Dr. Bott ships G5 Skateboard, G5 Roof

Dr. Bott announced it is now shipping G5 Skateboard and G5 Roof. The all-metal G5 Skateboard offers the ability to glibe the machine back and forth on its four machine-tooled wheels. It is available now for $130. The G5 Roof offers additional storage on the top of a Power Mac G5 by inserting an aluminum mesh between the handles of the G5 to create a flat surface for storing other items on top of the machine. It is now shipping for $75.

"Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther"

O'Reilly has released "Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther" ($20), a beginner's guide to OS X's Unix capabilities. "Perhaps some Mac users are already familiar with Unix, just not on the Mac. Or perhaps they've opened their Utilities folder, spotted the Terminal icon and double-clicked on it just for the heck of it." The book by Dave Taylor and Brian Jepson answers the questions first-time Unix-on-Mac users might have.

Highlights from Apple's FYQ1 2004 conference call...

Apple's CFO Fred Anderson highlighted the company's financial performance during Apple's fiscal year Q1 2004 quarterly conference call. Anderson said that Apple had a strong quarter with revenue of just over $2 billion, its highest revenue in 4 years and "blow-out" sales of 733,000 iPods and strong peripheral and software sales (Panther upgrades). Apple also highlighted its record PowerBook sales and a strong performance in its retail segment during the December quarter.

Apple likely to broaden entertainment strategy

Investor's Business Daily comments on Apple's future strategies in consumer entertainment that will enable it to continue growing. With that segment becoming a large portion of the PC industry, Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies says "the next big battle is for the hearts and minds of consumers in the living room. Apple is going to have to find a way to extend the Mac into the living room and connect it to the TV."

Apple posts $63M profit on revenues of more than $2B...

Apple today announced a net profit of $63 million, or $.17 per diluted share, beating consensus estimates of $.14 per share. These results compare to a net loss of $8 million, or $.02 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter reached a four-year high of $2.006 billion, up 36 percent from the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 26.7 percent, down from 27.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue. Apple said it shipped 829,000 Macs during the quarter, up 12 percent from the year-ago quarter, as well as 733,000 iPods, up 235 percent from the year-ago quarter.

Catalyst supports Adobe CS, Panther; Metavue released

Pound Hill Software last week announced Catalyst 1.1, its tool for creating plug-ins to capture and embed metadata. Users can specify both the metadata embedded in graphic arts documents and the look-and-feel of the dialogs that collect the data. In addition, enterprises can generate their own plug-ins for applications such as Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and QuarkXPress. Version 1.1 supports Panther, QuarkXPress 6.x, Adobe XMP, and Adobe CS. Pound Hill's MetaLab is a free cross-platform tool for defining and adding a new XMP metadata panel to the File Info dialogs in Adobe CS applications.

oXygen XML Editor 3.0 adds bookmark, outliner support

oXygen XML Editor 3.0 adds an automatically synchronized tree-based outliner, bookmark support and global transformation scenarios as well as Namespace Routing Language (NRL) schemas and Japanese localization. oXygen XML editor offers support for any XML document, working with XML Schemas, DTDs, Relax NG schemas and NRL Schemas. It can edit XSLT and XSL-FO documents and create desired output formats, such as HTML, PS, PDF, etc. oXygen can also edit files over FTP, HTTP/WebDAV, and HTTPS/WebDAV. A 30-day demo of the $75 application is available.

Apps: Pod2Go, BurnX Free, Little Snitch, Color Pilot

• kainjow software has released Pod2Go 0.6, which can sync news, weather forecasts, movie listings, stock quotes, etc. It adds a new plugin architecture, global iPod menu for syncing, better RSS management, the ability to sync Safari bookmarks, and other fixes. [1.1MB]


• BurnX Free 1.0 (freeware) lets you burn a CD by dragging and dropping files or folders to the main window. It supports sessions to allow for multiple burns to the same same disc. It also has the ability to erase a CD-RW. [851KB]


• Little Snitch 1.1 watches all running applications and brings up an alert panel when an application tries to establish a network connection. Users can either allow the connection, deny it or store a permanent rule for similar future-connections. [422KB]


• Color Pilot 1.1 offers a new unique color correction method, allowing users to "take color from another photo...To do photo enhancement, just tell the program which color you want to have in your picture." It is available for $40 and runs on Mac OS X 10.2.2 or later. [516KB]


• A new Farsi localization of Safari is available online along with instructions on how to install the application. [338KB]


• AuctionSieve 1.3 (free) helps you rapidly filter through the auctions in eBay searches or categories: "Especially designed for collectors, the quick, easy to use interface helps you exclude the stuff you're not interested in and target items of real value." [1.2MB]


• CurrenciesConverter v2 allows you to perform interactive foreign exchange and precious metals rate calculations on the Internet, using live, up to the minute currency rates. The $12 shareware runs on Mac OS X 10.2.7 or later. [806KB]


• VoiceNoteMenu 2.3 is a simple but powerful application that allows you to quickly record voice notes from within the Mac OS X menu bar. It can store up to 99 voice notes and offers time-stamps for easy organization and retrieval. [1.1MB]

Aspyr takes pre-orders on SimCity 4 Rush Hour EP

Aspyr is now taking pre-orders on its new SimCity 4 Rush Hour expansion pack (EP), which it announced last week: "Your City is on the move! Take complete control of your city's transportation system including roads, rail, air, and waterways. Watch you approval rating skyrocket as you get your Sims on the go..." It will run on Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later and requires a 500MHz processor as well as SimCity 4. Pre-orders are available for $30.

Readers: Apple ships iLife '04

MacNN readers report receiving confirmation of shipment of iLife '04, which includes the GarageBand music studio application; new versions of iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD; and iTunes. The $50 suite is expected to available on January 16 (and is available for Jan 16 delivery). An $80 iLife '04 Family Pack version offers installation on up to 5 computers in a single household, while Apple's iLife '04 Up-to-Date program offers the suite for $20 to those who purchased a Mac (without iLife '04 pre-installed) after January 6. Apple notes that a DVD drive is required to install GarageBand and iDVD.

FireWire Depot offers drive storage, RAID enclosures

FireWire Depot today introduced its TITAN 5.25" FireWire-only ($90) and FireWire/USB2 Enclosure combo drive ($100) enclosures. The TT-335 Series enclosure, expected to ship next week, is designed for any 5.25" IDE storage drives, features a rugged aluminum body, supports for 137GB or larger ATA-6 drives. VENUS is a 3.5" version of the same drive available for the same price. FireWire Depot also introduced its 1394b QUAD5 LCD RAID 5 enclosure ($1,300) with an LCD panel for RAID setup and management. It offers FireWire 800 connectivity, five hot-swappable ATA-133 drive bays, and RAID level 0, 1, (0+1), 3, and 5 support.

PrintUlike 3.0 offers print management services

 PrintUlike 3.0 is an online system designed for printing companies to work as remote printing locations, manage printing orders and files, and offer remote access to clients. The software is aimed at service bureaus and companies that offer large-format printing services, while users can sign up for accounts starting at $3/month. Companies can list their printing services on the site or can create custom website(s) under the their own domain. In addition, PrintUlike allows users to create private and public photo galleries with basic photo manipulation functions.

Office 2004 for Macintosh: A first look (Part II)...

 In addition to enhancements to Entourage X (including the new Project Center reviewed yesterday), Microsoft will deliver upgrades to other applications in its productivity suite. Word 2004 offer a new Notebook Layout View and voice recording functions, while Excel will feature a new Page Layout view. In addition, suite will feature new Compatibility Reports to help users share documents with other users who use older Mac or Windows versions of the product.

Apple Store to open in Tucson, AZ on January 24

Apple today announced the Grand Opening of its Apple Sotre La Encantada in Tucson, Arizona. The opening will take place on Saturday, January 24 at 10 am. La Encantada is located on the northwest corner of Skyline and Campbell. The Apple Store is located on the lower level next to Victoria'ss Secret. Meanwhile, David Pogue will host an "Insider Panther" session at the Apple Store SoHo (NYC) at 6pm on January 17: "Witness a parade of undocumented shortcuts, decipher the unfamiliar Mac OS X folder structure, and discover the power of the Unix system that powers the whole thing."

Apple to post Q1 financials later today, QT broadcast

Apple release its FYQ1 financial results today after the markets close and will offer a QuickTime audio broadcast of its conference call discussing the results at 5 pm ET: "Analysts say the company is on track to report healthy growth when it reports December-quarter results after the bell, courtesy of a refreshed computer line with faster processors from IBM and updated Mac OS X software, as well as surging sales of iPods. Sales should total around $1.93 billion, up 12% from the prior quarter on the heels of a fat Christmas season, with earnings of 14 cents, according to consensus estimates."

ResFool offers native Mac OS X resource editing

The La Jolla Underground today announced ResFool, a native Mac OS X resource editor with full ResEdit template support. ResFool includes 100 included templates to edit existing resource types; can edit and create data-fork based resource files in addition to old-style resource forks; offers custom editors; and can preview media files directly within the application. ResFool can also edit (though not create) Bundle folders (such as .app and .rtfd folders). It runs on Mac OS X and is available for $20.

Booq debuts new Mamba.XS carry case

Booq has quietly introduced its new Mamba.XS, a new carry case designed for 12-inch PowerBooks and the iBook. The case sports a versatile strap design that "lets you wear the bag however you like: across your chest, over one shoulder, and - you guessed it - even backpack-style." Made from tough and weather-resistant 1680D nylon, it features padded accessory pockets, removable 2-inch seatbelt-nylon shoulder straps, an internally zippered, weather-protected laptop compartment with non-scratch lining, and movable, custom-molded shoulder pads and back padding. It is available now for $70.

Computerworld looks at Apple's XGrid technology

Apple's new Xgrid application, launched last week, is aimed at scientific applications, according to Computerworld's first look at the software: "Think of Xgrid as a customizable SETI at Home software package for serious computing folk. The Xgrid software allows you to tie together any number of desktop machines (Apple suggests using those with G4 and G5 processors) to work as a single machine to process a job. When one of the computing hosts is idle, it can join the 'hive' and process part of the currently running job."

Apps: MacBreakZ, J2STask, Foto Trimmer, Sente, Quarto

• MacBreakZ! 3.6 ($25) adds a new French localized version, Panther optimizations, and UI tweaks to the Mac OS X utility that monitors computer and warn users of repetitive strain injuries. [2.5MB]


• J2STask 1.0 is a task manager for image workflow that scans a local or ftp source folder at regular intervals and processes the files (rotate, photo downsizing, watermarking, IPTC profile editing, file conversion, and recompression). The €1200 utility runs on Mac OS X 10.2 or later. [form]


• Hutchings Software has updated Foto Trimmer 2.3, its $25 digital image editor, adding framing, e-mailing, and advanced printing. Version 2.3 adds foto framing, built-in foto e-mailing, advanced (but simple) high quality foto printing, and integration with Bosco's Foto Ensemble. [Classic, OSX]


• Third Street Software has released Sente 1.0, a program for searching biomedical research literature in the PubMed database at the NLM. Sente offers fast searching, custom keywords, reference annotation, etc. It runs on Mac OS X 10.2 or later and is available for $80 (commercial) or $50 (education). [4.7MB]


• Dartware's InterMapper 4.1.3 updates the network diagnostic and notification utility with new Xserve probe for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). The software provides detailed traffic information, remote viewing and control, multiple notification options, etc. Pricing starts at $500.


• Spectral Class has updated its 3D board game Quarto! 1.1b6 with support for Rendezvous network game discovery (as well as some bug fixes). It supports playing against a computer opponent, a human opponent sitting at the same computer (a hot seat game) or against another player across the internet. [515KB]