thousands of people worldwide have developed database systems, utilities,

productivity tools, and games using REALbasic. It's easy for beginners and

powerful enough for professionals. Whether in business, education, or

science - or just to have fun - anyone can use REALbasic to create their

own software. They can then share their compiled applications for use with

Macs and Windows and give what they make to anyone, create shareware, or

sell it commercially.

REALbasic 5 will be available in February starting at US$99.95 direct from

REAL Software or through your local Macintosh retailer. Upgrades start at

US$29.95. New customers who buy REALbasic 4.5 on or after January 7, 2003

will receive a free upgrade to REALbasic 5. REAL Software offers academic

and volume discounts as well as license-only and subscription pricing

options. In addition to US English, REALbasic is available in Dutch,

French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese from International

distributors.

About REAL Software:

REAL Software, Inc. was founded in 1996 and is based in Austin, Texas. For

more information visit www.realsoftware.com or call 512.328.7325. For more

information about REALbasic, visit: http://www.realbasic.com/realbasic

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Award-Winning Multimedia Authoring Software Coming to the Mac OS X

Anark Corporation today announced it is developing the next release of its award-winning interactive, multimedia authoring tool, Anark Studio for Macintosh. Anark will preview a Mac OS X version of Anark Studio during MacWorld Expo, January 7 - 10, in Meeting Room #214 in the East Mezzanine of San Francisco's Moscone Center. In an age where media consumers demand highly compelling visual experiences, Anark Studio for Macintosh will offer the power to create and deliver truly revolutionary interactive content with seamless integration and composition of 3D, video, images, audio and interactivity.



"By developing a Mac OS X version of Anark Studio we have harnessed the Mac platform's superior power and graphics quality," said Justin Ebert, senior vice president of product development for Anark. "Anark's development of Anark Studio for the Macintosh signifies our commitment to offering the next generation of interactive multimedia and an experience unlike any other the Macintosh graphics community has ever seen."

Anark Studio for Macintosh leverages the core technologies of Apple's OS X cutting-edge operating system and gives users the power to create the most captivating interactive multimedia and 3D experiences and deliver them on the Macintosh or Windows- based operating systems. Designers and developers using Anark Studio for the Macintosh will have a revolutionary new tool in their arsenal for creating and delivering broadcast-quality, interactive presentations beyond what had previously been possible.

Featuring a newly optimized workflow and familiar timeline, Anark Studio features a flexible workspace, drag- and- drop JavaScript-based behaviors, and compositing and 3D features found only in high- end compositing and rendering systems typically costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. With the introduction of Anark Studio, multimedia artists and developers no longer need to sacrifice visual quality for bandwidth and authoring tool limits and can create unparalleled corporate presentations, learning applications, product demonstrations and entertainment for CD-ROM, kiosks, screensavers and the Web via the free Anark Web Clientë for Windows PC and Macintosh-based computers.

Beta Availability

Anark Studio for Mac OS X will enter the beta phase in mid January. Multimedia developers interested in joining this elite beta group please contact beta@anark.com.

About Anark Corporation

Anark has developed Anark Studio, next generation multimedia authoring software that gives artists and digital media developers the power to create visually unrivaled 3D, interactive multimedia applications. Developers can now create the multimedia presentations they'd only imagined for corporate presentations, learning applications, product demonstrations and entertainment for CD-ROM, kiosks, screensavers and the Web via the free Anark Web Client. Headquartered in Boulder, Colo., and founded in 1994, Anark's partners include industry leaders such as, D-Storm, Microsoft, NVIDIA Corporation, Right Hemisphere, TurboSquid and Ulead. For more information, visit Anark on the Web at http://www.anark.com.

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Metrowerks Introduces CodeWarrior Development Studio

AUSTIN, Texas - January 7, 2003 - Metrowerks is introducing CodeWarrior(tm)

Development Studio, Mac OS X Edition at an introductory price of US$99

until February 28, 2003. Programmers writing applications for Mac(r) OS X

now have a low cost choice when it comes to development tools.

As a subset of Metrowerks' CodeWarrior Development Studio for Mac OS,

Professional Edition, Version 8, the Mac OS X Edition is ideal for

hobbyists and novices because it contains essentially the same development

tools used by professional programmers and includes features designed to

simplify the development process.

One such feature is Code Completion, which provides fast access to the

prototypes and parameters of any function in a project. Code Completion

enables programmers to write code more quickly without stopping to look up

hard-to-remember functions and symbols.

Furthermore, the Mac OS X Edition enables programmers to build either C++

applications using the Metrowerks PowerPlant(tm) Framework or Objective-C

applications using Apple's Cocoa(tm) framework.

Like the professional CodeWarrior products, the Mac OS X Edition is built

on the graphical CodeWarrior integrated development environment (IDE),

which combines everything programmers need in one easy to use tools suite.

The IDE includes an advanced project manager, build system, source code

editor, compilers, linkers, debuggers, class browser, and more.

For more information, visit:

http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/Develop/Desktop/Macintosh/Professional/MacOSX.htm.

Availability and Pricing

CodeWarrior Development Studio, Mac OS X Edition, Version 8 is available

today direct from Metrowerks at http://store.metrowerks.com. Introductory

pricing is US$99 per license until February 28, 2003.

For more information, contact Metrowerks by telephone at 800-377-5416 or

+1-512-997-4700, or by email at sales@metrowerks.com. For pricing and

availability outside the U.S. and Canada, please see the list of Metrowerks

International Sales Offices at www.metrowerks.com/buy or send an email to

intlsls@metrowerks.com.

About Metrowerks

Metrowerks creates CodeWarrior software and hardware products and services

for developers, with a particular focus on the following industries:

consumer electronics; transportation; wireless; and networking and

communications. The CodeWarrior product line includes development tools and

middleware that enable customers to decrease their time to market. The

company also offers services, including training, developer programs, and

custom software engineering. Founded in 1985, Metrowerks is today an

independently operating subsidiary of Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT). Metrowerks

corporate headquarters are in Austin, Texas; Metrowerks Europe is

headquartered in Basel, Switzerland; and Metrowerks Japan is headquartered

in Tokyo. For more information, please visit http://www.metrowerks.com/

About Motorola

As the world's #1 producer of embedded processors, Motorola's Semiconductor

Products Sector creates DigitalDNA(tm) system-on-chip solutions for a

connected world. Our strong focus on wireless communications and networking

enables customers to develop smarter, simpler, faster and synchronized

products for the person, work team, home and automobile. Motorola's

worldwide semiconductor sales were $4.9 billion (USD) in 2001.

http://www.motorola.com/semiconductors

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) is a global leader in providing integrated

communications and embedded electronic solutions. Sales in 2001 were $30

billion. http://www.motorola.com

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Apple's X11 vs. XDarwin

I've been using XDarwin for a while, but Apple's own X11 environment is much faster & better integrated.

With XDarwin, you have two options for window managers: use a native window manager such as icewm (my favorite) or OroborOSX, which attempts to provide an Aqua-like window manager.

Apple's X11 environment, on the other hand uses a truly native Quartz window manager that runs much faster.

If you already have XDarwin installed via Fink, you must remove it before installing Apple's XDarwin using the following command (entered on a single line):

sudo dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-rootless xfree86-rootless-shlibs xfree86-base xfree86-base-shlibs

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4D, Inc. Announces 4th Dimension 2003 with Integrated Web Services

Major New Version of 4th Dimension with Complete Integrated Web Services

Support, Including XML, SOAP & WSDL for Rapid Web Services Development.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., January 7, 2003 - Macworld Expo Booth #1442 - 4D,

Inc., publishers of the 4th Dimension RAD/RDBMS Environment and 4D WebSTAR

Server Suite, today announced 4th Dimension 2003, now with support for

integrated Web Services, application integration, and much more. With Web

services and application integration capabilities, 4th Dimension 2003

allows different applications to reuse each other's data and functionality.

This groundbreaking new tool also includes an integrated compiler,

increased scalability, new printing and reporting features, and radically

enhanced developer programming capabilities such as a new method editor.

"Whether you're a custom developer, an IT professional, or an end user, 4th

Dimension 2003 has your needs covered, said Brendan Coveney, president and

CEO of 4D, Inc. "Integrated support for Web services that provide

application integration capabilities, combined with the power of Mac OS X

version 10.2 lets 4th Dimension 2003 change the way business is done. Now

customized, cost-effective solutions that significantly improve

productivity are within anyone's reach."

"Jaguar is the world's most advanced operating system, and Mac OS X native

applications allow developers to create the next generation of applications

today," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Developer

Relations. "We're pleased that 4D is furthering the development of native

Mac OS X applications with 4th Dimension 2003, combining the benefits of a

powerful operating system with cutting edge Web services technology."

Web Services, New Reporting Engine and More Committed to technology

standards, 4th Dimension 2003 includes tightly integrated support for SOAP,

XML and WSDL in its Web Services support. Advanced Web services server and

client support are included to provide scalable, flexible development

capabilities. In addition, developer-friendly wizards create all the code

necessary to call Web services. XML import/export and programmatic XML

parsing is also now included from directly inside 4th Dimension 2003.

For developers, the new Method Editor provides numerous enhancements to

improve productivity. New printing features allow developers to customize

printing processes even further, and an integrated compiler gives

developers the ability to rapidly compile code from directly within Mac OS

X, resulting in a speed improvement of at least 50%.

Offering end users increased flexibility and power, 4th Dimension 2003 also

provides a new reporting engine that makes customized report generation

even easier. An enhanced Quick Report Editor gives users versatile ways to

create comprehensive reports with ease, including cross-tab and list

reports, without the need for external expertise. Furthermore, direct

output to HTML and XML formats enable 4th Dimension 2003 to receive and

send reports via the Web and Web services with new options.

For more information about 4th Dimension 2003 see http://www.4D.com/2003.

About 4D, Inc.

Located in San Jose, California, 4D, Inc. is the U.S. distributor of 4th

Dimension (4D), 4D Business Kit, and 4D WebSTAR Server Suite. 4D is an

award-winning, tightly integrated suite of Windows and Mac OS, Web-embedded

development tools for business solutions. 4D Business Kit is a complete,

multi-language, multi-store e-commerce development tool, designed for rapid

development of storefront solutions. 4D WebSTAR Server Suite V

http://www.WebSTAR.com/ is a fast, secure and extensible server suite for

Mac OS X, best known for easy administration. 4D, Inc. is a wholly owned

subsidiary of 4D SA. Further information can be found at

http://www.4D.com/.

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X11 for Mac OS X

Apple has announced an officially supported X11 environment for Mac OS X,

X11 for Mac OS X offers a complete X Window System implementation for running X11-based applications on Mac OS X. Based on the de facto-standard for X11, the open source XFree86 project, X11 for Mac OS X is compatible, fast and fully integrated with Mac OS X. It includes the full X11R6.6 technology including a window server, libraries and basic utilities such as xterm.

With the complete suite of the standard X11 display server software, client libraries and developer toolkits, X11 for Mac OS X makes it even simpler to port Linux and Unix applications to the Mac. Based on XFree86 4.2.1, X11 for Mac OS X gives you a complete, rootless X11R6.6 implementation, as well as display server and client libraries — plus headers in the SDK. X11 for Mac OS X supports ssh tunnelling for secure display sharing. You can download all the common toolkits from OpenDarwin.org.

Native Aqua and X11 applications run side by side on the Mac OS X desktop. You can cut and paste between X11 and Aqua windows. You can minimise X11 windows to the Dock — even with the “Genie Effect”. You use the Aqua window controls to close, minimise, and zoom X11 windows. And of course, each X11 window comes with its own carefully rendered drop shadow. Experts may choose to replace the native Aqua window manager with their own familiar, standard X Window Manager.

X11 for Mac OS X takes advantage of the Mac OS X Quartz graphics system to deliver hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics. Quartz provides snappy scrolling speeds for text, live drag and resize of windows, as well as no-compromise 3D animation through OpenGL Direct Rendering.

X11 for Mac OS X combines the display and client libraries into a single download and install, so getting X11 running on Mac OS X is easy. The installer sets up your environment with your path and DISPLAY. It also makes it simple to start xterm sessions and other popular X11 utilities. And of course, you can use any three-button USB mouse with X11 for Mac OS X — plug it in and it just works.

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Apple's Safari Web Browser

The beta version of Apple's new Safari web browser is now available for download. Based on the open source KHTML rendering engine, Apple claims that Safari is faster even than Chimera.

Safari features a brushed metal user interface, integrated Google search in the toolbar, and simplified bookmarks.

Note a bug in Safari prevents logging into MacMegasite, but you can use the "bug" icon in the toolbar to report it to Apple.

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MacWorld Keynote Report

Here's my recap of Steve Jobs' MacWorld Expo keynote address.

• Steve Jobs started the keynote with recaps & updates, announcing he has "two macworlds worth" of material.
  
  
• switcher campaign - brought 7.8 million unique visitors to www.apple.com/switch, with 68% running Windows.
  
  
• Apple retail stores had sales of $148 Million, 50% of sales to Windows users.
  
  
• OS X for Teachers has given 290,000 copies of OS X to teachers, program extended to Mar. 31.
  
  
• iCal & iSync updates. 1.1 Million copies of iCal downloaded since it was released.
  
  
• .Mac has 250,000 paying subscribers.
  
  
• 600,000 iPods have shipped since it was released 14 months ago. iPod is the #1 Mp3 player in the US and Japan. 42% marketshare in Japan. Burton is selling a limited edition ski jacket with an iPod pouch and sleeve control for iPod, exclusive to Apple online store.
  
  
• OS X migration complete, with 5 million active users, and 5000 native OS X applications. Microsoft Office Party promotion extended until April.
  
  
• Shipping software includes QuickBooks for OS X, Nascar racing with support for force feedback joysticks, Virtual PC 6.0, Director MX
  
  
• Digidesign demonstrates Pro Tools for Mac OS X, a professional audio tool used by most of the industry.
  
  
• Final Cut Pro is the #1 pro video application. Introduced Final Cut Express which sells for $299. Phil Schiller demonstrated the features, including transitions & color correction.
  
  
• New products will no longer boot into 9, although Classic will still run.
  
  
• Digital Hub update. Better integration between iApps allowing you to share music, photos, movies between the applications which are now fully integrated. New integrated suite called iLife, to be available Jan. 25, bundled with all new Macs, free download of iTunes, iPhoto 2, and iMovie 3. Boxed set of all apps including iDVD for $49.
  
  
  
  
  
  • 18 million copies of iTunes distributed. Hidden features in iTunes 3 will be revealed today.
    
    
  • 6 million copies of iPhoto distributed. iPhoto 2 integrated with iTunes. Will let you see entire iTunes playlist and grab songs. New features include one click enhance, archive to CD & DVD, ability to transfer photos to iDVD to build a slideshow, retouch brush works like PhotoShop 7's healing brush.
    
    
  • 12 million copies of iMovie distributed. iMovie 3 is fully integrated with iPhoto, iTunes, and iDVD. Added chapters, which are automatically picked up by iDVD, "Ken Burns Effect" lets you pan & zoom over a still photo, precise audio editing within clips. Now uses a single window instead of taking over the full screen, added Skywalker sound effects, chapter markers for iDVD. New "create iDVD project" feature transfers immediately to iDVD.
    
    
  • 680,000 copies of iDVD distributed. iDVD 3 released, fully integrated with the other iApps. New features include automatic scene selection, new themes including theater, book, projector, picture in picture.
    
    
  
  
  
• New application called Safari, "Turbo Browser for Mac OS X", faster even than Chimera. Integrated Google into the toolbar, Snapback returns to search result. Based on open source rendering engine, KHTML rather than Gecko. Free download of beta release available today.
  
  
• New application, Keynote, for presentations. Steve uses it for his MacWorld keynotes. Used for every Macworld keynote in 2002. Supports Quartz graphics, all graphics formats including Photoshop with full layer support. Built-in tables & charts. Can export to PowerPoint, PDF, and QuickTime. Open file format based on XML. Sells for $99. Available today, with free copies given to keynote attendees.
  
  
• 17" Powerbook G4, thinnest PowerBook ever, less than 1" thick. 1440x900 display, 16:10 aspect ratio. Keyboard lights up with fiber optic backlingting, uses ambient light sensors. 6.8 lbs, made of aluminum alloy, annodized, not painted. 1 GHz G4, SuperDrive, 1MB L3 Cache, SuperDrive, FireWire 800, GeForce4 2 Go, Gigabit Ethernet, USB ports on both sides, builtin Bluetooth & Airport. "Airport Extreme" 802.11g, fully compatible with current 802.11b base stations. Airport range equal to iBook. 4.5 hour battery life. Sells for $3299, shipping next month.
  
  
• New Airport base station, supports 50 users with automatic bridging, USB port for USB printing.
  
  
• "one more small thing" - new 12" PowerBook, 1.2" thick, 4.6 lbs. smallest PowerBook ever. 1024x768 display, 867 MHz G4, GeForce 4 2 GO, slot load combo drive, built-in bluetooth, Airport Extreme ready, 5 hour battery life. Sells for 1799, ships in two weeks. SuperDrive available ($1999) as a built-to-order option.
  
  
  
  

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Apple introduces new .Mac features

Apple has unveiled the .Mac address book and enhanced Mac.com webmail features.

The .Mac address book synchronizes with your desktop address book using iSync and allows instant access to your contacts from any computer.

Mac.com webmail now lets you check other POP3 accounts and specify a picture to be added to your email.

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FTP Suite for REALbasic 1.1.1 Released

January 6, 2003. Brick, NJ - Pyramid Designs, a software development firm,

announces a bug fix update to FTP Suite, a set of classes and code modules

that allows FTP operations to be implemented in REALbasic applications.



Release 1.1 of FTP Suite fixes a bug introduced in version 1.0 that caused

errors when trying to transfer some types of folder structures to a server.

This is a free upgrade to all 1.0 Professional, Hobbyist and Source Code

licensees.

Pyramid Design offers two types of licenses:

• Professional
  $59.95
  allows use in any commercial product or in-house
  
  tool.
  
  
• Hobbyist
  $29.95
  allows use in free or shareware programs.
  
  

Background

Pyramid Design is a professional software development firm that specializes

in REALbasic project development and consultation. They are also the

developers of A-OK! The Wings of Mercury. http://www.aokwom.com

Contact:


Pyramid Design


156 17th Ave.


Brick, NJ 08724


732 458-3738


products@pyramiddesign.us

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Xnet announces the worldwide-first Rendezvous™ implementation for FTP compl

In the day of opening MacWorldExpo in San Francisco, Xnet Communications GmbH officially presents complementary solution for file transfer with the implementation of the brand new Apple's Rendezvous™ technology. It is the very first time you can use your Mac and Windows PC as a common platform for your business without the need of engineer skills to configure each other.



The revolutionary Rendezvous™ technology lets you create an instant network of computers and other smart peripheral devices just by getting them connected to each other. This scenario requires ZERO configuration. Before Apple's Rendezvous™, network configuration was a nightmare. With Rendezvous™ your computer will discover others, making file sharing, printing and life completely simple.

With Rendezvous support, Captain FTP can find any Rendezvous-capable FTP server on your local network.

Today Xnet introduces the brand new Crocodile Server as the first Rendezvous™ enabled FTP Server for Windows, adopting Apple's innovative network discovering technology into the Microsoft world.

"The charter of our new product line is to enable Zero Configuration IP Networking. That means making it possible to take two computers, and connect them with a crossover Ethernet cable, and have them communicate usefully using IP, without needing a man in a white lab coat to set it all up for you. Captain FTP Client for Mac takes the advantage of Rendezvous™ to discover and directly connect with the Crocodile Server on your PC. That's it! With Zero technical discussion you can get your files produced on Mac and share it with rest of the world using powerful Crocodile Server" - said Wolfgang Falz.

One more time Xnet filled a role on the front edge of open systems standardization to continually research, develop and implement state-of-the-art technology for future networking.

For further information, please use the following links:

Product information portal: captainftp.xdsnet.de


Crocodile Server page: captainftp.xdsnet.de/crocodile/


Captain FTP download: captainftp.xdsnet.de/ftp/downloadfile.php


Company information: www.xdsnet.net

Or please contact:

Xnet Communications GmbH


Wolfgang Falz


E-Mail: wfalz@xdsnet.de


Phone: ++49 (40) 89702 - 0


FAX: ++49 (40) 89702 - 100


Stresemannstr. 375 / Hs. 11


D-22761 Hamburg, Germany

XNET COMMUNICATIONS GMBH - SHORT PROFILE

Xnet Communications is an independent technology center. The core business consists of complex solutions in the area of data communications. Xnet combines standard-components to provide turn-key-solutions for all requirements in data communications. Xnet is orientated on the industrial standards of UNIX, TCP/IP and of course Mac OS X. Due to the long experience of our staff, Xnet has a long and founded know-how in all areas of data communications: in modern systems, as well as migrating from legacy systems to the most sophisticated architectures.

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Fink RSS Feeds

The Fink project has added three RSS feeds, which you can subscribe to in your favorite news aggregator to receive the latest news instantly.

The new feeds are:

• Fink Project News
  
  
  
  
• New Fink Packages (Stable)
  
  
  
  
• New Fink Packages (Unstable)
  
  

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ATI Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition ships

ATI today announced that the Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition is now available at retail outlets worldwide for $170.

With 64MB DDR RAM, flexible dual display support including ADC for Apple∆ flat panels, Mac∆ OS X compatibility, the RADEON™ 9000 PRO MAC EDITION is the ground-breaking graphics card that will revolutionize the way you see the visual experience.

• Advanced 3D graphics and visual quality for high performance gaming and design applications
  
  
• Dual monitor support including ADC for Apple∆ flat panels
  
  
• Operate two digital flat panels simultaneously at resolutions up to 1920 X 1200
  
  
• Powered by the RADEON™ 9000 Pro Graphics Controller
  
  
• Comprehensive Mac∆ OS X and OpenGL∆ support
  
  

I ordered one for my G4 Minitower, which should arrive next week. I plan to write a review when I install it.

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McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v2.0 for Mac OS X and Classic

McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v2.0 is an integrated Registration, Design

and Administration Database including a high quality SoftDongle Workshop

for small and medium developers and ISV's



Oldsmar, Florida USA, January 3, 2003 - McWare USA today announced the

release of McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v2.0 for Mac OS 9.x and Mac OS

X 10.x.

The McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v2.0 offers a perfect combination of

an cost effective registration database solution and a development tool to

create individually Soft-Dongle-Type-Libraries. This can be easily

integrated into any new and existing development software project.

Version 2.0 has a major user interface redesign to the successful

McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v1.4 for the Macintosh. A completely new

and improved Product- and Soft-Dongle-Master-Code management is added.

While maintaining backward customer database compatibility, McSerialnumber

Shareware Edition v2.0 still supports Metrowerks CodeWarrior Pro

development targets for both Windows and Macintosh.

All dedicated McSerialnumber Soft-Dongle-Type-Libraries are generated for

Windows 95/98/ME/NT/XP as well as for Mac OS Classic and Mac OS X 10.x

development .

Major features of the McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v2.0:

• Excellent and easy to use Mac OS X compliant user interface.
  
  
  
  
• Two separate databases for a very effective way to keep track of all
  
  registered customer licenses.
  
  
  
  
• A "Soft-Dongle-Type"-library generator which enables to build a
  
  company-own unique custom serialized Soft-Dongle.
  
  
  
  
• Billions of Soft-Dongle-Master-Key combinations for encoding and decoding
  
  to secure any development investment
  
  
  
  
• The modified customer database can be imported and exported into
  
  virtually any format due to custom field-delimiters.
  
  

The shareware registration fee for the Single User License is $15.00.

For more details visit us at www.mcwareusa.com or send an E-mail to

support@mcware.com

McSerialnumber Shareware Edition v2.0 is available as a fully functional

Demo Version for free download. All the encoder/decoder

"Soft-Dongle-Type"-Libraries will be available after the purchase of a

registration.

McWare USA is a worldwide company and a leading producer, vendor and

consultant for registration, security and protection software, with

headquarters in Munich, Germany and Oldsmar, FL USA.

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/n software Releases IP*Works! for Mac OS X

The most comprehensive suite of Internet Programming Components is now running

natively on Mac OS X.



San Fransisco, CA, January 7th, 2003 - /n software inc.

(www.nsoftware.com) - a leading provider of

Internet Development Components, releases IP*Works! V5 for Mac OS X, a

special version of IP*Works! built for native Mac OS X development. This

release provides developers with more then 30 components that bring

unprecedented new functionality in the hands Mac OS X developers

facilitating the integration of Internet functionality within native Mac OS

X applications.

Initially introduced in 1995 for the Microsoft Windows platform,

IP*Works! is actively used by most Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies,

as well as thousands of independent software developers worldwide. The

product eliminates much of the complexity of developing connected

applications, by providing easy-to-use programmable components that

facilitate tasks such as sending email, transferring files, browsing the

web, consuming web services, parsing XML documents, etc.

IP*Works! Version 5 is currently available in more than 20 editions,

targeting various Platforms, IDEs, and component technologies including

Windows, Microsoft .NET, Java, Pocket PC, Linux, Solaris, and now Mac OS X.

IP*Works! provides a complete solution, and its excellent 5+ year track

record means you get a robust enterprise-class toolset backed by

professional technical support.

IP*Works! V5 Mac OS X Edition is available immediately for download and

purchase from the /n software website at www.nsoftware.com.

/n software is a leading provider of software components for Internet

development. Founded in 1994, /n software (pronounced 'n software') is

based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. You can reach the company

via email at info@nsoftware.com, on the World Wide Web at

www.nsoftware.com, or by calling (800) 225-4190 or (919) 402-0590.

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iCal 1.0.2 Released

Only a few days after releasing iCal 1.0.1, Apple has released another update to version 1.0.2. No information has been provided about the changes in this update.

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Apple may charge for iApps starting at MacWorld SF

Apple will be supposedly starting to charge around $50 for all 6 of the iApps that are now available for free, with the change set to start at next weeks MacWorld San Francisco...

While all of the iApps would still come free with the purchase of a new Mac, users with older Macs that can run Mac OS X would have to purchase a bundle to download any of the applications. There is no word yet on if .Mac users, who pay up to $100 a year for the service, will get the iApps as free downloads.

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New Mailing List - Macrumors

I've set up a new mailing list, MacRumors, to discuss the latest Mac news, gossip, and rumors.

If you'd like to subscribe to this list, send an email to majordomo@macmegasite.com containing the command "subscribe macrumors", or just click here. You will receive a confirmation message that you must reply to before you're subscribed. Only list members can send email to the list.

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Review on the Kodak CX4300 Digital Camera

You can read a review on the Kodak CX4300 Digital Camera in the reviews section.

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.Mac Temporarily Down

Access to the .Mac Web site (www.m