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Adobe has finally released Photoshop 7, featuring among all new features, support for Mac OS X, as well as Mac OS 9.

This is big news for Apple. Apple has a very large creative market, most of whom use Adobe Photoshop. These users have been staying away from Mac OS X, and have been feeling neglected by the lack of new and improved Mac OS 9 software. These users will now finally be able to use Mac OS X and take advantage of all that the new OS has to offer.

I would expect Apple’s sales of Mac OS X to pick up in the weeks following the rele4ase of Photoshop 7. I would also expect that hardware sales will pickup as creative professionals decide to stay with the Mac OS and upgrade their computers to the latest G4′s to take advantage of the new version of Photoshop and Mac OS X. I believe that many have been keeping their older G4′s waiting to see what will happen to Photoshop and the creative industry on the Mac. Many have been very skeptical of how they will be treated with the new operating system. Previously they were a very important industry to the platform. Now once again they have been shown that they are still very important and need to be kept.

Photoshop 7 boasts a number of new features including:

“The new Healing Brush revolutionizes the process of retouching images, effortlessly removing dust, scratches, blemishes and wrinkles, while automatically preserving shading, lighting, texture and other attributes. “

“The new File Browser allows users to quickly locate, organize and visually manage images, as well as view EXIF information from digital cameras, including date captured, exposure settings, and associated metadata (such as creation and modification dates).”

“A new painting engine lets users create custom brush presets, simulate techniques like pastels and charcoal, and add special effects such as grass and leaves.”

“The new Pattern Maker plug-in can create patterns such as rocks and sand. An enhanced Liquify plug-in provides even greater control over image warping with zoom, pan and multiple undo capabilities.”


Photoshop 7 will sell for $609 when it is available in a few weeks. An upgrade will cost $149 if you have a previous version of Photoshop, or $499 if you are upgrading from Photoshop Elements or Photoshop LE, those are the stripped down versions that are included with many scanners.

I have not been able to personally see Photoshop 7, so I can’t say much about speed and stability. Hopefully Adobe will be releasing a trial version so that I can review Photoshop 7.

As you can see, MacVillage.net is doing a public beta of the new MacVillage.net 3.0 layout on MacVillage.net News right now. Things will be changing over the next few weeks, so please stay tuned.

Right now we are aware of an issue in which iCab does not render the top of this page correctly. The light blue bar is offset, and the grey is showing above the bar. If anyone has a fix for this, and would like to help bring MacVillage.net back to iCab users, please send us specifically what is causing this problem and how to fix it, and if you wish you can send a fixed HTML page (attached) and email it to me or to email@macvillage.net We are aware that iCab doesn’t like font tags. This is not something that will be addressed at this time. The primary concern is proper rendering in all browsers.

The first person who finds the fix will be mentioned when we offically kick of MacVillage.net 3.0.

Other than that, there are a few bugs with the login/logout functions right now, that is because the authentication system which tracks users has not been updated. That will happen soon.

I have received quite a few emails concerning the slowdown in news posting here at MacVillage.net. I would like to officially say that we are not going away any time soon. In fact the slow down has been the result of relentless upgrading.

Very soon MacVillage.net 3.0 will be launching. Besides a new design, many new features will be implemented for MacVillage.net News readers as well as all MacVillage.net members. The same great services will continue to be offered, but they will be improved.

I can’t say much more than this at this time, but I hope you will stay with MacVillage.net as these upgrades finish consuming all my time, and I can continue to provide you with news on the new MacVillage.net.

As the final phase of upgrades take place, there may be small outages of services including MacVillage.net News, though I will ensure that there is ample time for you to be alerted of any such outages.

Regards,
Robert Accettura

Early this week Apple announced that QuickTime 6 is ready for release but will be delayed until MPEG-4 video licensing terms are improved. In the press release Apple stated [Press Release]:

“Although the QuickTime 6 software is complete and ready for release, Apple is delaying its release until MPEG-4 video licensing terms are improved. The MPEG-4 licensing terms proposed by MPEG-LA (the largest group of MPEG-4 patent holders) includes royalty payments from companies, like Apple, who ship MPEG-4 codecs, as well as royalties from content providers who use MPEG-4 to stream video. Apple agrees with paying a reasonable royalty for including MPEG-4 codecs in QuickTime, but does not believe that MPEG-4 can be successful in the marketplace if content owners must also pay royalties in order to deliver their content using MPEG-4.”

It goes on to say:
“MPEG-4 is poised for great success once the licensing terms are modified to allow content providers to stream their content royalty-free.”

Apple has made a move on behalf of the QuickTime and Internet community, which I personally would like to commend them for. Apple delayed the release of anticipated software as an attempt to stop patent holders from charging excessive licensing fees. Licensing fees for technology standards have been big news in recent months including a debate over W3C standards.

Personally I think Apple’s move will prove to be successful. Already it has proved to be a good PR move, but it will go beyond that. I think other potential MPEG-4 codec developers will side with Apple and may withhold products containing the codec, this may pressure patent holders to change so that they can make at least some of what they hoped to make.

I really wish Apple would ship QuickTime 6 without the MPEG-4 codec, and just add that on as an update when the licensing changes so that we can all take advantage of the new features it has to offer including Flash 5 support. DVC Pro (PAL) support. An updated user interface with a new, easy-to-use “Favorites” interface and easier access to QuickTime content, as well as skip protection enhancements. I would love to see MPEG-4 support, but I this could take some time, and I really don’t want to wait.

One thing that Apple has not made clear is if it will be a free upgrade for QuickTime 5 Pro users. There has been no clear indication either way.

Apple yesterday announced that QuickTime has surpassed RealPlayer with a total of 80 million new users as of 2001. [Press Release] The source of this data is from information released for RealNetworks and Apple. According to Philip Schiller, Apple?s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “This doesn?t even take into account the tens of millions of QuickTime players that are being distributed with digital cameras, software titles and enhanced music CDs.”

As Apple so eloquently put it in a press release:

“The growth of QuickTime, Apple?s industry-leading software for creating, playing and streaming audio and video, is being driven by QuickTime?s high-quality user experience, and the broad base of QuickTime-based authoring tools that enable the creation of news, entertainment and virtual reality (VR) content. Additionally, streaming media is increasingly being used by corporations to deliver training, internal corporate communications and live streaming events, such as Apple?s record-setting webcast of the recent Macworld San Francisco keynote introducing the new iMac?.”

This is a major victory for Apple, though one should obviously be skeptical of any “victory” press release. Apple did not mention anything of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, though it has long been known as a second to Real Player.

While Apple notes that there are 80 million new QuickTime users world wide, there is a distinct different from users and downloads. Apple claims to be on track for 100 million downloads in April by this year. While there may be 80 million QuickTime downloads, there is no way for Apple to say how many of them view QuickTime content on a monthly basis.

One should also note that this is not to say that QuickTime has grown exponentially within the past 18 months, and I would assume that it will continue to do so in the future.

Another thing to keep in mind is that users and available content are two different things. Just because there are more QuickTime downloads than other competing browsers, it doesn’t mean that there is more QuickTime content than any RealPlayer of Windows Media Player. From what I have seen, without looking at exact statistics, I find myself more often using Real Player to view streaming video than QuickTime. Though I have been pleasantly surprised as more and more sites are starting to offer QuickTime as an option, many are even removing support for Windows Media Player, it doesn’t seem to be toppling RealPlayer yet. One of my favorite converts is CNN, which does a great job with QuickTime content on their site. The picture sound, and speed is excellent. Others such as Yahoo have not been so quick to embrace QuickTime.

This announcement is going to generate some controversy in the industry similar to the Apple and Dell dispute over the Education market. Knowing the full argument is always a plus, thus I am presenting both sides in this article.

In my personal opinion, I believe Apple, but I think they did not give the full story. Apple most likely does have 80 million downloads, but no idea how many active users, and it doesn’t discuss Windows Media Player, which may outrank QuickTime since it is included in every copy of Windows. QuickTime doesn’t appear to be number one as far as content goes, but with the way QuickTime is gaining on the competition, it could happen.

This announcement comes on the verge of QuickTime 5.1 being released at QuickTime Live! next week. [Link] The rumor is that MPEG 4 support as well as some smaller enhancements will be included in the new version.

It’s now time to cover email. It’s time because they are now trying to transition me from my old account to my new account. Once again they prompt you to download a file to simplify the process but I recommend you do not use this download, since it is very easy to do on your own.

Before you can change over, you need to receive an email from Comcast containing your new password. They may have done this for many users, and if you haven’t received it yet you will soon. They arrive through your soon to be non-existent home.com email address.<br><br>Here are the settings you need:<br>Mail server: mail.comcast.net<br>SMTP server: smtp.comcast.net<br>Username: Your username from your old Comcast email address (what came before the "” sign.
Password: Contained in the email you will receive.

To setup your account with Outlook Express:

Select the “Tools” menu and go down to Accounts.
Click on your current account, or create a new one.
POP3 is incoming-mail-server type.
For incoming mail server enter “mail.comcast.net”. For outgoing mail server enter “smtp.comcast.net”.
To require a password each time an account is accessed, deselect “Remember Password” box.
Send/Recv applies to all of the multiple accounts.
Click drop-arrow to the right of the Send/Recv to restrict function to only one account.

Things you should know
Your old email address is still accessible until February 28th, so it would be wise to continue doing so. You can do this by having multiple accounts in Outlook Express.

It would be wise to start now telling people your email address will be changing, if you haven’t started yet. A good idea is to email everyone important in your address book with a quick note, and put a note in your signature so anyone you mail in this next month will know it is changing.

Only one email address per account right now, but soon you will be able to have up to 6 email addresses.

You will only be able to view email you opened prior to the 28th, so make sure you check your email on the 28th to ensure you don’t lose mail.


Comcast also note “As we make enhancements to Comcast High-Speed Internet over the next month, you may experience brief interruptions of service. We realize the importance of your Internet service. We will do everything possible to minimize any inconvenience to you.”

On Monday, Apple announced a long anticipated revamped G4 product line. This time they finally broke the 1 GHz barrier, and they did so with a bang. [Press Release] Apple not only announced a new Power Mac G4 with a 1 GHz processor, but one with 2 1GHz G4 processors. That’s right twice the power.

New to the product line is a dual processor G4 system capable of up to 15 gigaflops (15 billion floating point operations per second.) That’s according to the Apple press release. That’s quite a bit of power. It’s actually cheaper than the older dual processor G4, and it’s faster. That’s right, less money for more power.

The implications of this are huge. Apple may have finally realized that the magic number may be to keep all pre-built systems below $3000, though most would argue it must be lower. And hopefully soon they will drop even more.

The new configurations are:

The dual 1-GHz Power Mac G4, for a suggested retail price of $2,999(US), includes:

• 256K on-chip level 2 cache and 2MB of DDR SDRAM L3 cache per processor;
• 512MB of PC133 SDRAM memory;
• NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics card and 64MB DDR SDRAM in 4x AGP slot;
• 80GB Ultra ATA/66 hard disk drive; and
• SuperDrive combination CD-RW/DVD-R optical drive.

The 933 MHz Power Mac G4, for asuggested retail price of $2,299(US), includes:

• 256K on-chip level 2 cache and 2MB of DDR SDRAM L3 cache;
• 256MB of PC133 SDRAM memory;
• NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics card with 64MB DDR SDRAM in 4x AGP slot;
• 60GB Ultra ATA/66 7200 rpm hard disk drive; and
• SuperDrive combination CD-RW/DVD-R optical drive.

The 800 MHz Power Mac G4, for a suggested retail price of $1,599(US), includes:

• 256K on-chip level 2 cache;
• 256MB of PC133 SDRAM memory;
• ATI Radeon 7500 with 32MB DDR SDRAM in 4x AGP slot;
• 40GB Ultra ATA/66 7200 rpm hard disk drive; and CD-RW optical drive.

As far as the configurations go, I think they should be pretty successful as they are, and with the Apple store you can customize them a bit more. Personally the only changes I would make to the dual G4 would be to add a Zip 250 drive and Airport, though they most likely don’t appeal to everyone so it’s OK that Apple left them out of the standard configurations.

One thing that I don’t think is very good is that these computers are still shipping with ATA/66 drives and controllers. If I were Apple, I would have used this opportunity to change over to ATA/100. Most of the drives on the market are now ATA/100 drives, so I wonder what is still keeping Apple with the old ATA/66 drives. ATA/100 is really not that much more expensive. You can upgrade on your own with a Sonnet Tempo card and a ATA/100 drive, though it is not a nice thought to upgrade a computer right out of the box.

Personally, while I wish this happened a year ago, I am very glad that Apple took price into account this time around. I like most others would have expected the dual G4 to cost $3400+ dollars. Finding it fairly loaded for $2999 is a really good sign of changes over at Apple. And everything below it is priced accordingly. It’s great to see that Apple realizes that there are not to many who are willing to pay much more than $3000 these days.

The cost factor in this new computer will be a strong benefit on behalf of the G4 line, and will ultimately have a positive effect on Mac OS X. Cheaper high end Power Macs will be good to lure new business users to the platform. With a low-end iMac still packing a punch at $1700, the Mac OS may soon be turning heads for finally closing the price gap just slightly.

If I were Apple, I would be seriously promoting this computer to businesses and home users through an intense campaign. 1 GHz is a barrier long broken by Intel and AMD, but dual 1 GHz processors could turn some heads if Apple could convince people that the MHz myth is just that, a myth.

Overall, I applaud Apple for the new Power Mac G4′s and the recent iMac G4. Apple has made some very positive moves towards making the platform more affordable, while still keeping it’s style and grace. It has taken some time, but it appears Apple may be making yet another come back. One should also note that Apple’s stock has been doing fairly well since the announcement Monday, though it went down slightly on Friday. It should also be noted how most tech stocks have done in the past few months.