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TidBITS#880/21-May-07

The past and the present come together in this issue: we celebrate the anniversary of Samuel Morse’s historic telegraph message with a 50-percent-off Take Control sale, Jeff traces the path of the now-stagnant FreeHand, Glenn marvels at the arrival of a 1 terabyte hard drive mechanism, Mark is surprised to learn how dependent he’s become on his MacBook’s two-fingered scrolling trackpad, and Matt looks at how the future of Drop Drawers lies with the long-standing DragThing. Elsewhere in the issue, Adam covers Microsoft news: the Mac BU’s release of a converter for Word 2007 documents and how the company’s legal department is going after open source with patent threats. On the Apple side of the fence, last week saw a minor update to the MacBook and FCC certification for the iPhone.

Adam Engst No comments

MacBook Receives Performance Bump

Almost exactly a year after its initial release (see "MacBook Fills Out Laptop Line," 2006-05-22) and six months after the last processor jump ("MacBook Gains Core 2 Duo Processor," 2006-11-13), Apple has updated the MacBook line of laptops with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors that add roughly .16 GHz to each model, a standard 1 GB of RAM across the line, and larger hard disks

Glenn Fleishman No comments

iPhone Receives FCC Approval

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has certified the iPhone for use. When Steve Jobs announced the new smartphone at Macworld Expo in January 2007, he said it would take some time to pass the necessary FCC tests (see "iPhone Seeks to Redefine the Mobile Phone," 2007-01-15)

Matt Neuburg No comments

Dropping Drawers Become Dragging Things

In what may be the first (and last?) press release datelined simultaneously "Glasgow, Scotland" and "Tel Aviv, Israel," TLA Systems and Sig Software have announced that, henceforward, the upgrade path of the latter's Drop Drawers is now the former's DragThing 5.8

Jeff Carlson No comments

Farewell FreeHand

I knew this day would come, but I honestly didn't think it would take this long. Earlier this week, Adobe's John Nack, senior product manager of Adobe Photoshop, confirmed on his blog that my favorite drawing application, Macromedia FreeHand, is no longer being updated

Adam Engst No comments

Telegraphing a 50%-Off Take Control Ebook Sale

It's time for a big Take Control sale, so you can save 50 percent on all our ebooks through 29-May-07 when you order with this link. Whether you're interested in setting up a solid backup strategy with the help of our best-selling "Take Control of Mac OS X Backups," getting the most from your new AirPort Extreme Base Station with "Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Extreme Network," or figuring out the best way to use Windows software with "Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac," we have the expert help you need, coupled with instant-gratification downloads, free minor updates, and a carefully designed ebook reading experience