Monday, March 29, 2004
Top Stories
Core Constituency?
Apple is mastering the art of assuming the shape a particular customer prefers to see.
News
iTunes Music Store Brings Music(als) To Your Ears
Now, there is the iTunes Music Store, where you can find hundreds of your favoite musical show albums, all of which can be easily downloaded legally to your computer with lightningg fast speed.
Laps For Class
Pilot program puts laptops in backpacks at Smoky Valley.
Corporate Giants Get Into Music Groove
Overkill marketing may ultimately kill the golden music goose, but in the meantime, some of the biggest names in marketing are steppin up the beat.
France: PowerBook 12" Combo, SuperDrive Price Cuts
Apple Launches 'Brillant Savings' Promo
US$500 back when you purchase a Power Mac G5 and a 23-inch Cinema HD Display at the same time.
Review
Some Undocumented Tricks For Mac OS X
Every operating system has hidden features. Here are some undocumented, hidden or unappreciated tips and tricks for Mac OS X computers.
Sidetrack
Fourth Job In Ten Years: Back To Square One?
This week marks the final week of my career's third job. (If you consider me being having a career, i.e.)
I still have fond memories of my very first job, my very first project. My role is to port an in-house multimedia library onto System 7, so that Mac applications that we wrote can also play the same movie files as on Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS. (This was before QuickTime really worked great on Windows; Microsoft was still working on Video for Windows, Real is nowhere to be found. And Apple had not sued Microsoft.) It's man-verus-machine: how to make Macintosh understand Video for Windows format. (The other direction is relatively easier: after all, Apple has already ported QuickTime to Windows. We didn't try porting QuickTime to MS-DOS, as far as I remember.)
Next week, I'll be returning to a programming job, and I'll be working for someone who was there during my first project, when I was still green. It seems to me I'm back at my first love, after trying various job roles thorughout the past ten years.
But, I haven't been doing any serious programming for the past 2.5 years. (Well, nothing where my next meal is dependent on.) My boss believes in me, although I'm a bit shaky in the confidence department. Let's see next week whether I can still hack it.
Thanks for your support of MyAppleMenu. If the quality here degrade next week, you'd know I might just be struggling a little at my new job.
What Do You Do When One Of Your Bigger Developers On Your Platform Has A Problem?
Dear Microsoft...
One of your bigger developers on your Windows XP platform — you know the one who have ported software to your platform so that your platform can support the world's most popular portable music player — is having some problems with one of the bigger selling point of your latest and great operating system. Can you, like, spare a few headcounts to help Apple solve this problem? Thanks.
Michael Lydon: In this tumultuous city, we cling to whatever doesn't change. Then that changes, and we must start looking again.
Is the Dear Diary column in New York Times an example of a group blog — where the entire city participates?
This is probably circulating around the Blog world right now: My Rides Through Chernobyl Area.
18 years later, Chernobyl is still, naturally, emptied of living souls. This little photo essay invites the readers for a ride into this emptiness.