Computerworld has an article on “Bayesian Logic and Filters” in their QuickStudy section this week. This is the sort of logic behind many of the spam-killing applications out there, such as SpamSieve. If you’re using an anti-spam program that utilizes Bayesian logic, this article may help you understand a bit more how it works. Don’t miss the sidebar on the Reverend Thomas Bayes.
Tag: Mac
If you’d like to secure your Macintosh in the same manner as the National Security Agency, you can download a PDF explaining how here.
[Via the March 2005 issue of Macworld, not yet online.]
So my previous rumination on the G5 in a PowerBook and the Mac Mini bears a little updating.
On Monday, Apple announced new PowerBook G4s, showing the G4 processor still has plenty of life left in it as they bumped up the top speed to 1.67 GHz. CNET looks at the expected PowerBook G5:
The computer maker is well aware that Mac fans want a G5 PowerBook, and technically, the company could offer one now. But given the relatively power-hungry nature of the IBM PowerPC 970FX processor–Apple has dubbed the 970FX and its predecessor, the 970, “G5” chips–a G5 PowerBook would require compromises in size, weight and other aesthetics such as noise production. Apple, and likely most of its customers, wouldn’t be willing to live with that.
So while the G5 works in the iMac form factor, not so much in the PowerBook’s. Which means not so much in a Mac Mini, perhaps not even within the possible timetable I outlined earlier. Which is why I’m not in the rumor business.
In case you aren’t a T-Mobile HotSpot subscriber, you can now use your Macintosh on the Boingo Wireless network. I can’t get the word “Oingo” out of my head now.
So the March issue of Macworld arrived today, and I was reading through it over lunch. One of the articles is a round-up of news reader apps, and congratulations are in order to Erik and Company for PulpFiction being awarded four and a half mice. Erik, has, however, beat me to the punch with the news.
That’s okay, I’m still using NetNewsWire. 😉
Kudos, amigo!
Yeah, I know, there’s a shocker of a realization, right? But it’s true.
Since the Mac Mini was announced, I’ve had many instant message conversations with current Mac die-hards who see the Mini as a great second, third, or even fourth system in their home or office, for xyz kind of use. The kinds of use that would normally be reserved for a two- or three-generation-old Macintosh.
For myself, I was thinking a Mac Mini would be the best way to transition my grandmother to OS X. She’s currently running OS 9.2.2 on a Power Mac 8500 I got dirt cheap from a fellow ATPM staffer, and that was when the iMac G4 was brand new. I had been thinking that a blue-and-white G3 would be the next step up for her (she already has a monitor, so an iMac would be overkill), but now I’m thinking why bother with that? All she needs is the $499 Mini and a RAM upgrade, and she’s good to go.
Everyone knows that Steve could care less that the Mac Mini is going to cannibalize those older Mac sales, especially among the more savvy, long-time Mac users out there who know better than to pay most of the prices one sees on eBay. Apple needs to move units, and for those sort of Mac users, Mac Minis aren’t going to cannibalize Power Mac G5, PowerBook, or even iMac sales. Certainly not enough for Apple to not have come out with the Mini. Apple doesn’t care about the so-called “gray market” of its products’ sales, because those products are already out of Apple’s inventory. The Mac Mini is the here and now, and that’s what counts.
Paul Saffo, a director of the Menlo Park-based Institute for the Future, a technology forecasting firm, says Apple’s two new slimmed down products are the newest harvests in what will be an array of hand-held devices catering to the demand for digital entertainment and serious computations. “Apple has been cool all along,” he says, praising Jobs’s talent for including “little details,” in Apple products. “The public wasn’t. But now because of Apple, the public has become cool.”
[Via DF.]
The February issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Ellyn notes the need for healthy skepticism on the web, while Wes’s Bloggable column looks at the miniature life, courtesy of Apple’s new releases. The Wizard of Oz(ab) notes how the Mac Mini may affect musicians, while Ted’s About This Particular Outliner column continues with part two on the usage of outliners for task management. Sylvester has a follow-up column about what to do with those old Macs.
The ATPM staff is pleased to welcome Scott Chitwood, editor of the Mac GUI customization site ResExcellence. Scott’s first column is about customizing your Mac’s icons. Yours truly also kicks off a new column for the ‘zine, focusing on the iPod.
Wes delves in to Mariner Software’s ultimate productivity tool, Desktop Poet, while Chris Lawson looks at the FriendlyNET FR1104-G Wireless Firewall Router and Griffin Technology’s radioSHARK. Frisky Freeware notes a favorite chat client of some staff members. Cortland and the iTrolls continue their adventures. Lee and I were blown away by Mark Montgomery’s nature photos, which he offered as this month’s desktop pictures. I’ve already got a black bug on my desktop. Thanks, Mark!
If you’ve followed every Macworld Expo keynote QuickTime stream since, well, since Apple’s been offering them, and you wonder what it would have been like to be able to watch the introduction of the original Macintosh, now you can. Recorded in January 1984 by Scott Knaster, and digitized by TextLab. Link from Tom.
Ric Ford, the original Macintosh blogger, has a review of the Mac Mini.