Stan's List

About the security content of QuickTime 7.0.4

According to MacWorld and BoingBoing: “An Apple spokesman (reliable word has it that it was Steve Jobs himself) told MacWorld that Apple discards the personal information that the iTunes Ministore transmits to Apple while you use iTunes. [...] Apple tells us that the information is not actually being collected. The data sent is used to update the MiniStore and then discarded.’ Apple also has a knowledge base article, which apparently was available the day iTunes 6.0.2 was introduced, explaining the MiniStore behavior and how to disable it .”

Jobs & Co. spark something bordering on a lovefest among the press. But as the good times roll, are reporters asking the hard questions, according to BusinessWeek?

Apple’s stock price increased Tuesday, instead of the usual sell off.

IDG’s Macworld magazine today announced the winners of the “Macworld Best of Show Awards,” representing the “most exciting hardware and software products announced at Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.” Jim Dalrymple, editor online for Macworld, presented the awards on the show floor today.

Did not take two days. Why would you have a partner who has bent over backward to make the Intel Macs work, dance in a bunny suit? Intel benefits from the Apple partnership, they do not need Apple.

News.com reports that Intel is not happy with Apple’s ad.

“Trapped inside PCs–dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks,” Apple’s ad says. But that doesn’t describe Intel’s customers accurately, Conrad said, although Mac users might have employed choicer epithets to describe their PC-using (now kissing) cousins.

BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft is dumping Windows Media Player for the Mac. A link on the generic WMP Mac page now directs one to download Flip4Mac’s free (used to be $10) Windows Media Components for QuickTime.

Good reddens, as I found out talking to M$$$ Mac Group at MacWorld, the player is not their responsibility, but belongs to the Window Media Player department. That explains why it doesn’t work or look like all the stuff that comes out the Mac group (i.e. Office).

Google Earth is a broadband, 3D application, in which you can type in a street address and zoom from space to street level views including business names or a category (e.g.hotels)

In his latest column, John Dvorak takes a look at Apple’s success overall, but feels that the company’s Retail stores are the real coup. “I have personally been baffled by two things over the 30-year era of desktop computing. The first is why every brand name computer-maker never realized that they needed their own storefronts. The second was why Apple took so long to do theirs. Now look at them,” writes Dvorak. The columnist also delves into the history of branded computer stores, and why Apple’s has seen such success where so many others failed.

Don’t worry, Dvorak will again shoot himself in the foot. For now enjoy.

New features and improvements of Thunderbird 1.5 are:

The ability to customize your toolbars the way you want them. Choose View / Toolbars / Customize inside any window.

UI extensions can be added to Mozilla Thunderbird to customize your experiene with specific features and enchancements that you need. Support for extensions. Extensions allow you to add features particular to your needs such as offline mail support. A full list of available extensions can be found here.

A new look and feel. Thunderbird also supports a large number of downloadable themes which alter the appearance of the client.

An addressing sidebar for mail compose which makes it easy and convient to add address book contacts to emails.

Online help includes a FAQ, tips and tricks and other useful information.

Simplified preferences UI and menus.

Footprint and performance improvements.