netstat sent a link to iMacFloppy.com which (get this) allows you to send virtual floppy disks to other iMacs! Assuming it's connected to the internet! But they won't discriminate against PCs! Apparently attaching files to email is much to complicated. Thank god for virtual floppies. The best part is that this site is 'designed for an iMac'. What a gas. Funniest thing I've seen all day.

David Jao writes "According to this news.com story, Apple computer has begun charging a $1 license fee for every FireWire port that is manufactured. This means an extra $1 is charged for every port in the back of a computer, every port on a device, and every link in a device chain." This article talks about how this is probably not such a hot idea on Apple's part. Royalties on a technology that still isn't really accepted yet?

An anonymous reader wrote in to say " You'll remember John Carmack's recent .plan file, which is mostly devoted to a commentary about Macs, both the OS and the hardware. David Every of MacKiDo fame has written an interesting response in today's column. You might also want to check out the quote by John Norstad (near the bottom of the main page) for a good laugh. "

pavewrld sent in a couple of links. The first is over at MacWorld Online and announces the new PowerMac G3's, which look similar to the iMac. The second announces the new iMac's, which now come in a variety of colors. Also in Apple news, NikT wrote in to say that Mac OS X server was announced, and it will include Apache and BSD 4.4. Finally, Ethan Butterfield wrote in to let us know of Steve Jobs' keynote address at MacWorld Expo. Apparently Apple has licensed OpenGL from SGI, and John Carmack demoed Quake 3 Arena on one of the new G3's. You can read more at Macintouch. Phew! With MacWorld Expo going on, the Apple news is nonstop.

Bob_Dobbs wrote in to tell us that there are major rumors that the next Macs should actually do Playstation Emulation. Requires a G3, but it's not like many people are buying Mac Classics any more. H: Sounds like Jobs will be announcing this officially tomorrow. Very cool. Update: 01/05 12:23 by S : Here's some more info thanks to Narbo: Connectix' press release confirms the story, and lists the games you can play on it.

2megs writes "Apple Insider is reporting in their preview of expected MacWorld Expo announcements that QuickTime 4 will be unveiled at the show next week. As expected, streaming capabilities will be pushed hard, but what's perhaps more eyebrow-raising is that the new QT4 streaming server may be open source. "

_damnit_ writes "Macosrumors had a strange bit on MacOS X today. What would a common UNIX binary accomplish? " Probably even more notable is the bit that thinker sent us where you can read about Apple shipping LinuxPPC Boxes. All I can say about that is "wow". If the prices can be competitive, PowerBooks, iMacs, and the G3s are all great Linux workstations. (even USB is coming along)

Rumors are starting to surface about WebMate, the new portable that Apple is supposed to be bringing out. The machine, although the article states "early 99" will probably be mid 99. However, other rumors have a common thread: wireless. Mmm...no more CAT5. Radio stuff that Apple patented ten years ago-anyone know anything more about this? One of my fellow co-workers has provided me with a good write-up about the wireless support.

kroah sent us a quick message from the Linux-USB list:"Some good news for those of you with iMacs: I have got the keyboard and mouse working on my iMac with Inaky's latest snapshot plus some modifications. The patches can be acquired here. uusbd-imac-981209.patch.gz - patches to the recent uusbd snapshot. Note that Inaky and I are still working on merging this stuff back into his tree, and not all the issues are resolved yet, so it is all liable to change. kbd-981208.patch.gz - a patch to the linux kernel source to add support for multiple keyboards. This patch should apply cleanly to recent kernels (either the official source or the vger source), i.e. 2.1.129 or later. I plan to release a precompiled kernel for the iMac along with some installation notes soon." Linux/iMac running 2.2 for Christmas?

Nick Barnes writes "Details of the next generation of desktop Macs, codenamed Yosemite, have been leaked to Mac OS Rumors." Lots of specs and numbers to read if you're curious.

Jodin writes "Well known Mac columnist (and former Apple employee) Andy Ihnatko wrote a little piece about what Linux means to him and to the Mac community as a whole. As usual, Andy takes an interesting angle as to how Linux emplowers the individual and justifies the geeks."

James Rooker writes " MacOS Rumours has a posting today about Apple possibly making MacOS X (Yellow Box) Libraries available for linux after they release MacOS X -- apparently the idea is gaining currency within Apple -- They give an email address of leadership@apple.com as a means of putting your .02 to the Apple big-wigs about this."

guardian3 writes "According to Mac OS Rumours New G4s will be introduced in two stages: "Max" (@300 to 500MHz) & V'Ger (500MHz-1.2Ghz). More details here. " Max's performance should be 30-50% greater than G3's without counting the boost expected from AltiVec (a better MMX). Remains to be seen how successful AltiVec is with Software Developers.

Joshua Marshall writes "I saw today as I was idly browsing some Mac web sites, a Q&A mentioning that Apple will be shipping two-button mice as an option with its new Yosemete G4 machine! (shipping early next year.) One more reason to buy a Mac and LinuxPPC! If you want to read it, you'd better hurry, they update the site once a day. (It's at the bottom of the page) " I'm amazed. How can this be? 2 buttons seems so... confusing. 3 seems positively counterproductive *grin*.

Alex Prestin writes "CNN.com did an interesting comparison to see whether Steve Jobs' claim of the G3 in the iMac being faster than any PII held any water. Their tests prove it did not. The iMac finished last, even versus a Celeron..."

Kasia Brown, who is having some strange printing problems and asks: "Are there any frequently arising printer problems when having recently installed the OS 8.5 on a G3. I'm finding that the Mac will not allow more than 5 MB of memory to be printed on a fiery si 5750. Frequent replies are "General printer error", "End of File" or "Error 1" when attempting to print documents from Adobe Pagemaker with Graphics." I know there are some Mac folks out there... care to lend a hand?

bb writes "According to this story at The Register the $150 Million Microsoft investment in Apple was really a settlement from a lawsuit involving QuickTime code !! For the last 4 years, I have wondered what ever became of this court case when I first read about it. I guess the cat is now out of the bag. Oh, well. At least I don't have to listen to any more bullshit about Microsoft helping Apple stay afloat !!! " CT: a "Reliable Source" wrote in to say that this is nonesense. The $150 Mill bought non-voting stock for $16/share. There was a different settlement for this case, which is guessed to be around $400 million.

Quicker writes " Terra Firma Design and Terra Soft Solutions founder Kai Staats takes his company into previously uncharted territory by doing what "they" say couldn't and shouldn't be done: trusting their mission critical services to the Mac running MKLinux. "

An anonymous reader wrote in to send us a link to an article about using MacOS and Macs to create a clustering system. It's called Appleseed- I'm kinda curious to see how it stacks up to a similiar Beowulf cluster.

Kurt Weinschenker wrote in to send us a link to an interesting editorial suggesting that Apple release their carbon APIs and allow Linux development with them. It wouldn't hurt, but I don't see it as being as useful as he thinks.