Apple and Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday that they have renewed their font licensing agreement for Microsoft Core fonts. The announcement came at TypeCon2007. “Under the agreement, Apple and Microsoft are extending the seamless Web and software experience Apple users have enjoyed for years when using and viewing popular Microsoft fonts such as Times New…
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
Parallels Launches New Beta Test Program
Parallels, maker of the Mac OS X virtualization software, Desktop, announced on Thursday the next phase of their beta test program. This beta for the next version of Desktop will be free and public for all Parallels Desktop 3 users. New features in the next version include the following: Coherence is now compatible with Expose,…
CIO Magazine: Mac Has Best TCO
The Macintosh, over time, has proven to have the best total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to other operating systems. In fact, there are eight financial components that suggest why corporations should be using Mac OS X, according to CIO Magazine on Wednesday. The debate regarding the total cost of ownership has been around for…
A History of Steve Jobs' War on Buttons
Steve Jobs has been on a war against buttons for a long time. The original Macintosh had no cursor keys. Appleis Cube had a touch sensitive area instead of a power switch. The Apple remote control has only six buttons. Appleis mice of old clung to one button. So itis not surprising that the iPhoneis…
Chip Makers Add Cores, but Software Isn't Keeping Up
Chip makers are racing to add cores to their microprocessors, and they create some buzz with the technology. Software developers, however, are being hard pressed to exploit these multi-core CPUs, and if they donit learn how to do it routinely, fast, and soon, there could be trouble in the industry, according to Jordan Robertson of…
NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 Drive
The NewerTech Guardian MAXimus Drive, distributed by Other World Computing, is a desktop RAID Level 1 storage system suitable for home and small business. It is available in several sizes from 150 GB to 1 TB. I found it to be extremely well engineered, fast, and well worth the price as a high reliability backup…
RedmondMag: Windows XP Just Too Good, Harming Vista
Vista could mark a turning point for Microsoft. It could be the Microsoftis first OS that suffers on the sales side because its predecessor works so well, according to RedmondMag. Keith Ward noted that even though Microsoft has touted Vistais success, “lately, evidence has begun to mount that Vista isnit selling like hotcakes, and itis…
Parallels Posts Desktop 3 Update
Parallels has posted a minor update to their Desktop 3 virtualization software, build 4560. The update features faster and smoother Boot Camp partition use, smoother full screen transitions and more. The new build has a number of features and improvements, according to Ben Rudolph, Director of Corporate Communications at Parallels. Better customizability of SmartSelect for…
OnScreen Science Reduces Price for Particle Physics
OnScreen Science, Inc. announced on Wednesday that they have reduced the price nearly 50 percent for their educational software, Particle Physics. The software is designed to make the strange quantum world of subatomic physics accessible to students at the high school level and above. The prize-winning software makes it easy for students to experience and…
Your Mac Life Features "What the Duck?"
Your Mac Life (YML), with Shawn King, which airs every Wednesday night, will feature a chat with photographer Aaron Johnson, creator of What the Duck? “What the Duck is a daily comic strip that debuted a year ago and, much to its creatoris surprise, is still going strong 260+ strips later,” Shawn King said. “What…
Federal Appeals Court Rejects DiMA Petition
The federal Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) previously put into place severe new royalty payments required of broadcasters playing music. That brought on an urgent DiMA petition for a stay that would defer retroactive fees that would put many Internet radio stations out of business. A federal appeals court has declined to grant that petition. The…
Parallels Posts Humorous Mac AND PC Video
Taking a cue from Appleis own Get A Mac TV commercials, Parallels has posted their own humorous video which emphasizes how the customer can have the best of both worlds. “We took a different approach than the real ads, so instead of having PCs and Macs argue over which is better, we decided to show…
Apple Embraces Web 2.0, But Some in Enterprise Fearful
Apple has embraced Web 2.0 as the core of its new iPhone technologies. However, some in the Enterprise are fearful of the open, collaborative Web 2.0, according to Linux World. “Few technological shifts in recent memory have challenged corporate America the way Web 2.0 is doing right now,” wrote Diann Daniel. “What if any role…
Apple Shares Rise After iPhone Profit Report
After the research firm iSuppli said in a report on Tuesday that Appleis profit margin on the iPhone is more than 55%, Apple stock shot up nearly US$6, according to Reuters. iSuppli said that the estimated manufacturing cost of an 8 GB iPhone is US$265.83, only 45 percent of the retail price. However, the cost…
Square Box Upgrades CatDV to Version 6
Square Box Systems announced on Monday the immediate availability of CatDV 6.0, a major upgrade to its video logging and media asset software for Mac OS X and Windows. The emphasis in CatDV 6 has been to simplify the user experience with these enhancements: The new tree-based navigator provides a unified and intuitive interface to…
Caboodle Gains Leopard Compatibility
announced on Thursday the immediate availability of Caboodle 1.1.2. The new version adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard. Other minor fixes include better ruler handling within entries. Caboodle 1.1.2
iRecordMusic Adds Airport Express Streaming
Bitcartel announced on Wednesday that their audio recording software, iRecordMusic has been updated to version 1.6. The new version adds streaming of audio to Airport Express and improves Safari 3.x compatibility. Version 1.6 also fixes a problem that prevented Apple lossless recordings from being streamed. iRecordMusic, which has been described as a radio-TiVo, allows the…
Snapz Pro Now Universal, Leopard Compatible
Ambrosia Software announced on Thursday that its screen recording software, Snapz Pro, has been updated to version 2.1. The new version is a Universal Application and is compatible with the WWDC Leopard Release. Other improvements include: greatly improved capture performance, support for QuickTime compression sessions — enabling H.264 multipass encoding, and the (restored) ability to…
Microsoft Picked The Wrong Fight
Microsoft, in its desire to dominate every technological market, started a war with Google, an enemy it didnit know how to fight. Meanwhile, Apple is partnering with Google in a long term video war that Microsoft will be hard pressed to survive, according to an editorial from the Joost Team. Observing how Apple and Google…
The Real Reason Behind Safari on Windows
Making Safari available for Windows was clearly an attempt to lay a foundation for the iPhone purchased by Windows users. However, the potential payoff and the underlying strategy is much deeper, according to Roughly Drafted on Friday. Windows users have enjoyed the experience of using iTunes on Windows. So when Apple added Safari to the…
CNN Money: Forget Joost
Joost has received a lot of buzz lately. However, Joost is limited to content formally licensed with providers. Dmitry Shapiro has devised Veoh, an application that spans the entire Web and acts like a DVR for the computer, according to CNNMoney/Business 2.0 on Wednesday. Veoh, introduced as beta in late 2005, could be considered a…
Day #4 Observations
Itis taken two days for everything to sink in. I mentioned before that the phenomenal growth of WWDC attendance is causing interesting, even unpleasant problems. It used to be that, at lunch, we were all served a very nice meal semi-cafeteria style. Youid walk along a long table, grab a plate, bread, select an entree…
Day #2 Observations
While the keynote has a lot of high level gee-whiz stuff, day number two typically brings one down to earth with an inspection of the APIs behind those amazing demos in the keynote. The 30K foot view of Steve Jobs is replaced by the tactical details, conceived of and implemented by young engineers. True wizardry…
MIT's Restaurant Game Released as Universal Application
The M.I.T. Media Lab, Cognitive Machines Group, has released a Universal version of its Restaurant Game. The game is part of a research project designed to assist in the modeling of human social behavior. The restaurant game seeks to solve the problem of adding human social behavior to AI games. By combining the gameplay experiences…