Weeks without posting and this is the best I could do

Apple’s announcing new product at next week’s Macworld Expo. My reliable insider sites have been saying things like “1.2 gigaherz G4 PowerMacs” and “cheaper, smaller, lighter iMacs with 15 inch LCD screens”, not to mention possible bugfixes to OS X.

This week, Apple’s put blurbs on their front page such as “Far Beyond The Rumor Sites”. This, of course, has the rumor sites whipped into even more of a frenzy. Here’s the latest: a Apple PDA to compete with all those Palm and Windows CE machines out there.

iWalk PDA

http://www.spymac.com posted this image, along with a video (which you have to register to see).

If Apple sold a PDA, and it was competitively priced against a Palm, I’d consider it. But it would start with no apps, probably be as expensive as all Apple hardware, and besides, that thing in the picture looks like a mockup to me. One dial to control a PDA?

Guess we’ll see next week…

Adventures in Operating Systems

Well, I finally took the plunge – this is being posted from the new installation of OS 10.1 on my machine. I’m still getting used to a lot of it – it takes me longer to find stuff at the moment; some of my favorite applications haven’t been “carbonized” to run under the new OS yet, while at least one game will run but insists on setting my monitor to a size it can’t handle (cheap monitor’s fault, not the OS), and there are other teething troubles. On the other hand, text looks really good and very readable on here; once I install X Windows, I can find a nice mailreader and read my mail directly off Elfie, bypassing Adelphia’s bogus servers; and, the best part about this installtion, is that it’s not Windows ME or XP. I fought with ME for hours this afternoon just trying to get it to acknowldge a LAN connection to the Internet; and I’m hearing so many bad things about XP right now that I’m glad I own some Apple stock. Wonder what RedHat stock’s going for right now? 🙂

It’s a weird Thursday night. I *still* don’t have the hang of Thursdays.

Open the iPod connection, Hal…

Apple introduces iPod, a FireWire-equipped digital audio player (MP3, MP2, more) with a 5GB hard drive (1000 songs). iPod is the size of a standard deck of playing cards, and includes: 20 minute skip protection; FireWire connection; a 10 hour lithium-polymer battery which charges in 1 hour; backlit LCD display; playlist support; ID3 tag support; a scroll wheel for fast song access.

iPod will ship November 10 for $399.

Apple iPod Here’s a look at it.

I really wanted one of these for about 15 minutes, until the price got posted. I can think of other things to do with $400. If this is the beginning of Apple’s move into consumer electronics – well, I have my doubts. It’s neat – and I do want one – but I can’t afford that price.

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