emmastory writes "I finally (finally) picked up Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. I've been meaning to grab it since I first heard that David Pogue wrote a book on OS X; I've been a fan of his for a while. I remember reading his stuff in Macworld -- on System 7, even -- when someone gave me a subscription (many) years ago, and his New York Times columns have generally been pretty good as well." Update: 03/25 16:43 GMT by T : Ha! The original headline was missing OS X's "X" -- now in place. Read on ...

Father Of Free Choice writes "Abobe has picked Windows as the preferred platform for running Photoshop, After Effects, and Illustrator. I don't know how many Mac people this will upset, but given the large hold Apple has on design pros and film, this seems like a bad move on Adobe's part."

skeeter17 writes "Apple updates security again. According the description: 'Security Update 2002-03-24 addresses a Samba vulnerability which could allow unauthorized remote access to the host system. .... OpenSSL is also updated to address an issue in which RSA private keys can be compromised when communicating over LANs, Internet2/Abilene, and interprocess communication on local machine. ... It is recommended that all users install this Security Update.' Well! There you have it folks!" It is available via Software Update.

swiert writes "Apple has announced that the WWDC conference has been rescheduled in order to present the new version of Mac OS X, codenamed "Panther". Unfortunately, Apple haven't given any details about what to expect from Panther, but after Jaguar this looks promising."

SeanTobin was among several users who noted that Dvorak's latest column discusses the possibility of Apple going to Intel for future macs. Yeah, this rumor pops up pretty often, but I wonder how long before we'd get binary compatibility between other x86 unix OSs.

GregAllen writes "After searching for a good open-source AltiVec implementation of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), I have put together the AltiVec FFT page. It has all of the source, some benchmarks, and runs on Mac OS X or LinuxPPC. I even compared it to the venerable (but scalar) FFTW."

coolmacdude writes "This morning Safari beta v67 was leaked to the Internet. Because this is the third time it has happened (v62 and v64 were leaked), Apple has apparantly had enough and decided to terminate the seed program that provided unreleased beta verisons to selected developers. In a email sent to all developers and posted on Mike Wendland's blog, Apple says: 'Due to Safari 67 postings to the internet, we have closed the Safari Seed project. We know that the majority of you are not responsible for the leaks to the internet, and we sincerely appreciate your feedback, time and effort with this project.'"

*no comment* writes "In what may be one of the funniest things since MSN's site saying iMac is the best computer, Apple's news site picked up a story from crazyapplerumors about how George Bush is demanding a recount an Al Gore's election to the Apple board." Rumor sites bad, parody sites good. Remember that the next time you ask for a press pass to Macworld.

no_demons writes "Looks like this years Apple World Wide Developers Conference has had a change of date and location. The event will now take place from June 23rd to June 27th in San Francisco. Apple will also unveil details of Panther at the event."

hhoor writes "Apple has released iPod Software 1.2.6. According to Apple, 'After updating the iPod, customers can expect at least 10 days of standby battery life on a full charge.' So maybe now it's really time to buy one."

zzxc writes "News.com.com reports that Al Gore has been chosen to be on Apple's board of directors. Apple has a press release with more information. According to the press release, 'Al brings an incredible wealth of knowledge and wisdom to Apple from having helped run the largest organization in the world--the United States government' and 'He has remained an active leader in technology--launching a public/private effort to wire every classroom and library in America to the Internet.' The inventor of the internet should be a valuable asset to Apple."

chriseh writes "For those of us who prefer Linux to the candydrop OS, good news! YellowDog Linux 3.0 has been released. For those who don't want to wait, you can get an enhanced membership at YDL.net and download ISOs directly. As per other releases, ISOs will be available to everyone/mirrors two weeks after the CDs have been on sale.Finally, I can run Linux on my 12" Powerbook." extrarice amplifies: "New features include: Redesigned installer, a unified KDE 3.1/GNOME 2.2 desktop (both WMs share the same icons and menus), Kernel 2.4.20, and the usual package refinements/updates. More release info can be found here. Note: ISOs are not available yet, and CDs are scheduled to ship in mid-April. I have been running YDL 2.x for about a year now, and it's a fast, stable distro."

cspiff writes "In Mac OS X 10.2.4, Apple quietly added the ability for users and developers to enhance the standard Print dialog with custom PDF-handling options. To enable it, just create a folder '~/Library/PDF Services' and populate it with aliases to applications, scripts, Unix tools, or other folders. Those items then show up in the Print dialog as optional handlers for Mac OS X's built-in 'Save as PDF' feature. Drop a renamed alias to your mail client in there, and you've added convenient 'Send PDF as Email' functionality to every application."

JHromadka writes "Apple today released a cluster node version of its Xserve rackmount server. The Cluster Node is a dual 1.33GHz G4 that has 256 MB RAM, no optical drive, Gigabit Ethernet only on the logic board, no graphics card, and only 10 client licenses. Starting price is $2799, which is a grand less than the normal Xserve."

Joey Patterson writes "CNET News.com reports that, after five years, Apple has stopped selling the gumdrop-shaped iMac to the general public."

nycroft writes "Apple is helping school districts help teachers with PowerSchool, a platform-independent, web-based, student information system. PowerSchool enables teachers and administrators in school districts of up to 10,000 students to produce schedules and reports in minutes, and to generate attendance records, grade checks, report cards, transcripts, and form letters in just a few clicks. And all in real-time." It also allows such real-time access by parents to their kids' grades; I am so glad this wasn't around when I was a kid.

maxentius writes "Apple says the just released beta of X11 adds: pseudocolor (8-bit) visual plane support; option to quit X11 without presenting warning dialog; Command-Q keyboard shortcut to quit X11; Command-, to bring up preferences dialog; keyboard mappings with dead keys fixed; linking against libGL no longer results with multiple definitions of glGetColorTableEXT; locked files left behind in /tmp no longer block non-admin users from starting X11; windows can be resized by user to any size and not be limited by the Dock's height; dragging remotely hosted windows no longer causes crash; hardware accelerated scrolling in 16 bit mode now works; X server no longer crashes if application tried to retrieve data back from the framebuffer using XGetImage; bug fixes and other feature enhancements."

Nikopol asks: "iTunes is very good at dealing with MP3 CDs made by itself, but MP3 CDs made with other software (in this particular case, HP MyCD on a Win 98 computer) aren't recognized at all. The ability to make an MP3 CD available as a source in iTunes is due to an XML file iTunes puts on each MP3 CD it burns. Other MP3 CDs, lacking such file (in fact, I think this file is on a separate HFS+ partition), are bound to appear in ISO9660 form on the desktop...and those MP3 are then bound to be permanently stacked in the main iTunes library, thus voiding much of iTunes Dynamic Playlists usefulness. Is it possible, via a plugin or some trickery, to generate such XML file that would allow iTunes to see any MP3 CD as a source? In fact, such trickery would ideally be applicable not only to MP3 CDs, but to networked drives or folders too! (I know, I know...Rendezvous...but it isn't implemented widely yet!)"

maxentius writes "Apple released detailed specs on the new Aluminum 17-inch PowerBooks, apparently intended to spur compatible hardware development. A PDF is available."

Nutrimentia writes "Tom Yager has a new column at Infoworld disputing poor analytic forecasts of Apple's future, especially based on criticism of Apple's lack of innovation (which seems to me to be pretty easy to refute, but whatever). It's a balanced article that looks at what Apple is doing right and wrong, and he offers some good reasons to pay attention to Apple even if you aren't a Mac fan, namely that the company's approaches to the market help understand many broader trends in effect."