This week’s issue brings a potpourri of Mac news, including Adam’s coverage of an iPod infestation of the biological sort (Monomorium destructor, to be precise). Adam also notes how you can add a USB-to-Ethernet adapter to a Mac using new open source drivers. Mark Anbinder looks briefly at Google Talk, and Jeff Carlson follows up last week’s Mac to School article with some software suggestions for students. Glenn Fleishman resolves a problem with AirPort preferred network listings in upgraded versions of Tiger and turns to Flashblock to eliminate Flash-based ads. Finally, we note Safari updates, FileMaker Pro 8, the 2nd annual Mac Networkers Retreat, and a Math+Magic DealBITS drawing.
Safari Updates for Panther & Tiger -- Apple has released updates to its Safari Web browser, which the company says improve support for third-party Web applications, make Safari more stable, and improve Web site compatibility
FileMaker 8 Adds Features, Retains File Format -- FileMaker, Inc. today took the wraps off FileMaker 8, the latest version of its flagship desktop database product
2nd Annual Mac Networkers Retreat Approaching -- Macworld Expo in Boston may have shrunk, and ADHOC/MacHack may be no more, but other Macintosh events carry on
The college students have started to return to campus, making this a great time to look into new software for science and engineering disciplines that require high-quality equations for papers, reports, and other publications
Google, the ubiquitous Web search company that shook up the Web-based email world a year and a half ago by offering a gigabyte of permanent email storage with its free Gmail service, last week staked a claim to the instant messaging territory with the announcement of its free Google Talk service.
Based on the open Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) developed by the Jabber open-source community, Google Talk offers text-based instant messaging using any Jabber-compatible client software, and voice chats with the official Google Talk software
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger added a neat feature for those of us who use Wi-Fi in many locations. It can now display a list of all of your preferred networks - networks you've connected to before and asked to remember after connecting
iPods are everywhere, and according to a posting on the PestNet discussion list forwarded to us by loyal reader Frank Streeter, some unsavory characters are using the iPod to move around the world
I accept fully that many sites, including some I run, need advertising to operate. My Wi-Fi Networking News site has Flash ads on it right now, for instance
What would you do if you wanted to add a second Ethernet card to a Mac mini, iBook, or iMac to turn it into a router, a firewall, or a packet shaper? Or, how would you work around a burnt-out internal Ethernet chip in such a Mac? With a Power Mac, you can buy an inexpensive PCI Ethernet card and be up-and-running with a minimum of fuss (as I did for my Power Mac G4 after a lightning strike; see "Adding Ethernet to a Power Mac" in TidBITS-737)
Last week, I imagined myself in a college student's shoes and offered several recommendations for Mac-related gear to take back to school (see "Mac to School 2005" in TidBITS-793)
The second URL below each thread description points to the discussion on our Web Crossing server, which will be faster.
iChat and Parental Control -- A reader wants to restrict iChat buddy lists, but enabling the parental controls under Tiger disables the Bonjour messaging on the local network