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TidBITS#874/09-Apr-07

If you’ve been waiting for more Mac desktop power, now might be the time to buy Apple’s new Mac Pro configuration outfitted with eight cores of processing power – but it will cost you. Speaking of price, Geoff Duncan, TidBITS editor at large and professional musician, offers his take on the Apple/EMI deal to offer DRM-free music at a premium. Also in this issue, Joe Kissell looks at the new Google Desktop for Mac beta, revisits the field of online backup services, and notes the release of VMware Fusion Beta 3. Adam passes along a simple but useful tip for locating strong Wi-Fi networks, cautions owners of third-generation iPods about using some speaker systems, and looks at a study that points out the dangers of using an iPod while driving. Lastly, Glenn Fleishman drives a stake through the heart of WEP security for Wi-Fi networks.

Adam Engst No comments

Find Strongest Wi-Fi Networks Easily

Like most other Mac users, when I'm travelling, I often need to connect to a Wi-Fi network to access the Internet for email and Web browsing. But what if there are multiple available networks and I don't know which would be best to use? In the past, I would usually bring up iStumbler (MacStumbler hasn't been updated in years), but Take Control author Sharon Zardetto Aker alerted me to a simpler method that's built into Mac OS X

Geoff Duncan No comments

More on Apple/EMI and DRM-Free Music

[Editor's Note: We weren't able to touch base with Editor-at-Large Geoff Duncan in time for last week's "Apple and EMI Offer DRM-Free Music via iTunes" (2007-04-02), but his extensive experience in the recording industry makes his commentary essential reading for anyone following the situation

Joe Kissell No comments

Google Desktop Comes to the Mac

Google has released the first public beta version of Google Desktop for the Mac, an application that rapidly searches files on your computer, messages in your Gmail account, and Google's existing index of Web pages, all in a single interface

Joe Kissell No comments

VMware Fusion Beta 3 Draws New Parallels

Last week VMware released Beta 3 of its Fusion virtualization software for running Windows on an Intel-based Mac. Among several new features are two that are obvious attempts to overcome advantages offered by competitor Parallels Desktop: support for booting from a copy of Windows installed under Boot Camp and an Easy Install option to automate the process of running the Windows installer

Adam Engst No comments

Use iPods Cautiously While Driving

A recently published study by Dario D. Salvucci, Daniel Markley, Mark Zuber, and Duncan P. Brumby in the Department of Computer Science at Drexel University has been making the rounds, since it's the first bit of research to confirm what everybody knows: that manipulating an iPod while driving isn't the safest of ideas

Joe Kissell No comments

Online Backup Options Expand

A number of years ago, when the commercial Internet was still young and hard drive capacities were usually measured in megabytes rather than gigabytes or terabytes, I subscribed to an online backup service

Adam Engst No comments

Take Control News/09-Apr-07

New Ebook Covers AirPort Networking with 802.11n -- 802.11n is a newcomer in the world of wireless networking standards, and it's also new in the version of the AirPort Extreme Base Station that Apple began shipping in February

TidBITS Staff No comments

Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/09-Apr-07

SpotDJ -- Readers test out SpotDJ, a service for recording and sharing your own radio spots that Adam wrote about recently. (3 messages) Digital watermarks -- How difficult is it to circumvent a digital watermark, such as those that could be embedded within digital music files