I was saddened to read today that Tera Patricks, of www.mac360.com*, passed away after a long fight with cancer. My heart goes out to her friends and family.
I always enjoyed her approach to Mac journalism, and will miss her wit and style.
*looks like her site is down right now, due to intense traffic.
The boycott of the new HD disc formats that I proposed back in February has gotten a lot of press coverage; which is just great. But now that the silly machines are actually starting to be sold I think it bears updating.
My view is simple: the movie studios are seeking to drastically curtail or even eliminate the concept of fair use. They are doing this by pressuring the hardware companies into implementing DRM technology which is much more rigid and secure than any that has come before. AACS is the primary DRM technology, and it is downright nasty. Even worse the studios will retain control over how and where you can play your movies even after they have your money. Check out the HD Boycott page for much more information, and just say no. I know we all want better image quality, but this is not a good way to get it.
I was catching up on the Apple-related news yesterday (after returning from the long weekend) and learned about an unwelcome new feature that came along with the 10.4.7 update. 
Apparently there is a new component of the Dashboard which ‘phones home’ to Apple on a regular basis. Ostensibly, this is to check the installed versions of your Dashboard widgets against the ‘official’ versions to make sure they have not been modified.
It sounded like a reasonable explanation to me; perhaps it’s a preemptive strike against malware that might masquerade as a widget*. Reflecting on the pros and cons of such a system reminded me of a conversation about similar things in the Apple boardroom several years ago.
The iApps Review Meetings
During the big push that led up to the new products being released at MacWorld, there would be a regularly scheduled weekly meeting where Steve would review the progress on the ‘i-apps’. It was held in the Apple boardroom and usually attended by the product managers and engineering lead on each of the applications. Senior execs, like Avie Tevenian, Eddie Cue, or Phil Schiller would also attend if there were particularly important things to review. Each product group would bring a Mac configured with latest build of their software so Steve could check it out. Continued »
