News for Wednesday, 14 September 2005

Following the publication of information concerning a Firewire interface for Garageband by Powerpage and AppleInsider, Apple wanted to have the two journailsts in court so they would divulgate their "anonymous" sources.
Yet, though this procedure is legal in California, it can't be allowed in case other solutions can't be used to find the source of leaks.
But Apple refused to communicate to the opponent lawyers the documents related to the searches they'd made among the firm employees, arguing they were confidential.
The lawyers of the two journalists, helped by Electronic Frountier Fondation, had the the court make Apple unveil those.
These documents show that Apple merely searched the mails and archive servers. They didn't check their employees machines, nor listened to the phone calls they'd recorded, nor even asked the people themselves.
To sum up, before asking journalists to divulgate their sources, Apple will have to chase witches, which may result in an awful work ambiance.

Quite surpringly, according to weblogs.java.net , Microsoft reportedly decided to port Avalon, the future graphical interface for Windows Vista under Mac OS X.
To prove it, they used Safari thanks to a specifical plug-in.
Another news which will make you laugh, or grin... Microsoft is preparing a Dashboard for Vista.

Though it has been expected for months, and was announced by Steve Jobs himself, Motorola ROKR is not that convincing now that is has come to life.
Criticism is high. Hence, on Xlr8yourmac, you'll learn that loading times for tunes is quite longer than what was announced. It reportedly takes 51 minutes to load the 100 allowed songs, which is a 100 Ko/s rate, as iLounge tests confirmed.
It is a ridiculous speed, though no-one knows if it's because of the Mac driver, of the telephone, or the brand new Transflash.
Other problem, battery life is not very long when using the phone as a digital player. The GSM power consumption will be added to those of the earbuds amplifier and the AAC managing chip.
To finish with it, it won't read audio books using "Audible" format, cheaper than those that can be bought on the iTMS.
Those who were afraid of an association with Motorola certainly had a point. The ROKR cannot really be called an iPhone. Might be the case only for a future, more evolved version.

Apple seems to act in order to empty its stocks.

The Refurb Store is opened everyday till October 3rd.
Today, there are PMG5 Dual 2.3GHz as well as PMG5 SP 1.8GHz (not recommended) with 20% discount. The same reduction is applied to Xserve 2GHz and Xserve RAID 1TB.
The direct link to the RefurbStore : The Refurb Store.

A report from Silvère.

I had enough of reading the PDF version of Liberation (one of the main French newspapers), with 768pixels height.
So hereafter is the solution to read PDF files with 1024 pixels format:

The new version of Aperçu allow the user to display full screen document while offering also the possibility to rotate it (command+R):
Now I have a perfect eBook in my iBook. Use the arrows keys to change pages. The only funny thing is that you do not move your head anymore to read the next page...

This year, the AppleExpo will celebrate Japan. For this event, the company i-doll will propose a fashion iPod cover :

It will be on sale exclusively at the FNAC booth...in other words it is a collector.

Via your trusty S.U panel :

This update delivers improved reliability and compatibility for Java on Mac OS X v10.4. This release includes Java 2 Platform Standard Edition versions 1.3.1_16 and 1.4.2_09.

N.B. : no KB article yet.