News for Sunday, 27 June 2004

Here's Benoît speaking:

Nokia recently released their 6230 mobile phone, which is already becoming quite popular as it holds so many functionalities (like a T610/T630), design, performance and all. On the other hand its big drawbacl is that it is NOT compatible with iSync. So the sync is made a vCard at a time, and that's almost all you can do... Searching the web, I discovered this software : PhoneDirector, dedicated to that particular mobile phone, made by MacMedia (http://www.macmedia.sk/pd.htm). It will solve all that's missing and even more... The soft, once connected to the mobile phone, will get all the contacts from it, and will allow direct editing, or importing other vCards. Then, you'll be enabled to read your SMS, and all messages folders, with sending infos for every message. You will also be able to send some, as you'd do using Adres Book, Calendar edition, etc. Here are other quite cool functionalities :browsing of the photos and video galleries (with visualisation) and live recording of photos and videos from an iSight !!!! if that works... And also WAP bookmarks edition (a drag'n'drop from Safari will do !), Java applications upload, frequencies and names of the radio stations registered in the phone edition.... Well, I didn't list the whole thing, yet this small shareware (29.95$, which is a final 31.49 €) will do pretty good things on top of allowing compatibility with our dear Apple's tools....

http://www.macmedia.sk/pd.htm

Are those still only rumours or are they to be confirmed soon ? It is our opinion those will soon prove true.
The two competitors, the FNAC and Virgin Mega are studying the question of suing Apple and iTMS. Roughly speaking, this should be because of unfaire competition.
The VAT rate paid by Apple in Luxemburg hasn't been clearly confirmed, yet the firm would hold the iTMS as a service, while the FNAC and Virgin would say it is a distribution system.
Though this may still read a bit fuzzy, the attempt to raise law obstacles on Apple's path seems quite strong.
The two distributors are also trying to buy time, before they'd make the same move to Luxemburg. Yet for this part of the news above all is the word "rumour" appropriate.
It would seem the first selling figures coming from the iTMS delighted all those who had something to gain from it, and scared the competitors. OD2 sells but 60,000 songs a week, while Sony's online store seems to be quite drowning with desastrous figures. One again, OD2 figures are real, while about Sonywe got nothing offical.

Here's a little entertaining news.
On the site http://nominis.cef.fr, which enumerates the saints and their feats, you'll read of Saint Joseph from Cupertino. That Cupertino indeed is a small town in Italy. But here are some excerpts from the saint's deeds.

Wielder of amazing mystical gifts, he would attract the crowds and provide them the showing of miracles, extasies, levitations.

Remember someone ? :)
Other analogies with Steve Jobs are to be found afterwards.

The Inquisition grows angry and orders several times he is put aside.

John Sculley and Apple's board did put him away before he came back.
Then the stories will take different paths.

Saint Joseph accepts those measures with a great simplicity and a deep humility, without ever complaining.

This is not Steve Jobs any more.

A new virus particularly vicious is currently attacking PCs. It is using 3 entry points whose 2 only can be protected. This virus is particularly looking for Credit Card number and password.
This virus is spreading using a quite complex route...it is infecting target computers via installation of an application which will trap users when they will browse internet for shopping.
Collected information are then send back to a server in Russia.
Luckily, this server seems currently offline.

Hardware.fr, has performed a test of a Lite-On SOHW-832S, a Double-layer DVD burner. It also gives clear explanation regarding the DL technology.
One of the main parts of this test is the compatibility of burned DVD+R9 media. Results are not good at all. Those media once burned are compatible with 42% of DVD readers, 37% of DVD burners and 60% of standalone DVD players.
It is possible to improve the compatibility by modifying notifying that the media is a pressed DVD and not a burned DVD+R9. Then results are better but not really good, with a compatibility level of respectively 66%, 64% and 90%.
That’s faraway from the results obtained with DVD-R. Let's hope that Pioneer can achieve better results with DVD-R9 media which should be available...one day...

http://www.hardware.fr

One of our English reader, Paul, just got his G5 Dual 2 GHz. It is provided with Mac OSX v. 7L32.
Looking around in the prefs panel, he discovered new options for his Apple Cinema Display.

It's now possible to disable the front-end buttons of the display. If he discovers new features, we'll advise you.