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The day Mac users have been eagerly anticipating for almost 3 years is here. First we though Rapsody would be our savior, then it was Mac OS X. Mac OS X was officially released by Apple today Saturday, March 24, 2001.

Mac OS X (x is the Roman numeral for 10) has been the first major overhaul of the Mac OS since 1984. “Mac OS X is the most important software from Apple since the original Macintosh operating system in 1984 that revolutionized the entire industry,” said Steve Jobs, Apple?s CEO. “We can?t wait for Mac users around the globe to experience its stability, power and elegance” said Steve Jobs.

According to Apple, at the morning of the release over 350 applications are already shipping for Mac OS X, and over 20,000 applications are in development from 10,0000 developers. Already available is iTunes for Mac OS X as well as iMovie and AppleWorks.

Mac OS X is built upon an incredibly stable, open source, UNIX-based foundation called Darwin and features true memory protection, reemptive multi-tasking and symmetric multiprocessing when running on the dual processor Power Mac? G4. Mac OS X includes Apple?s new Quartz? 2D graphics engine (based on the Internet-standard Portable Document Format) for stunning graphics and broad font support; OpenGL for spectacular 3D graphics and gaming; and QuickTime? for streaming audio and video. Mac OS X also features an entirely new user interface called Aqua?. Aqua combines superior ease of use with amazing new functionality such as the Dock, a breakthrough for organizing, documents and document windows.

• Dynamic memory management, eliminating “out of memory” messages or need to adjust the memory for applications


• Advanced power management, so that PowerBook? and iBook? systems wake from sleep instantly


• QuickTime 5, shipping for the first time as an integrated feature of Mac OS X


• Automatic networking, allowing users to get on the Internet using any available network connection, without adjustingsettings


• A single interface to easily manage all network and Internet connections, including direct support for DSL systems that require PPPoE connectivity


• Full PDF support and PDF integration into the operating system, so that Mac OS X applications can generate standard


• PDF documents to be shared with any platform


• Direct support for TrueType, Type 1 and OpenType fonts, and an intuitive and flexible interface for managing fonts and groups of fonts


• More than $1,000 of the best fonts available today, including Baskerville, Herman Zapf?s Zapfino, Futura, and Optima; as well as the highest-quality Japanese fonts available, in the largest character set ever on a personal computer


• iTools integration into Mac OS X, for direct access to iDisk free Internet storage in the Finder and Open/Save dialog boxes, and free IMAP mail for Mac.com email accounts


• Built in support for popular HP, Canon, and Epson printers


• Easy to administer multi-user environment, with access privileges to keep documents secure


• Powerful web development tools and technologies such as WebDAV, XML, Apache and QuickTime


• BSD UNIX services including popular shells, Perl and FTP


• Support for symmetric multi-processing, so that on dual-processor Power Mac G4 systems, both processors are used automatically to deliver up to twice the productivity


• File system and network security including support for Kerberos


• Support for Java 2 Standard Edition built directly into Mac OS X, giving customers access to cross platform applications

Are you thinking about upgrading to Mac OS X? If so, then here is a quick link:


NEW! MAC OS X - Reserve Yours Today!

Well, it is time to start a tradition, I am happy to announce the first annual Build a Home contest at MacVillage.net. Here is how it works:

Design a web site about anything. It can be for your business, about you, your pet, your best friend, your Mac, anything. Use your MacVillage.net account to host it (requirement), you get 20MB free web space to do so. Then when you are done, enter the contest at http://macvillage.net/contest. The winning web site gets an ad campaign to promote traffic to their web site. It’s also just a lot of fun.

You can design your web site using any software you want. You will most likely want to use a Mac since they are superior machines and are the best as far as design goes, and the Windows people know that! Some favorites among MacVillage members are Adobe Pagemill, GoLive, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Claris Home Page, and BBEdit. There is an online HTML editor if you would just like to use that.

A few links for you:
Contest Home Page - all the info you need plus the signup form (remember to fill it out if you want to be in the contest!)

MacVillage.net Signup (if you don’t have an account already)

Add Free Web Space (if you don’t have free web space on your account)

Web Design Forum (if you want some help along the way)


More news about the contest will be given as the contest proceeds.

Good Luck!

It appeared in recent months that Apple has been suffering in the education market. Competitors such as Dell claimed to have outsold Apple in the education market. Many schools were slowly converting over to Wintel instead of upgrading their Macs. Apple has for years dominated this market.

It appears Apple has made an attempt to restart their relations with educational institutions. Apple has announced plans to purchase PowerSchool, a provider of Web-based student information systems for K-12 schools and school districts. 2,000 schools nationwide have selected the PowerSchool student information system. Web-based means that the system is not platform dependant, and will work with any wired computer.

“Apple has a legacy of helping teachers teach and students learn. We are now expanding that mission to include helping schools run more effectively, “said Steve Jobs, Apple?s CEO. “By acquiring PowerSchool and welcoming its talented employees to Apple, we instantly become the leading provider of web-based student information systems nation wide.” On the other hand some feel that this announcement has come to late for Apple, who once dominated the education market.

According to the press release Apple will acquire PowerSchool for $62 million in Apple stock. The deal is still pending approval from stockholders.

Since Apple announced Mac OS X, Mac users worldwide immediately got a picture of a futuristic, powerful, reliable operating system which they could shove in the face of their Windows using friends. When they got their hands on the Mac OS X public beta, they were thrilled to see some of the features they always dreamed about, and they were disappointed to see that features they already had and loved were missing. Apple then took feedback from the public beta to formulate a final release of Mac OS X, and we all eagerly waited to hear the outcome.

Apple announced on March 7, 2001 that it has released the GM (Gold Master) release to manufacturers (http://macvillage.net/macpr/pressreleases/98399519744948.shtml). Many things have changed since the public beta, here is a basic rundown:


Some bad news:

DVD playback support will not be available in this first release of Mac OS X. Support is expected to exist by the summer of 2001 as part of Mac OS X 10.1 or it may be available as a quick download.

ITunes and iMovie will not be available in Mac OS X right away, but are expected to be available on Apple’s web site as soon as they are ready.


Some Good news:

Toolbars are now completely customizable

Windows now behave like Mac OS 9, when you open content, it opens in a new windows rather than in the same window.

The Apple Menu has been redone and is now part of Mac OS X. Many believed that we were not ready to give up the beloved Apple Menu, so Apple integrated it into Mac OS X.

The clock is now in the menu bar rather than in the Dock.

Control strip like items are now available in the dock to help make up for loss of the control strip which many users felt was a severe loss.

True integration of iTools into Mac OS X has finally occurred, now you have full access to the iTools such as iDisk right in the OS. Although not officially announced, support for all other iTools utilities are expected to be available.

New feature called “get software” will allow users to learn about third party software.


Many have decided that the best way to get adjusted to Mac OS X will be to have a second hard drive and simply put Mac OS X on one, and Mac OS 9.1 on the other. Although Mac OS X does have classic, the duel drive option will allow you to just boot in Mac OS 9 rather than to have to switch to classic mode. Also it would be more efficient as far as RAM goes. Mac OS X will ship on new computers by the summer time, at that point it will be at version 10.1, and should include DVD support, iTunes, and iMovie. Many expect that this is when we will start to see developers releasing Mac OS X software.

It appears in the eyes of many that Napster is dead. Starting this weekend Sat - Sun March 3-4, 2001, Napster will start to utilize technology to block users from downloading copyrighted MP3′s. Some believe that this is the true beginning of the end while others believe that this is the beginning of something new.

A re-appearing theme in the Napster Forum and else where on the Internet, is that the RIAA is “too greedy.” It has been stated more than 10 times in the 3 hours before this article is published that the Recording Industry and the artists should work without pay.

One can only wonder who these people are, and why they are such hypocrites. Anyone who ever held a job, or asked for a raise is in no position to say such a statement. This is not to say that the RIAA is not greedy, but to say that they shouldn’t receive money for their work is a bit unreasonable. Most people work for companies who make money by selling the products they create. Would these people be willing to work for free?

Others state that sales of CDs have gone up since the introduction of Napster. The only problem with this statement is that there is no proof. There has been no thorough third party investigation on this statement. The statistics that are currently available only show when Napster was a very small service, they only reflect a few stores, and only show a short amount of time. Anyone who has analyzed business knows that fluctuations are normal, thus just because sales were up for one month, that Napster existed, doesn’t mean that sales were up because of Napster. What do the sales in March of 2001 look like compared to the sales of last year around this time. Besides, if Napster were proven to raise sales, wouldn’t the recording industry be for Napster if it would increase revenue? We all know that the recording industry is known for new innovative advertising techniques, why wouldn’t they accept this one if it really increased sales?


What about co-existence?

One can’t help to wonder if it is possible for Napster and the RIAA to co-exist. Guess what, it could very well be if both stop being so arrogant. Here is a possible business model that could possibly satisfy both sides:

Napster cancels the current service making the current client software useless, and launches Napster 2nd Generation:

Free Service: Basic advertisement supported client (similar toAIM) which will only provide a few results for each search. Usersare limited to only so many searches a day and do not get offered theability to download from high bandwidth computers. This service is provided at no charge.

Pay Service: For a small monthly fee, the client features a powerful MP3 player, unlimited searches, access to faster connections, and more results for each search. These users also get discounts on CD’s via a “music club” like service.

The money would go to Napster for maintaining and developing the service. A percentage of the money would be broken up between the Recording Industry. Record companies would be paid upon how many people download their music. For example, if 25% of music downloaded was under the Time Warner label, 25% of the Artists cut would go to Time Warner, and so forth. As a result of this co-existence, the RIAA would drop the suit and endorse Napster.

This service would most likely be successful for a few key reasons. For those who use Napster on occasion, it would be OK to use the Free services, while those who use it often would most likely not mind paying a small charge. Keep in mind that the alternatives are much slower since there is no central server, it is also not nearly as accurate. Other services are truly peer2peer. The client must connect to each server and query it for the requested mp3. Napster has a database of all servers, thus it is quick and thorough. Besides, if someone can afford a computer and Internet access, they can afford a small fee. If they say they can’t they are obviously liars.


The purpose of this article is partially to be the devils advocate. My intention was to back away and look at it from a neutral standpoint rather than from the standpoint of a greedy customer who believes he owns everything just because he is cheap.