For anybody else out there eyeing a new iMac G5, Apple has recently released oodles of information in the form of a "Developer Note". The note consists of four "chapters" (Overview of the iMac G5, Architecture, Devices and Ports, and RAM Expansion) as well as two appendices (Supplemental Reference Documents and Abbreviations). OK, so not all of it is nail biting excitement, but if you fancy technical specs, give it a nice long read.
[Link: iMac G5 Developer Note (HTML) from Apple.com]
[Link: iMac G5 Developer Note (PDF) from Apple.com]
OK, I'm sure this will result in a massive lawsuit, but then again, what doesn't these days?
I was reading on Boing Boing that somebody seemingly has successfully gotten UNIX to run on a Game Boy Advance. Not sure WHY they did it (apart from a cool "proof of concept" and giving me something to write about today) but I'm sure the features are somewhat limited as the hardware ain't really "top-shelf", as they say.
It will be interesting to see if they can do something similar with Nintendo's upcoming DS handheld which includes all sorts of crazy wireless connectivity, touch screen abilities and voice recognition.
[Link: Unix on the Gameboy from Boing Boing]
But what *IS* interesting, is that the gbaunix site lists all the specs for the handy Nintendo Game Boy Advance:
Important GBA hardware features include:
- 32-bit 16.78 MHz ARM (RISC) processor
- 8-bit Z80 (CISC) processor that runs at 4.2 MHz or 8.4 MHz (this provides compatibility with older Game Boys: the Game Boy Color, or CGB, and the monochrome Game Boy, or DMG)
- Four 16-bit timers
- Four DMA channels
- 240x160 TFT color LCD
- Stereo sound (through stereo headphones)
- Ten keypad inputs
- Serial port
- Game cartridge (GamePak) interface
The GBA includes several memories for different purposes:
- 16 KB BIOS ROM
- 256 KB external (to the ARM processor) work RAM (EWRAM)
- 32 KB internal (to the ARM processor, that is, on the same chip as the ARM core) work RAM (IWRAM)
- 1 KB Background and Sprite Palette RAM
- 96 KB Video RAM
- 1 KB Object Attribute RAM
- Up to 32 MB of GamePak ROM
- Up to 64 KB of GamePak SRAM (optional)
No word on whether the gbaunix will allow people to use such UNIX gems as pico, pine or vi.
CNET reports that Apple has recently released an update for OS X that fixes 15 flaws in the operating system, some of them "critical".
The latest patch fixes various bugs in Apache 2, CoreFoundation (2), IPSec, Kerberos, lukemftpd, OpenLDAP, OpenSSH, PPPDialer, QuickTime Streaming Server, rsync, Safari (2), SquirrelMail and tcpdump. So if any of those sound important to you, you should upgrade immediately. If not, you should upgrade immediately.
[Via: Apple fixes 15 flaws in Mac OS X]
[Link: Apple Security Updates from Apple.com]
[Link: Apple releases new security update from MacMinute]
[Link: Security Update 2004-09-07]
In other Apple news, Think Secret reports that Apple is planning on opening at least 6 "mini" Apple retail stores in the upcoming months.
They offer this bite-sized quote:
Mac enthusiasts without a nearby store shouldn't despair, however: sources say Apple originally committed to opening 50 of the smaller stores by the end of 2005, with 20 of those opening by the end of 2004 -- greatly increasing the odds that more new regions will have access to an official Apple store.
Apparently the first six mini store openings will be in the following shopping malls:
And the size of these smaller Apple stores?
The smaller stores will continue the downsizing trend that Apple has employed with recent stores. Initial retail stores were about 6,000 square feet, which was later reduced slightly to 4,500 square feet. But when Apple decided to construct some 3,000 square-foot stores, it discovered something interesting: customer traffic increased over the larger stores and they still produced 90 percent of the sales volume of their bigger brothers. Based on that traffic and financial model, Apple decided to create an even smaller prototype store of about 1,500 square feet.
So there you go. Look for an Apple store coming to your neighborhood soon.
[Link: Details emerge on Apple "mini" retail stores from Think Secret]
OK, I know everybody is probably sick of all the Gmail posts and invites all the time, but last one, I promise.
Kevin Rose (of The Screen Savers fame) had his second "great Gmail giveaway" today and I believe is giving away 4000 invites this time, so if you still haven't jumped the Gmail bandwagon (and you really should), head on over to kevinrose.com and see if you can't snag an account.
[Link: kevinrose.com]
[Link: kevinrose.com: 4,000 GMail Invites]
ZDNet is reporting that Macromedia will announce a new "pay-as-you-go" plan for their Breeze Live system. Apparently Macromedia will be setting the price at an estimated $0.32 per minute.
Tom Hale, Macromedia's general manager for Breeze, says:
The new plan is intended to make the service more attractive to small businesses with light and irregular collaboration needs.
[Link: Macromedia starts meter on Web conferencing]
I have six Gmail invites for anybody who wants em. First six people to email me can each have an invite.
click here to request an invite
Bonus points for anybody who can quote the lyrics to the show "Welcome Back Kotter"
Hot on the release of Movable Type 3.1, Six Apart announced today/yesterday that users can now download the 3.11 update which fixes a few bugs that a few people have been complaining about.
We've just released Movable Type 3.11, which fixes a few bugs that have popped up in certain configurations. It's a recommended update for all Movable Type users.
[Link: Six Apart: Movable Type 3.11 available]
[Link: Movable Type: Movable Type 3.11 Released: Bugs fixed]
Just a reminder that Kevin Rose (of "The Screen Savers") will be giving away 1000 Gmail accounts today on his site, kevinrose.com.
As many of you know, we're giving away 1,000 free GMail accounts today at 5:00PM PST right here on my blog. Remember, there are going to be thousands of people attempting to claim an account the same time you are.
So, there you go... If you don't get a Gmail account today, Kev' will be giving them away again on September 7th.
[Link: kevinrose.com]
Unless I'm reading something wrong (or the news source is way off) it would appear that IBM is recalling 553,000 of their laptop batteries.
The adapters can overheat and melt, posing a fire and electrical shock hazard to users, according to a statement released Thursday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.The flaw has led to some "minor property damage," but no reports of personal injury, IBM said in a statement on its Web site. The adapters were sold worldwide with IBM's ThinkPad i Series laptops and ThinkPad 390 and 240 computers as well as certain ThinkPad s Series notebooks sold in the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan, according to the IBM statement.
So, if you own an affected ThinkPad or if you fear spontaneous combustion, you may want to have that checked out.
[via PC World]
As I'm not a Linux guy, I have no idea what it does or how it works, but it sounds cool...
GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. GmailFS is a Python application and uses the FUSE userland filesystem infrastructure to help provide the filesystem, and libgmail to communicate with Gmail.GmailFS supports most file operations such as read, write, open, close, stat, symlink, link, unlink, truncate and rename. This means that you can use all your favourite unix command line tools to operate on files stored on Gmail (e.g. cp, ls, mv, rm, ln, grep etc. etc.).
So, there you have it... GmailFS
Couple new tutorials out on the Dev Center.
On using the new FLV Extension for Dreamweaver:
Presenting Video with the Flash Video Extension for Dreamweaver MX 2004
On skinning the video controller (that FLV extension pumps out):
Creating Custom Video Skins for the Flash Video Extension for Dreamweaver MX 2004
Feel free to ask any questions here that you might have about the article/extension here.
OK, I was scouring through Google's news alerts and came across this, ye ol' Google Deskbar. What does it do? Well, quite simply, the Google Deskbar adds a new toolbar to your Windows bar at the bottom of the screen that allows you to search Google without having to open Internet Explorer or Firefox. Here's the quote:
Google Deskbar enables you to search with Google from any application without lifting your fingers from the keyboard. Installs easily in your Windows taskbar.
The coolest part is that the toolbar even displays the results in a fancy little custom window, so it doesn't even have to launch a browser.
You can check out the Google Deskbar here, or head over to "Google's technology playground" and check out some of their other tools.
I came across this link tonight and figured that somebody out there may be interested... It seems that some kind guy is organizing a massive giveaway of Gmail accounts. So far he supposedly has managed to get 1,750 Gmail invites which he will be giving away over the course of 2 days.
So, for those of you who don't yet have a Gmail account, this seems like a good way to possibly grab one.
Go check it out over at kevinrose.com.