Happy New Year! We’re in San Francisco for Macworld Expo, and much of this week’s issue revolves around Apple’s December announcement that Steve Jobs will not be giving this year’s keynote and that Apple wouldn’t participate in future Macworld Expos. If that weren’t sufficiently shocking, there’s also Jobs’s open letter about his health problems. Nevertheless, we expect a good show, and we’re struck by the fact that not one but two documentaries about the world of the Macintosh will be screened at the show. Also this week, Jeff Carlson tells how he pressed his Apple TV into service on Christmas Eve to replace a recalcitrant MacBook, Adam reviews Circus Ponies NoteBook 3.0, and Glenn gets down and dirty with problems surrounding the digital certificates that secure Web-based transactions. In the Watchlist, we look at the releases of Audio Hijack Pro 2.9, Firefox 3.0.5, Camino 1.6.6, Norton Internet Security for Mac 4.0, Snapz Pro X 2.1.3, Hazel 2.2.4, PDFpen 4.0.3, Typinator 3.3, and Lightroom 2.2.
Steve Jobs has written an open letter to put an end to speculation that his health was failing and to ask for support from the Apple community.
Those attending Macworld Expo can watch Adam and many other Mac personalities in the world premiere of "MacHEADS: A Fanboy Documentary."
If you'll be in San Francisco for Macworld Expo, you can catch not just the MacHEADS movie, but also a special screening of the new documentary "Welcome to Macintosh."
Ignition from LogMeIn brings high-quality remote access to Macs and Windows systems from an iPhone or iPod touch.
When an unexpected error prevents streaming music to his AirPort Express, Jeff Carlson eschews hours of troubleshooting and throws his Apple TV into the breach.
Apple said that Steve Jobs won't be presenting the keynote address at the 2009 Macworld Expo trade show - and that Apple won't be an exhibitor at future shows. Goodness. We're a bit shaken, but the word is that Macworld Expo is still on for 2010.
Forget the oh-so-rational business analysis of Apple's move to pull out of future Macworld Expos. Even Apple has to listen to its mother, so read on as Tonya Engst gives Apple a speaking-to.
If you're trying to use Quicken for the Mac with some banking and finance sites, a security certificate may trip you up. It turns out that Quicken doesn't support Extended Validation SSL/TLS certificates, which renders it non-functional for downloading transactions from banks that rely on these more-secure certificates. A fix is in the works.
Security researchers successfully created a forged digital certificate for a Web address they don't control that browsers accept as authentic. Did they break the Internet? Not quite, and an easy fix should take care of the problem.
Circus Ponies NoteBook 3.0 builds on the previous version's outlining features with free-form text pages and the addition of shapes, lines, tablet-based drawing and handwriting recognition, and much more.
Notable software releases since the last issue of TidBITS include Audio Hijack Pro 2.9, Firefox 3.0.5, Camino 1.6.6, Norton Internet Security for Mac 4.0, Snapz Pro X 2.1.3, Hazel 2.2.4, PDFpen 4.0.3, Typinator 3.3, and Lightroom 2.2.
Read on for a collection of links to the most interesting articles and resources that the TidBITS staff discovered on the Web since our last issue.
The last few weeks' discussions look at the news of Steve Jobs not being keynote speaker at Macworld Expo and Apple's exit from the event after 2009, performance of online backup services, syncing calendars, and much more.