Swift Guru asks: "I've seen many comments on Slashdot stating that people would love to try out Mac OS X if only they could afford the hardware. Many roll their own Macs, but unfortunately have to rely on proprietary Apple power supplies (or hack together their own), a caveat that hinders Mac geeks from delving into the wide world of case modding (mmm.. watercooling), and prevents PC users from using familiar ATX case hardware. The PPC platform requires its own processors and logic boards, but last I checked computers all used the same kind of electrons. Hardware hacking is supposedly the next killer app, so why isn't there a simple adapter solution to allow current Macs to use ATX power supplies? Or is there?"

Dregs of Tar writes "According to an article at The Mac Observer, Apple has applied for a patent on an interesting new mouse idea. A rotary disc on the surface of the mouse can be pushed straight down as a mouse button, tilted forward or back to scroll vertically, and tilted side to side for horizontal scrolling. In other words, it's a rotary scroll wheel! Could it be so? Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?"

ignipotentis writes "Apparently Apple's 'music to your ears' announcement will be broadcast live. I'm a bit confused by this, however I hope someone will pick this up and netcast it perhaps?" Apple usually broadcasts these things on satellites, so they can be picked up in the Apple stores etc.; the question is, will Apple broadcast it in QuickTime, will TechTV pick it up?

Pharmboy writes "I haven't seen enough info on the new IBM PowerPC 970 CPU expected shortly. I found some info direct from IBM here plus more info in a couple other places. For those of us wanting to get away from Windows, but feel Linux is still not ready for the desktop yet, this might make Apple a more viable alternative. This also raises issues about the potential partnership with Apple and AMD. Will we see Mac OS X running on two different platforms/CPUs? Could we be that lucky?"

MatthewRothenberg writes "Over at eWEEK, we believe we've got the drop on the much-discussed interface enhancements to Mac OS X 10.3, a k a Panther: The theme of this September release will be 'User at the Center,' an umbrella term for a variety of new features aimed at leapfrogging Microsoft when it comes to pervasive, user-focused computing. Niceties include user-configurable 'piles,' a fast-user-switching-type feature, and easy transferral of home directories among devices and the Web. Oh, and it's mo' definitely 64-bit-complete, too."

Vokbain writes "Apple just released new 800 and 900 MHz iBooks, and unveiled a redesigned Apple Store as well." Looks kinda cluttered to me.

supa_k writes "According to an offical Apple invitation sent to the good folks at MacCentral, on April 28th Apple will make 'announcements that will be music to your ears.' It remains to be seen if this involves a purchase of Universal - something Apple offically denied just a few days ago but it will undoubtedly be the announcement of their online music subscription service and the other announcement will surely be new iPods."

Geert Poels writes "Kiki the Nanobot was the deserved winner of the uDevGames Mac Game Programming Competition. Entrants had to submit their game along with its source code. Provided with open source licenses like MIT, GPL, ... and written using OpenGL, some games will prove a fairly easy port. The source code to the 41 entries have been prepared and are being made available for download. Last week, GameSpy made a round-up of '02 Mac gaming by publishing a 2-page editorial 2002: The Year of the Mac Gamer."

aliya writes "With Abiword's version 1.90 coming out, their cocoa developer has announced that he will no longer work on a Mac version of the software because he doesn't want to support the company which treated him so poorly. There is a still a somewhat-supported X11 version available, though it is not kept current, and it appears that Abiword will join the abundant ranks of 'almost supported' word processors for Mac OS X."

RalphBNumbers writes "According to a forum thread at CreateMac, a Korean Mac community, the newer MDD 1.25 and 1.42 GHz dual G4s actually use a NEC PD720101 USB 2.0 controller for their built-in USB. Apple's drivers only support USB 1.x, but you can apparently enable USB 2.0 functionality by using the drivers for a USB 2.0 card from Orange Micro that uses the same NEC controller. YMMV." Is there a translation of any of this, somewhere?

An anonymous reader writes "Steve Jobs' $78 million Apple income tops Fortune magazine's list of CEOs whose companies lagged behind the S&P 500 performance last year. The number 'reflects the value of five million restricted shares Jobs got this year in exchange for 27.5 million underwater options.'" markomarko writes "Well, despite Charlie White making all us Mac users eat crow over his comparison of render times between a dual 1.25 GHz Power Mac and a Dell 3.06 GHz P4, it seems that that Dave Nagel has given us a reason to take another look at the Mac. His article shows how After Effects render speeds can be doubled with the Mac, by using both CPUs."

John wishes to get to the core of this issue: "I recently had to move to SBC/Yahoo DSL due to the demise of DirecTV internet. This provider uses PPoE and dictates that users access the service through EnterNet Classic. The only configuration they support is a direct ethernet connection between the DSL modem and the Mac's built-in ethernet port. In order to access files on other home computers (not sharing Internet access however) and a printer, I would need to connect an ethernet hub between the modem and the Mac. Yet SBC does not support this configuration, which I believe wold be a very common setup. Does anyone know if there is a way to set up this layout and successfully connect via PPoE?"

Magnetic Confinement writes "NPR has decided to drop QuickTime from its available streams. Their help desk response is: 'NPR.org had been offering some of its audio in the Apple QuickTime format under an arrangement with Apple QuickTime. We regret that we were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new arrangement with Apple QuickTime. As a result, NPR is unable to continue offering its content in this format."

Lars T. writes "A number of things: Apple posts Q2 results, and denies it bid for Universial Music. Now a Register article quotes a Reuters article that 'Vivendi Universal director Claude Bebear didn't express his views on the merger talks between Vivendi's Universal Music Group (UMG) and Apple,' which was the claim of the Bloomberg article. Now who needs General Hospital?"

dmalloc writes "The Fink Project community and contributors announced the availability of the Fink Binary Distribution 0.5.2, which adds binaries for KDE 3.1, Koffice 1.2.1, and Kdevelop 3.0a3, new documentation/manuals, and improved support for Apple's X11 Server along with speed improvements to fink itself. Download instructions are on the Fink site."

Gentu writes "OSNews hosts an interview with Jordan Hubbard (of Apple, OpenDarwin, and FreeBSD fame) where they discuss DarwinPorts and how they compare to Fink. There is also a hint from Jordan that there might be some of the FreeBSD 5.x advancements to be found in Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) that is coming out, reportedly, this autumn."

jarrettwold2002 writes "This seems to have escaped notice, however it's fairly significant. Apple has partnered up with CompUSA to offer in store electronic software distribution. According to the site it takes about four minutes from purchase to burn. It's bundled inside a dvd case, with color packaging."

Hrvat writes "In a somewhat surprising move, Sonnet Technology announced the release of a 1GHz G4 ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) upgrade for the old Beige G3s. Since the old G4 ZIF upgrades maxed out at 500mhz (and they were compatible with Beige G3, Blue and White G3 and the PCI graphics G4), this is a huge jump. The upgrade is pricey, though ($700) and I am not sure that I am willing to dish out that kind of cash just for a processor upgrade." Update: 04/15 19:15 GMT by J : In related news, here's a review of three non-ZIF CPU upgrades, at Inside Mac Games. For what it's worth, last month I bought Sonnet's 1.2 GHz CPU for my AGP Power Mac, easy install, it's working fine so far. Mmmmmm, framerate.

iMacRobert writes "John Fraser, who is developing a bare-bones Mac clone, plans to answer questions many Mac users have in a live interview. Questions will be accepted during the show and in e-mail."

droopus writes "iCommune finally has a new release available. It was released a few months back, but it was implemented as an iTunes hardware plugin, and Apple terminated the developer's license to use that interface. But it's back and with source code." It is now a standalone application.