Apple says options probe clears execs
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Apple restated past earnings Friday and acknowledged the backdating of thousands of stock option grants. But the company cleared current management and Steve Jobs of misconduct, saying it has "complete confidence" in the executive team. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing its probe of stock-options practices, Apple said Jobs was aware of the selection of some favorable grant dates but did not benefit financially from them.
Dave Girard writes: "Well, it was a long time coming, but I've been through the trenches and come up, sucking chest wound and all, with the Ars review of font management programs. I've also succeeded in not completely losing my mind while the developers updated the apps, nullifying half my criticisms in the process. Giving a lot of time to these programs in a production setting is crucial to seeing how they perform on a daily basis, and I am confident I've thrown enough varied scenarios at each to find out where they succeed and fail."
IBM's Lotus Software division is taking a bigger bite of Apple's Mac OS X as on Dec. 28 it formally rolled out the latest version of its Lotus messaging software package, dubbed Notes 7.0.2, which will include e-mail, calendar management tools and instant messaging that is specifically designed for Mac OS X users.
Apple and Nintendo share a lot in common with both liking white, both having an inclination to think different, both appealing to the average consumer and both up against powerful opponents. One that Apple needs to both emulate and get in on the Wii action. Actually, emulating the reasons for its success will be near impossible, but still, there’s some food for thought when you look at the Wii.
Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorisation from the company’s board of directors, according to people familiar with the matter. Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs’ remuneration, as required by Apple’s procedures, were later falsified. These are now among the pieces of evidence being weighed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as it decides whether to pursue a case against the company or any individuals over the affair, according to these people.
The top treat in the sleek, high-tech machines operated by her company and ZoomSystems at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is a top-of-the-line Apple iPod that fetches $349 before tax. It comes with a money-back guarantee, and it doesn't drop from anywhere. A sophisticated robotic arm gently guides the mini-music machine to the buyer's hands. "We've done about $55,000 in a month in gross sales just for the one on Concourse A," said Leopold, executive vice-president and owner Business Traveler Services. "This is becoming the future for some high-end products in places like airports where space is at a premium."
Retrospect Desktop 6.1, from EMC Insignia, is one of four editions of the software available for Macs. The Workgroup and Server editions add features to handle large networks and computers running OS X Server; the Express edition, bundled free with numerous hard drives and optical drives, omits network backups and tape drive support. Retrospect’s design caters to the needs of network administrators, who must grapple with backing up numerous computers (both Mac and Windows). For the average home or small business user, though, Retrospect can be intimidating.
Ever wish you could disable your keyboard? For example, so you could clean it without making a mess of whatever it is you’re working on? If you’ve got a desktop Mac, the task is as simple as unplugging the keyboard’s USB cable. But if your Mac is stowed away under a desk, unplugging that cable can be a hassle, and if you’re a notebook user, it’s not an option at all. You could shut down your Mac, but many of us are fans of sleep mode—my Macs are turned off only when I’m out of town.
One of the areas in which Aperture excels is in managing, applying, and searching metadata about your images. To get the most of this feature, however, you need to make sure you add the appropriate metadata to your images in your library. It doesn’t take much time to edit the metadata for each image, but it does add up. There are several places in the Aperture workflow where you can work with metadata, but the most used place is the Metadata View panel.
The new VMware desktop product for the Mac, codenamed Fusion, allows Intel-based Macs to run x86 operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, NetWare and Solaris, in virtual machines at the same time as Mac OS X. It is built on VMware's rock-solid and advanced desktop virtualization platform that is used by over four million users today. With Fusion, you can run traditional PC applications on your Mac: if you need to run PC applications, you can now do so by leveraging the power of virtual machine technology.
Adam Knight writes: "It's a matter of seeing who is starting what and why, but almost everything can be changed if you work hard enough. First, ask yourself if this is something you need to do. Most services that aren't active have been paged out and just the run loop portion of the code is in memory and running, which isn't that bad of a tax on the CPU. If you're doing it to do it, don't."
Brian Warren writes: "The day-to-day usage of iBank isn’t anything transcendent, it is a personal finance application after all. In my opinion, an application such as iBank should be easy and quick to get in and out of. On that qualification, iBank does great. It’s easy to add new transactions, modify them and get a glance at your data."
Meetro and don't remember much from our previous coverage, a simple summary of the social app is that it's a "location-aware" instant messaging program. It detects (or you input) your current location and then displays users who are also logged on who are geographically close to you. Read about the features added to the most recent 0.65 Beta release in 
Joggers using the iPod Sport kit to keep fit are putting their personal privacy at risk, warn scientists. The academics showed how easy it was to track those using the combination of music player and running shoe sensor. In the worst scenario suggested by the scientists, stalkers could use the tracking data to "engineer" encounters with victims.
This article, the third installment in the Leopard Technology Series for Developers, provides an overview of Leopard's application technologies. First, let's take a look at some new technologies that you can use to integrate your applications with the overall Leopard platform experience.
BBEdit has long been the go-to text editor of choice for Mac-using geeks. But as it aged, BBEdit started to show its years, with new features piled on top of old features, which had been piled on top of still older features. In version 8.5.2, Bare Bones has given the old star a face-lift, restructuring and simplifying the interface to make BBEdit look like a hot new app. Along the way, they’ve added in some handy new features, giving this version a full set of enhancements.
Mitchell Lawson writes: "Sometimes I’m away from my laptop, and as in the case of emailing myself To-Dos that I want created automatically in iCal, there are times I jot down notes from something and want to email myself those notes. It would then be nice for Mail to automatically detect those emails, and create a new Note in 
A security update issued Tuesday for the Mac version of Microsoft Office was posted in error, the software maker said. The company encouraged consumers to uninstall the patch, which is still being tested.
Rumor: Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen will formally announce plans for the beta release during the company's fiscal fourth quarter conference call with analysts and members of the media on Thursday. On the other hand, those same people say that Adobe does not plan to release or discuss details of other Creative Suite 3.0 applications, such as Illustrator, Dreamweaver and InDesign.
Office 2007 applications are now available for Windows, and some businesses are going to start using them. By default, these new applications use new XML-based file formats, which are not backwards compatible. In other words, if you save a document in Word 2007 for Windows, by default it will be in a new file format (with the “.docx†file extension) that previous versions of Office for Windows and current and previous versions of Office for Mac OS X cannot read. What about users of Office for Mac OS X?
If you’re sending a handful of files to another Mac user they should go in a clean-looking DMG volume. There’s no easier way to look polished and professional. The video is here.
Daniel Jalkut writes: "Today I’d like to highlight an infuriating behavior that iTunes has, of blocking the processing of all incoming AppleEvents while its preferences dialog is being displayed. What does this mean in most practical terms? iTunes can’t respond to AppleScript while the Preferences window is open."
About 38 minutes into episode 74 of 
A new public beta of Parallels was quietly released in a forum post on the virtualization company's website today.
