So today I completed a switch of my calendar and contact information from Palm Desktop to OS X's Address Book and iCal. After getting everything kosher in iSync, my Palm m505 is now syncing happily with Address Book and iCal. The only thing I'm still using Palm Desktop for is the Memo Pad feature for my various lists and notes. If anyone knows of a sync-able alternative, I'm all ears. Why the switch? Well, I just acquired a Newton 2100 (thanks again, Damien!), and there are methods for getting it to sync with that info. I also plan to get a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone in June, when our current contract is up, and would like to be able to sync all of my info with that as well.

Well, there won't be an expo this summer in New York called "Macworld Expo." Instead, IDG and Apple today announced CREATE. Not that I'm likely to go, even if I'm still employed with VZ... (via Ric)

So since the weekend, Safari has been giving me major headaches. It seemed to particularly dislike my using Movable Type, and viewing slide shows on anyone's .Mac homepage. It would crash violently, occasionally taking into oblivion the post I had just completed typing. Said crashes were all dutifully reported to Apple via the Bug button in Safari's button bar. It was getting incredibly annoying yesterday afternoon, however, so I took action. First, I manually killed the entire Safari cache folder; using the Empty Cache command just wasn't cutting it. Next, it was to the preferences file, which was swiftly introduced to the Trash. And just for good measure, I restarted the TiBook. I should say that I'm not too surprised that the corrupted preferences was obviously contributing to the problem. Ever since the last public beta version of Safari (v60), I've used the leaked 62, 64, and now 67 revs. I'm sure something floopy worked its way in at some point. At any rate, after thorough usage last night and so far today, things seem to be back to normal. I've gone in and killed the metal appearance, so that Safari looks like a normal OS X app, with no apparent side effects yet.

Thanks to Jeremy Hedley, I've discovered Mount.app, a faster means of mounting disk images than using Disk Copy. Just as Michael's DropDMG is easier and faster than Disk Copy for making images, Mount.app is faster at mounting them in the Finder. Just goes to prove the adage that not everything that comes with the OS is the best.

MacMinute is reporting on a set of three AppleScripts for iTunes released by Trinfinity Software. I've downloaded them, used them, and am grateful. Thanks to the folks at Trinfinity.

One of my favorite pieces of software has been updated. WeatherPop has been revved to version 1.7. The Advance version is only $8 and gets you:

• National Weather Service forecasts for the United States
• my.aol.com and wunderground.com forecasts for US and International users
• 3 to 5 day forecasts depending on your location
• Beautiful color icons and realistic moon phases
• Up to 3 favorite locations in addition to the your main location
• The best darn easy-to-use Mac OS X-savvy interface they could design
• 14-day trial period so you can decide if you like it before you buy

John Gruber makes an outstanding case for one of the few things I don't like about Safari.

One thing that Safari has gotten wrong ever since it debuted is that it applies anti-aliasing to all typefaces, including small monospaced fonts such as 9- and 10-point Monaco. Yes, yes, the Mac OS X zeitgeist is such that anti-aliasing is everywhere. But small-point monospaced fonts are the exception to the rule, for good reason. Monospaced typefaces are an anachronism, a throw-back to the typewriter era. They are, for most purposes, ugly; their metrics contradict the basic precepts of proper typesetting. With regular (non-monospaced) fonts, small punctuation marks such as commas and apostrophes fit snugly next to adjacent alphabetic characters; punctuation is intended to be subtle. But with a monospaced font, every character consumes the same amount of horizontal space on the line; it's downright silly that an apostrophe should consume the same space as an "m."

Downright silly, perhaps, but I find a certain elegance in monospaced fonts. After all, look at my logo and tagline! I differ with Gruber only in his observation of Geneva in Camino versus Safari: I think Geneva looks better in Safari, though, I admit, at the same point size, it is slightly less readable than in Camino.

I'm finding more and more stuff that makes me antsy for my forthcoming MessagePad 2100...

Lee notes a Wired story on a lone PowerBook user in the Third Infantry Division, currently operating out of Kuwait. As someone who almost became one of those military officers, I must take exception with Lee's "smarter-than-the-average-automaton" crack observation. Despite how they may be portrayed from the Hollywonk perspective, by and large your average military officer is a highly dedicated, smarter-than-the-average-citizen, master's degree-holding professional who does what he does out of love for his country. Because even the officers aren't getting a whole of lot of kit in their kaboodle when it comes to pay. As far as computing choices go within the military, those front-liners have about as much say in the matter as your average Fortune 500 cubicle dweller does within their corporation. Kudos to Major Weed for getting the TiBook cleared through channels.

Yes, another leaked beta version of Safari. Yes, I have a copy. No, I'm not posting it for widespread dissemination; my site runs via Darwin/Apache on a iBook/300 that sits on an AT&T cable connection. Can you say "easy to overload?" Go here. Jon has posted a quick rundown with screenshots over at MacMerc. Be sure to read the comments; interesting things are afoot.

Hot on the heels of the official rename, the Camino crew has released an updated version of the in-beta browser. Highlights to this update include: a new Download Manager, compatibility with URL Manager Pro, global History in the sidebar, dragging of images and links to the desktop and other applications, support for Shockwave Directory content, the use of Rendezvous to show local FTP and web servers, and support for Proxy Auto-config.

I can't wait to hear what Michael and Gruber have to say about this really good mock-up. I'm torn on this idea. As presented, it takes up too much screen real estate. Okay, fine, but it's like a drawer, you might say. It's hidden, much like the Safari bookmarks are. But that takes away the immediacy of getting to multiple sites, which you have with tabs. I know Michael is a little put off by the tab implementation seen in the leaked build of Safari, but to me, the tabs beat this approach. Controls appearance aside, tabbed browsing offers maximum screen real estate with immediate access to multiple pages. The drawer/hidden panel system doesn't do that. One poster in the thread mentioned on the mock-up page had a brilliant point: he would like to see the tab implementation extended. That is, make the tabs so they can be renamed, repositioned, and able to be hidden. I would like to see those. Another good idea from the board thread: booklists, i.e., you can bookmark an entire list of pages you have in your pane. Again, for me, tabbed browsing is the best implementation thus far. It has room for improvement, but nothing right now beats it for real estate savings and immediate action. Flame on, boys! (props to Michael S. for the link)

It's official:

03 March 2003: Due to circumstances beyond our control, the project [formerly known as Chimera] has been renamed Camino.

MacMinute reports that Aspyr is going to bring the updated version of the arcade classic to the Mac! w00t! I wasted many a quarter on the full-size, sit-in version of SpyHunter that dominated one side of the arcade at the LSU Student Union when I went to school there. I'm not much of a gamer, but this may be one I pick up.

If this story in the L.A. Times is to be believed, Apple is going to change the way Mac users buy music.

The new service was developed by Apple Computer Inc., sources said Monday, and offers users of Macintoshes and iPod portable music players many of the same capabilities that already are available from services previously endorsed by the labels. But the Apple offering won over music executives because it makes buying and downloading music as simple and non-technical as buying a book from Amazon.com. "This is exactly what the music industry has been waiting for," said one person familiar with the negotiations between the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker and the labels. "It's hip. It's quick. It's easy. If people on the Internet are actually interested in buying music, not just stealing it, this is the answer." That ease of use has music executives optimistic that the Apple service will be an effective antidote to surging piracy on the Internet, sources said. [...] Although no licensing deals have been announced, sources close to the situation say at least four of the five major record companies have committed their music to the Apple service. It could be launched next month. [...] An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the service Monday, as did representatives from the five major record corporations: Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann's BMG division and EMI Group. The new service is so important to Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs that he personally demonstrated it to top executives at all five companies, sources said. More than a dozen music executives have visited Apple since last summer and came away enthusiastic. The executives also like the massive marketing plan designed by Jobs to educate consumers about the service. [...] As a result, Mac users may find it easier to make unauthorized, free copies of songs through an online file-sharing service like LimeWire than to buy a copy through a label-sanctioned service. Apple hopes to change that situation with its new service, which is expected to be included in an updated edition of the iLife package of digital music, photo and movie software. Sources said Apple will make the songs available for sale through a new version of iTunes, its software for managing music files on Macs. Users will be able to buy and download songs with a single click and transfer them automatically to any iPod they've registered with Apple. Rather than make the songs available in the popular MP3 format, Apple plans to use a higher fidelity technology known as Advanced Audio Codec. That approach allows the songs to be protected by electronic locks that prevent them from being played on more than one computer. Still, sources say, Apple wants to enable buyers to burn songs onto CDs. That feature would effectively remove the locks. That's been a sticking point for executives at Sony, sources said. The other four major record companies, however, appear ready to license their music to the new service. No details were available on the price of the service, although one source said it would be competitive with other services in the market. Pressplay, for example, charges just under $10 a month for unlimited downloads, plus about $1 for each song that can be burned to CD or transferred to a portable device.

Yeah, so I pretty much give you most of the article. Saves you from the pain-in-the-butt registration the L.A.Times thinks it deserves from you. (via MacMinute)

Caffeine Software has suspended operations. Bad news for users of TIFFany, Curator, and PixelNhance. While I personally haven't used any of their products, this is bad news for the Mac world in general, as it means one less Mac developer. (via MacMinute)

The March issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now online. Yours truly has stepped into the Managing Editor's shoes, so if there's something you love, something you hate, or something you just have a comment on, email me. I read with great interest Greg's review of iView MediaPro, Johann's review of the 2d edition of The Mac OS X Missing Manual, and Kirk's review of O'Reilly's UNIX Power Tools, 3d edition. Update, 03-03-03: Thanks to Eric for the kind words, and the reminder that this issue features the return of my birthday-sharing paisan, Tom Iovino. I joined the staff of ATPM in 1998 as a copy editor; Robert Paul Leitao was the Managing Editor then. I've also been the Publicity Manager (currently vacant), the Help Jedi (now simply called "Technical" and performed by Evan), and a Contributing Editor. Eric is one of the few ATPM staffers I've actually met in person (two MWNY Expos in a row; will there be a 3d this year?). I met former Managing Editor Daniel Chvatik at MWNY last year, as well as long-time desktop pictures contributor Jens Grabenstein.