Tuesday, May 14, 2002

If you care about Wi-Fi, 80211b News is interesting today 80211b News digs into the FCC and its priorities in doling out the radio spectrum that covers frequencies used by 802.11, Bluetooth and HomeRF today, and it make interesting reading if you are interested in wireless networking. 10:41:15 PM comment

Ack! OK...one bad thing about seeing more traffic on Mac Net Journal is the increase in Spam e-mail I am seeing now. Tonight marks a new level, since I am now seeing Italian language Spam. Please, those of you in Italy...if you must send meat, please make it prosciutto... 10:01:36 PM comment

Dig into AppleScript Studio with WWDC examples AppleScript Studio WWDC examples available. - Tim Bumgarner, of AppleScript Studio Engineering, has made available the examples that were demonstrated at WWDC 2002 (during both the Early Bird Sessions as well as at the AppleScript Studio Introduction session). All of the examples require AppleScript Studio 1.1. The examples include Command Finder, Currency Converter (SOAP), Daily Dilbert and Sketch (Studio) [description]. He's also provided handlers which can be used to check the currently installed version of AppleScript Studio. [AppleScript Info] 3:45:46 PM comment

More on Xserve Apple Computer: Introducing Xserve - Rack 'n Roll. - Apple announces Xserve, a rack mounted server with dual 1GHz PowerPC G4 processors. Of course, by running Mac OS X Server, scripting opportunities abound with PHP, CGI and AppleScript. An example AppleScript CGI is provided by Apple and can also be found in the Essential Sub-routines GuideBook Module. What, you thought I wouldn't plug AppleScript while making this announcement? ;-) [AppleScript Info] 1:20:47 PM comment

Apple rolls out new rackmount server There is quite a bit of coverage this morning of Apple's announcement of a new rackmount server. For the coverage from MacCentral, check out Apple announces new rackmount server -- updated live and for a more informal account of the unveiling, check out Doc Searls' Weblog. 10:19:21 AM comment

Some good stuff in TidBITS this week A trio of good articles can be read in this week's installment of the excellent TidBITS Web site. The trio of articles is: Apple Names 2002 Design Award Winners Do More with iPhoto 1.1.1 Goodies from Kensington 10:02:34 AM comment

QuickPopup: An interesting LAN chat tool QuickPopup v3.0.1. - QuickPopup allows Mac and Windows users to exchange popup messages with other users on any local area network. Users can easily communicate with anyone on corporate, school and home networks. This release is a maintenance update. According to this MacCentral article, QuickPopup supports such Apple technologies as Text-to-Speech, Internet Address Detectors, AppleScript, drag and drop, Apple Text Encoding, and Apple Help-Balloon Help. [AppleScript Info] 9:26:10 AM comment

One more note about my original bundling comments Reading back over my original bundling article, Apple pulls a Microsoft by bundling iChat, I think it would be good to mention now that I wrote that article more than a week ago, on the same day that the first incomplete details of the upcoming Jaguar release to OS X was announced. I know that I could go back and edit my original post to clear up some of the inaccuracies (for instance, we know now that the Address Book API will be accessible to programmers outside of Apple), but I have chosen to leave the post as it is. Maybe this is spill over from all of my print journalism, magazine and book writing work, but I think there is more integrity in letting the article stand as it was originally written rather than to edit, add to and otherwise pretty up the piece... 9:15:25 AM comment

GraphicConverter 4.4 adds TWAIN acquire support GraphicConverter 4.4 (Updated 5/14/02) - ($30 shareware) Support for an ever-expanding list of graphics file formats along with new TWAIN acquire capabilities under OS X make this Swiss Army Knife of graphics programs even more useful. If you can't afford Photoshop, get this program. I use it extensively with my digital photos, and until the arrival of iPhoto, it was my photo storage and organization tool of choice. I simply cannot say enough nice things about this program. 8:39:43 AM comment

Mariner Write 3.0.7b0 brings word processor to OS X Mariner Write 3.0.7b0 (Updated 5/14/02) - ($49.95 on the Net or $69.95 on CD) This initial beta version of Mariner Write for OS X touts "greater readabilitiy of Microsoft Word documents, mail merge functionality, and spell checking-on-the-fly capabilities." 8:27:48 AM comment

Wired News writes about bundling The depth of the unpopularity of my opinion about Apple bundling applications with OS X hits the Net today in Farhad Manjoo's article in Wired News: Apple "bundle" creates a rumble. Manjoo does a good job telling different sides of the story, and all-in-all it is a good article. It will be interesting though to see what kinds of reactions the article brings to this site. Meanwhile, I am fully aware that, as Dave Winer pointed out last week on Scripting News, bundling happens. My comments last week were meant simply to point out a parallel in the computer business that most Apple fans hate to admit: When it comes to business, there are many similarities between Apple and Microsoft. There are also many differences, which is the reason I use Macs and I have published this Web site for the last few years. For those who want to flash back to a week ago when I originally posted my comments on Apple bundling iChat with the upcoming Jaguar upgrade to OS X, start reading this site from May 6 forward to today... 7:53:48 AM comment

© Copyright 2002 Rob McNair-Huff.

Donate to support MNJ

More articles
Maximizing battery life under OS X

Tired of viruses and bugs? Ditch Microsoft

The state of OS X Web browsers

Kill the Dock with AppleScript

White Rabbit Publishing