XCube writes: "'What is Mac OS X?' is a fascinating article over at KernelThread.com. According to Amit Singh it's a hacker-over-friendly answer to that question and a low-level taste of Apple's OS. The extensive article covers many details on Mac OS X: history, Mac firmware & boot loader, system architecture, kernel, startup, file systems, app environments, programming facilities, available software, and more. A great read if you are interested in Mac OS X, though some stuff is too technical methinks. On second thought, this may be a better read if you're *not* interested in Mac OS X! The author says he wrote it to introduce Mac OS X to the Linux User's Group at his work."

rbanffy asks: "Does anybody know what this card is? I am resurrecting an old Macintosh LC II and would like to attach it to a network. The card was inside it, but the hard disk had no drivers. It is an LC-PDS Ethernet card with RJ-45 and BNC connectors. The important parts seem to be a SMC 91c92 chip and an EPROM (haven't seen one in years) labeled 'LC ROM 44F0'. Could one of you can identify this critter and point me to the correct drivers?"

no_demons writes "Along with a selection of other goodies, Apple also unveiled their Xgrid clustering technology from their advanced computation group today. Xgrid can turn a number of networked Macs into a supercomputer, detects nodes automagically via Rendezvous, and can run in or out of a screensaver mode. You can download a technology demo (including a BLAST test app) here."

Steve Jobs announced the oft-rumored iPod mini today in the keynote address at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, a $250 MP3 player with a 4GB hard drive that comes in several colors. Jobs also introduced the Xserve G5 and updates to Xserve RAID, and announced updates to several media applications, and introduced Garage Band, a music-making program and part of iLife. Also previously rumored, and true, is that Pepsi will be giving away 100 million iTunes Music Store songs.

wcbrown writes "OmniGroup, makers of the popular Mac OS X browser OmniWeb have announced the upcoming beta of their next-generation browser. There's going to be tabs and they're not like any other browser out there. There's going to be a way to save and share your browsing state so you can restore your window locations and the URLs in them. There's going to be some cool nice-to-haves like integrated RSS reading, per-site preferences, and search shortcuts. The beta will be available February 2, 2004."

sEEKz writes "ToySight is set of cool games and toys to play using your iSight or similar FireWire camera. Using a system of object and motion detection to track your position, Toysight allows you to control buttons, sliders and perform gestures on the screen, putting you right in the action." I played it with my DV camera, and it worked OK, but I couldn't crash the little parachute guy. I want death and maiming in my video games.

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running a story about failing Apple hardware. 'Can a few bad apples -- like product quality complaints and potential lawsuits -- spoil the bunch for loyal fans of Apple Computer Inc. ahead of their biggest party of the year? As enthusiasts devoted to Apple prepare to descend on San Francisco next week for the annual Macworld conference, at least two online petitions have collected hundreds of signatures from potential plaintiffs seeking to file lawsuits over claims of defects in the iBook laptop.'" Yay, online petitions, the most effective way to effect change in the world.

bsharitt writes "A preliminary version of KOffice has been built natively on Mac OS X. It looks like a lot of the hard part is over, and now a lot of cleaning up and bug fixes stand between Mac OS X and a free full featured office suite." There's also a story on the dot.

Zero seconds on the Mac OS system clock is January 1, 1904. The Mac OS epoch hits 100 years ... now. That's assuming you live in the Pacific time zone, anyway: the Mac OS epoch is unique in that it is time zone-specific. Of course, none of this applies unless you are running Mac OS, and all you Mac users are using Mac OS X, right? (Geek note: the Mac OS epoch is unsigned, which is why it can count over 100 years from 0 seconds, and 32-bit Unix can't, though it can count backward to 1901.)

JAHA wonders: "I've seen two schools of thought regarding the proper method for charging an ipod so as to maximize the lifetime of the battery: let the iPod completely drain before re-charging; or keep the iPod completely charged as often as possible (i.e. leave it charging while you listen to it if you can). There doesn't seem to be any official word from Apple on their website, so I was hoping the smart people here could clear it up for me." For those looking for a definitive resource on the proper care and feeding of your iPod batteries, try this site.

sdimbert writes "Rumors of a new, smaller, "iPodJr" have been floating around the Rumor Sites for a few weeks (as well a here at Slashdot). But now, the rumors have gained credibility and become more substantial. London's Evening Standard reports today (30 Dec 03) that "Apple has announced a cut-price mini version" of the iPod, "costing 65 [~115 USD], which will be able to store 800 songs." Despite the assertion that Apple "announced" the product, there is no mention of it at their official News Page or their product page for the iPod."

Samvit writes "The end of the year is upon us, so it's naturally time for those retrospectives to start coming in. Ars Technica has a fantastic look back at Apple in 2003. 2003 was one of the biggest years for Apple, arguably the biggest in a very long time. Still, Ars is typically fair, so the author lays down not only the good in 2003, but also the bad and the ugly. There's a bit of prognostication going on too--a little something for everyone."

scishop writes "Benjamin Reed has just compiled Konqueror for Mac OS X after porting the KUniqueApplication class. A screenshot of the running program can be found here. According to Reed's blog, 'next up is KOffice.'"

metfoo writes "It's been months since the G5 and Opterons have been available for purchase. When the G5 systems were first released, many Mac bashers and AMD nuts discredited the G5's performance. They always ended their comments with 'Wait until its compared to an Opteron, then we'll talk.' Well, it's finally time to talk. Barefeats has posted an article comparing the two systems. The G5 line was compared to a Dual 2GHz Opteron and the results are impressive. In gaming, the Opteron system proved to be superior, which is partly due to the superior 9800XT over the base Radeon 9800. The G5 spanks the Opteron in many of the non-gaming tests, except for the Photoshop tests."

Dan writes "A few weeks ago Xavier Humbert succesfully compiled NetBSD-current on a MacOSX 10.3 with an i386 target. He has provided a summary of his crossbuild execution as well as his build script. But why bother crossbuilding ? Erik Berls's article explains the process of cross compilation on NetBSD. He says that NetBSD's crossbuild framework allows a host to build a version of NetBSD 1.6 or later regardless of the version of the host. Crossbuilding has several major benefits, if you have production servers, you can build the OS without needing to load down the machine that is actively surviving as a production host."

TheKidWho writes "According to Thinksecret: 'Reliable sources inside and outside of Apple have confirmed Apple will announce the new pocket-size iPods in a number of capacities and in various colors, including stripes. Capacities will be 2 and 4GB -- meaning users could store some 400 and 800 songs, respectively. Prices will start at around $100US, Think Secret has learned. It is not known if the new product line will be available immediately after introduction. It is also expected that current iPod models will be revamped to add body colors as well.' With the $99 price tag, it seems these rumored iPods could make big headway in the low end mp3 player market."

dmdimon sent in linkage to a Forbes story on the upcoming PPC chips and notes "IBM is said to be ready to deliver a new version of its PowerPC processor to Apple by the end of this year in from sizes of 130 nanometers to 90 nanometers... Apple CEO Steve Jobs has already gone on the record saying that the G5 computer will contain PowerPC chips that run at 3 GHz by the summer of 2004. A mid-step between the current systems, which top out with two chips running at 2 GHz, and systems with chips as fast as 2.6 GHz would be a logical move come January..."

An anonymous reader writes "Well, it was bound to happen. It looks like some lawyers are preparing to file a class action lawsuit against apple computer due to the iPod's battery problem (previously discussed here, here, and here)."

An anonymous reader sent in a link to 'Battery and Assault: When His iPod Died, This Music Lover Tackled Apple. Stay Tuned.' in the Washington Post. The article (good reading even if you're familiar with the situation) has Apple reps being rather callous about the issue - I think it's a fairly reasonable assumption that if you spend several hundred dollars on a gizmo, it shouldn't be "disposable". A replacement battery for my cell phone cost $10; one for my cordless phone cost $10; Apple is presumably making a good deal of money on their $99 replacements.

Vokbain writes "Security Update 2003-12-19 is now available. This update includes the following components: AFP Server, ASN.1 Decoding for PKI, cd9660.util, Directory Services, fetchmail, fs_usage, rsync, and System Initialization. Get it now in Software Update." This security update appears to be for 10.3.2, and, as stekylsha writes, "contains among other things -- wait for it -- the fix for the cd9660.util buffer overflow. What was the turn around on that? Three days?" EverLurking writes "Yet another update from Apple, this time they've updated Java to 1.41.1_01. You can find it in Software Update, a restart is required." I see no Java update of this sort, but I do see an update to the MPEG-2 component, as well as the 10.3.2 update for Mac OS X Server. (As usual, the technotes on Apple's site don't appear to be updated yet.)