The miniMate, MicroNet's new external disk drive and port replicator, is created specifically to complement Apple's new Mac Mini. With available storage up to 400GB, 4 USB 2.0 ports and 3 FireWire ports, the miniMate extends the capabilities of your new Mac to match the most capable workstations, all in a stylish aluminum and plastic enclosure that perfectly complements Apple's Mac Mini!

Product Features:
- up to 400GB additional storage
- 3 FireWire ports
- 4 USB 2.0 ports
- Attach power, USB and FireWire cable and you're ready to rock!

The miniMate offers hub functionality for both USB and FireWire. As long as a FireWire connection is present, the disk drive will mount as a FireWire device; otherwise, it will mount as a USB device.

Windows Millennium is the first deliverable from the Consumer Windows Division and its focus lies in advancing technologies for home computer users in four key areas: PC Health/"It Just Works", digital media and entertainment, the online experience, and home networking.

With Windows 95, configuration of hardware resources is greatly simplified over legacy configuration techniques--it just works.

Users need not concern themselves with the inner workings of Plug and Play--it just works.

As the PC continues to become a more integral part of entertainment experiences from Web surfing to discovering and purchasing digital media, there is an increasing need to provide the same, easy, "it just works" experience that consumers have today with appliances such as televisions and stereos.

Microsoft is designing this release around four key goals, digital media and entertainment, the online experience, home networking, and "it just works," a marketing phrase designed to promote Millennium's self-healing capabilities and compatibility with a vast array of hardware and software.

Like application compatibility, Microsoft's stance on device compatibility is as simple as it is impressive: "Buy it, plug it in, and it just works," said Microsoft program manager Eugene Lin succinctly.

Jim Allchin: "But we've made huge gains with XP. You plug in camera, and it just works."

Allchin must be an idiot. He certainly sounds like one. He's been "in charge of Windows for almost a decade." 'Nuff said. Oh, one more thing, where'd he get the phrase, "it just works?" Straight from his number one supplier of ideas, of course, Apple Computer: http://www.apple.com/switch/whyswitch/.

Kyle Copeland has more than 90GB worth of digital music stored on various networked computers and Apple Computer iPods. The problem was finding a convenient way to play it.

Airport Express devices plugged into various power outlets throughout his home allowed him to wirelessly play selections from his vast music collection on stereos and speakers in different rooms.

But every time the 29-year-old Marlboro, Mass., engineer wanted to change a song playing from his iTunes library over his wireless network, he had to walk over to his computer. Sitting in front of his television one day, Copeland had a realization: "That's when I thought, 'Most places where there are speakers there's a television.'"

So Copeland and fellow engineer John Brosnan created iSeeiTunes, a program that lets users control the songs played over a network via their TV.

With more than 5,000 users since its March launch, iSeeiTunes has become a relative hit among the TiVo developer community, garnering high ratings in forums dedicated to TiVo applications. The program's popularity speaks both to its usefulness and the creative potential of developers, which TiVo hopes to harness as it attempts to transform its service into more than for just digital video recording.

IDG World Expo, the leading producer of world-class tradeshows, conferences and events for technology markets, today announced that Macworld Conference & Expo(R) in Boston will host some of the first East Coast conference sessions on the latest major upgrade to the Mac operating system that boasts over 200 new features and improvements. Conference sessions for the recently announced Mac OS X Tiger will be taught by Mac industry luminaries July 11-14, 2005 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

Douglas Adams ... would have liked the fact that, on 29 April, Apple is releasing the latest iteration of its Macintosh operating system: version 10.4, code-named Tiger.

We would have talked a lot about Tiger. We would have got Tiger. We would have pre-ordered it, and installed it the moment it arrived, and then extolled its virtues and excoriated its shortcomings and told each other how it was built on BSD Unix, and tried to break it, and would have broken it, and it would have made us very, very happy. Now I'll have to do it on my own. And it will make me happy. But not as happy as it might have done.

The Apple [was one] of the most significant things in Douglas's life and, in a way, even more important than the [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] film ... Die-hard Hitchhiker's fans will flock to see the film, of course. Will others go? I don't know.

But this I do know: this is the last I, for one, will write, either about Douglas Adams or about his work. Film, schmilm. He was my friend. He's dead. I'm not. I miss him. The end.

Frustrated at what they see as Apple CEO Steve Jobs' intransigence on song pricing and other issues, some record executives are now turning their hopes toward other partners, particularly mobile phone carriers eager to get into the business of selling music. They see this new focus as a way to broaden the digital music business, and lessen Apple's dominance over their market in the process.

"The [mobile networks'] economics are aligned with us much better than Apple is aligned with us," said one senior executive at a major record label, who asked to remain anonymous because of his company's ongoing relationship with Apple. "The mobile market is very important, as important to us as the PC."

The labels complain that Apple's policies are insensitive to their goals and limit their ability to grow their digital business even faster.

For example, Apple wants to sell all its songs for 99 cents each, a single price point that's easy for consumers to understand. But the record labels have pressed for the ability to vary prices to maximise their own sales. They want to sell older titles at a discount — like the $9.99 CDs available in most record stores — and charge more for popular songs to take advantage of market demand.

Jobs also has refused to license Apple's DRM technology, called FairPlay, to rival MP3 player makers, and has blocked music formats from other companies, such as Microsoft, from the iPod. This makes iPods and the iTunes store incompatible with rival digital music devices and stores, fragmenting the market in a way the labels fear ultimately limits sales.

"We hate the current situation," one top record industry executive said, referring to the issue of incompatibility between different companies' music devices and services.

The labels are turning hungrily to the mobile phone market, where phones are slowly gaining the capacity to play music. Executives note that there are many times more mobile phones than iPods in the world, potentially offering a far larger digital music market. Already full-song download services for mobile phones are operating in Europe and Asia, and are expected to reach the United States this year or next.

Part of the mobile market's attraction comes in pricing. Consumers around the world have shown they will eagerly pay $2.50 or more for a ring tone, a mere snippet of a song that costs just 99 cents for the full version at iTunes. Labels see these consumers as receptive to variable prices for different songs.

But some music executives also describe mobile carriers as simply better potential partners than Apple. Like the labels, the carriers' bottom line depends directly on selling content, while Apple's profit sheets depend on hardware sales.

2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, today announced Serious Sam II, the much-anticipated return of Sam "Serious" Stone to PC and the Xbox video game system from Microsoft.

"Gamers have been anxiously anticipating a full sequel ever since Serious Sam: The Second Encounter was released back in 2002," said Christoph Hartmann, Senior Vice President of Publishing for 2K Games. "The frantic action and lighthearted humor of Serious Sam really struck a chord with gamers worldwide, and with a brand new engine and greatly expanded gameplay, we think fans will agree that the return of Sam has been well worth the wait."

"Our second generation Serious Engine allows us to create characters with over 100 times more detail than the last game," added Roman Ribaric, CEO of Croteam Ltd, developers of Serious Sam II. "This has allowed us to create huge, lush environments and even crazier enemies than before, without having to scale back the gameplay in any way. Gamers can rest assured that with the capabilities of our new engine, we’re not only going to match the record we set with the first Serious Sam for the most enemies on screen at one time, we’re going to surpass it."

Serious Sam II will be released for PC and Xbox in fall 2005, and will be showcased at 2K Games' booth at this year’s E3 Expo. Look for the first details on the game in the June issue of Computer Games Magazine, featuring Serious Sam II as the cover story, on newsstands in early May.

Corey Greenberg, tech editor for NBC's "Today" show, appeared last July to praise Apple's iPod as "a great portable musical player . . . the coolest-looking one" and suggested a compatible device to "share your music with other people." "This is the way to go," he declared.

"Let's cut the Apple commercial here right now, okay?" co-host Matt Lauer interjected.

Lauer was onto something. Greenberg, an NBC contributor, confirmed yesterday that he has received payments from Apple as well as Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Seiko Epson, Creative Technology and Energizer Holdings, charging $15,000 apiece to talk up their products on news shows. The contracts were first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal.

The art of product placement, an increasingly popular and open practice with movie studios, has been handled quietly in television news. In the seemingly endless number of segments about the latest and greatest computers, cameras, music players and other gadgets, experts are praising products -- often on "satellite tours" of local stations -- without disclosing that the manufacturers are paying them to spread the word on the airwaves.

Greenberg was on "Sunday Today" last month to talk about "the coolest thing," Apple's iPhoto service for digital pictures: "All the information goes up to Apple, Apple sends you a week later this perfect beautifully bound book."

Greenberg has also appeared several times on CNBC, including "The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo," and mentioned Apple and Creative music products in a February appearance on the network. He touted Apple's iPod Photo on CNBC's now-defunct "McEnroe."

I recently accepted a new job and have resigned my post as Director, Platform Evangelism at Microsoft after almost 8 years with the company. I am joining Skype and the family and I will be moving to the UK. I have taken a position on the product and services team at Skype. I have decided that Microsoft and I need to go our separate ways and it is time to move to new pastures.

Microsoft lost me for many reasons, Skype gained me for many reasons. I will let you draw your own conclusions rather than disparage my Microsoft colleagues or over hype my new colleagues and company. I don't believe in writing diatribes and manifestos when moving on from a job so I will spare you the soapboxing. Microsoft has its challenges, we all know what they are, they are more than apparent these days. Skype has its opportunties we all know what they are, who wouldn't like to see the communication and collaboration technologies in their lives get much much smarter and cheaper?

I decided to swap problem sets from one that I am not passionate about any more to one that I AM deeply passionate about. I just couldn't go on being an evangelist for a gospel that I don't believe I can sing. I am returning to focus on what I enjoy most, building amazing things that make people happy, change lives, and make money. In this case Skype was a better place for me to do this and one that shares my core values and beliefs in how the future of both software and business will unfold.

I ... am very excited to be in a cross platform company. The internet is and has been the new platform since 1997 when it became aparent that the most exciting things in software that were changing how we used computers were all cross platform, simple, elegant, fast, and complimented our basic human need to communicate and collaborate with others.

Opera 8.00 is released:

Mirrors:

ftp://ftp.uit.no/pub/www/opera/win/800/
ftp://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/opera/win/800/
ftp://ftp.hu-berlin.de/pub/www/opera/win/800/
ftp://ftp.130th.net/pub/mirror/opera/win/800/

Microsoft's $200 million campaign to sell its three-year old Windows XP OS would never have got off the ground without a Mac, it appears.

In an attempt to "showcase" how users can "explore, enhance and pursue their passions" with the OS, Microsoft made one of the new 'Start Something' ads available for download.

Users downloading the ad and using the Get Info command to check the EXIF information about the ad image quickly uncovered Microsoft's Achilles' heel: that information shows the image was made using Adobe CS - on a Mac.

The Boston Celtics are the champions of the Atlantic Division.

They will be the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference in the playoffs, and thus will play the No. 6 seed. The above two developments were ensured not only by Boston's win, but by the Sixers' loss to the Nets.

The Celtics last won the Atlantic Division in 1992, Larry Bird's swan-song season. All in all, the franchise has won 25 division championships.

Mobile phones that rock, jam, thunder, and swing are on the way. Wireless operators around the globe are working with music studios, phone makers, and [musical] artists in a sweeping effort to turn the mobile phone into a go-anywhere digital jukebox.

Foreign carriers such as Vodafone and SK Telecom are leading the way, and US wireless players are following fast. BusinessWeek has learned that Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and Cingular Wireless are expected to unveil services for downloading music directly to wireless phones later this year.

"The iPod is great," says Frank Nuovo, chief designer for Nokia, the world's largest handset maker. "But no one has a stranglehold. There's nothing that keeps the mobile phone from moving into that area."

The telecom approach has several strengths Apple can't match. For starters, a quarter of the world's population already has a mobile phone. That's 1.4 billion people, compared with 10 million iPods sold to date. Most of those cell-phone toters pay a monthly phone bill, making it a snap to add a music charge. Perhaps most important, wireless technology could provide access anytime, anywhere to millions of songs. "You don't have to be a genius to see that the phone will be your own portable stereo that's with you wherever you go," says Jordan Schur, co-president of Geffen Records, whose artists include Snoop Dogg and Garbage.

Apple has had a rough start in working with wireless operators. Most major wireless companies, including Verizon Wireless and Sprint, have balked at carrying the iPod phone. That's a serious impediment because the operators essentially control distribution by subsidizing phones. Why the resistance? Operators want customers to download songs over the air, directly to handsets. But with the iPod phone, customers would download songs to a PC and then copy them to the phone.

The wireless companies may have one advantage if they compete against iTunes on price. Because they already bill mobile customers each month, they wouldn't have to pay credit-card charges to Visa or MasterCard. That's not much of an edge over iTunes when customers buy a $9.99 album. But if they buy single songs for 99 cents at iTunes, the fees total a significant 17 cents to 20 cents. Bottom line: Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint could end up lowering their prices to $1 a song and still make more profit than Apple does. Add it up, and Apple is facing what looks like the most serious threat so far to its digital music dominance.

Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that in 2008 half of the 860 million cell phones sold will be able to store and play songs, up from 8% today.

Wireless operators have seen what a gold mine music can be. Ringtones, the snippets of songs you can put on your phone to customize your ring, have become a huge hit. Operators charge customers $1 to $3 per download for a few bars of a song and keep most of that for themselves. Ringtone revenues have hit $5.8 billion, and that's expected to reach $9.4 billion in 2008.

Music on phones is coming of age. Watch out, Apple.

Lightning is the working project name for an extension to tightly integrate calendar functionality (scheduling, tasks, etc.) into Thunderbird.

The developers of Lightning are currently targeting a first general-user release for the middle of 2005.

With Lightning, Mozilla Thunderbird will have a set of user features that is much more competitive with Outlook, especially in enterprise usage. The primary goal of Lightning is to provide a pleasant and productive user experience for both email and calendaring tasks, largely independent of specific competitors' product plans. If the result of the Lightning project is an acceleration of users' migration from Outlook to Thunderbird, though, very few tears will be shed.

While Lightning will certainly incorporate concepts from Outlook — as from other email/calendar applications, such as Evolution, Remail and Chandler — it is not designed to be simply an "Outlook knock-off". Just as Thunderbird improved the email experience beyond what is provided by Outlook and Outlook Express, Lightning is designed to improve the calendaring experience for Outlook converts and newcomers to calendaring applications alike.

Both Microsoft and Apple Computer's ... newest operating systems bear uncannily like-minded search tools.

In the next version of Windows, still in its early stages of development, and in the soon-to-be released new version of Mac OS X, users won't have to know where a file is stored. Instead, both operating systems will have a search window in which people need only start typing what they remember--who created the file, what it's called, or even words within the document itself. Results begin appearing instantly, and the early matches are ruled out as a user continues entering information.

Both Apple and Microsoft are responding to a clear need for more effective searching of the information on a computer's hard drive, a system that will simplify things in much the same way improved Web search has made it easy to find information on the Internet.

Allchin said Microsoft plans to go further than Apple has with Tiger.

"Tiger is nice in that they've put search capability in a lot of places, but there's a lot more (in Longhorn)," Allchin said. "This is trying to slice and dice the data and let you visualize the data in a much richer way than what's in Tiger."

Allchin rejects the notion that Microsoft is a Tiger copycat, noting that the company demonstrated some of the virtual folder concepts in its Fall 2003 preview of Longhorn.

"They just might have copied us," Allchin said.

But Apple loyalists will certainly note that the search technology that powers the Spotlight search feature has been a staple of Mac applications for some time, beginning with iTunes, which debuted in January 2001.

"That was the spark of inspiration that led us to say, What if we brought that to the entire system?" said Bereskin.

Allchin does give Apple credit.

"Ever since (CEO) Steve (Jobs) has come back to Apple, they've been on my radar screen," Allchin said. "I think it's just good competition."

At the same time, he noted that the Mac's growth pales in comparison to the number of Windows users added each year. "Our growth this year in PCs is bigger than the entire Mac install base," Allchin said. And he added that much of the growth Apple has seen has come on the music side. The Mac, he said, "is now a peripheral to the iPod."