Review & Evangelisation of All That is Digital For The Mac Enthousiast. Read all about it with a Free Subscription to The [Digital][Dispatch] Mag published every month email me: info.digtaldispatch@sympatico.ca visit our web site for more rich features

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

One Billion Internet Users

"Some time in 2005, we quietly passed a dramatic milestone in Internet history: the one-billionth user went online. Statistically, we're likely talking about a 24-year-old woman in Shanghai."

Apple is Back In Black

The official verdict is in that black is the preferred consumer color for iPods, if you go by Amazon’s Black Friday’s statistics, that is. The online retail powerhouse reported that Apple’s black 2 GB nano ranked as the sixth best-selling electronic gadget, with Apple’s white nano coming in tenth on Amazon.com’s list of most popular items.

Expect a black iMac in 2006 ? We would Hope !

Monday, December 19, 2005

Theater owners want cell phones blocked

The National Association of Theater Owners wants the Federal Communications Commission to allow the blocking of cell phone signals in theaters.

Apple opening another HUGE store in Manhattan

Apple have leased a third Manhattan building opposite the Empire State Building, with 30,000-feet in a five story building, adding to the SoHo and GM Building stores. Still no news for a Montreal Store! Maybe in 2006.

Microsoft drops IE for Mac

Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.

Update: iGlasses 1.2.1

control iSight video settings from within iChat AV and other programs and also activates the iSight on G3 computers which fall below Apple's minimum requirement of 600 MHz.

Update: FontLab Studio 5.0

Highlights of this major update include in-context metrics and kerning editing, new neighbor and shape groups layers, improved proofing and printing.

Apple to kill Aperture's iBook support, and clues to a widescreen 13" PowerBook?

According to the first iteration of Apple's Aperture Compatibility Checker, Aperture supports the latest iBook. However, according to Aperture Checker 1.0.1, that is no longer the case: Aperture 1.0 does in fact currently support screen sizes under 1024x768, and installs fine on current iBooks with the Radeon 9550.

Dual-processor upgrade boosts Power Mac G4s to 1.7 GHz

The $599.95 CPU upgrade from Sonnet Technologies goes for the same price as the slower 1.3-GHz dual processor system it replaces. Catch one if you can!

Bono, and the Gate named Time Persons of the Year

For his sway in getting the richest nations to forgive the debt of the poorest and their funding of vaccines and clinics to fight disease in the most neglected corners of the world, Time Magazine has named singer Bono and Microsoft's Bill and Melinda Gates its Persons of the Year for 2005.

Apple sold out of 1GB iPod

A trusted source told us that Apple sold out of 1GB iPod shuffle until January...

President Bush wants Bono's iPod

US president George Bush sums up his iPod as "pretty high-tech stuff".

Google to pay $1 billion for AOL stake

Google is poised to pay $1 billion for a 5 per cent stake in AOL.

Morgan Stanley expects Apple iPhone announcement

In these words from The Very Serious Morgan Stanley Firm we Trust.
Let's see the result at the next MacWorld!

4Flix.Net offers free Holiday videos for iPod

4Flix.Net offers free Holiday videos for iPod
4Flix.Net has announced that dozens of Christmas movies, cartoons and television shows are available from its Web site for immediate downloading onto personal computers and the new video iPod 4 FREE!

Boinx iStopMotion 1.8.4 now speaks French

Boinx iStopMotion 1.8.4, the premier tool for stop motion animation and time lapse recoording on the Mac, now includes a French localisation and a comprehensive help. The help was previously provided as a web page which posed problems for users without an internet connection at the animation workstation. The update is free for currently registered users and available for download from boinx.com/download immediately. Oui, OUI!

Blinkx to unveil video search to go

Company on Monday has debut Blinkx.tv To Go, which lets users search for video content online and upload results to their iPod. Cool!

Take Control of .Mac Released

To steal a phrase from Steve Jobs, "Oh, one more thing..."

We've released a slew of great ebooks over the last few months, but
we have one more for you this year - the 182-page "Take Control of
.Mac," which provides comprehensive documentation of Apple's .Mac
service, from the inimitable perspective of Joe Kissell, who spent
many an hour testing, tweaking, and troubleshooting in .Mac in order
to provide readers with lots of real-world advice and step-by-step
directions.

Apple steps up iPod 'tax' push

Apple Computer is stepping up its push to get iPod accessory makers to pay for the right to connect to the popular music player. For some months, the company has been seeking royalties from accessory makers that want to display a "Made for iPod" logo on their products. The program, which one analyst has likened to an "iPod tax," applies to devices that connect electrically to the player and not to cosmetic things like cases.

IcoNVader 2 Released

We are pleased to announce the release of IcoNVader 2.

IcoNVader is a funny screen saver which will unleash an invasion of icons on your Mac. They will bounce around, flip over and finally explode in a kind of soap bubble effect. IcoNVader was initially released for Christmas and features an appropriate Christmas theme, but don't be fooled for those icons came to invade our world!

New features include :
- Added two new fun behaviors for icons : "Comets" and "Game of Life".
- Added new settings to change the speed at which the screen saver runs and the size of the icons.
- Added the ability to render through Quartz instead of OpenGL for low-end configurations.
- Fixed the corrupted textures bug with OpenGL rendering under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

IcoNVader 2 is a freeware. It requires any computer running Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar), and is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).
IcoNVader 2 can be downloaded at http://www.daedale.com/download/IcoNVader-2.0.dmg.gz

More Demand for iPod than Mobile Phone for the Holiday

Quoting Morgan Stanley, the large international financial services company, that there is more demand for iPods than mobile phones this holiday season