New products showcased at FireWire conference

Leading FireWire (IEEE 1394) developers and supporters gathered at last week\'s sixth annual 1394 Developers\' Conference to showcase new products. Apple touted its iPhoto software by demonstrating compatibility with Nikon\'s DI still camera. In addition to veteran FireWire developers, newcomers like FireMedia Communication unveiled new products. Microsoft demoed the first PC speakers running 1394-based audio as part of its Hybrid Home Network; FireMedia showed a new wireless video and data network, transmitting real-time video at more than 30 Megabits/second.

Tech: mobile Internet, Linux on Xbox, ...

Evening tech news: Japan leads the world with the most people accessing the Internet through mobile phones, a government report released today indicates (providers like EarthLink offer North American cell phone email access); Dell is giving away $50,000 to a lucky customer each day this month, with the hope of boosting back-to-school sales; the Xbox Linux Project seeks to find a \"simple and completely legal\" way of running Linux on the Xbox gaming machine, with rewards of up to $200,000; shipments of liquid crystal display monitors fell this quarter -- despite a good first quarter -- as a result of supply problems.

Xserve power issue; 10.1.5 dim; standalones

An Apple Knowledge Base document explains that users cannot use the power button on the front of an Apple display to turn on an Xserve. Instead users are advised to use the button on the front of the server. Another document outlines the steps necessary to avoid unwanted LCD screen dimming on machines running Mac OS X 10.1.5 as a result of Energy Saver enhancements. Finally, Apple has posted standalone versions of iMac Update 1.0 and Security Update July 2002 for Mac OS X

PocketDock 2.5 adds lock-out to dock

PocketDock 2.5 adds the ability to \'lock\' or child proof a dock, updates the skin system, adds 10 new skins, and fixes a number of other minor bugs. The shareware launcher utility offers the ability to organize your applications, documents, web links and email addresses.

Advanced newsgroup utility: Hogwasher 3.0

Asar has released Hogwasher 3.0, a Carbonized version of its advanced newsgroup utility. Version 3.0 adds OS X compatibility, optional Quartz anti-aliased text rendering in list views under OS X, long file name support under OS X, and built-in yEnc encoding and decoding support. Other features include filtering, scheduling, thread tree display, email and image viewing support, and a full address book. A 60-day trial of the $50 Usenet utility is available online. Upgrades from previous versions are $25.

Ridge 1.0: Internet connection app for OS X

Ridge 1.0 is a shareware ($10) internet connection viewer that offers the ability to measure your Internet speed, a graphical representation of data transfer over the past 60 seconds, packet hexadecimal dump and parsing for PPP/IP/TCP/UDP packets, and other features.

Apple stores coming to Indianapolis, NYC

Apple is expected to launch a new retail store in Indianapolis at the Crossing Mall. Residents of the city note that the store will address a lack of Macintosh retailers in the area. Apple will also debut its much-anticipated New York City store, Apple Store SoHo, at this month\'s Macworld Expo NY with the Grand Opening scheduled for Thursday, July 18th.

Apple posts new Real People ads

Apple today posted two new television advertisements on its Web site, as a part of its Real People advertising campaign. Long-time PC user Juan Proano describes in a TV spot his recent switch to the Mac platform; magazine publisher David Carey notes that Microsoft and Lotus suites work well on his Macintosh.

Beta testing of software RAID 5 app: NXRAID

NYRO Technix has announced a beta version of NXRAID, a software-based RAID 5 product for Mac OS X. RAID 5 provides data striping (spreading out blocks of each file across multiple disks) and stripe error correction information using 3 or more disk drives. Interested beta testers email nxrbeta@nyro.com.

Ambrosia to release pop-pop at Macworld Expo

Ambrosia software today announced that pop-pop, its fast-paced action game title, will be released at the MacWorld/NYC. The shareware title, described as \"a wild fusion of Arkanoid and Street Fighter, with a good spot of the PowerPuff girls thrown in for good measure,\" supports both single/multi-player game modes and has support for the popular GameRanger online gaming service. (Pricing for the title has not been announced.)

Paste Without Style! 2.0 XTension for DTP

Paste Without Style! 2.0 is a free (\"donationware\") XTension that works with Quark 4/5: \"It allows you to move and paste text easily and faster with a key shortcut (Apple+Option+V). This text automatically acquires all text attributes of the location where are you pasting. The type, size, font and other text parameters you can also adapt many more. All text is adjusted correctly into place, where you paste it.\"

Macromedia to integrate Opera browser

Opera announced an agreement with Macromedia, in which the two companies will work together to integrate their products for the Mac platform. Opera will deliver a full-featured, embeddable version of its desktop browser to be integrated into a wide range of Macromedia Web development products.

Proteus 2.0b goes shareware, has new features

An early preview release of Proteus 2.0pr, a new version of the multi-protocol messaging cilent, is now available. The client supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo protocols. The shareware adds mail notifications, new sounds and emoticons, speech support single window mode, shell commands, file transer for Yahoo and MSN, Yahoo! Japan suppot, new keyboard shortcuts, ICQ/MSN block lists, and other changes.

eKiosk 3.1 manages Internet access

eKiosk 3.1 adds URL filtering to the application for limiting Internet activity and securing a Mac in publicly accessible areas. Version 4.0 with OS X compatibility is due in September; however a beta is available now.

MacAT 6.2: automated task scheduling app

MacAT 6.2 is an update to the shareware ($50) automated task scheduling application for Mac server administrators that \"allows more than 42 of the most common MacOS tasks to be run daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly or yearly without user intervention.\"

MacPlay to debut Fallout 2 for Mac at MWNY

MacPlay today announced that it will bring Fallout 2 to the Mac. The company says the title is in final testing and will debut in the MacPlay Booth at Macworld Expo New York--with limited quantities available at the show. Fallout 2 is the sequel to the critically acclaimed RPG. The official release date of the $30 title is July 31, 2002. It will be available for both Classic and OS X.