Mokka mit Schlag » Mac

The iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. That much we know. Does that matter? Yes, but maybe not as much as it used to.
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The AppleTV is underwhelming. You mean I have to pay $300 for yet another box to balance on my already crowded dresser along with the cable box, VCR, DVR, and DVD player? All so I can buy movies from iTunes and network movies with my Mac? Sorry, that’s not nearly enough value for the money. For $300, it would have to replace at least one, preferably all, of my existing boxes. I’d actually be more interested if it ran the other direction. That is, if it let me broadcast my TV signal to the computer. That would let me ditch one cable box (the one hooked up to my computer).

The iPhone is cool, and I was almost ready to buy one until I noticed it required a 2-year Cingular contract (and wouldn’t be available till June). I guess the rumors that Apple would sell it unbundled and unlocked were false. The UI may well be a quantum leap over everything else on the market, but the business model is the same consumer-hostile crap we’ve been seeing for years. I expected better of Apple.

No new Macs. No new software. I guess new PowerMacs, Minis, and MacBooks will trickle out over the next few months when they’re ready. No new iLife. No new iWork. No new Leopard. (Maybe that will arrive at WWDC.) Will anything else be announced by Apple at the show? I hope so. So far, I’m feeling let down.

Does anyone know how to upgrade open source libraries bundled with Mac OS X? My specific concern is with the version of libxml installed on this server (2.6.16) which has serious bugs in RELAX NG validation. I want to upgrade that to version 2.6.26.
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Steve Jobs and others have said for years that Microsoft copies Apple. Remember the “Redmond, start your photocopiers” banner from WWDC 2004? Well now, someone deep inside the beast has admitted it. Straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s Moishe Lettvin, formerly of the Microsoft Windows Mobile PC User Experience team:

My team had a very talented UI designer and my particular feature had a good, headstrong program manager with strong ideas about user experience. We had a Mac that we looked to as a paragon of clean UI. Of course the Shell team also had some great UI designers and numerous good, headstrong PMs who valued (I can only assume) simplicity and so on. Perhaps they had a Mac too.

Emphasis added. Wow.

The new CoreDuo MacBooks from Apple look cool. I’ll probably get one whenever my current 2002-era TiBook dies, though hopefully that won’t be soon. There are a couple of things I wonder about though.
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I’m thinking about upgrading my DVD burner to use dual layer discs. The prices have dropped to about $2 a disc, and are likely to fall fast throughout the next year. Maybe I’ll wait till I’m about to the bottom of my current spindle of 4 Gig DVDs, and then upgrade.

The LaCie d2 DVD+/-RW with LightScribe looks like a good deal at $175. Burning labels right onto the disc would be cool, and this model includes a full version of Toast 7 Titanium which I could use. I’ve been limping along with Toast 6 for the time being, since I totally don’t trust Roxio’s upgrade rebates. (They’ve cheated me on those before.)

Anyone have any experience with this drive?