The boys in and around the Windy City who volunteer on ATPM decided on a get-together last weekend. Wes Meltzer has the complete story, along with a photo of the gang in front of the North Michigan Avenue Apple Store. One of the things I love about ATPM is getting to see pictures of folks who I only correspond with via e-mail. Now Evan and I have been pals for a while; we've even spoken on the phone once or twice. I've seen pictures of him, to boot, and trust me, his looks haven't improved with age. ;-) It was good to see Chris L. and Paul, though, of course, they looked nothing like I imagined they would. I don't know why, but I always figured Paul would be more of a clean-cut sort of fellow, and thought that Chris would be shorter. Wes, on the other hand, pretty much looked like what I thought he might. Isn't the Internet cool? And we'll have to work on Wes's Cajun-French; it's actually "les bon temps roulez." I also can't imagine anything north of the Louisiana border being remotely close to real Cajun/Creole-style food...

ATPM staffer Kirk McElhearn's latest book, How To Do Everything With Mac OS X Panther, has been released.

Congrats, Kirk!

Whew. You know it's been a hectic month when you're ten days in and you're just now getting around to noting the release of the February issue of the Macintosh e-zine you help manage. Yes, About This Particular Macintosh 10.02 is out, featuring first-time cover art by my pal Lee. Ellyn discusses technology and values, Wes has the monthly Mac blog run-down, and Raena continues her discussion on web accessibility. The usual rogues' gallery provides reviews, cartoons, and other columns for your Mac-using noggin.

A lot of third-party keyboards for Macs don't have an eject key on them. This is an oldie but a goodie from the fine folks at OWC on how to always have an eject button at your disposal, via the menu bar.

Well I hope no one out there is relying on me for up-to-date SpamSieve release information. I have been woefully remiss this week in my completely unpaid, totally biased evangelism of SpamSieve as the ultimate spam killer for the individual Mac user. Complete list of changes are here, and Michael notes full support for Apple Mail and the release of a Japanese localization. SpamSieve is worth twice what Michael prices it at in terms of time saved in dealing with e-mail spam. (And I'm sure he wouldn't mind if anyone wanted to send him extra dough on top of the normal SpamSieve registration.) As the Managing Editor for About This Particular Macintosh, I deal with all of the mail sent to the public ATPM e-mail addresses, and let me tell you, those addys get the bejeezus spammed out of them. SpamSieve makes it a breeze to deal with my ATPM e-mail each day. If you're still looking for a worthy spam killer for your Macintosh e-mail client, or you're new to the platform and want a great product to deal with the spam you will eventually receive, you can't go wrong with SpamSieve.

In an article for the New York Times (free registration required), David Pogue discusses iLife '04 and looks at the GarageBand component. He says:

It won't be long before the GarageBand creations of no-name singers and players start popping up on Web sites - indeed, it won't be long before Web sites start popping up just to accommodate them - bypassing the talent scouts and gatekeepers of the American recording industry. GarageBand and the Internet give tomorrow's stars their own democratic recording and distribution channels.

That prospect of new artists growing from grass roots is probably what inspired Apple to name the software GarageBand, abandoning its lowercase i naming tradition. But when you consider both the fledgling state of the 1.0 version of this program and the immense musical and commercial forces it could one day unleash, you might conclude that there is, after all, an i-name that might have suited this remarkable software: iPotential. Breaking down the barriers musicians face, in light of the way the recording industry does things, would please me to no end. It would be great to see the next Yo-Yo Ma or Eric Clapton emerge from the shadows, thanks to what they can do with something like GarageBand or its higher-priced, better-featured brethren. Any day you can get your product to those who would listen, without having to go through the labels' convoluted process, licking the heels of record execs, is a good day.

One of the features touted in the upcoming Office 2004 for Mac is the on-the-fly-editable Page Layout view in Excel. Too bad Gates' Macintosh Business Unit is only 13 years behind the times. From Bob Hearn, co-creator of ClarisWorks, as posted in a MacInTouch reader report: bq. Another of MS Office 2004's touted "key features" is more than a bit behind the times. I must admit that I like the idea of a live, fully-editable Page Layout view, as Excel now has. I like the idea so much that I put that feature in ClarisWorks 1.0, in 1991 - for all document types. It has been in every version of ClarisWorks and AppleWorks since then. You can see comparison screenshots at: "A Brief History of ClarisWorks."

One of the Cube listers pointed us to a friend's Macquarium, built in a G4 Cube shell. There's even a phischy Mac-head named Steve!

Michael has updated SpamSieve. The latest update is faster at processing messages, even when there are many blocklist and whitelist rules. The speed of loading, deleting, and sorting rules is also improved. Those using SpamSieve and Apple's Mail under Panther will noticed improved accuracy tracking, and a bug affecting Japanese language users has been fixed. Notably, this release is going to catch more spam because it knows about more spammer obfuscation tricks, and which headers it should ignore. The following menu commands have also been added: Close All Windows, Minimize All Windows, and Zoom. A complete list of ehancements is available. SpamSieve just keeps getting better and better, and is worth a look if you're a Mac user who hasn't found a spam killer yet.

PowerLogix has followed up their PowerCube enclosure upgrade for Power Mac Cube owners with a new clear acrylic version. Robert, I'm still waiting for one to review. ;-)

If you haven't been by MacZealots lately, stop on by. This is not some lame, thrown-together-quickly teenage Mac lover site. The three brains behind it are seniors at Purdue, in business and technical fields. The site's design is clean and uncluttered, and uses XHTML and CSS, with RSS feeds where appropriate. I've been enjoying their Macworld Expo coverage this week, and they have some informative articles to boot.

On the one hand, it's pretty amazing that Andy Ihnatko nails--in advance, mind you--what would go down at the Macworld Expo Keynote Steve Jobs delivered this past Tuesday. On the other hand, it's pretty sad that the semi-annual Stevenote has gotten this predictable...

MacMinute points to a BusinessWeek Online article by Alex Salkever wherein he lays out his wish list for a stronger Apple. I have to say that Salkever is dead-on in two of his three points: better corporate governance and improved quality control. As an investor, I agree with Salkever's analysis of the board and its lack of control over Jobs and the lavish awards it showers him with. The board does need to act more independently, but still let Steve do what Steve does best. It can only help Apple in the long term. The second point, improved quality control, is a must. Granted, every tech company, every computer manufacturer, is going to have bugs, flaws. But to my mind, at least, 2003 lowered the quality bar in what we saw from Apple, both in its hardware and its software. Apple used to have, even in those "dark days" of the mid-1990s, a top-notch quality-control division, and the company was consistently rated tops in that area. Apple needs to reclaim that title, even if it's only result is greater mindshare. On Salkever's third point, of more hardware upgrades, I have mixed feelings. Yeah, I'd like to see every system in the platform get upgraded once a year, and I believe Apple is more than up to that. I think Salkever misses the mark in his analysis over why Apple wasn't shipping upgrades in earnest in 2002, however. Apple didn't "chill out" because of the economic downturn; Apple was still having problems getting faster procs from Motorola to put in their systems. That was the driving force behind the move to IBM's PowerPC chips, and voila! now we have G5s. All in all, though, some totally reasonable analysis of Apple on the part of someone in the business/financial world. It's about time.

The January issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available. ATPM has now entered its 10th calendar year of publishing! As a typophile-fontaholic, I thoroughly enjoyed Andrew Kator's article on Type as Shape. Ellyn, as usual, makes us think, Matt takes a non-rumormongering look at what we might see announced at Macworld Expo, and Paul has the usual assortment of I-can't-believe-that's-actually-on-the-web sites. New staffer Wes Meltzer starts a column that rounds up the latest and greatest from the Mac blogosphere. Raena begins a series on making web sites more accessible to those with various impairments. The usual goodies--desktop pictures, cartoons, product reviews--are included at no extra charge, available, as always, in three fruity flavors for your convenience.

Away from home, on the annual Christmas trek, for four days. Mailsmith is left humming along on the Cube, pulling mail every few hours. Upon the return home, and subsequent email check:

• Total number of messages moved to Trash by SpamSieve:over 1,200
• Total number of false positives moved to Trash: Zero
• Total number of false negatives left in active mailboxes: Zero

Yes, yet another shameless plug for a friend's software, but it's worth every penny, and pays for itself in time saved.

The official Retrophisch™ email client has been reviewed at IT-Enquirer, and Michael's SpamSieve gets some more good press.

Those Japanese Mac lovers sure have some copious spare time on their hands. One Cube owner decided he wanted an enclosure that mimicked the look of the Power Mac G5. I must say, I'm impressed with the effort, and would buy such an enclosure, if mass-produced, over PowerLogix's version.