Firefox advocates' call for donations to pay for an advertisement in The New York Times has more than reached its target, only three days into the campaign.

The campaign, run by Spread Firefox volunteers, started Tuesday to raise money to place a full-page ad for the launch of the open-source browser in The New York Times. The goal was to get 2,500 people to donate $30 or more to the marketing fund within 10 days, or before the official release of Firefox 1.0 on Nov. 9.

Bart Decrem, spokesman for the Mozilla Foundation, said on Friday that the Spread Firefox organization has already raised more than $100,000--enough for a couple of ads in The New York Times. The Mozilla Foundation, which developed the Firefox browser, is endorsing the volunteer campaign.

"We've definitely funded the ad and then some," Decrem said. "It's so impressive--the excitement around this and the numbers. People are coming out of nowhere to join in."

Supporters will get their name in an ad, with Community Champion status being awarded to anyone who signs up 10 or more extra names.

Any money left over from the ads will be used to fund other Mozilla projects, according to the Spread Firefox Web site.

We at Maui X-Stream (MXS) wish to communicate the current and future status of CherryOS.

On Tuesday, October 12, MXS — a software development company that specializes in video streaming, custom applications and web development — announced the immediate availability of CherryOS software. The announcement signaled a breakthrough in emulation development by providing a software emulator which allows Windows PC users to run Apple’s OS on x86 computer architecture, while preserving network capabilities and access to the host computer’s hardware resources.

As a direct result of the overwhelming response to our October 12 announcement, and in order to provide current and future customers with the timely service and attention such high-volume demand requires, MXS has chosen to extend the beta development for CherryOS. In order to accommodate those who were inconvenienced by the interruption of immediate access to the CherryOS download, and to further validate this breakthrough product, MXS will provide a free trial download of the CherryOS software, in addition to the purchase download on November 25, 2004.

Pending orders are being held, but not processed at this time. If you wish to add your name to our notification list for when CherryOS is available, please register in the notification section or email mail@cherryos.com.

Firefox [is] a revolutionary new browser that's catching on the way Mosaic did in 1993. In beta for the past four months, Firefox version 1.0 is set to be released in November.

Firefox, a free open-source browser that loads twice as fast as Internet Explorer, has already been downloaded 2.7 million times, and it has siphoned off nearly 2 percent of Microsoft's browser market share, now at 93.7 percent. Along the way, Firefox is fast becoming the browser of choice for anyone fed up with all the nasty things polluting the Web (pop-ups and viruses and spyware, oh my!). Google is rumored to be building its own browser based on the Firefox framework, and entrepreneurs are churning out hundreds of microprograms for it.

Hundreds of coders across 24 time zones kept banging on it, making it smarter, faster, and prettier. Its big moment came this June, when yet another Explorer-borne virus outbreak prompted the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team to advise government agencies to stop using the Microsoft browser. Coincidentally, the first truly stable version of Phoenix -- now renamed Firefox -- had just come out. Bingo.

Firefox is likely to inspire countless startups selling programs based on it. One of those, called Cenzic, has built an entire business around Firefox, selling a tool that scans e-commerce and financial firms' networks for security threats. CTO Ambarish Malpani built the prototype on Internet Explorer, but found it hard to work with. "If you run into a problem with Explorer, you have no control," he says.

NVIDIA DVD Decoder enables the industry's highest quality DVD and MPEG-2 playback and rich surround sound audio for Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center Edition. Featuring Dolby® Digital surround sound audio and hardware acceleration for compatible graphics processors, the NVIDIA DVD Decoder delivers unmatched color fidelity and smooth DVD, video, and TV viewing. When paired with a GeForce GPU, NVIDIA DVD Decoder enables adaptive de-interlacing and high quality filtering for the ultimate home theater experience.

Requires: Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional, or Windows XP Home Edition; Microsoft DirectX® 9.0 or higher; Windows Media Center or Microsoft Windows Media® Player 9.0 or higher for DVD Playback.

Unfortunately, the Mac is now a mess. A third party manual (The Missing Manual) is nearly 1,000 pages, and far from complete. Apple now does development by accretion, and there is only a little difference between using a Mac and a Windows machine.

My original vision is outdated and irrelevant. The principles of putting people first, and designing from the interface to the software and hardware, are as vital today as they were then.

It is a practical and space-saving design. But the interface needs fixing. One only cares about getting something done. Apple has forgotten this key concept. The beautiful packaging is ho-hum and insignificant in the long run.

There has been immense progress, primarily in the richness of applications. But all this power is lost on many people, and impedes the utility of it for the rest, because of the unnecessary complexity of using computers.

The quest for CPU power has been largely defeated by bloated software in applications and operating systems. Some programs I wrote in Basic on an Apple II ran faster than when written in a modern language on a G4 Dual-processor Mac with hardware 1,000 times faster.

The Yankees last night completed the worst collapse in postseason baseball history when they got clobbered by the hated Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of an American League Championship Series they once led 3-0.

With a barrage of four home runs - all pulled into the right-field seats, where Ruth once took aim - the Red Sox eliminated the Yankees with a 10-3 victory in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium.

The Red Sox became the first team in baseball history to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first three games, and they will play host to the Houston Astros or the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the World Series at Fenway Park on Saturday.

For the Yankees, whose $180 million payroll is the highest ever for a baseball team, it was a devastating failure. They had beaten the Red Sox in Game 7 of last October's A.L.C.S., rallying from a three-run deficit to capture an 11-inning thriller. Both teams reloaded in the off-season, and a rematch seemed inevitable.

In Game 4 on Sunday, the Yankees were three outs from a sweep. But Boston came back to win consecutive extra-inning showdowns, then stifled the Yankees behind Curt Schilling on Tuesday.

For the Yankees, whose $180 million payroll is the highest ever for a baseball team, it was a devastating failure. They had beaten the Red Sox in Game 7 of last October's A.L.C.S., rallying from a three-run deficit to capture an 11-inning thriller. Both teams reloaded in the off-season, and a rematch seemed inevitable.

In Game 4 on Sunday, the Yankees were three outs from a sweep. But Boston came back to win consecutive extra-inning showdowns, then stifled the Yankees behind Curt Schilling on Tuesday.

It was actually happening. The nerd was kissing the homecoming queen. Paper was beating scissors; scissors were beating rock. Charlie Brown was kicking the football. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees for the American League pennant.

After more than 80 years of being stuffed into their lockers by the Yankees, after eight decades of receiving atomic wedgies, after generations of walking around with big "Kick Me" signs on their backs and most importantly, after completing the most extraordinary comeback in baseball history, the Boston Red Sox have finally overcome their hated nemesis to reach the World Series, routing New York 10-3 in Game 7 Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

This winter, even if they lose the World Series, Boston fans can take solace in the sweet knowledge that their team somehow pulled off something truly historic, something unprecedented. In the previous 100 postseasons, no team had ever fallen behind 3-0 in a series and rallied to force a seventh game, let alone win it. The Red Sox not only did both, they crushed the Yankees, beating them with a pitcher who required sutures in his ankle in Game 6 and then routing them in a finale that was never close.

Raise a pint at "Cheers." The Red Sox are American League champs and the World Series opens Saturday at Fenway Park.

The Boston Red Sox are the new symbol of inspirational comebacks and the New York Yankees are the new symbol of choking collapse.

And as for Alex Rodriguez, the $252 million superstar acquired in the winter's biggest trade and the focal point of much of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry this year? He went hitless in four at-bats and didn't get the ball out of the infield.

Apparently, George Steinbrenner didn't spent enough money on this team.

The game got so out of hand that chants of "Let's Go Red Sox" drowned out the Yankees fans during the late innings. Or perhaps those were just the cheers echoing in from the Boston bars.

Believe it, New England, the Red Sox are in the World Series. And they got there with the most unbelievable comeback of all, shaming the New York Yankees, the Evil Empire to the south.

David Ortiz, Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe made sure of that.

Just three outs from getting swept out of the AL championship series three nights earlier, the Red Sox finally humbled the dreaded Yankees, winning Game 7 in a 10-3 shocker Wednesday night to become the first major league team to overcome a 3-0 postseason series deficit.

Cursed for 86 years, these Red Sox just might be charmed.

"All empires fall sooner of later," Boston president Larry Lucchino said.

There is no torture this time, no hour of humiliation. Better yet to Boston fans, it's the Yankees left to suffer the memory of a historic collapse.

The excellent Firefox browser now has a brand new tool to go with it! Introducing 'fireFTP', a cross-platform FTP client which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers. And unlike many other FTP clients, it's completely free! This latest version features support for: more FTP servers, OS X, ASCII files, symbolic links, launching files from fireFTP, and loading fireFTP in a tab.

There hasn't been this much anticipation for an otherworldly touchdown since Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. With three weeks to go before the game hits store shelves, pre-orders for "Halo 2" -- the highly anticipated Xbox exclusive from Microsoft Game Studios -- have eclipsed the 1.5 million mark in the United States. With phenomenal record-breaking video game pre-orders, "Halo 2" is poised to generate more revenue in 24 hours than day one sales of any full feature movie in entertainment history, including "Spider-man 2," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Matrix: Reloaded."

In the U.S., the anticipation builds to a fever pitch on Nov. 9 when thousands of shoppers line up to be among the first to get their hands on the action-packed thriller. The first copy of "Halo 2" will be distributed at a Midnight Madness event at the largest Toys "R" Us in the world located in Times Square, New York. Toys "R" Us Times Square will open its doors at 12 midnight on November 9, and deliver the first retail copy of the game to a lucky fan.

The holiday season just got a little more crowded for gamers. Vivendi Universal Games and developer Valve announced Monday that "Half-Life 2," one of the year's most anticipated titles, would go on sale worldwide Nov. 16.

"Half Life 2" will forge new paths in digital distribution for the gaming industry. In addition to partnering with Vivendi to sell both a standard and collector's edition of the game at retail, Valve will sell three separate packages online, using a proprietary distribution system.

"This may be the first real iteration of what's been promised since people started getting broadband," said P.J. McNealy, an analyst with American Technology Research.

Since its 1998 launch, "Half-Life" and its various add-on packs (including mods such as "Counter-Strike") have sold more than 8 million copies worldwide, according to Valve.

Curiosity over the game was so intense that a group of hackers tunneled into Valve's offices a year ago and stole the source code for the game, later releasing it on the Internet. Valve delayed the game, blaming the intrusion, though there is speculation the company would not have met its initial deadline, regardless. A cyber-crime task-force announced arrests in relation to the theft in June of this year.

The next version of Apple's powerful UNIX-based operating system, Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, will be the most important release for developers since Mac OS X was first released in 2001. Tiger is loaded with a number of cutting edge technologies that translate into new and interesting opportunities for almost every type of developer. In fact, developers working with pre-release versions of Tiger—ADC Select and Premier members, and WWDC 2004 attendees—are already finding innovative ways to use the powerful new features, APIs, and frameworks.

This article will highlight some of the most exciting new technologies in Tiger and show what they will mean for developers. They are:

- Spotlight
- Dashboard
- 64-bit Development
- Xcode 2.0
- Automator
- Core Image
- Core Data

As well, there are a few other features that we'll tell you about and we'll give you details on how you can get started developing applications for Tiger.

It's time to start developing for Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, the next great release of Mac OS X, due to ship in the first half of 2005. And the Tiger Early Start Kit for Developers provides everything you need to deliver revolutionary Tiger products to your customers.

For $500, you'll receive all the benefits of ADC Select Membership and the Tiger Early Start Kit, including:

Early access to Tiger software and documentation.
Get pre-release versions of Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger and Xcode 2.0, along with downloadable updates of the latest Tiger documentation.

Expert advice to ensure your application is Tiger-ready.
Shorten your Tiger development cycle with personalized, one-on-one consultation with Apple's developer support engineers.

Significant savings on Apple hardware for Tiger development.
Save on the purchase of one system for development and testing through the ADC Hardware Purchase Program.

Year-round Tiger development assistance from ADC.
Enjoy ongoing benefits of ADC Select membership for a full twelve months.

Personalize your music inside and out: Display cool graphics, pictures, and album cover art on your iPod with these easy to print, apply, and remove tattoos. They even help protect your iPod from scuffs and scratches. Includes 10 sheets of 8.5 x 5.5" media.1.

[Key features:]

Change your iPod's look whenever you want; the estimated maximum tattoo application time is one month

Create personalized tattoos by downloading original designs and art

$14.99

Let’s mark the launch of Firefox 1.0 with a community marketing campaign that will take the buzz around Firefox to the next level: the first-ever, full-page advertisement in a major daily newspaper created and paid for by the open source community.

Here is how it works:

The full-page ad will include the names of everyone who supports the campaign along with a message about the benefits/features of Firefox.

The campaign will act as a fundraiser to support all Firefox 1.0 launch activities, not just the ad itself.

An individual contribution of $30 will get your name included in the ad ($10 student rate).

Special recognition — Community Champion — will be given to people who enlist 10 of their friends in this campaign. (These folks have a shot at having their name in the lower half of the ad.)

There are also two packages available for businesses to participate.

If you have a Spread Firefox account, you will receive 100 sfx points per name slot that you purchase or refer.

The goal: sign up 2500 names!

More questions? Check the FAQ.

Ready? Click [here] to join in!

We (sfx members and Firefox users) will only ever have one Firefox 1.0 launch — this is it! Let’s take the world by storm.

The fundamental vision that we have of digital entertainment anywhere is one that resonates with where consumers are today.

They want to be able to have their photos that they took last weekend of their kids in their back pocket when they go out to dinner with some friends. They want to be able to have the [recorded] TV show available to them on their laptop when they're on the airplane and they have time to watch it. They want to be able to quickly download the highlights from the Major League Baseball game yesterday and have it on their Portable Media Center to look at the bar with friends tonight.

That is the lifestyle where people have really brought digital media of all kinds into their life and now they want to make it easy and convenient to consume that media wherever they go.

There's no question that the Windows platform and the partners that we work with enable that better than anybody else simply by nature of the extensibility of the system. You can't go and extend a PlayStation; you can't go and add more features to a TiVo. You have to wait for TiVo to do it; you have to wait for Sony to do it.

Whereas somebody can go and build new experiences for a Media Center PC. ... The value of the platform is that the entire ecosystem can participate in the richness of the platform and delivering products to customers. And I think that puts Windows in a uniquely strong position to deliver on the vision of digital entertainment anywhere.

Frustrated by the scant availability of the iPod Mini? The Rio Carbon five-gigabyte portable music player costs the same ($250) but is smaller and lighter. It has one more gigabyte for MP3, Windows Media, or Audible audio files than Apple's popular mini-model, which means up to 80 hours of tunes. Better yet, it gets nearly 20 hours on a battery charge and includes a voice recorder and stopwatch (but no FM tuner, also lacking on the iPod Mini). The Rio Carbon's tinny ear-bud headphones are disappointing, but everything else about the Carbon rocks.

Today, the OpenStep API celebrates its 10th anniversary. What started out as a joint adventure of NeXT and SUN to define an application development standard that would run on all machines, making "write once compile everywhere" a reality, is still unfolding within the vivid and active community of GNUstep, old NeXT and Apple lovers.

The magic 10 appears in GNUstep's current 1.10.x release and in Apple's MacOS X "Cocoa" release. Programmers worldwide can develop their programs on Mac OS, Linux, the BSDs, Solaris, and with a couple of hurdles -- even on Windows. This solid and well-defined standard is reaching out to the world of software development, slowly but surely.

Program your applications in days or weeks, rather than years or never. Use the advanced API of a development framework that hasn't needed significant modification for 10 years, because it rocks, is stable and just works.

You want to know more? Visit the links below:

GNUstep Home
GNUstep-brochure.pdf (PDF)
Booklet.pdf (PDF)
GNUstep [Linux Magazine] article
OpenStep Info
Apple Docs

Apple today unveiled the fastest, most affordable iBook G4 ever for consumers and education customers, featuring built-in AirPort Extreme 54 Mbps 802.11g wireless networking across the line and prices starting at just $999. The iBook line includes PowerPC G4 processors running up to 1.33 GHz and an available slot-load SuperDrive for burning DVDs, as well as Apple’s breakthrough iLife ‘04 suite for managing digital music and photos, making movies and music and creating professional-quality DVDs.

“Designed for the digital life on the go, the iBook G4 has been incredibly popular with consumers and students,” said David Moody, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Mac Product Marketing. “With prices starting at just $999, including AirPort Extreme wireless networking built-in and faster PowerPC G4 processors, the new iBooks are a great deal for every student, home user and small business owner.”

Apple sold as many iPods during the last quarter as it did during the product line's first 26 months of production. By my count, Apple has moved some 7.3 million iPods in the three years since its introduction.

It's clear how important the device has become to Apple's bottom line. In the fourth quarter of 2002, the first quarter during which Apple broke out iPod sales from the rest of its product lines, sales of the player accounted for only 3.67% of sales. Two years later, it accounts for nearly 23% of sales.

Apple now makes more from its top line from iPod sales than from any single line of its computers. By revenue, the PowerBook notebook line is Apple's second most important product, accounting for $419 million, or just less than 18%, of sales for the quarter.

Now don't get me wrong. I love the iPod. Two of those 7.3 million units are mine. But as much of a success as it has been for Apple, the iPod could also turn out to be an Achilles heel.

Take the iPod business away from Apple, and what's left? A company that sold 3.3 million computers in its fiscal 2004. That's less than 2% of the 176.5 million computers that market research firm IDC forecasts will be sold this calendar year. Apple's unit sales have improved a paltry 7% since 2002.

How could such a strong offering as the combination of the iPod and iTunes Music Store turn out to be a weakness? First, Apple is the big fish in a small but growing pond. IDC reckons 12.5 million MP3 players were sold in 2003.

Compare that to the Consumer Electronics Association's estimate that consumers bought more than 23 million devices it classifies as "portable headset audio" in 2003--that's portable tape players, personal CD players and radios combined. Sales for these older personal audio devices peaked in 2001 at 38 million, more than three times the unit sales of MP3 players last year, according to CEA data. That gives you a fair idea of how far the iPod and similar devices have to go before they become the consumer force that many already assume they are.

What might spoil Apple's party? A digital music standard format that isn't of Apple's choosing. The record labels are starting to make noise about wanting a single digital audio format and a unified digital rights management (DRM) scheme for all vendors.

Apple's continued insistence at sticking with proprietary formats--and locking others out from its technology--in time may start to look misguided. It likes the Advanced Audio Codec for audio and has its own DRM technology, called FairPlay, which it refuses to share with other companies.

Microsoft, for its part, has a popular audio format in Windows Media, and it has proved willing to license its DRM technology, known as Janus. Janus technology is central to the "plays for sure" promise Microsoft unveiled earlier this week. Buy a song from any service that supports Janus, and it will play on any hardware made by a Janus licensee.

I've heard this story before. I didn't like how it turned out the first time.

Tuesday, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced a strategy of bringing digital entertainment to users in the home, at the office, or on the go.

[Microsoft] also said it had rolled out the first official US release of its MSN Music Service as well as new music players compatible with its Windows Media Player 10. The list includes devices from Creative Technology (Nasdaq: CREAF), Samsung, and iRiver. Samsung also introduced [a Portable Media Center, the second to market: The first appeared in August], which is capable of taking recorded TV, music, videos, and the like on the road. You'll pardon my skepticism if we've heard much of this before. Like maybe from -- oh, I don't know -- Apple.

Check out this write-up at the Apple website that outlines the company's strategy to make the Mac a "digital hub." Look closely and you'll notice that the story is from 2002.

Since then, Apple has rolled out a megahit in the iPod and bundled its various digital entertainment software into a suite called iLife that now includes a tool for budding composers called GarageBand.

Microsoft clearly wants to be better than Apple at, well, being Apple.

What's scary is that Mr. Softy has the resources to do it. Microsoft's 2004 research and development budget was $7.7 billion. Apple's was $489 million.

The deeper argument against the brushed metal (a.k.a. textured) theme is simply one of consistency. A large part of the Mac’s historical usability advantage is that Mac applications all look and feel the same. Not exactly the same, of course, but certainly within the bounds of a single “theme”. Most consistent would be a single theme; acceptably consistent would be a second theme used only under certain well-defined criteria.

Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines ostensibly lay out the rules for when the brushed metal theme is appropriate: Don’t use the brushed metal look indiscriminately. Although it works well for some types of applications, some applications appear too heavy when using this look.

The big problem, obviously, is that Apple has simply ignored the HIG. The HIG states, “Don’t use the brushed metal look indiscriminately”, but indiscriminate is precisely the word to describe Apple’s use of it.