DeMaisonneuve confirms OS X course

DeMaisonneuve College today officially confirmed dates for the "Introduction to Mac OS X Programming Class," as reported on by earlier this month. The class is a week-end "two-day" 14-hour hands-on class is being offered for only CND$200. The class is limited to ten students.

Apple U.K. offers G5 business lease program

Apple U.K. is offering business users the opportunity -- for a limited time -- to lease a Power Mac G5 from as little as £55 per month over 24 months with no interest to pay. This offer is valid from October 13th to December 31st, 2003, inclusive.

NewTek offers LightWave at discount price

NewTek today announced a special offer for graphic artists and designers artists in the U.S. and Canada who use the Macintosh platform -- its LightWave 3D for $800. “Apple has long been a dominant force in the DCC space, especially for print,” said Jim Plant, CEO and President of NewTek. “We’re pleased to bring Mac-based graphic and design professionals an opportunity to add LightWave 3D to their pipeline at such an incredible price.”

Apps: eSuite4X, DR-Verb, DropDMG, Calerga

PolyFractus has released DR-Verb 1.3b, a Reverb VST plug-in that emulates any room -- from small rooms to "Hall" or "Church" settings. This version adds a new reverb algorythm and only supports Mac OS X. DR-Verb is a $40 shareware. [Download - 674KB] DropDMG 2.2 ($10) offers an easy way to create ".dmg", ".img", and ".smi" disk images on Mac OS X. It can encrypt images and encode them with BinHex, GZip, BZip2, or MacBinary. New in this Version is a "dropdmg" tool for creating images from the command-line, and countless other enhancements. Download - 801KB] Calerga has announced updates toits entire line of software: SysQuake 2.6, scientific software with outstanding graphical interactivity for design; SysQuake LE 2.6, a free version of SysQuake; SysQuake Remote 1.2, a module for Apache for embedding scientific computation and graphics in Web pages; and LyME 2.7, a scientific application which brings to Palm OS handhelds a Matlab-compatible programming language. The new releases add improvement in the programming language and its support for integer numbers, Unicode support in SysQuake Remote, and smaller improvements and bug fixes. [Download - SysQuake LE, LyME ] eSuite4X 2.6 is an update to software to install and run a database-driven Web site. New in this version: an Apache 2, MySQL 4.0.15a base; SQL4X Manager J 2.6; a Reporting Tool to create and print reports; and a Data Transfer Manager. Pricing starts at $250. [Download - 28.5MB]

Many Plone Conference attendees use Macs

At the first annual Plone Conference, a reported 30% of the attendees with laptops are using Macs; with many of the presenters using Macs to showcase the latest features of Plone. One of the speakers, Paul Everitt, director of Zope Europe Association, proudly declared he's a Mac devotee.

Apple iTMS numbers, iPod commercial

Apple today said that over 13 million songs have been download from the iTunes Music Store in the first six months, surprassing its initial expectations. The iTunes Music Store has over 70% marketshare in online music song market. Apple's new goal is to sell 100 million songs in its first year (by end of April 2004, when the iTMS was launched) and will have over 400,000 songs and over 200 independent labels available by the end of October. Apple also noted that the iPod is the No. 1 in both unit and market share. It also debuted a new "Rock n' Roll" iPod commercial, which will begin airing tonight in the US and is now available via the Web.

Apple, Belkin introduce iPod accessories

Apple and Belkin today introduced new accessories for the iPod, including the Belkin Voice Recorder ($50), which allows users to record voice notes on your iPod with date/time stamp. It also offers playback via a built-in speaker, your earbud headphones, or a Mac, automatically syncs voice memos to iTunes 4.1, and offers a travel alarm clock. The new Belkin Media Reader ($100) allows you to directly transfer the images to your iPod via FireWire. It protects the media slots from pocket dust and dirt when not in use with sliding cover, a stow-away Dock Connector Cable, a LED indicator for power and data transfer status. The readers supports Compact Flash (Type 1 and 2), Smart Media, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, and Multi Media Card (MMC) media. It runs on 4 AAA batteries (included) and has a 3-year warranty.

Apple releases QuickTime 6.4

Apple today released QuickTime 6.4, with extensive support for 3GPP, including video, audio, text, and native .3gp file format support; performance improvements, support for the Pixlet studio-grade codec; and support for Java 1.4.1. Users can import, export, and play back .3gp files with enhanced MPEG-4 and H.263 video codecs, a newly enhanced AAC audio codec, an AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate) audio codec, a 3G Text importer and exporter, and a user-friendly 3GPP export dialog. It also offers DV encoding and decoding improvements and improved playback of both SD and HD streams. It is available for Mac OS 8/9/X and Windows 98/Me/2000/XP (standalone installer).

DragThing 5.0 adds Panther-only features

TLA Systems has released DragThing 5.0, an update to the $30 desktop launcher utility. It offers new Panther-only features such as a Window Dock (to display list of open windows), new metal dock styles, etc. Other features include new and improved contextual menus, new dock looks, multiple hot spots and actions, improved sound support, customized Desktop Trash options, and improved installation. It requires Mac OS X 10.2 and is a free upgrade for anybody who has purchased DragThing 4 or upgraded to 4 since the 1st of September 2003. Upgrades are $12 for other users.

Apple, Audible offer audiobooks on iTMS

Audible and Apple today announced that more than 20,000 hours of audiobooks and other spoken word programs are now available for download exclusively from the iTunes Music Store: "Through iTunes, Mac and Windows customers can preview and download audio editions of best-selling books, magazines, radio programs and original shows, manage audio content alongside their music collection, and take their entire audio library with them for listening anywhere with the market-leading iPod digital music player."

New iPod software has voice, photo features

Apple today announced a free software update for iPod, which adds support for new Belkin voice recording and photo storage accessories for dockable iPods, allowing users to record hundreds of hours of audio and store thousands of digital photos on their iPod. Available for both Mac and Windows, the iPod software update also includes faster browsing and accessing of large music libraries, the ability to sync On-The-Go playlists back to iTunes and a new Music Quiz game which tests a player's knowledge of their own iTunes music library.

Apple, Pepsi to give away 100 million songs

Apple and Pepsi-Cola North America today announced a "historic promotion" to legally give away 100 million free songs to both Mac and Windows PC users from the iTunes® Music Store. Beginning February 1, 100 million winning codes will be randomly seeded in 20 ounce and 1 liter bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist, and the winning codes will be redeemable for a free song from the iTunes Music Store. Winners will simply go to Apple's iTunes Music Store (www.iTunes.com), enter the code found under the bottle cap and choose any 99 cent song from the online store's vast catalog of over 400,000 songs. The Pepsi iTunes promotion will kick-off with a Super Bowl ad on February 1, 2004, and will run until March 31, 2004.

Instant iTMS registration for AOL members

Apple and America Online today announced an alliance to provide instant, one-click registration to the iTunes Music Store for AOL's more than 25 million U.S. members starting later this quarter. America Online will integrate links to iTunes artists, albums and songs throughout its leading music site, AOL Music, which will give members the option to link directly to the specific iTunes Music Store page to preview and buy music as they browse and read music news and reviews.

Apple launches iTunes for Windows

Apple today launched the second generation of its iTunes Music Store for both Mac and Windows users. The new iTunes Music Store offers Windows users the same online music store with the same music catalog, the same personal use rights and the same 99 cents-per-song pricing. Since its launch six months ago, music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 13 million songs from the iTunes Music Store, making it the number one download music service in the world: "With music from all five major music companies and over 200 independent music labels, the iTunes Music Store catalog is growing every day and will offer more than 400,000 songs by the end of October." iTunes 4.1 is available for both Mac and Windows now.l

Equilibria: new puzzle game from MumboJumbo

MumboJumbo has released Equilibria, a new puzzle game for Mac OS X. Equilibria starts with a group of multi-colored marbles on a playing field. As more move in from all sides, players click groups of three or more same-colored marbles to remove them from the playing area. Registration is $20.

Informatix ships Piranesi for OS X

The Mac OS X version of Piranesi, the "3D Painting" program from Informatix Software, is now shipping. Informatix also announced that Cinema 4D from Maxon has joined the list of products which have interfaces to Piranesi. A Cinema 4D plugin, which works on Windows and Mac OS X, will shortly be available as a download from the Informatix Web site. With Piranesi for Mac OS X, designers can start with simple models and renderings, and use Piranesi's patented "3D Painting" technology to quickly fill in missing detail and produce "artistic, hand-drawn effects."

Coverage of Special Music Event

Apple today launched iTunes for Windows as well as an updated music store with several new features, including new audio content from Audible as well as announced a new 100 million song give-away with Pepsi. It also parterned with AOL to provide instant account access for AOL members and integration with AOL Music. Apple also released a software update for the iPod for new Belkin iPod accessories that add flash memory media card access and voice recording functions to any dockable iPods. Our preliminary live event notes have more details as we catch up with the news from today.

VINC 1.7 offers PDF, more MS Word support

RecoSoft is now shipping VINC v1.7, a major upgrade to its integrated disk navigation, document viewing and conversion tool. VINC (View, Navigate & Convert) provides rapid viewing and high quality conversion of MSWord, PDF, AppleWorks, RTF, PNG, JPEG, Photoshop etc...files. Version 1.7 now provides the capability of viewing PDF files and converting PDF files into other support formats. It also adds support for more types of MS Word files and more MS Word import enhancements. It is $30.

Apple has 3 percent marketshare in US

Apple's U.S. market share is now 3 percent, while its worldwide share is below 3 percent, according to new marketshare numbers that show the worldwide PC market grew more quickly than expected in the third quarter. CNET News.com reports that the PC market as a whole by about 15 percent compared with the same period last year. Dell held the No. 1 PC vendor title with a worldwide market share of 15.3 percent and a US marketshare of 27.4 percent. HP was second with a 15.1 worldwide market share and a 19.4 US marketshare, while IBM was a "distant third. In the United States, Gateway and Apple rounded out the top five."

Apple posts profit, record iPod sales

Apple yesterday posted a net profit of $44 million (after one-time gains) on increased revenues of $1.715 billion. The quarter showed record iPod sales, very strong sales to higher education, extremely high PowerBooK sales, and rebounding Power Mac shipments with the introduction of the G5. Our Q4 Conference Call highlights has more information. Apple, however, did not discuss the iTunes Music, which is expected to the focus of its announcements at this morning's Special Music Event in San Francisco. Despite the rebounding sales and strong iPod unit shipments, Apple's stock dropped in after-hours trading, giving up 87 cents to $23.95 after rising 27 cents in the regular session yesterday.

Apple, Pepsi team up to give iTMS music away

The LA Times reports that Apple today is expected to announce a promotion deal that would give Pepsi buyers free songs from Apple's online music service: "Sources said the unveiling of the pact with PepsiCo Inc. was timed to coincide with today's release of a Windows-compatible version of Apple's iTunes Music Store...consumers who purchase Pepsi beverages would find codes in the packaging that they could redeem online for free downloads from iTunes. Pepsi will pay Apple for each of the songs downloaded during the promotion, the sources said. They said Pepsi and Apple have discussed offering about 100 million free songs." (Registration required to view article.)

Stupendous releases iMovie plugin pack

Stupendous Software announced the release of the Suave & Serifed plugin pack for iMovie. The $25 plugin pack contains 54 titles, featuring a variety of motions and graphical elements. The plugin pack is available for free to registered users of the Stupendous Bundle, its $200 all-in-one collection of plugin packs, now includes 14 iMovie plugin packs featuring 406 effects and titles ranging from color correction to slow motion. It runs on iMove 2.1.1 or above on both Mac OS 9/X.

AlchemyTV offers TV tuning and video capture

Miglia Technology today announced the Alchemy TV card. Featuring a high performance Philips tuner and full QuickTime support, AlchemyTV lets you watch TV in full screen mode and listen to FM radio on your PowerMac. It also allows users to record their favorite TV program in any QuickTime format, including Motion-JPEG and MPEG-4. It also offers full screen viewing and capture mode, and the ability to preview several channels simultaneously. The $110 PCI card requires at least a G4/400 processor and runs on Mac OS X 10.2.4 or later. (G5 Compatibility is not yet known and will be announced later.)

Sonnet launches Tempo Serial ATA PCI card

Sonnet Technologies today announced its new Tempo Serial ATA PCI host adapter, the latest addition to the Sonnet Tempo line of PCI host adapters. This adapter allows Macintosh owners to take advantage of the market's latest offerings in Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) storage technologies. With data transfer rates of up to 150MBytes/sec or 1.5Gbits/sec, the product performance is that of SCSI but "without the SCSI price." The PCI card will be available later this year for $100.

Indiana University store plans launch event

The Indiana University Bookstore's Computer Connection store will be hosting a Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" launch event from 8-10:00 p.m. on Oct. 24th. They will be offering $70 pricing on Panther with educational ID. Update: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Computer Shop is also hosting a "Panther Midnite Madness" from 8PM to 10PM on 24 October at the UN-L Union. Macintosh guru Dirk Prescott will be demonstrating the product. They will be selling Panther for the Apple Educational price of $70 as well.

Apple releases Bluetooth Firmware Update 1.02

Apple today released a Bluetooth Firmware Updater 1.0.2, which "provides improvements in the update installation process, better performance when waking the computer from sleep, and support for additional key commands during startup. The Bluetooth Firmware Updater 1.0.2 is for D-Link USB Adapters (revision B2 or later), and Apple internal Bluetooth modules on PowerBooks and PowerMacs. This firmware update will improve connectivity between the computer and the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse. Important: Using this firmware update will make your Bluetooth module incompatible with Windows based systems."