Samsung has announced a 24-inch (60 cm) LED backlit LCD display with 180 degree viewing and near perfect light uniformity, according to DailyTech. “As notebooks become thinner, the need for LED-backlit screens become more important as they take up far less space and requires less power,” the author reported. “The same is true for desktop…
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
Changes in Mac Pro Configurations Over Time
The various configurations and prices of the Mac Pro series over time were examined at EveryMac.com on Wednesday. As Apple brings out new versions of a system, the capability grows and the prices tend to stay the same. If one were planning to buy a Mac Pro when it first came out and elected not…
Iconfactory Releases iPulse 2.1.8
The Iconfactory released an update to its Mac OX X monitoring utility, iPulse version 2.1.8 on Thursday. The new version “fixes several bugs including reporting process information, properly displaying network statistics when disconnecting from a VPN, and localization. In addition, in the “strange coincidence” department, iPulse now supports CPU reporting on Macs with up to…
Mossberg Loathes Plethora of PC Craplets
Buying a new computer should be a pleasure, aside from configuring user options and transferring files. However, the boatload of adware and trialware on a new Vista PC, craplets, was a severe annoyance, according to Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal on Thursday [Subscription required]. Setting up the desktop and playing with the cool…
WiFi WEP Security Even Worse, Steer Clear
Mathematicians have long known about the flaws in the RC4 key scheduling algorithm in the WEP WiFi Protocol, but in practice, it has required several minutes to break the key. Now, that time is down to 3 seconds, according to German researchers and reported by Computerworld on Wednesday. Erik Tews, a researcher in the computer…
The Real "Three Screen" Opportunity
The wireless industry is enamored with the Three Screen Opportunity, advertising on the TV, computer and mobile phone. However, in terms of actually capitalizing on those three screens, Apple may be in the best position, according to BillDay.com The Macintosh, the Apple TV, and the iPhone comprise the core of those three screens, and while…
MacResearch Solicits Feedback from Scientists
MacResearch.org has solicited feedback from scientists on the issues, requests and needs that scientists using Apple products have on the platform. This information will be provided to Apple. Representatives from MacResearch.org and its sister organizations will be meeting with Apple on April 4th, and they have requested that scientists who have feedback or questions fill…
A Mac User's Reactions to Vista
A user very familiar with both Macs and Windows tested Vista for several weeks and had a mixed reaction in a story published at Low End Mac on Friday. Adam Guha experimented with Vista for a few weeks on a new Acer notebook to get a feel for the new OS. “Firstly, thereis the new…
Apple Posts New Boot Camp Beta for Vista
Apple posted a new version of its Boot Camp software on Wednesday. Version 1.2 now supports 32-bit Vista. The update also includes updated drivers including trackpad, AppleTime, (synch), audio, graphics, modem and iSight camera. Installation of Vista requires a full version of Vista, not an upgrade: Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate and…
Mark/Space Ships The Missing Sync for BlackBerry
Mark/Space Inc. announced Tuesday that The Missing Sync for Blackberry, synchronization software for Mac OS X, is now shipping. The Missing Sync for BlackBerry provides reliable synchronization of contacts, calendar events, tasks, memos, and for multimedia-capable BlackBerry devices, photos, podcasts and music via USB. “The software will also download selected albums containing podcasts and unprotected…
Miglia Announces TVMini Express TV, USB Tuner [UPDATED]
Miglia announced on Thursday the immediate availability of the TVMini Express, an inexpensive USB TV tuner for users in the UK. The device, which is a digital SD tuner, comes with equinuxis digital tuner software, The Tube. Features include: Watch and record TV shows Real-time information of what is playing on each TV channel Export…
MadTV Spoofs Steve Jobs and George Bush
A MadTV skit of Steve Jobs and his new product unveiling, iRack,has been posted at YouTube. Itis a lighthearted and clever look at Steve Jobs throwing everything into iRack. Wait. Perhaps itis George Bush throwing everything into Iraq. “Mr. Jobs! The iRack looks unstable!” “Trust me,” he said. Michael McDonald, a MadTV cast member for…
Blackfriars: Apple Marketing for the Time Poor
A significant difference in the marketing approach by Apple compared to Microsoft is driven by Appleis minimalist design and interfaces, according to Blackfriarsi Marketing. In contrast, Microsoft is all about giving lots of options, and that shows up as well in the design of its Websites. Some analysts think this determined by the difference between…
SpamSieve 2.6 Adds Thunderbird Support
Michael Tsai announced on Monday that his SpamSieve software has been updated to version 2.6. The new version has significant enhancements: SpamSieve now works with Mozilla Thunderbird. Improved detection of image spams and phishing messages. Made various message analysis improvements to increase the accuracy of the Bayesian filter. AppleScripting the whitelist and blocklist is much…
A Newbie Experiences Mac Quirks
Mac OS X is considered elegant and intuitive. Even so, sometimes a Switcher not only trips up, but finds some nonsense on the Mac, according to Tom Yager at InfoWorld on Thursday. For example, each document on Windows lives inside its own window with an application menu. When a user closes the last open document,…
Apple Releases Security Fix for iPhoto, Version 6.0.6
Apple, Inc. has released a security fix for iPhoto on Tuesday which addresses CVE-2007-0051. The fix brings iPhoto to version 6.0.6. The news was posted on the “security-announce” list at lists.apple.com. The announcement provided these details: Impact: Subscribing to a maliciously-crafted photocast may lead to arbitrary code execution. Description: A format string vulnerability exists in…
FAA Considering Alternatives to Vista
The Federal Aviation Administration’s CIO is examining the possibility of replacing his agency’s 45,000 Windows systems with Linux systems, a new browser, and Google’s online business applications. The story was posted by InformationWeek on Wednesday. The FAA’s David Bowen is taking a close look at the Premier Edition of Google’s apps as a possible replacement…
Hidden Dimensions - Illusion and Fear in the Entertainment Industry
“It is our illusions that create the world.” — Didier Cauwelaert I want to put a new twist on the whole DRM issue related to the music and movie industries. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to use the term “mm-industry” to refer to both of these industries. In this column, I’m going to…
Qnext Releases Major Update of P2Web Sharing Software
Qnext announced version 3 of its media sharing P2Web software on Tuesday. The new version includes an integrated Universal Contact Manager to manage friends and family and the eliminates the need for Qnext software on both ends. Qnext is a software package, written in Java, that generates a Webcast to deliver streamed music, shared photos,…
California Demanding Open Document Standard - Microsoft Resists
California has introduced a bill that would make the Open Document Format (ODF) a mandatory requirement for its state agencies when procuring software. This is putting heat on Microsoft which is promoting its own OOXML standard, according to a report in ITWire Monday. “The new bill, introduced by Californian Democrat Mark Leno, does not name…
How Steve Jobs Threw Away $2.7 Billion
Steve Jobs, back in 2001, was granted a set of stock options which at the time Fortune magazine calculated were worth US$872M. But with Apple stock doing poorly in 2003, Mr. Jobs surrendered the options. Today, they would have been worth US$2.5B, according to a Fortune Magazine story Monday. In fact, Mr. Jobs, in response…
Newest Apple AirPort Extreme Exceeds Apple's Claims
The Apple AirPort Extreme (Wi-Fi) base station has at least fives times the throughput and twice the range of the previous 802.11g model, according to Tom Yager at InfoWorld. Apple claims that the new AirPort Extreme with 802.11n tests out at five times the top speed of 54 Mbps in the previous generation. The actual…
Scripting Mac Applications with Ruby
For those whoid like to explore alternatives to AppleScript, the OiReilly Mac devcenter has posted an article Tuesday by Matt Neuburg on how to script Mac applications with Ruby. Often, programmers with Unix experience in Perl, Python or Ruby come to the Mac, are unaccustomed to AppleScript and looking for familar ground. It all started…
Optometrist Has Eyes Only For Macintosh
When Mark Botwin decided to launch his optometry practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he put his life long love for Macs into practice. The story was posted at Appleis Hot News site on Wednesday. Historically, there has been a dearth of software of optometrists. But thatis been changing. From the time patients come into…