Starquake asks: "I am planning on purchasing a PowerBook in the near future. The choice between models largely depends on whether or not the cost of AppleCare is included. Of course the salesman at the Apple Store suggested I purchase AppleCare, but I am not sure about the cost/benefit ratio. Would the PowerBook owners on Slashdot please advise me on whether or not the AppleCare plan is worth the extra cost? What types of experiences have you had with Powerbook failures and replacements?"

TechnoPope writes "Apple has finally released the 1.3 Updater for older Windows iPods. It claims UI improvements and longer battery life, but the much desired and asked for on the fly playlist feature is absent. It should also be noted that there is a web petition asking for new firmware for the older generations of iPods." It's a shame that older iPod owners have to live with the functionality that was advertised to them when they bought it.

bsodmike writes "This is a complete how-to for removing the EU Cap in the new iPods allowing 104dB bliss! Thanks to everyone @ #eucap including UnixMonkey, Keaner, Silvacow, m@rk et al." Some countries have an upper limit of 100dB for consumer devices, so the European version of the iPod is "crippled."

Mandelbrot-5 writes "From the official NWN page: 'That's right - the Mac version of Neverwinter Nights has been sent off to duplication! Watch for it on store shelves in the coming weeks!' It could be in stores as early as August 2nd." I never thought the day would come that I'd care about Mac games, but here it is. I've still yet to play through Shadows of Undrentide, but I reckon I'll pick it up once it's also released.

chrisbw writes "Want to put that old VT100 terminal to use? Mac OS X Hits has a story on how to make a couple simple changes in OS X to enable login on a serial terminal (even over a USB serial adapter if you're on a newer mac). Cool trick for adding a text-based web surfing or email terminal in another room, or remote iTunes control!"

BadDoggie writes "Politech is reporting that your 'ownership' of music purchased from Apple's iTunes isn't what everyone considers ownership. According to the license, 'Apple may use technologies to verify' that you have not 'use[d] or attempt[d] to use the service from outside of the [United States]'. This includes Canada. Apple's 'technologies' delete the bought-and-paid-for files with no refund and no replacement when & if you leave the U.S." Update: 07/25 16:23 GMT by P : The post to Politech says the songs would "disappear," not be deleted; from the context, it seems they were merely unplayable, not deleted. Update: 07/25 21:34 GMT by M : Apple has contacted the guy, and is apparently making him happy. However, the question remains: Apple definitely doesn't want people buying new songs from outside the U.S., but do they intend to generally permit foreign users to reauthorize (in effect, retain access to) the songs they have already purchased? Apple's policy is very unclear on that point.

gulker writes "It's really nice to be able to use sendmail as a SMTP server on a PowerBook if you move around a lot. But enabling sendmail on OS X is non-trivial, and while a good tutorial exists, the stock Mac OS X 10.2 package is missing the m4 macro processor needed to regenerate sendmail.cf. So it was great news to hear about Bernard Teo's Sendmail Enabler, a cool Aqua-GUI-interface sendmail 'configurator' for Mac OS X."

caffeine_monkey writes "Hydrogenaudio's AAC public listening test, previously posted on Slashdot, is now over and the results are in. The test compared five codecs at 128 kbps, including Psytel, Nero, Sorenson Squeeze, QuickTime, and FAAC. The winner? 'QuickTime is a clear winner, performing much better than the competition. Sorenson Squeeze, Psytel AACenc and Nero are tied, with Sorenson slightly higher than the others. Faac is clearly the worst.'"

Photo_Designer writes "CD Baby is now accepting music to be sold via digital distibution through iTunes Music Store, Listen.com and others. Their cut is 9 percent. The artists get 91 percent of the sale and retain all the rights to their music. There is a $40 fee for each album submitted. It will be interesting to see how much indie music gets on and how it does. Imagine being a touring indie band and be able to tell people to go to iTunes and buy your songs; it seems this could be a huge boon to musicians wanting to circumvent/boycott/avoid/destroy the RIAA." Note that this is not an agreement to get on iTMS or any other service, only for CD Baby to be your distributor. iTMS can still reject your sorry attempt at fame.

JimCricket writes "Art & Logic has published a new article: Embedding Mozilla in Mac OS X Cocoa Apps . The author presents a detailed step-by-step guide for Mac OS X developers that want to use Mozilla within their applications."

Eharley writes "Over the weekend, Apple's online educational store lowered prices on its computers and upgrade components by 5-15%. Now the 12" Al PowerBook starts at $1399. If you have a computer on order that hasn't shipped you probably already received an email about the price drop and will have your account credited the difference. However, if you're like me and always seem to buy things the week before they have their prices reduced, you may still be eligible for a refund provided you act fast."

Curious__George writes "I'm excited about a couple of new tools for audio for Mac OS X. One is the freeware WireTap from Ambrosia, which allows you to record any audio playing on your Mac, saving it to a file for later listening or processing. Its functionality will be built into an upcoming edition of Ambrosia's Snapz Pro X screen capture product. The other is a product that will be shipping by the end of the summer from Griffin called RadioSHARK (retail: $49.95), which is essentially a radio TiVo for your Mac: a software-controlled AM/FM radio that allows you to record radio programs (either local or Internet broadcast). I'll never miss a broadcast of This American Life again!" Curious__George might also get excited about the new Detour from Rogue Amoeba -- makers of AudioHijack, a predecessor to WireTap that has more capabilities -- which allows detouring sound output from different apps to different devices.

dki writes "Steve Wozniak's WozNet is covered in an article at the New York Times today. His company Wheels of Zeus, mentioned previously on Slashdot last year, plans to create wireless networks that use GPS to track clusters of electronic tags within a 1- or 2-mile radius of a base station. The tags "will be able to generate alerts, notifying the owner by phone or e-mail message when a child arrives at school, a dog leaves the yard or a car leaves the parking lot.""

11223 writes "John "Hannibal" Stokes has interviewed Pete Sandon, the PowerPC 970's main designer, and David Edelsohn, a compiler writer from IBM, and clarified several points about the 970 regarding group formation, vector issue queues and performance, and more. The interview is a very interesting read for anyone who has been following his earlier articles on the processor that Apple calls the G5."

cybercyph writes "A 3rd party is selling upgraded G4 cubes. The upgraded cubes have a 1.2 GHz G4 processor, GeForce 3 card with 64 MB RAM, 1 GB RAM (upgradable to 1.5) and a 120 GB hard drive! I can't imagine this making Apple too happy..." They are asking $1879, which is comparable to a similarly equipped new G4 from Apple.

burgburgburg writes "Apple has released the QuickTime video of the new commercial they made in conjunction with Volkswagen. The connection between the two? Buy a New Beetle. Get a new iPod. Take a look at video. It's the 15 GB iPod and all the accessories needed to hook it up to the new Volkswagen." It uses a casette adapter, which is really lame. Of course, I use a casette adapter with my iPod, but I am not a German engineer.

Pronoun54 writes "Your Mac Life, an Internet based radio show about and for Apple and Macintosh users, has a ton of interviews from Macworld Creative Pro. They have been posting Quicktime movies all week. Macworld was a lot smaller this year and had very few announcements, but if you couldn't or didn't choose to go, they sum up the show for you."

mrpuffypants writes "Not to leave all of the Mac community out in the rain the U.S. Army has released a Mac version of America's Army. Now get out there and train for Iraq, maggots!"

Slashback is back, with more this time around on NASA's G5 benchmarks, an in-depth look at the Sobig.E virus, an update on the Internet Book List (growing rapidly), the fate of both the Microsoft-purchased Virtual PC and one very unlucky sperm whale, and more. Read on for the details.

2muchcoffeeman writes "Further signs that Jobs and Gates probably won't be vacationing together anytime soon: New Damage has what looks to be screenshot proof of Panther's TextEdit.app opening a Microsoft Word .DOC file. Panther beta users who have tried this report at MacSlash that it works, to a point. So what's next? Is Apple now going to bring back the late, great MacWrite Pro?"