Mojo-free Jobs delivers Macworld goods
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One more thing: nothing Macworld 2008 Is Steve Jobs losing his mojo? Almost speechless by the end of his Macworld keynote, the Apple chief executive's "to-do-list" left little by way of the surprises or thrills legions of Jobs-loving fanboys have come to expect.â¦
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Longtime Mac developer Freeverse has a new treat for Mac users. Itâs called MacFun, a web-based, casual gaming site designed just for those interested in âfamily-friendlyâ games. The majority of them are âgames that were made specifically for the Mac,â explains Lynch Smith, president of Freeverse. âOur unique strength is in the huge catalog of Mac games we bring to the table.â  MacFun makes thoseâand game titles from other developersâavailable for everyone to enjoy.
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The latest craze in software: giving stuff away. BEA Systems, Computer Associates and IBM all recently started releasing the source code, or underlying instructions, for some programs, which amounts to distributing those products free. Even the loosest definition of incentive rebates would probably stop short of 100% discounts, but then the economics of software are peculiar (see story, p. 161). The giveaways were celebrated, especially by the noisy "open-source" movement, which wants all software distributed this way. (They're not kidding.)
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A new beta version of Parallels Desktop for Mac, the software that lets Intel Mac owners run Windows without having to first reboot their machines, is now out.
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Macs are now stable, Intel-based workhorses that run Windows apps and make end users happy. Is that enough for entry to the enterprise?
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In the coming weeks and months you'll probably see me writing about issues of podcatchers here, because I'm working on one. It's the third one I've written, so this time maybe I'll get it right.  A lot of things have changed since I wrote my first podcatcher back in 2001. 1. Back then there were no podcasts, so it was a proof of concept, a chicken without an egg (or an egg with no chicken), a step in a bootstrap. Today there are lots of podcasts. An embarassment of riches. 2. Back then implementing a podcatcher was simple, there was exactly one format to support, RSS 2.0 with enclosures. Today, luckily, it's still fairly simple, as far as the format goes. The only variability is the iTunes namespace, which complicates things, just a little.  3. Today there are enough users to make it possible to support lists of podcasts published by fans, and instead of just subscribing to the podcast feeds, you can subscribe to lists of feeds. I will publish one of these lists, in OPML 2.0 format, as a proof of concept.  4. The first version of this new podcatcher will run in the OPML Editor because that's where all my software runs at first. But the goal is to port it to run in other environments, some with millions of users. I want to provide a popular alternative to the one that Apple publishes which currently dominates the market. (Note: I'm generally pleased with the way Apple dominates, they've been very fair about allowing users to export their subscription lists. But if we want to create the opportunity for others to innovate in the area of podcast players, there has to be choice at the podcatcher level. That's my main motive for revisiting this area.) There probably are some other changes, and I'll write about them as the project moves forward. Now.... To people who say that Apple has the market sewn up, I say Bah! I think iPods are great, but they're designed to play music, not podcasts. Every bit of music is something you want to keep forever, a podcast loses almost all its value after you've listened to it once. You have to pay for music (in theory at least) but podcasts are free.  Podcasts beg to have a player that can download them without synching with a desktop computer. Okay that's something podcasts have in common with music.  I buy Apple products all the time. I've gone from resenting Apple so much that I wouldn't buy their products, as recently as 2005, to today when not only do I only use Macs, but I'm constantly telling people why they'd be better off using Macs. I can't help but evangelize the products, I think they're that much better than Windows PCs.  But as much as I love Apple (can't believe I actually said that) I still don't trust them with a whole medium. We need them to have competition. The rest of the tech industry seems to think they're immune to it, that creates a huge opportunity with someone with enough chutzpah to think they can do it. Yours truly, Dave Winer
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Rojo  is trying to hire a few Engineers .  Rojo is an amazing company to work for.  We're working with some really impressive technologies and doing some really cool work.  If you're interested in RSS/Atom, Social Networking, Open Source, Java, Linux, etc then I'd highly recommend that you come and work with us.  If you suggest someone to Rojo, and we hire them, we'll give you a free iPod. At the very minimum its a nice gesture for your help.  Also if you want a free invite to Rojo please let me know.  We'd love to have more feedback.
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Apple's CEO may be on sick leave, but a diminutive Steve Jobs doll is busy traveling the world like a kidnapped garden gnome, spreading the message of Mac unity. By Leander Kahney.
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It's easy, really -- just sync your Mac to Steve Jobs Time. In Cult of Mac.
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Ranging from an Axiotron tablet computer to Parrot's Bluetooth wireless stereo speakers, many of the third-party software and hardware offerings on display at this week's Macworld will support Leopard.
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With new rankings due soon, SGI, IBM and others are jostling for bragging rights. Also: A speedy Mac system gets speedier.
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This paper introduces some techniques for making backups without needing to stop the business applications. It also describes ways to simplify and reduce the cost of system operations.
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Corporate licences make for happy software vendors
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The author of the controversial CherryOS, an emulator that allows Windows to run Mac OS X, insists the software is not a scam, and any similarity to PearPC is coincidental. We'll soon see: He promises a free demo later this week. By Leander Kahney.
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A special version of Macromedia&#39;s Contribute Web publishing desktop application is designed to automate and simplify the creation and modification of EBay Stores.
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Gabe: So I picked up my MacBook Pro a few months back and I would not call myself a convert but I do really like it. I"ve been doing all the basic iLife stuff, like making DVD"s of Gabe"s birthday party and photocasting pictures to the family. I am getting much more comfortable with the Mac but there are still some things I don"t quite understand and so I have a couple questions for you guys.
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Continuing the thread from yesterday. I got absolutely nowhere, some people suggested I use a smart playlist, missing the point that I'm a developer working on a podcatcher, not a user trying to use iTunes as a podcatcher. I'm sure it's an excellent way to subscribe to podcasts, but I have my own ideas how podcatchers should work, and I want to integrate them with other stuff I'm working on. Integrating with iTunes is proving to be quite a challenge, or maybe it's an art, we'll see.  As usual Mac users are superior sumbitches.  (Quoting the James Brolin character the first time we meet him in the third season finale of The West Wing.) Anyway, the search continues, I tried another more direct tack, and looked for glue for iTunes for UserLand, and bingo, there's a match, from 2001, a well-known Frontier programmer Sean Elfstrom, apparently converted glue for the Sonic SoundJam app that iTunes used to be, before Apple acquired it.  I installed the glue in the OPML Editor. It's daunting, for sure, but let's see what I can get working.