Wednesday May 16, 2007

- Freehand: This is the End - Eric - 20:08:28

Source : http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/05/freehand_no_lon.html and Thanks to James

As we already published it about a year ago, Adobe will not further develop Freehand as this application does not fit in its Creative Suite strategy, especially after having deeply integrated Photoshop with Dreamweaver. The official information brings additional notes, but it also confirms our news published in May 2006, eventhough Adobe tried to deny it at that time.

After a long and storied career, Adobe (neé Altsys, Aldus, and Macromedia) FreeHand has reached the end of its development road. The application has not been revised since Macromedia released MX nearly four years ago, after which the company removed FreeHand from the Studio product line. Adobe has created an FAQ (PDF) that explains the details of the decision not to rev FreeHand, talks about Illustrator CS3 features added to make FreeHand users more comfortable, and more. [Note: The official product pages aren't all updated yet; hence my posting this info on the blog.] Here are the highlights:

Adobe and FreeHand
Adobe does not plan to develop and deliver any new feature-based releases of FreeHand, or to deliver patches or updates for new operating systems or hardware. Adobe will, however, continue to sell FreeHand MX, and will offer technical and customer support according to our support policies.

FreeHand Upgrade Path
A special upgrade to Illustrator CS3 is available to all registered owners of FreeHand for $199 U.S. This upgrade is available worldwide through the Adobe Store and through the Channel. There is no direct FreeHand to Creative Suite 3 upgrade, but FreeHand owners who also own Adobe or Macromedia products that are eligible for upgrade to the Suite can use that path to move to the Suite.

- Apple Acknowledges the "Cracked" MacBook Issue - Lionel - 15:05:47

We only received this information yesterday, but since April 26th, Apple has officially acknowledged the "cracked" MacBook issue, and has sent instructions to the certified Apple Centers for performing the exchange of the keyboard and trackpad when necessary. Visible signs are cracks around the trackpad which can extend to the side and in some rare examples to the removal of some plastic pieces from the case as illustrated below



So if you are the unlucky owner of such Macbook, call the closest Apple Center for having your notebook repaired.

[translation by Linathael]

- CrossOver Mac: New Version 6.1 - Lionel - 11:50:16

CrossOver Mac, the well-known emulating solution, allows you to install many popular Windows applications and games on your Intel OS X Mac without needing a Microsoft operating system license.
A new version has been released to fix and improve compatibility with windows applications, while enhancing DirectX support.
For additional information: http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/

[translation by Linathael]

- iPod nano Clones Distributed at the Cannes Film Festival! - Lionel - 11:32:08

One of our readers sent us photos of a gift he received at his hotel when preparing for Cannes Film festival.




For sure one can not really called it a counterfeited version, it is an iPod clone, but it remains quite amazing that it was engrave specifically for the Film festival, even featuring the official logo on the box.
Indeed, it remains to be confirmed is the manufacturer of this clone could use the logo for its product...
We are also curious to know what will be the reaction from Apple considering that it might interfere with Cupertino's products and marketing policies during the largest and most prestigious film festival in the world.

[translation by Linathael]

- New Core 2 Duo CPUs on July, 22nd - Lionel - 11:20:20

Intel will introduce new Core 2 Duo models and cut prices of its CPUS on July, 22nd; and it will be for both desktop and notebook CPUs. For desktop, the Quad Core Core 2 CPU, aka Kentsfield will now range from 2.4GHz (Q6600, FSB1066) to 3.0GHz (QX6850, FSB1333) with price evolving from US$266 to US$999.
For Mobile Core 2 Duo, aka Merom, Intel will introduce an "Extreme" model, clocked at 2.6GHz, FSB800 (Santa Rosa), classified as X7800, and available for US$851. In September, Intel will introduce an even faster version, X7900 clocked at 2.8GHz, while a T7800 2.6GHz will be available for US$530.
If you plan to perform a CPU upgrade for an iMac or a Mac mini, we would advise you to wait till September as the T7500, 2.2GHz and T7700, 2.4GHz will then be priced US$241 and US$361, respectively.

[translation by Linathael]

- Panasonic to Launch a US$600 BD Player - Lionel - 10:30:34

Source : CDR Info

Panasonic announced the future availability if its next generation Blu-ray disc standalone player, the DMP-BD10A, aiming to deliver a HD video player for less than (US$600): $599.95.



It features high end surround audio (7.1 channel surround, Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital and dts decoding). Concerning video capabilities, the DMP-BD10A will come with HDMI, full HD 1080 support, while being able to play SD-DVD with an automatic 1080p up-conversion via HDMI.
Taking into account the price of the 5 BD movies, this player might be the first serious consumer-oriented standalone BD player to be seriously considered, especially if you like the bundled movies (Disney 'Pirates of the Caribbean', 'Curse of the Black Pearl' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest', 'Transporter' and 'Fantastic 4' from Fox and 'Crash' from Lionsgate.)

[translation by Linathael]

- Samba: Security Flaws Fixed - Lionel - 09:42:30

Source : http://news.samba.org/

The Open Source application Samba, integrated in Windows and OSX system to provide file and print services to all manner of SMB/CIFS clients, has been updated. Among improvements, this update fixes 3 critical security flaws identified in the previous version:

Major features included in the 3.0.25 code base include:

Significant improvements in the winbind off-line logon support.
Support for secure DDNS updates as part of the 'net ads join' process.
Rewritten IdMap interface which allows for TTL based caching and per domain backends.
New plug-in interface for the "winbind nss info" parameter.
New file change notify subsystem which is able to make use of inotify on Linux.
Support for passing Windows security descriptors to a VFS plug-in allowing for multiple Unix ACL implements to running side by side on the Same server.
Improved compatibility with Windows Vista clients including improved read performance with Linux servers.
Man pages for IdMap and VFS plug-ins.
Security Fixes included in the Samba 3.0.25 release are:

CVE-2007-2444 (Samba 3.0.23d - 3.0.25pre2): Local SID/Name translation bug can result in user privilege elevation.
CVE-2007-2446 (Samba 3.0.0 - 3.0.25rc3): Multiple heap overflows allow remote code execution.
CVE-2007-2447 (Samba 3.0.0 - 3.0.25rc3): Unescaped user input parameters are passed as arguments to /bin/sh allowing for remote command execution.

So it should not take long before Apple releases a Security Update 2007-05 to integrate those patches.

[translation by Linathael]