The 17-inch iMac G5 has been removed from the online Apple Store, leaving only the 20-inch G5 version. If you're looking for a G5 iMac instead of the new Intel Core Duo version, now would appear to be the time to buy. [Via Al W. on the MacJournals-Talk list.] Update: John notes what I missed: the remaining 20-inch iMac G5s have been marked down $200, to $1,499. Apple is definitely clearing out last year's model.

The February issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available. Ellyn examines Google's noncompliance of demands by the Justice Department, while Wes has the best of the Mac blogosphere's reaction to last month's Macworld Expo. Miraz Jordan, noting his enjoyment of podcasts, chimes in with this month's Pod People. (We're looking for readers to share their own iPod experiences. If you would like to write a Pod People column, please [e-mail the editors](mailto:editor@atpm.com?subject=Pod People).) Ted looks over two outliners new to the Macintosh sandbox. Speaking of sand, Angus Wong dives in to the waters of the Macintosh life and discovers on the sandy bottom the triumph of the Macintosh revolution. This issue's desktop pictures section features numerous reader submissions, ranging from flowers to Mount Baker, St. Louis to Thailand, New Hampshire to the Dominican Republic. Thanks to Torben, Bill, Jerry, Steven, and Grover for sharing! In this month's Cortland, Lisa makes peace with her maker, the other Steve steps in to foil plans of world dominance, Chad returns to the throne at Weiser Graphics, and Cortland decides the fringe benefits are worth going in-house again. Ellyn fools around with Bubblomania, while Tom peers between the sheets of the Cult of iPod. Mark Tennent shares his experience with CyTV, and Chris tests the alliteratory Lapvantage Loft. Finally, Tom asks that if you're going to delve deeply in to the guts of Mac OS X, you do so with a good manual at your side, kid.

MacBook Pro. MacBook Pro. MacBook Pro. MacBook Pro. How soon do you think it will take for a spoof ad to show up that shows the new Intel-powered Macintosh portable, with the golden arches in place of the Apple logo, and the tagline "Do you want fries with that?" I realize this may be part of some new marketing scheme by our favorite fruit company to get "Mac" into all of its Macintosh product names. It's just shocking that Steve and Company would ditch "PowerBook," which has for so long almost been a brand unto itself, not unlike "iPod".

About This Particular Macintosh begins its twelfth year of publishing with the release of the January 2006 issue. Ellyn starts things off by noting something is rotten in the state of Wikipedia. Personally, I try to avoid linking to Wikipedia, and encourage fellow bloggers to do the same. Wes has a round-up of the latest Macworld Expo/Intel-based Mac rumor-mongering, something I simply cannot condone. (The rumor-mongering, not the gathering thereof. I believe it's important to know, and point out, how badly these rumor sites hurt Apple and rarely help consumers.) Sylvester ponders how even long-time Mac users can encounter newbie moments. A rare treat for the ATPM readership: publisher Michael Tsai returns with a Personal Computing Paradigm column on coping with Mac OS X's font rendering. Michael and I share a common Microsoft love: Verdana. It's my main screen font, too, and the first one I specify in the stylesheets for my blogs. I also like Microsoft's Georgia, and use it as my main serif font. Look for Georgia to make an appearance in an upcoming redesign I'm working on. Your humble author again submits some photos from Wyoming as this month's desktop pictures. These feature the Jenny Lake area of Grand Teton National Park, the part of the vacation I believe I enjoyed more than our time in Yellowstone. This could largely be due to the differences in weather we had between the two parks. This month's Cortland, rated PG-13 for violence, attempts to allude to as many science fiction motion pictures as possible, as several plotlines converge. Tom kicks the reviews off with the software I wish I had the hardware to handle, and that's turning the digital photography world on its ear, Aperture. Ellyn listens different with Griffin Technology's EarThumps, while Matthew examines Quicken alternative iCash. Tom continues to make me jealous with a review of the hardware I hope to be able to run Aperture on in the future, the 20-inch iMac G5. Yours truly got to make a few other staffers jealous with my own product review, that of Tivoli Audio's iSongBook. While the review was turned in before the Christmas holiday, we did take the iSongBook on the road with us, and it proved its worth for us during our stay at my grandmother's. It pulled double duty as bedtime lullaby player for our toddler, and alarm clock for us. Lee, who got plenty of experience with virtual tours last year during his house hunt, looks at an alternative to QuickTime VR for creating virtual tours, Mapwing Creator Pro. Chuck wraps the first reviews of the year up with an examination of the latest version of REALbasic. Our thanks to our readers who have stuck with us for the past eleven years, and we're looking forward to the next eleven!

Given this news, John Gruber makes an excellent point:

This puts Macworld in an awkward spot if they ever again want to review or compare RSS aggregators. If they say NetNewsWire is the best (which it currently is) they’re wide open to accusations of bias; if they say it’s not the best, then they’re stuck admitting that their readers who use the bundled version of NNW are getting something less than the best. Does anyone else remember when the press, in general, was not burdened by corporate ownership? I just turned 35, and I can recall it being a near-industry standard not that long ago, in my lifetime, where press bodies operated independently. John is dead-on in his analysis: how are we ever to take seriously any review Macworld conducts of any news reader from this point forward? The fact notwithstanding that a large amount of the Macintosh news reader community, this author included, agrees that NetNewsWire is, in fact, the best news reader out there, on any platform, and, the fact notwithstanding that said Macintosh news reader community likely applauds Macworld's decision to go with NetNewsWire, given that same would likely ridicule Macworld for choosing what it would perceive to be a lesser application if something other than NetNewsWire was chosen, one has to wonder what the thinking is amongst the editorial staff of Macworld to essentially paint themselves in to a corner when it comes to an ever-increasingly important segment of the software arena.

I don't often link to The New York Times, but when the publication I work on gets a mention, well, I have to throw the Times some link love. James Fallows notes the plethora of Macintosh thought-organization applications (free registration required), and About This Particular Macintosh gets a mention in the last paragraph. This is due to the incredible work of Ted Goranson, and his About This Particular Outliner series. Thanks, Ted, for all of your hard work! [From Michael via e-mail.]

The December issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading and downloading pleasure. Our continued thanks to Bare Bones for their sponsorship of the publication. ATPM is an all-volunteer effort, and any monies made from sponsorships or ads go to support the ever-growing hosting costs for our eleven years' worth of issues. If you are a hardware or software developer for the Macintosh community, and you would like to become an ATPM sponsor, please contact the editors. Rob reminds us of December issues past, present, and takes a peek at the future. Ellyn notes how the gadgets of Star Trek are slowly appearing today. As usual, you can depend on Paul for an eclectic mix of sites to explore: tractors, Mac browsers, sudoku, Lowe's library, and a porcelain throne in a pear tree. Ted wraps up some loose ends in this month's ATPO, and puts the call out to the outlining community for users to help out with future ATPO columns, as well as proposing something of a formal gathering of the outlining community: an e-mail list, forum, or web site. If you're a hard-core outliner, and any of Ted's proposal strikes you, [drop him a note](mailto:tgoranson@atpm.com?Subject=ATPO/Outlining community). Johann delivers a column on how a formerly-derided technology is now changing the way he interacts with his PowerBook and mobile phone. Tom provides a quick how-to on Apple's PhotoBooth, and Sylvester offers part deux of his music server series. Tom weighs in on Docktopus, which I'm still trying to figure out if I like or not. Lee convinces me the iFM, in its current state, isn't for me given my listening habits. Eric reviews a book I will have to take a serious look at, as well as the tome Rob read for this month's issue. Andrew delivers a double-shot of trackball reviews, with the X-Arcade, and my trackball of choice, the Logitech Trackman Wheel. (I have the corded version.) I'm not a gamer (and if I were, I'd probably use a console), so Andrew's concerns on using the Logitech for games is moot for me. Yours truly contributes some shots from the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, taken this past June on a family vacation, for this month's desktop pictures section. In this month's Cortland, the Lisa turns on her creators, while Cortland is rewarded for his forward-thinking when it comes to backups. Frisky talks about one of my favorite media apps, VLC, which I've been using to watch those episodes of Joey I've missed and had to download from the 'net, because the TiVo is recording someone else's shows during that time slot. As usual, you can download the latest issue in one of three flavors. Just don't spill the egg nog.

Erik posits he really isn't missing windowshade functionality in OS X. Neither am I. I began using windowshade less and less in the waning days of OS 9, thanks to LiteSwitch. Like Erik, I have rarely found myself in a situation where windowshade functionality would be necessary with Mac OS X. I hardly ever use Exposé, either. My extensive use of cool-switching via Command-Tab and Quicksilver has also rendered the usage of multiple desktops as moot. Lee reviewed You Control: Desktops, and I looked at the product, and have experimented with Desktop Manager, but right now multiple desktops don't fit in to my computing habits.