Apple Says It has No Interest in Virtulization

Speaking to an analyst this month, executives for Apple Computer maintained that the company has no plans to incorporate virtualization technology into the final version of its Boot Camp software that will ship as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard next spring. "Apple indicated that it is very pleased with Parallels software and didn't feel the need to compete with its own version of embedded virtualization," Bear Stearns analyst Andy Neff wrote in a research note to clients this week.

Apple noted that the key advantage of the current beta of Boot Camp is its superior performance in both Mac and Windows environments, while running two virtual OS environments (like Parallels) results in performance degradation,

The most recent release of Parallels now allows users to run Parallels using the same Windows Installation they use for boot camp, eliminating the need to have two different windows installations and systems.

TivoToGo DRM Cracked

www.tuaw.com—tivotogo-drm-cracked-and-thats-not-necessarily-a-good-thing

It seems the TiVoToGo DRM encryption has finally been cracked, effectively giving non-Windows users a way to enjoy TiVoToGo for a change. The TiVo File Decoder is a Portable C program that converts a .TiVo file from TiVoToGo to a normal MPEG file with the Media Access Key for the TiVo which generated the file.

There are a few different GUI programs that work well, simply search TiVo on your favorite mac software website.

For over two years now, Mac users have been promised TivoToGo functionality similar to those available for Windows Users, however the product has yet to materialize.

Are Apple's iTunes Sales Plummeting?

Apple's iTunes Music Store has experienced plummeting sales revenues this year, according to Forrester Research. Although Apple refuses to disclose the revenues generated from its online multimedia storefront, an analysis of credit card transactions conducted by the firm over a 27-month period suggests that iTunes monthly revenues have fallen 65 percent since January.

Apple said the report is "simply incorrect", but will not divulge iTunes financial figures.

news.bbc.co.uk—6175321.stm

Forrester has since recanted it's story with a recent Forrester blog posting says that iTunes Sales are NOT plummeting. Now, Forrester's blog points out that their findings were misinterpreted. iTunes sales did drop after the holiday rush last year but Forrester did not find that iTunes sales as a whole were on a general downward trend. Instead, it looks like iTunes sales are leveling off and that Apple's overall profitability should not be affected; their profits come mostly from iPod sales and not from iTunes.

blogs.forrester.com—itunes_sales_ar.html

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that iTunes sales account for only about 22 songs per iPod while the reminder are presumably ripped from CDs or obtained from "other sources:

www.nytimes.com—11drill.html

A new research study suggests that Apple currently serves up 90 percent of paid video downloads. NPD Group announced that roughly 1.2 million U.S. households purchased at least one video from an online store in the third quarter of 2006. The study showed that 62 percent of customers opted for TV shows, while 24 percent elected to purchase music videos online. 6% of the content was movies.

www.forbes.com—video-download-npd-marktes-equity-cx_lh_1219markets06.html

Nike+ iPod Sports Kit Vulnerable to Surveillance

www.cs.washington.edu—privacy.html

According to a team at the University of Washington. The research indicates the potential for privacy and personal security problems if the transmissions of the in-shoe sensor are intercepted. The sensor is designed to transmit a unique code, identifying the shoe and therefore its wearer, to an iPod. The wearer may not realize that the sensor is normally on (it can be switched off), and that another person or monitoring system could track their location from as far as 60 feet away. The report describes demonstration systems that Saponas and his research partners set up. One such system monitors the signals, identifies the wearer by the unique code, and uploads the data to a server that uses Google Maps to pinpoint and track the wearer's location in real-time.

According to the report, the Nike+iPod designers could have used simple cryptographic techniques to avoid or lessen these potential problems.

Microsoft Office Woes

Windows 2007 files not compatible with Mac Office 2004

www.tuaw.com—windows-office-2007-files-not-compatible-with-mac-office-2004

Office 2007 for Windows, uses a file format incompatible with Mac Office by default. Out of the box, Office 2007 saves documents in "Microsoft Office Open XML." The saved file formats are docx for Word, xlsx for Excel and pptx for PowerPoint

Microsoft says a file converter for Office 2007 is in the works. This converter is expected to be released late March/early April and will be free.

blogs.msdn.com—converters-coming-free-and-fairly-fast.aspx

There are various hacks for Mac users to retrieve text from word files. Panergy has released an unofficial converter that allows translation of Word 2007 .docx files into standard RTF files that can be read by Word v.x and 2004 for Mac OS X, as well as various other text editors. Though the translation process is far from exact, Panergy claims "docXConverter makes sure that the contents, the graphics and the layout of the original docx document are kept in utmost fidelity."

www.versiontracker.com—31504

Microsoft Warns of New Word Attack

www.macworld.com—index.php

Microsoft warned last week of a new, unpatched memory corruption error in its word-processing software, and said that it was investigating reports of “limited” attacks that exploit the problem
The bug can be exploited by adding a string of characters in a Word file that can corrupt the PC’s memory and allow the attacker to run unauthorized software on the system, Microsoft wrote in a security advisory. The bug affects many versions of the software, including Word 2000, 2002, and 2003, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac and Microsoft Word 2004 v. X for Mac, the Word Viewer 2003 and several versions of Microsoft Works. It is [rated ‘critical’ by the FrSIRT Web site, which compiles a list of software vulnerabilities.

Microsoft Releases and Then Pulls Security Updates - OOPS!

www.tuaw.com—microsoft-security-response-center-says-yesterdays-office-updat

On Tuesday, Dec. 12th Microsoft accidently released security updates for Office X and Office 2004. Problem is they didn't intend to. Microsoft has since acknowledged that these security updates were not related to the previously reported office exploits and the updates have since been pulled.

Apparently the updates were available for quite some time and many people loaded them. MacFixIt and other troubleshooting sites are reporting problems with users who installed the updates while they were still live.

Microsoft recommends that anyone who may have installed these updates uninstall them, which can be difficult since there are no uninstaller leaving most people to have to revert to a perviously backed up copy of Office or reinstall.

Microsoft Re-Releases Office 2004 11.3.2

More in Software Update Section

Zune Captures 9% of HDD Music Player Market, 2% Overall in November

For the month of November, Microsoft's Zune captured 9 percent unit share of the hard disk drive (HDD) segment -- or just shy of 2 percent of the overall U.S. market -- according to November data from NPD Group

Photoshop 3 Beta Released- UNIVERSAL

www.adobe.com—121406Photoshop.html

The most notable improvement Adobe will be delivering with Photoshop CS3 is native support for Intel-based Macs. The new version of Photoshop will sport an upgraded and more responsive interface. Photoshop CS3's interface is said to closely resemble the look and feel of Adobe After Effects 7, with easy palette organization and brightness adjustment for the overall interface itself. Another new feature substantially improving both workflow and raw performance is Live Filters. Adobe has previously said it is targeting the release of Adobe Creative Suite 3 for the second-quarter of 2007. Sources recently corroborated that date, saying an announcement in March or April seems reasonable given the current status of development.

H&R says Tax Cut Software Coming Back to Mac

The company initially discontinued the prodcut for Mac Users in 2005 citing a low participation by Mac users. TaxCut for Mac will be back on the shelves this tax season and will be available in three versions: TaxCut Premium Federal ($19.95) -- Guidance for all your personal tax situations, from 1040EZ to Schedule C; TaxCut Premium Federal+State ($29.95)

www.macworld.com—index.php

Skype Out Will No Longer Be Free Come Jan. 1, New $14.95Unlimited Plan

www.skype.com

Unlimited Calling gives you a full year of unlimited calls to anyone, on any phone, within the US and Canada for just $14.95. ($29.95 after January 31st 2007)

After December 31st SkypeOut calls to US and Canada will be charged at the standard SkypeOut rate of ¢2.1 USD (or ¢2.4 CAD) per minute.

MarWare Introduces USBTravel Dock for iPod Shuffle

www.marware.com—selectedCategory

charges the iPod and provides up to 480 Mbps data transfer. USB Travel Dock won’t interfere with any adjacent cables

Captured Audio - 12/22/06 12:28:47 AM

$19.95

Available now for PreOrder

Cheat Codes and New Games Released for iPod

Apple has released cheat codes that unlock hidden levels and power-ups found in its fifth-generation iPod games Vortex and Texas Hold’em. Multiple codes can be combined in each game, making it much easier to beat difficult stages.

www.ilounge.com—cheat-codes-vortex-and-texas-holdem

Apple has released two new iPod games. Sodoku and Royal Solitaire. Both are from Electonic Arts and available for $4.99 from the iTunes Tore

New 100GB iPods may be on the way

Toshiba's storage division today said that it has produced the world's highest-capacity, 1.8-inch hard drive, delivering nearly 100GB of storage. The new drive uses perpendicular magnetic recording, where bits are aligned vertically on the platter, to achieve the record-setting density, according to Electronista. The small disk mechanism also spins at a relatively quick 4200RPM and consumes less power per gigabyte than earlier models, ensuring that it remains efficient enough to be used in iPods and other handheld devices without sacrificing speed. Toshiba plans to start manufacturing the 100GB model in January with devices using its extra storage soon afterward

www.macnn.com—100gb.18.inch.ipod.drive

iSight No Longer Available from the Apple US Store

The Apple iSight appears to be no longer available on Apple's U.S. online store. No reason for the removal is indicated. Instead the item simply no longer appears.

New Get A Mac Ad Posted- Goodwill

images.apple.com—goodwill_480x376.mov

Mac and PC try to put aside their differences in the spirit of the holiday season, though they don't seem to be having much success.

Southpark Season 10

www.macnn.com—itunes.customers.appeased

People who signed up for an $11.99 Season Pass to SouthPark were unpleasantly surprised when they learned that their season pass was only valid for the first half of the season when Comedy Central suddenly decided to split the season up into parts 10A and 10B. Apparently users were confused thinking they were buying the entire season for $11.99 and then only received half the episodes. Apple has given in and is offering a free Season Pass to part 10B for anyone who purchased a Season Pass to part 10A.

Cisco Launches "iPhone"

www.gizmodo.com—the-iphone-lives-but-the-trademark-belongs-to-cisco-222336.php

Cisco announced a series of Web-enabled telephone handsets designed to work with Voice over IP (VOIP) services.

It's been known that Cisco held the unused U.S. trademark for "iPhone" in the U.S. after acquiring Infogear in 2000

Time Magazines Names "You" the Person of the Year, iMac and YouTube featured on Cover

Security Update 2006-008

Security Update 2006-008 is recommended for all users and improves the security of the following components:
Quartz Composer
QuickTime for Java

Airport Update 2006-002

www.apple.com—airportupdate2006002.html

AirPort Update 2006-002 improves AirPort compatibility in the following computers:

• MacBook Pro (15-inch Core 2 Duo)
• MacBook Pro (17-inch Core 2 Duo)
• MacBook (13-inch Core 2 Duo)

Apeture 1.5.2

www.apple.com—aperture152update.html

addresses issues related to overall reliability and performance in a number of areas, including:
• Contact sheet printing
• Smart Albums
• Watermarks
• Lift and stamp
• Image export
• Versions created using an external editor

Apple Xsan Admin 1.4.1

www.apple.com—xsan141adminupdate.html

The Xsan 1.4.1 update delivers overall improved reliability for remotely administering, configuring and maintaining Xsan deployments

Apple Xsan File System 1.4.1

www.apple.com—xsan141filesystemupdate.html

The Xsan 1.4.1 update addresses numerous issues related to overall reliability, usability and compatibility.

Microsoft Office 2004 11.3.2

Microsoft has released Office 2004 11.3.2, a maintenance update to the Mac OS X Office suite that replaces an inadvertently released 11.3.1 update that was pulled shortly after its release.

This update fixes an issue that causes PowerPoint to quit unexpectedly when you open a presentation.

Bug Fixes for Entourage

DOES NOT Contain the security fix for the vulnerability in Word.

Adobe Reader 8.0

www.adobe.com—acrobat

Universal Binary!

• New User Interface - Organized, simplified, optimized
• Customizable toolbars, combined search/find
• New Viewing Options - Reading mode, pan & zoom, loupe tools, hide page gaps
• Collaboration - Start meeting with Acrobat Connect, RSS review tracker
• Digital Signatures - One-click signing, roaming ID's
• Performance - 2D GPU acceleration

Adobe Soundbooth 1.0b2

www.adobe.com—index.cfm

A public beta of A brand new audio application in the spirit of Sound Edit 16 and Cool Edit 2000, Adobe Soundbooth gives creative professionals the tools they need to quickly clean up, customize, or create new sounds and to create customized music soundtracks for their projects

FireFox 2.0.0.1

This update includes a few security patches and also adds general support for Windows Vista

DiskWarrior 4

www.alsoft.com—index.html

Universal Binary

New in this release of DiskWarrior is Universal binary support for Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. It’s also significantly faster than before, according to Alsoft. DiskWarrior 4 now repairs invalid file permissions, and includes an additional suite of file and folder tests.

It’s available for $99.95; upgrades cost $49.95

Adobe After Effects 7.0.1

www.adobe.com—index.html

Includes may bug fixes.

Parallels Desktop 2.5 Build 3036.0

www.parallels.com—mac

New Look and Feel and Improved Usability.
Virtual Machines Catalogue.
One-click Virtual Machine Aliases:
Resizable Main Window.
Auto-Adjusting Screen Resolution.
Drag and Drop files and folders between Windows and Mac.
*Read/Write BootCamp partition.

QuickBooks Pro 2007 R3

quickbooks.intuit.com—pro_mac_financial_management_software.jhtml

Includes various bug fixes

1Passwd 2.2.3850

1passwd.com—home

• NEW Added 'Export To Palm'.
• NEW Added Import Assistant.
• NEW Added Import from SplashID.
• NEW Added Printing of Web Forms and Secure Notes.
• CHANGED Improved import from Web Confidential, Password Wallet, and RoboForm.