MacBook Pro Gets Core 2 Duo and FireWire 800

The entire MacBook Pro line of notebooks now includes the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor and delivers performance that is up to 39 percent faster than the previous generation. All MacBook Pro models now offer double the memory and greater storage capacity than the previous generation, as well as a FireWire® 800 port for connecting to high-speed peripherals

Apple Claims 39% Speed Increase

The 2.16 GHz, 15-inch - $1,999 (US),:

• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 3GB;
• 120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 6x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
• two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
• one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;

2.33 GHz, 15-inch - $2,499

• •2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 3GB;
• 120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 6x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
• two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
• one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;

2.33 GHz, 17-inch -$2,799

• •2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 3GB;
• 160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
• three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
• one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;

Maxing to 3GB Ram requires unmatched pairs and a very expensive 2GB Memory Module. Currently the MacBook Pro will only recognize up to 3GB of RAM requiring one slot to be a 2GB Chip and the other a 1GB chip. Buying 3GB from Apple directly online will cost an extra $575. OWC, however is offering the 2GB chip for $680

Airplane Adapter for MacBooks and MacBook Pros- $59

store.apple.com—AppleStore

• Using the MagSafe Airline Power Adapter provides power for your computer but does not charge the battery.
• The MagSafe Airline Power Adapter is not compatible with automobile power ports.

Other Unannounced Apple Store "Tweeks"

The 5G U2 iPod has disappeared

XServe is now available for pre-order release date slips to mid-November

New Packaging for Apple Care

New 750 GB HD option for 24" iMac (additional $399)

Apple Announces 4Q Results

Revenue of 4.84 billion and net quarterly profit of $546 million, or $.62 per diluted share

Apple's Mac business accounted for 58 percent of the company's total quarterly revenue and was "by far" the best quarter for Mac shipments in the company's history.

Apple sold 624,000 desktops during the quarter, and saw unprecedented demand for notebook systems with sales of 986,000 units, representing 61 percent of the total Macs sold.

During the quarter, Apple sold 8.73 million iPod digital music players, representing 35 percent yearly unit growth and 29 percent revenue growth

The iTunes Store now features over 3.5 million songs, 9,000 music videos, 220 television programs and over 20,000 audio books. It continues to account for 85 percent of legal music downloads in the US

Apple retail stores contributed $936 million in revenue during the quarter, an increase of 41 percent from the year-ago quarter. Profit for the retail segment came in at about $50 million

Juicy Tid-Bits

Apple's Mac Market Share On The Rise

www.appleinsider.com—article.php

Sales of Apple's Macintosh computers over the past twelve month's have grown faster than any other major PC manufacturer, boosting the company's share of the U.S. PC market to 6.1 percent.

Apple's 6.1 percent share puts it at #4 right behind Gateway, whose 6.4 percent share allowed it to maintain its No. 3 position for U.S. PC shipments.
Dell held onto the No. 1 position in the U.S. PC market with a 32.1 percent share despite a 7.1 percent decline in shipments year-over-year. It was followed by HP, which grew its share of the market from 21.2 percent to 23 percent.
Behind Apple in fifth place was Toshiba, which shipped 813,000 units during the third quarter -- good enough for 5.1 percent share.

Apple Releases Product Red 4GB Nano for AIDS relief

www.apple.com—red

Otherwise identical to the regular 4GB Nano

$10 from every iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED sold goes directly to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.

Some Video iPod Shipped With Windows Virus

www.apple.com—windowsvirus

We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.

RavMonE.exe is a known Windows virus and up to date anti-virus software using the default settings should detect and remove it. Because this Windows virus propagates via mass storage devices, we recommend that you scan any mass storage devices that you have recently attached to your Windows computers such as external hard drives, digital cameras with removable media, and USB flash drives.

Microsoft Upset with Apple for Passing the Blame to Windows

www.macnn.com—microsoft.chides.apple

"It's not a matter of which platform the virus originated [on]. The fact that it's found on the portable player means that there's an issue with how the quality checks, specifically the content check, was done," wrote Jonathan Poon, who oversees Microsoft's efforts to scan products for viruses before they ship.

Apple Acquires Silicon Color

www.macworld.com—index.php

makers of FinalTouch color correction software — note on their Web site that their technology has been acquired by Apple. Silicon Color developed professional color finishing software for film and video editors working on Macs.

CNN Pickups "DVD Jon" Story We reported last show.

CNN's headline states "Hacker claims to have cracked iPod Restrictions - misleading

An unnamed client will soon use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods, she said, declining to give any specifics.

Office 2007 Expected Second Half of 2007

The next version of Microsoft Office for Mac won't ship until the second half of 2007, the company has confirmed.
The Courier Mail reports Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MacBU) product manager Mary Starman revealed the news, which means the Mac version of the office productivity suite will lag eight months behind the Windows version of the software (scheduled to ship January 2007).

Vista EULA Restricts VIrtulation use

www.microsoft.com—default.aspx

it appears Microsoft is specifying in its license agreements that the ability to operate in a virtualized environment is prohibited in Home Basic and Home Premium editions, leaving users to have to purchase either the Business or the Ultimate versions of the software to legally run in a virtualized environment. Business and Ultimate editions range from $300-400 verses Home Basic's $200 price point

Latest iPod Software Update Provides More Battery Life for Older 5g iPods

Macworld reports that the latest iPod updater has an added bonus of extending battery life on older 5g Video iPods

The pre-update 60GB iPod played back TV shows for nearly four hours and fifteen minutes. After the update the iPod could play for four hours and 53 minutes, 39 minutes (around 18 percent) longer than before at maximum brightness. When the brightness is reduced to about the half-way mark the iPod ran for an astonishing nine hours and ten minutes of video playback.

Apple and Best Buy to Expand Pilot Program to 50 Stores

In a confrence call announcing their Q4 results, Apple said it plans to expand a pilot program aimed at testing Macintosh sales at Best Buy to approximately 50 stores nationwide. Earlier this spring, Apple began testing sales of its Mac line at 7 Best Buy stores located in the Southern California region. Best Buy had previously indicated that it was prepared to scale the pilot program to the majority of its retail stores if the concept proved to be successful

Sony Recalls More Batteries, Apologizes For Mess

www.macworld.co.uk—index.cfm

Sony will offer replacements for around 90,000 battery packs sold with models of its Vaio PCs in Japan and China. The battery packs have the model names VGP-BPS2B and VGP-BPS3A.Sony is planning to widen the recall to battery packs sold with PCs in other countries but has yet to finalise those details,

Sony Corp. executives apologized for inconvenience caused by a massive global recall in notebook batteries that is affecting almost every major notebook manufacturer. According to the Associated Press, company said improvements in production, design and inspection have been made to prevent a recurrence of any notebook overheating problems.

"We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the worries," Sony Corporate Executive Officer Yutaka Nakagawa reportedly said, bowing slightly with two other executives at a news conference at a Tokyo hotel.
"The executives were seated while they bowed and did not bow deeply standing as most Japanese executives generally do in public apologies for troubles at their companies," said the AP, "underlining how Sony has been reluctant to admit fault in the troubles with its laptop batteries."

www.appleinsider.com—article.php

Microsoft Office 2004 11.3.0

www.microsoft.com—downloads.aspx

contains several updates to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. In addition, this update includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates

Microsoft Messenger 6.0.1

FIxes a sign-in issue,

www.microsoft.com—downloads.aspx

Cocktail 3.7.3

www.maintain.se—index.html

• Fixed a bug that caused high CPU usage on Intel Macs
• Fixed minor compatibility issues with Mac OS X 10.4.8

Mozilla FireFox 2.o

www.mozilla.com—features.html

New features include:

New themes and user interface

Enhanced search capabilities

Improved Tabbed browsing

Resuming Browsing Session

Previewing and subscribing web feeds

Spell Check

Extended Plugins

And More...

Skype 2.0.0.6

www.skype.com

Final version with video support

Adobe FlexBuilder 2

labs.adobe.com—flexbuilder2

Provides coding and debugging tools that enable developers to quickly build rich client-side logic as well as intelligent code navigation that allows users to easily understand source code and root out underlying issues. For design-oriented tasks, visual tools allow designers or developers to easily create richer, more usable application interfaces with a customized look and feel.

Pre-release available for download on Adobe's Website

Final Cut Express HD 3.5.1

Apple has released Final Cut Express HD 3.5.1 via its Software Update utility. No further details are presently available on changes in this new version and the update has not appeared yet on Apple's Web site

iPod Shuffle Reset Utility 1.0 for Mac released

pple today released iPod shuffle Reset Utility 1.0 for Mac. The company notes: "The iPod shuffle Reset Utility restores First Generation iPod shuffle. The restore process completely erases all music and data on iPod shuffle and reinstalls software version 1.1.4. iPod shuffle Reset Utility is only for First Generation 512MB and 1GB iPod shuffle.