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With all the hype about OS X being released in just a few weeks, some are starting to wonder if there will be enough software available to warrant the upgrade to the next generation operating system. Many believe the answer is no. Not even Microsoft Office will be ready in time for the release. Microsoft isn’t expected to ship Office for X until the fall, and that is if they stay on track. Many other developers are holding off to see if the new OS becomes accepted by the Mac community, thus creating an eternal loop. What comes first, the software for OS X, or the users to use the software.

Someone will have to budge. It will either be the software developers or the Mac community. Who will it be? Many software developers have pledged to develop software for OS X, but not too many developers have actually said that they will have software available for OS X upon it’s release. Of course you can run classic software in OS X, one wonders why upgrade if there is no need. OS X will be using more memory, and classic runs on top of OS X thus there is a slight slow down.

This is not to say that software won’t be developed right away, but I do believe that it will take a few months for the OS to really kick off and for development to boom. Once the summer comes and machines start shipping with OS X on them then developers should really start to see that OS X is here to stay. Thus my prediction is that OSX is going to start off slow then snowball into a very popular OS.

This will cause one more side effect, what about those who don’t have G3 based computers and can’t run OS X, will developers still develop software for this market? Are they going to be left in the dark as the 68k group did back in the mid 90’s?

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Remember when the Melissa virus was announced, then you found out that it was just PC’s were affected (we could not help transmit the virus, we were only effected by down servers.) Well guess what, Melissa is back and it’s here to get you. Melissa is now a virus that effects Microsoft Office 2001. Here is what the email will look like:

Subject: Important Message from
is the name that Microsoft Office 2001 was registered under.

Body: Here is the document you asked for .. don’t show anyone else

Here are a few things you should keep in Mind:

1. The person who emails this virus to you KNOWS YOU. The “don’t open email from people you don’t know” rule doesn’t apply this time. The virus spreads to those in a host computers address book therefore they know you.
2. There may be variations in coming weeks so look at the subject carefully and try to determine if it may be a virus.
3. If you get it, try to let your address book know. Email the first 50 in your address book and write something such as “DON’T OPEN MY PREVIOUS EMAIL! - VIRUS ALERT” so that they don’t open it and spread this virus further.

The problem with a virus like this is not that it causes data loss (which it is not know to do) but that it takes down mail servers and causes high load throughout the internet. Please be careful to help make this virus as little of an inconvenience as possible.

Sonnet Technologies announced on Thursday that it has hired all key engineering personnel of Newer Technologies, Inc. Newer Technologies Inc. closed it’s doors on December 27, 2000 as a result of financial problems that plagued the company for months. Sonnet Technologies also hired Darryl Hinshaw, former vice president of engineering at Newer Technology, joins Sonnet as the director of Sonnet?s new engineering center in Wichita, Kansas. According to Sonnet Technologies the group will begin working on new Sonnet projects immediately following acquisition of office space in Wichita. This is all according to the press release that Sonnet Technologies issued.

This appears to be the end of an era. Newer Technologies has long been known as an innovative upgrade manufacturer. Now that Newer team has joined Sonnet Technologies, another well known upgrade company, this company could potentially become a very powerful force in the industry. I believe this could have a positive impact on the industry.


Related Web Sites:
http://www.sonnettech.com
http://www.newertech.com

Apple has just announced that iTunes, it’s new mp3 player has received over 275,000 downloads in its first week (PressRelease.) In case you have not downloaded it yet, you may want to consider doing it now. This is Apple at its best. Apple has packed this mp3 player with features, yet it still is an elegant piece of software. So elegant only Apple could have authored it.

One of the first things you will notice about iTunes is that it looks great. The Bushed metal look that Apple premiered with QuickTime really looks great with this new utility (who is the cousin of QuickTime.) It also has a very simple look, yet you should be aware that looks are not always accurate, and in this case that is a goodthing.

iTunes is packed with great features. One of the most noticeable is how it organizes the Mp3’s to make them easy to find. Another great feature is the search feature. You can search for a certain Mp3, but you don’t have to search your whole hard drive, thus saving tons of time. Another great feature is the ability to burn CDs (please note that you need a CD-R drive to do so.)

Have you ever seen an Apple Product without one thing that just makes you wonder “what were they doing when they thought of that?” iTunes is right out of the 70’s, and I do say that in a friendly way. If you go into the Visuals Menu and select Turn Visuals On your screen will go into a screensaver sort of a mode. The display shows all sorts of 70’s era images that any music fan would have to love. Imagine having a G4 cube with a Cinema Display sitting in a room with these addictive animations going while playing your favorite music. Now this is innovation.

Other great features include that it is portable friendly, it has a battery saving feature that makes it great for your PowerBook and the amazing “Get Info” window which is now available to Mp3’s. The GetInfo windows are similar to the Finders Get Info windows as they both give tons of info, but the Get Info windows in iTunes allow you tosave info such as Artist, title, genre, comments, year, even the track number.
All together iTunes is a great software package. It will be very interesting to see how Apple will decide to improve this product in the future as it is already almost perfect.


Products Mentioned:

http://www.apple.com/itunes

If you have been around in the past few days, you know that Mac OS 9.1 has been released. You may also be wondering if OS 9.1 is for you. This article is intended to be a brief overview to help you decide if you should upgrade or not.

What’s New:

Here is a brief list of the highlights of Mac OS 9.1

• Finder 9.1 - New features are the Window Menu as well as Get Info Windows changes.
• Apple File Security 2.2 - now supports 128 bit encryption.
• General Controls 8.0 - now PPC Native and Multiple Users Savvy
• Multiple Users 1.3.1 - KidSafe Support Added
• Access 4.0 - PPPoE Support
• USB Printer Sharing 1.0.1 - Allows you to share your USB connected printer across a network.

How it performs:

I have tested Mac OS 9.1 on a B&W G3/400. It took approximately 15 minutes for the installation (a few disk errors were found and had to be repaired prior to installation.) Upon Completion I was prompted to restart the computer as every other Mac OS installation requires. Immediately I noticed a speed enhancement. The Mac OS seemed very quick. Sherlock had a huge speed improvement. With 300 Sherlock search sites on my system it took 30 seconds to launch Sherlock with OS 9. With OS 9.1 it took a mere 5 seconds.

My next experiment was looking to see what new toys were included. I found the General Controls was totally redone. Now PPC native the long overdue upgrade is very simple and quick. It now has support for Multiple Users as well as a prominent location for the “Check Disk” feature which scans the disk if your computer is shutdown improperly. There are countless other small adjustments that I just can’t list in this article.

Bugs?Who hear of an OS release without bugs? This release has proven to be somewhat of a kind release. Not too many bugs have been found, and most of what has been found is minor. Of course Ram Doubler? users need to re-install the software after the upgrade. Also Microsoft Office Manager has a few glitches with the new Mac OS. Otherwise all other popular programs are more or less unaffected. Since this is a “.1″ upgrade, there was not to many large changes, thus there is not such a large aftershock.

To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade?

Should you upgrade? This upgrade is for you if you are having problems with stability or if you want to speed up your computer a little bit. You may not to consider the upgrade if you are not in the mood to download the huge download over your 56k modem, then you may just want to wait for a while as it is not a must have.

You can get it via http://www.info.apple.com/validate/agree.taf?item=91

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