Is this the end of East Coast Macworld Expos? Adam returns from New York with a first-hand account of the show’s size and atmosphere, as well as his list of superlative products. We also mourn the loss of TidBITS translator Walter Van Lerberghe. In the news, Apple posts a security update and a $19 million Q3 profit, Dantz provides a firmware update for some PowerBook G4 optical drives, Netscape lays off its developers, and iData Pro X survives Casady & Greene.
Apple Posts $19 Million Q3 Profit -- Apple Computer announced a $19 million profit for its third fiscal quarter of 2003. The company shipped 771,000 Macs during the three-month period; that's 60,000 more than Apple sold in its previous fiscal quarter
Not To Praise Netscape, But To Bury It -- Following on AOL's $750 million settlement and technology agreement with Microsoft last month, AOL announced last week it was laying off 50 employees at its Netscape Communications subsidiary while simultaneously donating Mozilla trademarks, intellectual property, and some $2 million over the next two years to the Mozilla Foundation, a new non-profit organization coordinating the Mozilla open source project
Security Update Fixes Screen Effects Problem -- Apple has released Security Update 2003-07-14, fixing a potential security issue related to using a password when waking a Mac from a running Screen Effects screensaver
iData Pro X Opportunity -- If you were intrigued by our review of iData Pro X and have been thinking of trying out the software for yourself, now is a good time (see "The Digital Shoebox: iData Pro X 1.0.5" in TidBITS-675)
Dantz Provides Optical Drive Firmware Updates -- If you own an older Titanium PowerBook G4 with a Combo or SuperDrive, and if you also use Retrospect to back up data to CDs or DVDs, you may need to upgrade the optical drive using a firmware update recently released by Dantz
There are downsides to creating and participating in a strong community - the inevitable sense of sadness and loss when a member passes away. That happened for us last week with the death of Walter Van Lerberghe, one of the key members of the volunteer team that produces the Dutch translation of TidBITS
"So what do you think of the show?"
If I hear those words one more time, I swear I'll scream. This Macworld Expo in New York City has felt a bit like a collective therapy session, where everyone is trying to figure out how everyone else is feeling
Despite the low attendance, both on the part of exhibitors and attendees, Macworld Expo didn't disappoint in the slightest when it came to new and interesting products and events
Defragmenting and optimizing -- Readers who do a lot of video or graphics work continue to chime in about the effectiveness of defragmenting hard drives