News Archive for 01/10/05

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Johnson: Apple working with other retailers

10/05, 9:25pm

Johnson: Apple working with other retailers

An interview with Ron Johnson talks (again) about the Apple's retail plans, noting that the company is trying to work with other neighboring Apple resellers: "We've got to make sure these are adding incremental volume to Apple and the (reseller) channel," according to Johnson.

Elite Computers announces new Bay-area stores

10/05, 7:15pm

Elite Computers announces new Bay-area stores

Elite Computers today announced it is planning a location in Berkeley, along with other locations in Sunnyvale and Capitola. All three stores will be in the same retail spaces previously occupied by the old ComputerWare. The company has already re-opened the former ComputerWare location in San Rafael and has its flagship store in Cupertino across from Apple's main campus. Elite has scheduled a Grand Opening of the Sunnyvale location on Friday, October 19th at 10:00am. The Capitola store will be open by the end of the month and the Berkeley location is expected to open in November.

OpenBase SQL 7.0 released

10/05, 6:30pm

OpenBase SQL 7.0 released

OpenBase SQL 7.0 has been released. The latest version of OpenBase International's database package adds Java stored procedures; built-in credit card payment processing; and a new OpenBase Manager interface that is compatible with Mac OS 9. The tool includes native support for WebObjects 5 and is available immediately.

OpenBase SQL 7.0 gets Java, ebusiness support

10/05, 3:50pm

OpenBase SQL 7.0 gets Java, ebusiness support

OpenBase today released OpenBase SQL 7.0, a new version of its enterprise-level database that now ships with built-in support for Java stored procedures, automated e-business functions (processing credit card payments, e-mail integration, etc.) and improved database design, installation and administration. Version 7.0 also supports document word indexing, query optimizations, ODBC support for Mac OS 9, and cut & paste data exchange with Excel Spreadsheets.

FireWire education course debuts

10/05, 3:10pm

FireWire education course debuts

Zayante has announced a two-day FireWire education course including extensive technical details on bilingual -- both beta and legacy -- operation. The two-day course is scheduled for November 14-15. In addition, Zayante is offering a half day introduction to IEEE 1394 on November 13. The combination price is $3,000 per person; the price for the two-day, 1394b only version is $2,500 person. The 1394b standard provides transfer speeds up to 800 Megabits/second, with a roadmap for scaling to 3.2 Gigabits/second.

Iomega QuikSync 3.1 supports OS X 10.1

10/05, 1:55pm

Iomega QuikSync 3.1 supports OS X 10.1

Iomega has posted a new OS X-compatible version of its QuikSync 3.1 utility. The backup/synchronization utility now supports Peerless drives and now supports mounted drives including network drives (but does not include CDRW or DVD-RW).

FileHider 2.1: hide, protect document files

10/05, 1:35pm

FileHider 2.1: hide, protect document files

Black Magik's $20 utility, FileHider 2.1, quickly and easily hides "your important files and folders from the prying eyes and idle hands of friends, family, children, or other casual observers." It also includes a password function to protect the hidden files. [Classic, Carbon]

Free OS X 10.1 update only in October?

10/05, 11:15am

Free OS X 10.1 update only in October?

A Dallas Morning News article notes that Apple's Instant Up-To-Date Program bundles will only be available through Oct. 31 or "while supplies last," but notes that "many CompUSA locations began burning their own upgrade CDs for free distribution."

WeatherMan 1.3: weather conditions utility

10/05, 11:05am

WeatherMan 1.3: weather conditions utility

Dean Davis has released WeatherMan 1.3 and WeatherManX 1.3, updates to his applications that download current weather conditions, current weather forecast and Nexrad radar images from the National Weather Service. Version 1.3 adds sunrise, sunset, civil and astronomical Twilight times as well as fix a bug under OS X 10.1. [Classic, Carbon]

PalmCopy synchronizes handheld under OS X

10/05, 11:00am

PalmCopy synchronizes handheld under OS X

PalmCopy is a Cocoa-native application that allows you to syncronize a Palm Handheld device with a Mac under OS X: "Unlike other utilities it shouldn't require any non-standard libraries or other programs to use. It is largely based on the pilot-link libraries but doesn't need these to be installed."

Roundup: Apple sued, MS security update...

10/05, 10:35am

Roundup: Apple sued, MS security update...

Yesterday we noted that Apple was sued by a stock holder seeking damages for misinformation on sales numbers by the company on its Cube and new iMac products in July 2000. Other reports included Microsoft's Macro vulnerability update for Excel/PowerPoint, Apple Canada's multimedia tutorial center, Apple's Authoring Support 1.1.3 update, Miglia's Director's Cut 'Take 2', and dozens of new applications.

More Apple stores coming Denver, San Jose

10/05, 10:25am

More Apple stores coming Denver, San Jose

MacNN readers report more future Apple retail store openings, including a November 8th opening date for Apple's Aspen Grove location in Denver (Colorado) and a "late November" date for the Valley Fair mall in San Jose (California). (One Web report indicates a Nov 23 date for the San Jose location, although this has yet to be confirmed by MacNN.) Another reader notes that Apple has signed a lease in "The Mall at Wellington Green," the first major shopping mall to serve the western reaches of Palm Beach County, although an opening date for the store has yet to be announced. [updated]

Team MacNN site relaunches

10/05, 10:20am

Team MacNN site relaunches

Team MacNN's website has been relaunched with an all new design: "Team MacNN is MacNN's distributed computing team. We currently participate in two different projects, but will be expanding to four as new Mac clients are released. Readers are invited to check it out, and to join our team to defend the glory of MacNN." (We expect resolution to our forum server and our search engine problems sometime today or this weekend.)

Epson reduces prices on printer, camera

10/05, 10:20am

Epson reduces prices on printer, camera

Epson earlier this week reduced the price of its Stylus Photo 785EPX ink jet printer and the EPSON PhotoPC 3100Z digital camera. The Stylus Photo 785EPX, developed for direct digital camera photo printing at 2880x720 dpi, is now $200 ($50 reduction), and the PhotoPC 3100Z, a compact, 3-megapixel digital camera is $600 ($200 reduction). Both products featured Epson's PRINT Image Matching technology that allows digital cameras and printers work together.

Retail store openings, PA preview

10/05, 10:10am

Retail store openings, PA preview

Apple's Palo Alto retail store is set to open tomorrow, as noted previously by MacNN. It is Apple's first street-front store, while most others are located in high-traffic malls, according to an Interactive Week article that also notes the Apple store is built around "solution bays and also has an area for kids with iMacs set on a tabletop at kids' height and flanked by shelves of educational and games software. The articles also notes that an average of 7,100 people visit its stores around the country. Update: The Albany store is expected to open on October 13th. [updated]

Street-level, POI planning software

10/05, 9:50am

Street-level, POI planning software

ROUTE 66 recently introduced its ROUTE 66 Route USA 2001-2002 ($50) and ROUTE 66 Route Europe 2001-2002 ($100), which offer hundreds of thousands street maps and Points-of-Interest. The upadate offers new and up-to-date maps from leading in-car navigation data suppliers, better map coverage,a more robust interface, improved printing, and up to 6 times faster routing.

Netrikulator 1.0: new puzzle game

10/05, 9:50am

Netrikulator 1.0: new puzzle game

FIDIM Interactive today released Netrikulator 1.0, a $15 single player puzzle game described as "a combination of Tetris and Pipe Dreams as the user tries to form as many complete networks as possible before the screen fills up." A demo version is available.

OS X 10.1 breaks OpenGL support on

10/05, 2:15am

OS X 10.1 breaks OpenGL support on

MacNN readers are noting Apple's lack of support for OpenGL under OS X on some computers with ATI Rage Pro / Mobility graphics cards (readers are encouraged to write directly to Apple). Josh Lewis writes that the recent OS 10.1 upgrade breaks OpenGL support, however, others indicate that support has been non-existent under OS X:

"I've noticed since upgrading to 10.1 that OpenGL is no longer supported on my machine (an iBook SE 366MHz with an ATI Rage Mobility card) and I've seen many other people on Apple's support forums with the same problem on different machines. It seems that 10.1 drops OpenGL support on several of ATI's slightly older cards, such as the Rage Pro and Rage Mobility lines, to name a few.

"It's unknown to me at this time whether Apple or ATI ever intend to fix this problem. I don't really know whose problem it is or who might fix it, but it is incredibly frustrating to many, many people who own these products with these cards. It's especially frustrating that the computers are listed as "supported" while Apple seems to have decided that only certain parts or functions are really necessary to declare a machine 'supported'. OpenGL is not one of the necessary functions, I guess.

"You can easily tell if OpenGL isn't working if the "pan & scan" screensaver that worked under 10.0.4 is now only able to show pictures in a clicking slideshow-like mode with no panning or scanning. Obviously opening a game or other OpenGL dependent program will also show if your OpenGL is not functional."

FileFreak 3.5: application launcher util

10/05, 1:45am

FileFreak 3.5: application launcher util

John Scalo's FileFreak 3.5, a popular type-as-you-go filter for application launching, offers dramatically improved indexing (up to 45% faster in Mac OS 9 and six times faster in OS X), now tracks moved/renamed files, and fixes other bugs.

Solscape 1.2: solar data utility for OS X

10/05, 1:40am

Solscape 1.2: solar data utility for OS X

Solscape 1.2, described as a "Solar Data Browser," grabs real-time images of the Sun in multiple light wavelengths and also monitors current solar flare, geomagnetic, and Aurora activity. Version 1.2 provides OS X 10.1 compatibility as well as minor interface enhancements.

Stimpsoft continues OS X 10.1 updates

10/05, 1:40am

Stimpsoft continues OS X 10.1 updates

Stimpsoft's Faust's Friend 2.2 and Cat-in-the-dock 1.1 have been updated to work with Mac OS X 10.1. [FF, CID]