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| Wednesday, June 30, 2004 |
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Apple to set 'Tiger' on Mac users
Jonathan Sreekumaran
At its worldwide developer's conference, Apple previewed the latest Mac OS X 10.4 a.k.a. 'Tiger'. Like its predecessor, the 'Panther', the new OS boasts of a reported '150' new features. Some of these features notably include a system-wide search tool called Spotlight, which mimics the way iTunes searches your music library. The tool, reportedly scours through more than 100,000 files in less than a second and allows you to find any file - including email, hidden files or even application data - anywhere on your Mac.
Besides casting the spotlight on 'Spotlight', Tiger would include the ability to fully support 64-bit processes, and will finally make use of some of the core architectural improvements introduced last year with the PowerPC 970 CPU that serves as the heart of the Power Mac G5 system.
Also included is a new version of Apple's Safari browser with a built-in RSS newsreader. As well as detecting website news feeds, it features a "personal clipping service," which saves RSS keyword searches as bookmarks - allowing frequent updates of news on topics like "Apple" or "iPod."
Apple also previewed a new visual scripting tool for Tiger, called Automator. The script builder, which currently has a library of more than 100 configurable "actions" it can automate within the Tiger OS and current Mac OS X applications, can also be used to build workflows and tie together application events with custom AppleScript and Unix shell-script macros. Automator can also drive Spotlight searches and act on their results, automating tasks such as sizing and uploading images found with a user-entered search string.
If reports are to be believed, Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs has claimed that Tiger would catapult Apple ahead of Microsoft's Longhorn and that Apple's OS would be years ahead of Microsoft's OS. It was also reported that Apple hung promotional banners at the conference venue stating "Redmond, start your photocopiers" and "Introducing Longhorn".
The new version (Mac OS X 10.4) is to be available in the first half of 2005 at a suggested retail price of $129.
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| posted by Perimbean @ 8:51 PM |
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| Tuesday, June 29, 2004 |
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Apple's Tiger stalks Longhorn
By Ina Fried
CNET News.com
June 28, 2004, 9:24 AM PT
SAN FRANCISCO--Apple Computer sees a weak spot in Microsoft's Windows strategy and is looking to pounce.
With Microsoft's next version of Windows--code-named Longhorn--not due until 2006, the Mac maker has an opportunity to show itself as the company offering more innovation to today's computer buyers.
The company plans to show off the next version of Mac OS X, code-named Tiger, on Monday at its Worldwide Developer Conference here. While Microsoft has released only minor updates and specialized editions of Windows XP since 2001, Apple has released Mac OS X and three further moderate updates, with Tiger marking a fourth.
Huge banners at the conference tout Apple's message, with signs such as "Redmond, we have a problem," and "This should keep Redmond busy" posted alongside pictures of a Mac OS X Tiger CD.
However, Apple has said it plans to slow its own pace of OS releases somewhat in the coming months.
*sigh*
I can't wait to lay my hands on "Tiger"..another big cat... *grin*
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| posted by Perimbean @ 2:43 AM |
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OS X and iPod lure Windows users to Mac
the barrow | David Frith
JUNE 29, 2004
THE advent of Apple Computer's Mac OS X and the wild success of its iPod portable music players have got many Windows PC users thinking about a possible switch to the Macintosh platform.
The Unix-based Mac OS X offers several advantages that are quite persuasive: crashes are rare, and so are the viruses and spyware that plague Windows.
Many users also say it's more colourful, more intuitive, and more fun.
The platform-agnostic iPod's success, on the other hand, has made many Windows users for the first time appreciate the innovation and design genius of Apple, and wonder if a Mac would give them a similar experience.
Early expectations at Apple that Mac OS X would bring a huge flood of switchers from the Windows world haven't quite worked out.
Big business is pretty well locked into the Microsoft environment, at least for the immediate future, but among the growing throngs of home-office workers and mobile professionals there is certainly a groundswell of interest in moving to the Mac.
Australian Apple resellers tell The Barrow they get a steady stream of curious Windows users in this category who drop by just to check out the Mac.
Some end up buying, many don't.
How do things turn out for those who choose to make the switch? Do they get disenchanted and switch back, or do they become Mac fans for life? Here's the story of one reader who recently switched.
Steve Moir, a former software engineer, is a professional with a global corporate consultancy.
He divides his time between Australia and Europe, and a powerful, reliable notebook PC is essential for him.
"After 20 years of DOS and all versions of Windows (and OS/2)," he writes, "I took the plunge in March and switched to a 17-inch PowerBook.
"My motives for switching were (a) a gradual reduction in the robustness of many tier-1 branded laptops, and (b) irritation with keeping the various components of Windows up to date.
"I was spending an average of three hours a week keeping XP, Microsoft Office XP, various other bits of software — and the virus definitions — up to date.
"A further irritation was the lack of real usability of Windows XP: scratch the surface and it is very obviously a patchwork of Microsoft's various operating systems and user interfaces dating back to the mid-1980s.
"Even though my Windows laptop was only nine months old, the registry was already showing signs of degradation that would eventually require reinstallation of XP and the application software — a six to eight hour job that I have had to do at least once a year as long as I can remember having PCs.
"So in a fit of pique I visited a few PC and Apple stores in Melbourne.
"While the staff in the first Apple store were no better than the usual staff in most PC stores (overtly driven to move boxes, but otherwise ignorant of how they are used), the staff in the second store were knowledgeable, helpful and passionate about their product.
"They understood my needs (MS Office, connectivity, reliability, durability) and showed how the PowerBook would suit my needs better than other options I had been considering.
"I have now used the PowerBook for three months. OS X is much, much easier to use than XP and
the bundled Apple software is similarly slick and intuitive.
"Connecting to various wireless, wired, dial-up, encrypted and unencrypted Windows networks has been a doddle.
"While OS X is not problem-free, it seems to recover from glitches quite well. It certainly has fewer problems and inconsistencies than the latest versions of XP."
"I am very pleased with the switch," Moir says.
"The PowerBook seems to be robust, is a pleasure to use for consulting work, and Apple's iLife software is superb — I have even rediscovered a creative streak and am now inflicting my multimedia masterpieces on family and friends."
If you're considering making the switch yourself, start at Apple's website, www.apple.com/switch
It lists 10 good reasons to make the switch, details the experiences of many switchers (all enthusiastic, natch), provides detailed guides on moving files from a PC to a Macintosh and how to hook up a Mac to a Windows network.
Remote desktop software widely used in schools and business to keep track of networked Macs has been updated. Apple Remote Desktop 2 For Mac OS X installs software across networks and accesses individual screens of other computers.
With it, system administrators and help-desk operators can access the desktops, not just of networked Macs but also Windows and Linux PCs using Virtual Network Computing. More than 50 changes are said to have been made in the new version.
It will be available in July at $449 for managing up to 10 Macs and $799 for an unlimited number. Cheaper prices are available for educational users.
Apple Computer often likes to compare itself with car maker BMW: both have only a minor share of their market, but both are profitable, much admired for their technological brilliance, and paid fervent, unswerving loyalty by their customers.
Now Apple has paid BMW a complement by designing a special gadget to integrate its iPod music player with the audio system on many BMW models as well as the Mini Cooper.
The iPod goes into the glovebox and is controlled by buttons built into the Beemer's steering wheel.
The adapter has to be fitted by a BMW dealer.
Alas for Aussie BMW and Mini Cooper owners: so far the gadget is available only in the US where it costs the equivalent of $215.
Apple Australia executives have not yet held talks with BMW Australia about introducing it here, The Barrow has been told, but it could happen if enough Beemer/iPod fans clamour for it. Start hollering and watch this space. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 2:42 AM |
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| Monday, June 28, 2004 |
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Classic video games make a comeback
Vintage consoles plentiful on Internet auction sites
RALEIGH, N.C. - When Rob O’Hara needs a serious video game fix, he unwinds a black rubber joystick and plays a few rounds of “Space Invaders” on his Atari 2600, vintage 1982.
The 30-year-old networking engineer owns newer Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube consoles, but for a true gaming geek like O’Hara, nothing tops the blocky graphics and simple sound effects of retro video games.
“Playing games was a big part of my childhood,” says the Yukon, Okla., man. “Back then, it seems like games were more family-oriented, and as a result, families ended up playing a lot of games together.”
O’Hara is no relic in his love of 1980s electronic nostalgia.
Vintage consoles are plentiful on Internet auction sites. An annual “Classic Gaming Expo” convention is growing, moving to larger quarters this year. And companies are trying to cash in with repackaged editions of classics including the space fighter “Defender” and the pill-munching “Pac-Man.”
Nintendo Co. recently released eight classic games for its portable Game Boy Advance, including “Super Mario Bros.,” “The Legend of Zelda,” and “Excitebike.” Along with the $20-apiece games, the company also released a $100 Game Boy Advance system styled after its original Nintendo Entertainment System.
Jakks Pacific, meanwhile, sells a line of retro video game systems from classic game companies like Atari, Namco, Capcom and Activision. The $20 battery-powered systems, first released two years ago, plug directly into televisions and resemble old-fashioned joysticks.
"There is a big nostalgia value"
“Games like Pac-Man are still as compelling today as they were 30 years ago,” said spokeswoman Genna Goldberg of the Malibu, Calif.-based company. “There is a big nostalgia value.”
Retro video gaming has become something of a pop culture phenomenon lately, with video game music and themes featured in television commercials for Hummer and Saturn sport utility vehicles. A top 20 R&B hit, “Game Over (Flip)” by Lil’ Flip features sound effects from “Pac-Man.”
It’s not just nostalgia that’s fueling retro video interest, says O’Hara. He thinks the old games were simply more fun to play: “There’s a phrase that’s used a lot in marketing — ’easy to learn, hard to master’ — that describes most classic video games.”
Gamers itching to relive their Atari, Colecovision and Intellivision days can find plenty of systems for about $20 on Internet auction sites like eBay. Many video game stores sell refurbished models for a bit more, about $80.
You can even travel to game as a group.
Conventions facing growing crowds
Last year’s Classic Gaming Expo drew over 1,400 attendees, and this year the August event is moving from Las Vegas to the convention center in San Jose, Calif., to accommodate larger crowds.
Expo spokesman Jayson Hill says there’s a whole generation of older gamers who trashed their systems when they were kids. Now, they’re feeling nostalgic and have some money to spend.
“There was a time when you could walk into any thrift store and pick up a game cartridge for 50 cents and systems for a couple of dollars,” Hill said. “Those days are gone.”
Many who go back and play the older games are often surprised, however, at the crudeness of the graphics, said Steven L. Kent, author of “The Ultimate History of Video Games.”
The 1982 game “River Raid” is a good example, he said. Players fly a fighter jet over a river filled with ships and barges but “when you go back, you see that the river was a blue rectangle with lots of gray rectangles for boats.”
“A lot of people look back on old games like a kind of Camelot. Only when you do, you see that the castle smelled, the food was rancid and the maidens were bloated.” |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:59 AM |
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| Sunday, June 27, 2004 |
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Computer Pioneer Bob Bemer, 84
By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 25, 2004; Page B06
Robert W. "Bob" Bemer, 84, who helped invent the language used by most of the world's computers to translate text to numbers and who was the first scientist to warn of the Y2K problem, died of cancer June 22 at his home on Possum Kingdom Lake in Texas.
Without the invention of the computer code ASCII, there would be no e-mail, no World Wide Web, no laser printers and no video games. Mr. Bemer, known as "the father of ASCII," created the code in 1961 by assigning standard numeric values to letters, numbers, punctuation marks and other characters.
"We had over 60 different ways to represent characters in computers," Mr. Bemer told Computerworld magazine in 1999, describing the time before the American Standard Code for Information Interchange was created. "It was a real Tower of Babel."
He was well known in the computer industry (The Washington Post in 1999 said, "In the weenieworld of data processing, he is a minor deity"), but he broke into wider public consciousness when government and businesses began to panic about the "millennium bug" that threatened to shut down the computer systems on which society had grown so dependent.
Mr. Bemer had first published a warning in 1971 about the problems that would arise from using two digits instead of four to represent years in computer code. Unlike some of the doomsayers who came after him, he knew what he was talking about: He was involved in the original effort to create government standards for the computer industry.
Having learned from work he had done in the 1950s on genealogical records for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he realized that truncating a year's date was a penny-wise and pound-foolish solution to the cost of saving computer space. But Pentagon bureaucrats, among the largest computer users on Earth, refused to accept that 1999 was a better code than 99. The National Bureau of Standards went along, although it said programmers could voluntarily use four instead of two numbers.
What that decision led to was the fear, as 1999 turned to 2000, that data stored deep in computer code would misinterpret 00 not as the year 2000 but as 1900, or even 1000. Data might scramble, possibly causing nuclear reactors to go haywire, credit card transactions to vanish and automated processes that govern prison door locks, airline operations and giant dam gates to refuse to turn on or shut down.
"It was the fault of everybody, just everybody," Bemer told Time magazine and many others. "If [Adm.] Grace Hopper [the founder of COBOL] and I were at fault, it was for making the language so easy that anybody could get in on the act."
Mr. Bemer kept up the alarm, even trying to get President Richard M. Nixon to declare 1970 "the year of the computer" in order to highlight the problem. He wrote about the problem for the technically literate in the Honeywell Computer Journal in 1971 and for the public in Interface Age in 1979. The response was derision -- when anyone bothered to respond. He continued the warnings until he retired in 1982. No one listened until it was almost too late.
Although the public may have thought the millennium warnings were overblown, an estimated $122 billion was spent in the United States alone to fix the Y2K problem, according to IDC, a technology and telecommunications research firm.
"I think he took a lot of pride in the fact that there wasn't a huge problem, and maybe people like him who were sounding the alarm were getting the companies to do what they needed to do," said his stepson, Glen Peeler.
Throughout his career, Mr. Bemer had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He helped Hopper create the computer language that he named COBOL, or Common Business Oriented Language. He helped create the standard measurement of eight bits per byte. Computer users have Mr. Bemer to thank for the backslash character and for the escape sequence, which allows a computer to break from one language and enter another.
"I used to say that I never got a nickel for the escape sequence. A nice receptionist at the Dallas InfoMart did give me five pennies, but I spent them," he said on his Web site.
Mr. Bemer did not cash in on the financial bonanza of the computer revolution, his family said. His cars bore the vanity license tags ASCII and COBOL. He lived in a cliff-top house two hours west of Dallas on a reservoir, which he told visitors would have been handy in case he needed to "drain the lake" for drinking water. He collected Pogo Possum comic books and made lists of every airplane flight he'd ever taken, every country he'd visited and every trip to see his parents.
He was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Albion College in 1940 and a certificate of aeronautical engineering at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., the next year. He spent time as a machinist, furniture-maker and movie-set designer before he was hired as a programmer at RAND Corp. in 1951.
He worked for Lockheed Aircraft, Marquardt Aircraft, Lockheed Missiles and Space, IBM Corp. and the Univac division of Sperry Rand. He went to Paris in 1965 for a year to work for Bull General Electric, then back to the United States with GE and Honeywell Information Systems until his 1982 retirement. He promptly started his own software company, which he eventually sold to BigiSoft Inc., retaining the title of chief scientist.
"He was a hardworking man," Peeler said. "He was a relic, a throwback, old-school. He was always on a computer doing things."
In 2003, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Computer Society awarded him its Computer Pioneer medal.
He was married six times to five women and had five children by his first wife and a sixth by another. He also had two stepchildren, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 11:53 AM |
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| Tuesday, June 22, 2004 |
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Apple Remote Desktop
Remote Access And Management Of Mac OS X Machines
Apple Remote Desktop is a tool that provides for both remote access and asset management of networked (direct Ethernet or AirPort) Mac OS X machines. Apple Remote Desktop is installed centrally; in order to interact with client machines, the clients themselves must activate the desktop management agent (through System Preferences) that ships with Mac OS X. Apple Remote Desktop is available in 10, and unlimited client license packages.
Key features include:
- Software Distribution: Administrators can install software packages on remote machines without requiring end-user interactions. Installer files are automatically deleted when the installation process is complete, and installations can be scheduled for a later time. Multiple software installations can be performed on each machine without having to reinitiate a new installation process from the administration console. Additionally, custom install packages can be created and launched, and specific files or folders can be directly copied to specified destinations on client drives.
- Asset Management: Over 200 attributes of client systems (hardware configurations, software versions, etc.; see Apple's Web site for a complete list) are interrogated and stored in an SQL database, with 7 hardware and 3 software reports available as a result. Detached machines such as laptops can be set to automatically update their information each time they login to the network; administrators can view this updated information at any time whether the remote machine is still logged in or not.
- Remote Assistance: Up to 50 remote Mac OS X or VNC (Virtual Network Computing) client screens can be monitored by the administrator simultaneously, including the ability to manually or automatically page through the screens being monitored. The administrator can take control of the client machine to execute commands, and can resize their view-window to the client machine and/or change the color depth (to one of 4 available options) to fit their actual display. Group screen sharing is also available, allowing the administrator to share a specific user's screen or their own with the end users.
- Remote Administration: Remote client management tasks, including logout, shutdown, restart, screen locks, designation of boot up disks, etc. can all be accomplished for both individual machines or groups from the administrator's console. Additionally, custom administration tasks can be launched via the product's ability to execute UNIX shell scripts or commands simultaneously on remote machines.
Apple Remote Desktop version 2 is expected to be available in July, 2004; with a 10 client license package priced at $299 and unlimited client licensing available for $499. Contact Apple for further information.
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| posted by Perimbean @ 10:53 PM |
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Apple adds HPC customer but falls from Top500
IDG News Service 6/22/04
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service, San Francisco Bureau
Apple Computer Inc. took a step forward and a step backward Monday in its quest to prove itself a viable player in the world of high performance computing (HPC).
The Cupertino, California, computer vendor announced a deal with U.S. Army contractor Colsa Corp. to build a 1,566-node supercomputer that is expected to be capable of as many as 25 trillion mathematical operations per second, according to Colsa.
Called MACH 5 (Multiple Advanced Computers for Hypersonic research), the US$5.8 million system is designed to do aero-thermodynamic modeling for the Army's Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center. It is expected to be operational by November and, if it were benchmarked today, would rank just behind the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center's $350 million Earth Simulator, Colsa said.
At the same time, an Apple-based supercomputer at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, which has 1,100 nodes and rocketed to third place last November in the semi-annual Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers, failed to appear on a revised version of the list that was published Monday, leaving Apple unrepresented on the Top500.
Virginia Tech, which was Apple's first entry into the top echelons of the world's supercomputers, was unable to submit a benchmark because it is in the process of building a new supercomputer, based on Apple's latest rack-mounted server, the Xserve G5, according to Alex Grossman, director of server and storage hardware at Apple.
Virginia Tech announced plans to migrate its supercomputer to the Xserve G5 in January, just months after it was built. The university has subsequently dismantled its original system, which was based on the desktop Power Mac G5 system, Grossman said.
The Xserve G5 met with some shipping delays earlier this year, but the dual processor systems that Virginia Tech plans to use have been shipping in volume since April, Grossman said.
"We have a lot more customers to come that will be on the Top500 list, we believe," Grossman said.
One such customer will be Colsa, which expects to run the Top500's Linpack benchmark on the MACH 5 in time for the November list, according to Antony DiRienzo, executive vice president at Colsa. Colsa will take its first truckload of 300 dual-processor Xserve G5 systems next week, DiRienzo said.
The Virginia Tech system has attracted considerable media attention, but some supercomputer users say that Apple has yet to prove that its computers can do more in high performance computing than run benchmarks.
"All I've seen are Linpack benchmarks, and that's not why we buy computers," said Scott Studham, manager of computer operations with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Molecular Science Computing Facility. "The science impacts of these systems still haven't been demonstrated, and the fact that they disappeared from the most recent Top500 list tells me that the first system didn’t work or it was put together solely for Linpacking, which isn't a useful measure of a supercomputer," he said.
Though the Xserve G5 shows a lot of promise, the fact that the Virginia Tech system has been down for several months raises questions about Apple's ability to migrate customers to new HPC systems, said Jeff Nichols, a director with the computer science and math division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "They really made a mistake by not having the machine there throughout the procurement of the follow-up system," he said. "When a machine disappears for three or four months, then that's a bad thing."
Colsa, however, is convinced that the Xserve G5 will be appropriate for its thermodynamic modeling application. The company also evaluated systems based on Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s and Intel Corp.'s processors, but "the G5 came across as running our code better," DiRienzo said.
Apple will have at least a "small number" of systems on November's list, predicted Erich Strohmaier, one of the computer scientists who maintains the Top500 list. "There's still a lot of interest in the community," he said. "A lot of people are ready to order (Xserve G5's) if they could get them delivered," he said.
Bob McMillan is U.S. Correspondent for the IDG News Service.
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| posted by Perimbean @ 10:50 PM |
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| Monday, June 21, 2004 |
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CHINA: Apple Loses Legal Battle Over Logo
21 Jun 2004
Source: just-style.com
IT giant Apple Computer Inc has lost a court appeal to have its trademark logo extended to cover apparel, headwear and footwear in China.
In handing down its verdict this week, the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court deemed that Apple could not claim its logo was protected under law for those categories of goods.
An application by Apple in April 2000 to the trademark appraisal committee of China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce was rejected, on the grounds that the company’s logo was too similar to that of leather apparel maker Guangdong Apples Industrial Co.
Guangdong Apples’ logo represents a whole apple, while Apple’s logo features an apple with a bite taken out of it.
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| posted by Perimbean @ 9:40 PM |
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Apple Introduces Apple Remote Desktop 2
Over 50 Powerful New Features for Mac Desktop Administrators
CUPERTINO, Calif., June 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple(R) today
announced Apple Remote Desktop(TM) 2, the second generation of Apple's asset
management, software distribution and help desk support software. Along with
dramatic improvements in screen sharing performance, Apple Remote Desktop 2
includes more than 50 new features for centrally managing Mac OS(R) X systems.
"With Apple Remote Desktop 2, we've delivered a powerful suite of IT
management tools that includes high-performance, real-time screen sharing,"
said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product
Marketing. "Apple Remote Desktop 2 is essential for anyone managing a group of
Macs."
Apple Remote Desktop 2 can perform a wide range of desktop management
tasks such as installing operating system and application software, running
hardware and software inventory reports and executing commands on one or more
remote Mac OS X systems on the network. Remote software installation tools
allow IT professionals to install single or multiple software packages
immediately or at specific dates and times. Comprehensive hardware and
software reports based on more than 200 system information attributes allow
administrators to keep track of their Mac OS X systems. In addition, built-in
real-time screen sharing enables help desk professionals to provide online
assistance by observing and controlling the desktops of any remote Mac(R) or
Virtual Network Computing (VNC)-enabled computer, including Windows and Linux
systems.
Apple Remote Desktop 2 also includes:
-- Task lists to provide an at-a-glance view of the status of running,
queued and completed tasks. Tasks can be saved and used later with new
parameters;
-- Remote shell scripts that make it easy to run UNIX scripts or UNIX
commands simultaneously on multiple Mac OS X systems. Apple Remote
Desktop 2 includes new command-line tools for setting network, energy
saver, date and time system preferences;
-- Remote Control to perform common Mac OS X functions such as opening
files and applications, emptying trash, logging out and locking the
screen simultaneously on multiple Mac OS X systems;
-- Network Scanners to simplify the discovery of Mac OS X systems on the
network. Administrators can now quickly search for computers using
Rendezvous(TM), by specifying a range of network addresses or by
importing a list of machines from a text file;
-- Offline Reporting that lets administrators include mobile systems in
hardware and software inventory reports even when not connected to the
network;
-- User Access Mode which allows administrators to delegate a subset of
Apple Remote Desktop tasks to standard (non-admin) users; and
-- Remote Boot Disk Selection to set the local startup disk or specify a
network startup disk when used in conjunction with the NetBoot and
Network Installation features built into Mac OS X Server.
Pricing & Availability
Apple Remote Desktop will be available in July through The Apple Store(R)
(http://www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a
suggested retail price of $299 (US) for managing up to 10 systems and $499
(US) for managing an unlimited number of systems. Special education pricing
can be found at http://www.apple.com/education/store.
The administration and client system for Apple Remote Desktop is designed
to run on any Macintosh(R) computer with PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processors and
Xserve(R) or Xserve G5, running Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later. An Ethernet or
AirPort(R) network connection is required.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple
II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple
is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students,
educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its
innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Mac, Mac OS, Apple Remote
Desktop, Rendezvous, Xserve and AirPort are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of
their respective owners.
SOURCE Apple Computer, Inc.
Web Site: |
| posted by Perimbean @ 9:39 PM |
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C3PO joins R2D2 among the greates
Monday, June 21, 2004 - Page R4
Pittsburgh -- Five robots from both science fiction and technical reality will enter Carnegie Mellon University's Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh this fall.
The tin-filled hall of fame will add Honda's Asimo bot, Shakey the Robot, Astroboy, C3PO and Robby the Robot.
The panel of robot lovers who selected them included sci-fi legend Arthur C. Clarke, the BBC reported yesterday. The android superstars will officially take their place in the Robot Hall of Fame at a ceremony in October. They will join last year's inductees, the Mars explorer Sojourner, the assembly line Unimate, Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and R2-D2 from Star Wars. UPI
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| posted by Perimbean @ 9:37 PM |
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| Sunday, June 20, 2004 |
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New test marks out a true champagne
10:28 18 June 04
If you get no kick from champagne, it might be cheap fizz in disguise. But a new test should help prevent fraudsters passing off other sparkling wines as champagne or cava.
Developed by researchers at the University of Seville in Spain, the test proved to be 100 per cent accurate in determining which of 35 samples of sparkling white wine were cava and which were champagne. It works by recognising characteristic concentrations of the complex mix of trace metals in the wine.
The trace metals come from the soil where the grapes were grown. Ana Maria Cameán and her colleagues analysed the concentrations of 16 metals in 18 samples of cava and 17 samples of champagne.
The cava was produced from grapes grown in the Penedés region in north-eastern Spain, while champagne has to be made from grapes grown in France's Champagne region.
The researchers used atomic spectrometry to measure levels of the trace metals. On average the samples of champagne contained 0.6 milligrams of zinc per litre, roughly twice the level in cava, while cava had 0.7 milligrams of strontium per litre, more than twice the level in champagne.
Premium prices
But these average figures were not a reliable guide to the wine's origin. Six samples of champagne, for example, had more strontium in them than one of the cava samples.
So the researchers turned to a commercial statistical software program called SIMCA. By looking at the levels of nine metals in the wines, this program pinpointed characteristic concentration "fingerprints" that were different in the cava and the champagne. "There were no false positives or negatives, which indicates a remarkable authentication power," says Cameán.
Wines made from grapes grown in favoured localities command premium prices, as differences in the soils are thought to give wines their character.
Tests like Cameán's will cut down on general fraud such as selling table wine as Rioja or adding grapes from outside the designated area to produce wine that is labelled as appellation controlée, says Tom Stevenson, author of the New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia. "Three-quarters of the wine sold as 'Italian' in the US is not Italian," he says.
Mick Hamer
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996015
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Hotmail, Yahoo Step Up The Mailbox Rivalry
By Leslie Walker
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 20, 2004; Page F07
The Web mailbox wars escalated last week when Yahoo expanded its free e-mail accounts from 4 megabytes to 100 MB, and Microsoft confirmed that it, too, will raise storage limits soon on its free Hotmail accounts.
Both are reacting to Google's plan to offer 1 gigabyte of free storage with its new Gmail service, which is still in trial form with a limited number of users.
"What we are trying to do is take storage off the table as an issue," said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo vice president.
Just a few months ago, Yahoo charged $60 a year for 100 MB of storage. Starting last Tuesday, that much storage comes free with every account (and the maximum size of any one attached file is now 10 MB instead of 3 MB). The company also consolidated its various extra-cost mail services into one $20-per-year plan, with no graphical ads and with a hefty 2 GB of mail storage.
That's twice what Google is planning. Yahoo said its paid version contains more features than Gmail, including tighter spam filtering and the ability to download messages with standard e-mail programs.
Yahoo also streamlined its mail service's interface and search features.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has quietly been expanding the storage it offers to at least some users of its free Hotmail service to 25 megabytes, up from the 2 that were available before. Users of these expanded accounts can buy still more room with two new "extra storage" plans: a $40-per-year service that includes 50 MB, and a $60-per-year option that allows 100 MB.
But other users continue to get only 2 MB of storage, and an "All About Hotmail" page at the site shows the old amount as well. A new account opened on Friday afternoon also was limited to 2 MB.
Microsoft spokeswoman Kathleen Callaghan said she had not heard of any free accounts getting more storage.
But she did confirm that the company has plans in the works to beef up Hotmail: "Part of that will ensure that storage won't be an issue," she said. And a Microsoft vice president, Yusuf Mehdi, said last week that users will see a ton of innovation from Hotmail and Microsoft's other communication services over the next year. |
| posted by Perimbean @ 5:19 PM |
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Bought a new pair of shoes.
Bought 3 pints of ice-cream.
Yummy..Yummy...
Weather hot as ever...
*sigh* |
| posted by Perimbean @ 5:13 PM |
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