News Archive for 04/08/06

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Apple deal offers 6,000 iBooks to Maine high schools

08/06, 11:55pm

Maine strikes iBook deal

Apple today agreed to a revised deal that will offer iBooks to about one-third of Maine's public high schools this fall, according to the Associated Press. The report indicates that Apple reduced the participation level from a minimum 8,400 laptops to 6,000 laptops without changing its annual rental price of $300--which is the same low price it charged for laptops in Maine's 242 middle schools. "The price includes servers and repairs, and Apple also will provide training and assist in installing the wireless networks that link the computers. About 35 to 40 of the state's 119 high schools will take part [and] are scattered throughout the state and offer a diverse economic mix."

Apple Store SoHo celebrates two millionth customer

08/06, 11:45pm

SoHo hits 2M customers

The Apple Store SoHo in New York City celebrated its two millionth customer, according to Apple: "Around 4:00 p.m. on Friday, August 6th, our two millionth customer, Christine Quiqless, came through the front door of the Apple Store in SoHo. She was awarded a 12-inch iBook G4, Silver iPod mini, Airport Express and other gifts....While shopping elsewhere, Christine begged her friend to stop by the Apple Store to look at 12-inch iBooks. Her PC laptop had recently died and was ready to make the 'switch' to Mac. After winning, she decided to spend some time shopping for a printer and other accessories for her new computer."

PC Magazine: DVD Studio Pro a strong value

08/06, 1:00pm

DVD Studio Pro review

PC Magazine has reviewed Apple's DVD Studio Pro 3, with much praise for its value. "No other DVD authoring program in the $500 price class is capable of creating such stunning, highly creative DVDs as Apple's DVD Studio Pro 3. For video pros looking to take their productions to the next level, it's worth a serious look." However, the article does offer some criticism as well: "DVD Studio still needs work in several key areas—namely its preview and error-checking capabilities."

Big Nerd Ranch announces PHP 5 class

08/06, 12:15pm

Big Nerd Ranch PHP 5

Big Nerd Ranch has announced PHP 5 Bootcamp, the newest addition to its lineup of training courses. The class is scheduled for October 18-22.PHP is an increasingly popular open-source, cross-platform, server-side scripting language to create fast-loading, robust and flexible Web pages. Class price of $3500 includes lodging, all meals, original instruction materials, 24-hour lab access, and transportation to and from the Atlanta airport.

ZDNet: Apple's struggle with real bad for consumers?

08/06, 11:15am

ZDNet on Apple/Real

Charles Cooper of ZDNet has written an article on the history of digital music online, paralleling the struggles during the days of Napster and illegal music downloads, and the modern world of online music sales. Cooper says: "Apple deserves the kudos it's gotten--but will squander a lot of that good will if it goes ahead with an ill-considered jihad against RealNetworks ... Apple would like nothing better than to exert Microsoft-like domination of the music business ... Too bad. In the struggle over Napster, the music companies turned out to be their own worst enemies. So intent on kneecapping Napster, they ignored the best interests of their customers--which would have been to find a way to coexist with the new Internet technology. Is Apple going to go down a similar path?"

Briefly: iPod transmitters, Mickey's PC, MP3 players

08/06, 9:00am

iPod transmitters review

In Brief: MacNN Reviews has posted an iPod FM transmitter round-up, offering a look at Griffin's iTrip and Sonnet's PodFreq... Disney unveiled a Mickey Mouse-style PC for kids, featuring a monitor with ears and a program to block adult material...Octiv along with Heavy Moon today announced the Japanese availability of Volume Logic for iTunes Mac and Windows...PC World offers a look at Creative's Zen Touch and Apple's new iPods, saying that "At least Apple's player keeps getting better. I'm not sure I can say the same for Creative's offering."

Apps: KaraTunes, Blender, HelpLogic, Checkbook ...

08/06, 8:50am

KaraTunes, Blender, ...

KaraTunes 1.0 ($9) can create and manage personal lyrics collections using an easy-to-use interface and offering integration with iTunes. Users can easily view and edit the lyrics of the song being played by iTunes by choosing a iTunes menu item. It provides Google lyrics search and supports the Unicode standard. [3.4MB]
Elections and Government 1.0 is a tool for anyone studying U.S. elections, offering up-to-date information for the 2004 presidential and congressional elections, including built-in quizzes, details of every presidential election in U.S. history, Information on the electoral college, past voting behavior in each state, links to hundreds of campaign and political websites, etc. [Classic, OSX]
Blender 2.3.4 is an open-source, cross-platform suite for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post production and interactive 3D content creation. Version 2.34 includes a number of updates, including particle physics and interaction, advanced UV texture mapping, ramp shading, and more. [Jaguar, Panthe]
HelpLogic 1.0a3 ($50) is a pre-release of the help authoring solution for cross-platform developers. It can create help systems for software and web sites from a single source. It integrates with Workshop, Visual TOC Builder, HTML Editor, Link Manager and Page Templates to quickly generate Web-based Help, Apple Help, UniHelp, and more...[2.7MB]
CheckBook 1.3 ($15) adds Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) Import, allowing users to quickly enter information from third-party applications and online financial institutions. The import feature offers support for categories and multiple accounts, allows the user to swap several of QIF's fields, presents a pre-Import summary with entry editing, offers filters for duplicate Entries, etc. [1.2MB]
Studiometry 2.0.4 ($70) adds time-sheet abilities as well as category totaling functions for invoices, additional sorting options for invoices, and other enhancements. Studiometry is a business solution for storing/managing client data, project data, to-dos, timers, invoices, payment data, etc. [5.4MB]
XRay 1.1 ($10) is a file/folder information utility for Mac OS X, offering much more detailed view than Mac OS X's "Get Info" window does. Type, creator and extension can be examined and changed by selecting from pop-up menus built from the system's own databases. The effect on the application is shown immediately. [1.6MB]

Runtime Labs updates MySQL 3.0 database manager

08/06, 8:25am

MySQL 3.0 now available

Runtime Labs has released MacSQL 3.0, its database management solution that provides a simple, graphical way to interact with SQL databases. MacSQL 3.0 features a streamlined interface as well as a new graphical Query Editor (with JOIN support), access to frequently used queries, an improved spreadsheet view of data, syntax highlighting, and a User Manager for managing users and their access permissions. MacSQL supports native connections to MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, OpenBase and FrontBase. The full version is $250, while a lite version is $100; upgrades are $150. The company is offering a $50 discount through August 12.

Apple releases Xcode 1.5 developer tools

08/06, 12:25am

Xcode 1.5 for Panther

Apple today released Xcode 1.5, an update to its development environment for Mac OS X. It adds dead-code stripping, remote debugging, gcc 3.3 improvements for performance, code completion for Java and AppleScript, subversion source-code control system support, native build system support for AppleScript, an enhanced debugger with memory and globals browsers, faster editor performance, Ant templates, documentation bookmarks, and other speed improvements. It runs on Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. It is available for download directly from the Apple Developer Connection Member Site.