Macworld Keynote

Live Report from Webcast. My delayed commentary is below.

Mac OS X

Steve showed the new Apple menu, customizable windows toolbars, popup menus in the Dock, as well as improved Fonts panel. OS X will be released on Saturday, March 24 and priced at $129.

PowerMac G4

New Generation of PowerMac G4s, 4 new models, up to 733Mhz, CD-RW standard, AGP 4X, Nvidia graphics card, 5 slots, SuperDrive (CD-RW, DVD-RW) with high-end model. Prices range from $1699 to $3499. Low-end models available now, high-end models in February.

Digital Media Software

iTunes, MP3 recorder, CD ripping made easy, songs library manager with power search capabilities, drag & drop playlists, one-click burn, compatible with portable MP3 players. Internet radio channel selector.

My QuickTime Player crashed…

iTunes is free, available for download today, but only supports new SuperDrive, drivers for other CD-RW to be made available soon. The new SuperDrive can write DVDs, but encoding usually takes 25x longer than the original playback. Using the G4's AltiVec, Apple engineers were able to reduce the encoding time to just 2x.

iDVD, DVD maker software with easy to use GUI. Apple will be selling DVD-R media. 5 pack for $49.95. DVD Studio Pro. Professional DVD authoring tool, part of Final Cut Pro. Available by end of month for $995. PowerBook G4 Titanium 5.3 pounds, 500Mhz G4, 5 hours battery life, 1-inch thick, 15.2 megawide screen, DVD-ROM. $2599-$3499. In production, available by end of month.

End of broadcast

Delayed Commentary

A few hours later.

Mac OS X

They've listened to feedback, good. No ways to turn off or change Aqua, bad.

The new improvements are marginal at best. I didn't see anything that is bound to make Windows users actually want to jump ship. The clear advantage is in now in the OS architecture, not the UI.

I'm really starting to wonder if the Macintosh GUI as it stands today really has any clear advantages over Windows ME or 2k. I've been using Macs since day one, I should be biased, but I've also seen too many Windows users struggling with the Mac OS, finding it confusing and hard to use; just as I felt the first time I used a Windows machine.

Nowadays, I constantly flip-flop between OSs without even thinking about it. I use the OS which provides me the best tools for the task at hand, regardless of the OS specific UI.

Will the OS X UI be any different in the long run? Different, yes, better, I seriously doubt it.

PowerMac G4

Pricing/performance ratio is good but not great. I think I'll wait another round before getting a new desktop Mac. I'll probably end up getting a multiprocessor G4 anyway.

iTunes

I've downloaded it, and am using it right now. I might consider it as replacement for SoundJam MP Plus. Only time will tell.

iDVD

Not my thing, hopefully it'll appeal to others.

DVD Studio Pro

I'm so tired of the Pro label. Real DVD Professionals won't even look at it, they already have extremely powerful and expensive tools. At any rates, not my thing either.

PowerBook G4 Titanium

Say hi! to my next PowerBook. It's not cheaper, but a little thinner and a lot cooler than any of the competition. The fact that'll be able to run OS X doesn't hurt either. If Apple can keep up with the production, they should be able to sell them like pancakes.

Final Thoughts

It wasn't a bad presentation, Steve, but when all is said and done it felt like too little, too late.

Ask me tomorrow and I may have a completely different opinion.

New year, New millennium, New weblog look

I could no longer stomach the Aqua theme, it's hard enough on my desktop.

This theme is called Hazard Area, enter at your own risk.

Moving Supplies

We're looking for reasonably priced moving supplies, things like cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. If you have any recommendations, please let me know.

I can't believe the markup on cardboard boxes, we bought some from U-Haul, pricing was simply ridiculous. We did find small boxes decently priced at The Home Depot.

Moving supplies are joining my list of items which are overly priced solely based on demand. The list includes such items as Automobile parts, Baby clothing and food, Crutches, TV sets, etc.

Macworld

It's starting tomorrow, nothing there for me.

I can't believe I'm saying this. I used to look forward to Macworld in Frisco, I would not have missed it for the world. Nowadays, it's just another trade show and I won't go unless I have something specific to see or do.

I'm going to Sun's TechDays in Seattle at the end of the week. I'm excited about that.

I'll watch Steve's keynote though.

Mac OS X sux Aqua is ugly, I want to turn it off. Like most developers I don't want to program for Cocoa in Objective C. Mac OS X rox Unix Shells + Mac OS = me like. The core Cocoa frameworks are fully accessible via Java APIs.

On our way from the theater yesterday nite, Vicki asked me what my thoughts were on the percentage of politicians kids who actually do drugs. The question made a lot of sense as we had just seen Traffic.

I told her the percentage was most likely very high, for two specific reasons. First, the kids have the means (money, etc.) to buy the drugs. Second, they are often forced to project an image of perfection, which must undoubtedly make things like taking drugs look quite rebellious and exciting.

My exposure to drugs has been pretty minimal over the years, granted mostly by choice. There's a lot of talk about peer-pressure, it makes me wonder how I would fair as a kid, today. I've always been head-strong, even as a kid, but would that have been enough?

Share you thoughts, click the discuss link below.

Microsoft hacker fired. Seems like a nice guy.

Linux 2.4 is here. The 2.4 kernel contains several improvements. For desktop use, the most notable improvement is support for the multitude of printers, digital cameras, scanners, keyboards, mice, network cards, modems, Zip drives and other devices that plug into the universal serial bus port.

Mac developers see life in OS 9. Some software makers are questioning Apple's decision to put all its eggs in Mac OS X's basket. I think it's pretty obvious that Apple intends to and will support both OS 9 and OS X for a while to come.

Oscar pro picks flix, We haven't seen Traffic, yet, but probably will tomorrow. I'd have to hope for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I doubt many Academy members will actually have seen it. After all we had to locate a theater that played it and even wait a few hours because our show was sold out.

Apple Open Source License updated. Also see the Free Software Foundation response.

MacOSX and XFree86 run side by side. XonX has announced interoperability between Xfree86 and MacOSX. Relatedly, Xfree86 now supports the Darwin platform and XFree86 binaries are available.

Windows: McAfee VirusScan Definition update.

Macintosh: CD Finder 3.0.1. Bug fix release.

BugTraq: Mac OS 9 Multiple Users Control Panel Password Vulnerability.

Mac OS 9.1 details available, due Tuesday. A new nanokernel, new process manager, FireWire 2.7, a new version of OpenGL, a Mac OS-X compatible startup disk control panel, and access to iTools via Apple's navigation services…

Yahoo! to convert to fee-based services. Is Yahoo's move to fees risky business? Will the Web follow Yahoo's charge?

Sun's million dollar enterprise servers.

Greenspan cuts interest rate by half a point. The downfall is starting.

Gore moves ahead in Florida recount.

India enlists teen hackers as cyber cops. We prefer to prosecute them. ;)

Spammers Jailed for 2 Years. There is such a thing as justice after all.

Hands on MYOB AccountEdge. The project I'm currently working on involves AccountEdge.

File Buddy 6.0.2 is out. Hardly seems worth the upgrade price.

New Macs in the pipeline? Apple will unveil a G4 PowerBook and faster G4 towers--sans dual processors--at Macworld Expo next Tuesday.

Nearly one in ten men forget sex and play with high-tech toys instead.

SuSE Linux goes handheld. I'm only hearing good things about SuSE. I've yet to try their PowerPC version of Linux, but I fully intend to.

Thinking Different. CNET's Mac Hardware 2001.

Senator Hillary steals the show on the Hill . You go, Girl!

20 JavaScript Window Manipulation Tips.

I was too busy working on a new project to update my weblog yesterday. A day without news is not a bad way to start the new millennium with. ;)

Euro continues rise. Talk about virtual money.

Dave Winer has an interesting story on meeting Bill Gates at Comdex back in 1987.

Salon's Crystal Ball. Salon makes its predictions for 2001.

AT&T plans big cable TV rate hike. This will be affecting us. Rates keep on increasing but the service is not getting any better. Welcome to "because we can" corporate America.

Macintosh: Audion 2.1. Hopefully it'll fix the crashes I've been experiencing.

FileMaker to discontinue HomePage. Anybody actually surprised by this? They haven't updated HomePage in years.

Linux 2.4 kernel almost ready In a note sent to testers on New Year's Eve, Torvalds acknowledged that he was unable to make good on his commitment to deliver a final release of 2.4 by December.

Losers of the Year.

Intel inside the portable gadget market. With an ugly 128MB MP3 Pocket Concert Audio player priced at $299.99? Intel is no doubt on top of the world, at least they firmly believe so. Watch them fall slowly.

Microsoft and Gates face $5bn class action suit. Evil Empire vs. worthless suit.