I am the snow,
I come silently over the land,
I cover everything under my wings,
being cold, I still protect the weak (plants) from bad frost,
I bring silence,
I swallow sounds and thoughts,
then,when spring comes, I fly into the sun.

Maybe Halloween is getting a little bit of a hype in here but there is another fun article that caught my attention.A satirical Forbes.com article by David M. Ewalt features full size Halloween masks(designed by James Hickey) of Steve Jobs (aka Darth Vader),Alan Greenspan (aka Yoda) and others.

Though the article is a humorous approach towards Steve Jobs personality, the metaphors used are not too far fetched.

Just like old times.If an innovation doesnt come from Apple the user of such machines are often locked out from the product.A new example of such unfair product philosophy is the Virtual Laser Keyboard.

Everything seems fine,pricing,supports BlueTooth,compatible to all PDAs all PCs,even design,but it doesnt work with all the PCs... they do not support the Mac.I hope there will be drivers for OS X soon.

People say Mac users get all the gadgets, I say, then question is "when".

OK, lazybones here is the killerapp you ever waited for.Busy Bee makes your Mac look as if it was doing some very important jobs to allow you to expand your coffee break, flirt with the boss secretary or simply sit around and look out of the window.You will never have to worry if somebody is looking over your shoulder again.Do not underestimate the possiblities that this app offers.

Close to Halloween all kinds of screensavers,spooky desktop pictures and soundsets are ready for download.Pumpkin is one of of the funny but useless gimmicks.

Beware its Scareware!

Iraq war comes to another sad landmark.Senate keept silence for a minute to honor the casualties.

No matter how sad it may sound to everyone concerned directly or indirectly, this landmark is nothing else but another try to blurr the ugly face of reality.While President Bush vows "not to rest or tire until this war on terror is won" the body count of civilians died in Iraq war tell another story.

So its very disturbing President Bush´s vow sounds more like a threat than a promise.

UPDATE: I apology for giving incorrect description for the link to the body count, NOT american but civilian casualties were counted.Nevertheless the numbers of casualties on both sides should make every sane person think of another solution but continued war in Iraq.

Norman Rohrer, one of IBM´s top chip designers, points out Apples switch would not in any way have an effect on IBM roadmaps and in addition to that tells further details about Apple´s current top shot chip PowerPC 970MP like each core can operate at independant wake/sleep states for reducing power consumption and heat by 50 percent (higher mathematics )

Right in time for Halloween NASA offers free downloads of sound recordings from latest Saturn mission.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/sounds/

Spooky!

Troy Wolverton from thestreet.com reports about Apple executives scoring big cash with AAPL trading so high.

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer alone made a fine $32 million when he sold 750k options last week.

This could be the first piece of evidence for a soon to come stagnation of share price, due to the recent law suits, a yet unkown problem in the field of sales or even due to executives share sells itself as stock exchange is a very sensible environment.

In his article "PowerPC, x86 and Apple pricing" Paul Murphy takes a very interesting approach on Intel Mac pricing, he draws a not too bright picture as mac sells might "fall through the floor" when the first Intel Macs arrive.

After Apple got sued over the ipod nano, it is reported that just another law suit has been filed against Steve Jobs.Inside Bay Area reports a handful of Pixar top managers including Steve Jobs would have distributed misleading information about the company´s financial performance.

To make a long story short, earnings from Pixars movie "The Incredibles" were not as high as predicted.

Objective Development´s Little Snitch got updated to prevent the application from being "killed" in OS X Tiger (10.4) or being manipulated using GUI scripting. Check Little Snitch release notes for details.

Steve Rubel reports the Disney owned ABC to broadcast (or better "vidcast") their local news (WABC-TV New York and WLS-TV Chicago - itms links) via iTunes Music Store for free.

Being among America´s 25 Best Leaders Steve Jobs seems to hold all the trump cards necessary to rule home media centers all over the world. The machines (iMac G5, Mac Mini and iPod) are all available, and the market is sure hungry for another approach from Apple to take over the livingroom. Another approach? Yep, the idea with the all new iMac isnt so new after all. But no need for whining folks, its Apple who "stole" Apples own idea, as reported on lowendmac.

APC describes how iMac, Mac Mini and ipod combined with the knowledge Steve Jobs gathered around himself by recruiting the head of TV recording company ElGato will enable Apple to become the leading company in home entertaining.

While Apple iTunes is de facto standard for digital music sales and storage, the TV market seems to be the new target for Apple. Having nice contracts for music videos, some series like "Lost" and of course fine Pixar clips, it seems to be just a little step towards complete dominance of home entertainment.

Another not often mentioned but very obvious fact is that the power that drove so many innovations during evolution strikes again. Sex! Believe me, there will be loads of movie-on-the-go sites which offer adult material for video ipods soon.

Though Apple is very silent about new products, especially new processors, the new friend and supplier Intel doesnt really care about Steve Jobs love for secrets. So Intel Corp speaks in the open about the new mobile processors coming out in mid/end 2006. Memron is reported to be a dual core cpu and would fit so nicely into the new Intel-Powerbooks.

I would love to see Stevie jumping up and down on that action, sleep with the dogs and wake up with fleas, as they say.

Another quite weird thing I came across is this article ,not because another journalist joins the chorus, buys a mac and lives happy ever after, but because of real strange things the author points out.

"About 20 percent of Mac users reported in a 2005 Consumer Reports survey that they had found a virus on their machines in the past two years compared with 66 percent of Windows users who said they had."
This , to me completely unknown, statistic won my interest and I am busy searching the web for it, so in case you can help just use the comment function or send me an email via "contact" - I want to see the Mac viruses! Or then again were the sightings of Mac viruses , made by 20 % of the Mac users just Windows exploits from office documents etc, so a serious statistic would have counted the percentage of working exploids for the Mac.

Based on the Mozilla source code. Flock takes a twist in the browser game, fresh new interface and a growing group of developers supporting it. So speaking of rendering, ease of use and security the user will have to deal with Mozilla standards, but Flock developers stir things up for a big shot(Flock-Roadmap).

Get Flock and see for yourself if this new project in reorganizing the Mozilla code will outlive the other competitors in the browser game. The start looks very energetic, lets hope they can keep up that pace.

While things about the scratchy iPod nano get hot and wild not not only in online-discussions but also in court as consumers filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple.

Apart from cheap materials on the hardware side, the software side, to be more precise the operating system OS X gets a good review concerning security from Steven H. Wildstrom(BusinessWeek online).But at the same time Wildstrom points out, the reason for the missing exploits for OS X would be the much lower marketshare of mac computers and the resulting lower expection of a financial gain.
Maybe he should check the story I had a while back and check the great pieces of visionary coding I created, I wasnt in it for the money, it was all for the fame.

However, I am still waiting for the first virus to seriously attack OS X, I am still sure it is out there.

BTW the idea to use Automator for creating some "bad apps" seems to have inspired some very interesting people.

If it looks like in Iraq Saddam Hussein trial. So the first lawyer of defence has already been executed , great job of providing a fair trial. Mr. Bush why dont you finally submit you dont have anything in control down in Iraq, but if you insist in having things under control, well then may I ask why you had Saddam Husseins lawyer executed? No matter how you turn the facts, the american authorities have just taken another bad hit on their reputation.

Then again it feeds the fires to read about how the lawyer was kidnapped. Could another intelligence agency than one from Gods own country have set up such a plot in Iraq? And if there was another agency what would that tell the people about security in Iraq?

No matter which way you put it, it was ok for US government to have Saddam Husseins lawer taken out, so either they pushed things to that direction or they couldnt stop the incident from happening. Both possibilities do not draw a too bright picture for democracy and security in Iraq.

So please, if Germany should ever fall into the wrong hands, please my dear United States of America, do not "liberate" our country. You say they wont bother anyway since the cold war is over and Germany lost its strategic location between the blocks, I say hey we got like 20 oil rigs in Northern-Sea.

Since Apple didnt give too big new features for the new powerbook apart from stuff I would count among the range of goodies NOT real features. New audio and video i/o devices were needed for a long time so I wouldnt say "thank you" to Stevie but "good thing you made it".

In addition to that there are no obvious new processors for protable macs, all the 1.5 + ghz processors are just overclocked in fact. So why not do it yourself? Check this article (link, french) , the powerbook was overclocked to a stable 1.83 ghz, in a result we might see another speed bump for apple powerbooks but made by apple and paid by the user. Its a shame they (ha!) didnt come up with a nice mobile ppc before doomsday ( doomsday = end of transition to intel)

A word on the dualcore macs, it all sounds to good to be true, too easy to be true, too affordable to be true and what do we learn first in this world? Nothing is for free. Lets wait and see what will happen, as the first dualcore intel processors were in fact slower than a dual processor system.

Keep in mind you are messing with a quite expansive thingy there when trying to overclock your mac.

The crazy ones knew it all the time. Reality caught up with sience fiction finally. EFF ( Electronic Frontier Foundation ) claims to have found out and shows proof that intelligence agencies have put up a deal with major printer companies to include an color-encrypted code on every piece of paper coming out of the laserprinters. Other types like ink-printers were not checked but again why should they (ha!) focus on laserprinters only?

"So far, we´ve only broken the code for Xerox DocuColor printers,"said Schoen. "But we believe that other models from other manufacturers include the same personally identifiable information in their tracking dots"

Stunning, I take it even the most evil conspiracy theories didnt include this scenario, as a logical result I assume that everything written down or even only thought of when it comes to intelligence and counter-intelligence has already been done or will be done. Now if that tracking dot scandal is real, what else is real? Black helicopters, microwaves killing critics of the system, forced implants, EVERYTHING is possible.

I am positive the people will again swallow the bitter pill of losing another part of their freedom, when told it was to protect themselves from the bad guys and if they didnt participate they wouldnt be good patriots. These are definately the last days.

The new iMac G5 will be another step towards Steve Jobs goal to make Apple the new Sony. The iMac features among improved memory and a little more speed, built-in isight camera (VGA 640x480), infrared remote control(reciever hidden behind the apple logo under the screen),photo booth (a new "killer app" for easy manipulation of photos) and comes with apples new MightyMouse.
So the whole package looks like a serious start into the world of home entertainment, together with the 20" display it should work fine as movie and music station.Alongside Apple abandoned the sale of the eMac to non-educational customers which I find a rather harsh way to push people into buying the iMac or an iBook, since the Mac Mini isnt an all-in-one product it may not be counted among the alternatives.

But what is on the other side of the coin? I mean Apple does great in investing money and human resources in the developement of entertainment technology, while it has become very quiet on the side of "Pro" products. It seems Apple fell into deep sleep and decided to focus on consumer products and entertainment rather than serverving the users who do business with their Macs.

Funny how things change when shareholder value kills management. So Apple arrives in the livingroom but leaves the office.

Thats what I see and I do not like it.

Thats one of the funny laws from all over the world you find on dumblaws.com(link). It shows authorities ignorance in the world, people are dominated by stupid and mostly outdated rules. On the other hand there are laws that are fully understandable to me like this example from New York City :
"Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business"

Another intestesting aspect is, you can check "if you really wanna go there" before ending up with death penalty for walking the wrong way during your vacation. Plus, the website shows perfectly, how plain and understandable the laws in Germany are. Well, however :
"It is illegal for ones car to run out of gas on the Autobahn"

I have to submit I didnt know that law existed, so dumblaws.com(link) is the perfect place, to have some fun and learn some facts while doing so as they even explain why that rule was created in a lot of cases.

First of all, I do not like WOW. I hated the hype around this game from second one. I never tried this game, I dislike most of the people playing it, as it´s the same people telling you Unreal Tournament, America´s Army or Return to Castle Wolfenstein are bad and gory while busy grinding their battle axes in some WOW realm.

Blizzard, which is the company selling the game, is known for taking sometimes quite harsh actions against cheaters, put a new twist in todays spyware discussions as WOW is reported to scan the machine its running on, for other running apps, windows names and processes. In Greg Hoglund´s Blog(link) the fire was started as he reported the spyware problems first. - BTW though its all concerning the Windows Version of WOW in the blog and discussions, I take it for granted that Mac version(s) are affected as well since Blizzard wouldnt let Mac users cheat but fight cheating on Windows. Plus, The EULA which is the same for all platforms informs you of the spying anyway , so if you actually play this game it´s all your fault as you accepted the nosy app by agreeing to the EULA.

No whining please, read before clicking and you are fine.

As reported yesterday a new release of Ubuntu hit the web and today it had to hit my powerbook. I was really looking forward to this since I probably wont follow Steve Job´s switch to intel. So when Stevie started his " 2 year conversation to intel" I started my switch to linux roadmap that night. After some problems while stupidly clicking the link on ubuntu download site(link) without any result I upgraded to brain 1.01 and scrolled down a little to find a nice web directory. Well, there are the goods! I chose the live cd .torrent file(link) and off I went.

Note : The .iso which is the result of the download can easily be burned using OS X built in disk utility application.

A famous german hacker group called "Chaos Computer Club"(link), to be more precise it´s section from the german city called "Ulm" did some introduction in OS X hacking which may not only be interesting for the beginners but for the advanced audience as well. The video and the pdf supporting it can be found here(link), sound quality is crappy but since its german language that doesnt matter anyway. Even if you understand german its no gain in listening really as the things shown on the screen deserve the focus of the viewer anyway.

Do those websites that try to force you into submitting your details like eg the New York Times get on your nerves? Whats behind conning your name and income out of your brain just for reading an article? I am not sure myself BUT I take it for granted it generates one huge mass of spam. Of course we all fake those entries, of course I dont because I use a nice and free service called "BugMeNot.com"(link) that provides the visitor with log/pass for all those odd and not-so-odd news sites.

Now that Germany got a female Chancellor, a Chancelloress , it is about time to make some fun on other countries again. Do not get me wrong it is more than just okay to me to be led by a female, but why did it have to be such an ugly and ignorant person? I take it its not my year and Chancelloress Merkel can be lucky I wasnt working in her opponents election team, I would have had her get her behind kicked out of the parlament on chancellor election day, she would never have gotten more than 50 percent of the votes in there.

So it is great indeed there are the United States of America and the authorities leading God´s own country. Or like a German comedian put it : " It´s great how the USA and their president behave, just great, I mean back in the days everybody hated Germany, nowadays everybody hates the USA, thank you Mr. Bush."

Strange enough, the things that happened after the floodings in southern USA, were so different from the things happened during the floodings in Indonesia just month before.On the one hand, people caring, helping, sacrificing theirselves for total strangers and on the other hand lootings,robbery,murder and rape. Now lets guess which of the two scenarios painted the picture of a so called third world country ?
In New Orleans approx 50 % of all police quit their job during the floodings and went home to help their families or they went looting. This video(link to media archive) which was quite hard to find, as it was even taken off the major news sites on the web, shows the anarchy in the flooded areas.

For something important, Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) (link) has been released, I havent found the time to test the live-cd yet, but I am really looking forward to this again, as OS X Finders is a piece of junk, speaking of usability compared to Ubuntu´s Gnome desktop.
Free download of Ubuntu 5.10 (link)

Something new , something old and something borrowed, along with something blue and off you go for a nice wedding.

How else should I get from fair traded audio software to the well known 622 music videos in one blog?

Don´t Crac[k] (link) tries to interact between audio app developers and users. They offer numerous freeware audio apps plus an online shop with reasonable prices for commercial software. A little bit like u can buy fair traded coffee from third world countries, I didnt know the audio app developers had that much of problems but the freeware section is worth a visit for sure as it not only contains mac but also windows software.

Granfaro Weblog(link) offers 622 music videos along with other blogs created to bring mp3s and other things to the interested audience. While I really enjoy the Granfaro music videos, I have to submit I dislike the other blogs offered there. But then I am sure others will see things different and know why this news is "old".

Now thats about it for today, but hey, wheres the borrowed and the blue thing one needs for a perfect wedding? As for the borrowed thing its the design of this website for sure, for the blue thing, it´s B´s pondlife I just discovered recently.I take it all the details were given .... let´s call it a day.

Did you ever clean up your computer mess in the garage? You certainly should and you may discover loads of Playstation games (psx games). If you are lucky you find a working playstation with that, but if you are unlucky you will have to find a working emulation app for mac ( OS X ) and if you are a real unlucky guy, you have to get such a handy app for OS X 10.4 ( Tiger ).

My searches took my to this (link) very interesting but not very informative website. On that website you may download CVGS (which has become free/abandonware nowadays) along with all updates and patches, FlareStorm 2 and PCSX. While CVGS is an OS 9x app and didnt work for me in classic mode in Tiger telling me my cd-drive wasnt able to read cds and wasnt supported or something, the other two apps are advertised to run in OS X. To make a long story short, FlareStorm 2 didnt work for me at all, but is a nice little helper to "prepare" some older game cds for the working PCSX. Some older game cds mount two images as you insert them into your mac( one with the game another will be identified as a music cd), to run those games on PCSX simply fire up FlareStorm and insert the game. You will see it only mount the game just as you wished, now quit FlareStorm and start up PCSX - easy eh?
Links to several BIOS files for PCSX will be found in renewed Emulation Section soon ( maybe I will host these files myself because they are hard to find as soon as I am positve about the legal background of hosting Sony BIOS files ) - meanwhile google for "SCPHBIOSES.zip"

The most expansive fan movie of all times is about to be availible on the internet... and only on the internet.Just like it´s counterpart(link) from the Star Trek universe, the ethusiasm of more than one hundred people made "Tydirium - The true Story" possible.Unlike Kevin Rubios "Troops"(link), Tydirium is reported not to be a kind of parody but a "serious"story located in the Star Wars universe.

From TydiriumWebsite(link) : " Our story about the conquest of the shuttle Tydirium takes place somewhere between the liberation of Han Solo from Jabbas palace and the flight of the rebels to the forrest moon of Endor. "

That sounds very interesting to me especially if they really followed the shuttle story and put the spacecraft in the middle of the plot which could result in a very interesting viewing experience. So you folks better stay tuned!

Wireless networks everywhere! No matter where you walk in the cities across the world, WiFi is already there.While WEP encryption, though useless, is still state of the art protection for home and business users, new safer encryptions like WPA(2) progresses are still at stake.
Applications like Kismac(link) include a simple brute force attack mode(along with some other tricks) for entering protected networks(oops check your own network for security). Another way to add security to WEP networks was ( as in "is no more" ) simply to allow connections to known computers only by submitting ethernet ids of the individual computer. Now thats gone totally insecure as there is a cute little app(link) which changes the ethernet ip of an apple airport extreme card to a desired value.

In case you are interested in what I did to secure my wireless network at home... I switched back to the cable-solution, oldskool but secure.