Apple is showing how it can cross industry boundaries and shake up a tired industry with innovation combined with some muscle, according to Forbes on Monday. Itis called “cross-boundary disruption.” One of those industries that was ripe for a shake up was the music industry. The current target of Apple is, of course, the mobile…
John Martellaro
John Martellaro was born at an early age and began writing about computers soon after that. With degrees in astrophysics (B.S.) and physics (M.S.), he has worked for NASA, White Sands Missile Range, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Apple. At Apple he worked as a Senior Marketing Manager, a Federal Account Executive and a High Performance Computing manager. His interests include chess, science fiction and astronomy. John is the host of the TMO podcast Background Mode.
Articles by John Martellaro
Some MacBook Drives Suspected of Fatal Design Flaw
Investigators are looking at a possible design flaw in some Seagate hard drives found in MacBooks and MacBook Pros, according to Techworld on Friday. The problems leads to catastrophic data loss. The problem is suspected with Seagate 2.5-inch SATA drives made in China and loaded with firmware version 7.01. Model numbers affected include ST96812AS and…
Gartenberg: Leopard Redefines Personal Computing
Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Jupiter Research, wrote that in his opinion Apple’s Leopard redefines what personal computing looks like at Computerworld on Wednesday. Instead of providing a rundown of Leopard’s new features, which has been done elsewhere, Mr. Gartenberg sat back and took a 30,000 ft view. After the installs on several Macs,…
Apple Will Allow Leopard Server Virtualization
In what seems to be a notable about-face, Apple has changed its Mac OS X Leopard Server license agreement to allow multiple, virtualized copies of Mac OS X to run on Apple hardware, according to Adam Engst at Tidbits on Wednesday. Heretofore, only one copy of Mac OS X Server could run in a single…
Slate Magazine: Leopard Devours Vista
Leopard demolishes Vista in a classy, coherent upgrade according to Slate Magazine on Wednesday. Apple has underpromised and overdelivered while Vistais techincal improvements remain difficult for users to appreciate and utilize. Appleis OS update approach stands in sharp contrast to Microsoftis. While Apple remains modest in its numbering system and includes lots of new features…
Leopard's Firewall Faulted by Security Researchers
Researchers at Heise Security have noted that, even after an upgrade from Tiger to Leopard, if the firewall was turned on in Tiger, it is turned off in Leopard, according to Robert Vamosi’s C|Net Blog on Tuesday. In addition, even if the Leopard firewall is once again turned on, some incoming connections will be allowed,…
Microsoft Releases Beta 2 of RDC 2.0, adds NLA
Microsoft has posted Beta 2 of its free Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client for Mac OS X. After round one, a number of important issues were addressed. Multiple Sessions Improvement ? Due to popular demand, the File menu has been redesigned to allow for the launch of multiple Remote Desktop Connection sessions from the menu.…
C|Net: Steady-as-She-Goes Approach for Leopard is Best
Steady, slow steps in OS evolution, combined with some periodic cash flow, is a better way to evolve a modern OS than the lump sum approach of Vista, according to Tom Krazit at C|Net on Friday. While there are many new features in Leopard, what may be more important is the methodology for updating a…
David Pogue Uncovers Leopard's Hidden Goodies
David Pogue, at the New York Times, has found some interesting goodies embedded in Leopard that arenit to be found in the routine descriptions of Leopardis new features. On Thursday, David Pogue published his review of Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard. Leave it to Mr. Pogue to find some hidden treasures after continued experimenting with…
Blackfriars: Leopard Family Pack Cashes in on Customer Loyalty, Honesty
By avoiding copy protection and onerous licensing and activation plus a properly set price for the Mac OS X Family Pack, Apple actually gains financially, according to Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications on Thursday. Based on some statistics about what percentage of Apple customers elect to purchase the Mac OS X Family Pack and some…
Apple Concierge in Retail Stores: Think Security
Apple is about to alter the way customers enter many of their retail stores, according to a story at ifo AppleStore on Thursday. A concierge will soon greet entering customers and get them the help they require. It appears to be just good customer service, but there are other implications. Currently, anyone can walk into…
C|Net: More to Mac Sales Than Halo
Looking at the Apple sales numbers in detail, it remains impossible to attribute Apple’s sales growth to the iPod halo effect alone. There are other effects, according to C|Net on Monday. The halo effect results when iPod customers go into an Apple store, have enjoyed their iPod experience, and see the Mac in possibly a…
ITWire: Microsoft Engineer Admits Vista Bloat
A Microsoft senior engineer, with the title “distinguished engineer,” admitted to the Vista bloat and described his vision for the future — Windows with a leaner core, WinMin, according to ITWire on Monday. Each version of Windows has been more bloated. Worse, since the Internet, Microsoftis pride and joy OS hasnit been so safe. “An…
MyMac Podcast Features Beth Lock and John Farr
On this weekis Podcast at MyMac.com, two of the most influential and early writers and observers of Apple, Beth Lock and John Farr, are interviewed by the MyMac team. John Farr and Beth Lock have been writing about, and in earlier times, “saving” Apple by articulating just why Apple mattered during Appleis tough times in…
The Vista Fear Factor and Leopard
Reports that Vista is selling poorly relate primarily to off the shelf sales compared to XP. New computers that have Vista pre-installed seem to be doing well, and Microsoft has logged at least 60 million Vista licenses. The conclusion has to be that home PC customers are overwhelmed and intimidated by the prospect of installing…
Al Gore's Nobel Prize Unlikely to Lead to Presidency
Al Gore, a member of Appleis Board of Directors, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. However, even his trusted advisers doubt that will lead to a run for the presidency, according to USA Today on Friday. “I donit think that this great honor will change that calculation,” said Michael Feldman, a former Gore White…
Reviewer Bliss Leads to iMac Purchase
A reviewer for the Houston Chronicle was so enamored of the Apple iMac he was using for a project that he talked his accountant-wife into buying one for himself, according to his story in the Houston Chronicle on Monday. It wasnit Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus either; it was a book author, Dwight Silverman, who was…
Apple Gets the Culture Code -- in Seattle it Just Rains
The phrase, “Designed by Apple in California,” is born from an understanding of The Culture Code, according to Joel Spolsky at his Website. On the other hand, Microsoftis “Hello from Seattle” falls flat. Appleis phrase, according to the software developer, evokes images of an entire state, not the one full of muffler shops and donut…
Parallels Provides Guidance on Expiring Boot Camp
Ben Rudolph, the Director of Corporate Communications at Parallels, provided some guidance on Wednesday how to handle the expiration of the Boot Camp beta license when Leopard ships this month. “If youire not ready to upgrade to Leopard right away and still want to use your Boot Camp partition, Parallels makes life very, very easy,”…
The Future of Mac OS X on PowerPC
Whenever Apple comes out with a major new release of its OS, some Macintosh hardware gets left behind. While Leopard includes support for PowerPC Macs, itis worth looking at Appleis history to see if Mac OS X 10.6 will abandon the entire PowerPC line, according to Daniel Dilger at Roughly Drafted. “Previous versions of Apple?s…
Intel's Montevina Chip Will Bring HD Video
Recently, Intelis Paul Otellini at the Intel Developer Forum demonstrated support for blue-laser optical formats that promise robust support for high definition video in PCs within a year, according to EDN. The Montevina chip is a refresh of the Santa Rosa platform that will bring desirable improvements to video decoding, said EDNis Senior Technical Editor…
YML Tonight: Steve Chazin and John Gruber
Your Mac Life (YML), with Shawn King, which airs every Wednesday night, will feature a chat with Steve Chazin, a former Apple VP of Marketing and John Gruber of the Daring Fireball. Shawn King said that tonightis show will be all about selling things – How Apple sells to you, why Apple sells to you…
Flying Meat Software Releases Acorn Image Editor
Flying Meat Software released on Monday version 1.0 of its image editor software which de-emphasizes palettes and creates a more fluid interface. Described as fast and fluid, Acorn allows the user to take screen shots and edit the right away, chain together image filters, use layer-based image editing, and has plug-in support. “Acorn feels right,…
Cringely: iPhone Pricing Incident Tightly Scripted
Bob Cringely, an expert observer of Apple and Steve Jobs, wrote at PBS on Friday that the entire iPhone incident, from price reduction to public letter and store credit was a tightly scripted exercise in marketing and ego gratification. “This week?s iPhone pricing story, in which Apple punished its most loyal users by dropping the…