Thank you so much for the magazines you keep sending, even though we're coming up on the fifth month since my subscription expired. I don't really care about the fact that these "teaser" issues do not contain the CD, as I often found the CDs included with MacAddict to be out of date and the original content mostly useless. The only reason I re-subscribed in the first place was because of the $10 off the regular subscription price offer through Apple's .Mac service. Your magazine hasn't been worth much more than that for a number of years. But feel free to keep the teaser issues coming. I can use the laughs.

So Leander posits Apple is prepping a WYSIWYG widget-creation app. TUAW's David Chartier whines "what took so long?" I can't help but think, "So what?" I know I'm not alone in minimal widget use. I see the myriad widgets being created and updated daily fly through my RSS feeds, and I can easily imagine users with 20-30 of these things flying around at once, bogging down their system's background process time. At least now to create a widget you have to have some Javascript and HTML knowledge, and it helps if you're design savvy. God help us if "Dashcode" is for real; it will unleash untold useless and ugly widgets on the Mac-using populace. I do see a lot of widgets where I think, "Hey, that would be cool/convenient to have." Then I realize that a particular widget wouldn't be one I would want running all of the time. Then I realize that in the time it takes me to activate Dashboard, go in and make the widget active in the Dashboard environment, and have it refresh, I could just as quickly pull up my web browser and point it to whatever page I needed for the same information. Ah, you say, but what happens when you're using your PhischBook some place where you don't have 'net access? Granted, this is an instance when widgets would be useful, provided the widget itself doesn't require an Internet connection to load its information. For my own use, there's not a non-Internet-using widget out there that I cannot live without. A scenario where such a widget would come in handy when I am without Internet access has not arisen, and even if it had, I believe it would be for something that could just as well keep until I had access again. I probably activate Dashboard between eight and a dozen times a day. For the record, the widgets I run: + Dictionary, Phone Book, Stocks, and Weather, all widgets that come with Mac OS X Tiger + SysStat + Backpack + BibleSearch + DailyVerse + Scoreboard, during baseball season I had been using iCal Events, but I'm giving MenuCalendarClock for iCal a try, and am attempting to determine which one I like better for everyday use. Your thoughts on widgets? What are you running? Drop a note in the comments.

The November issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. I'm wondering if Charles Anthony's cover art will be the last to feature the Power Mac G5. Daniel Jalkut, of Red Sweater Blog, was kind enough to contribute this month's Pod People column. We are actively seeking new iPod stories each month, and if you would like to share yours, please [e-mail the editors](mailto:editor@atpm.com?Subject=Pod People). In this month's FileMaking, Chuck Ross takes a break from the usual how-to to examine the new features of FileMaker 8. Sylvester Roque sets up a Mac music server, while Matthew Glidden upgrades his Cube's video card. I've performed the latter operation myself, though instead of the Radeon Matt uses, I went with a nVidia GeForce2 MX. Lee Bennett is kind enough to share with us his photos of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis as this month's desktop pictures selection. I especially like numbers four and eight. In Cortland, Chad Wieser finds himself beginning a new phase in life, while Cortland collects the last of a client's bill. Frisky Freeware notes the return of a Classic classic: FinderPop! Turly O'Connor is porting the venerable productivity app to OS X, and I'm looking forward to putting it through its paces. I've been thinking that I wouldn't get as much use out of FinderPop now, since I use Quicksilver, but I'm also thinking of the two apps as compliments rather than competitors. For those times when you're mousing around, it's easier to activate FinderPop, rather than going to the keyboard with both hands for Quicksilver. Yours truly shares the review spotlight with my fellows this month. Lee puts the AirClick and AirClick USB from Griffin Technology through their paces, while Matthew goes behind enemy lines with the Commandos Battle Pack. Tom Bridge examines the third edition of Derrick Story's excellent Digital Photography Pocket Guide. Eric Blair gives OmniGraffle Professional 4 a workout, while I chime in with a look at RadTech's Portectorz for the 12-inch PowerBook. We still have openings on the editorial staff, and we are always looking for new writers, and need new cover art each month. If you are interested in volunteering some time to ATPM in any of these areas, please e-mail the editors.

Brent Simmons announced tonight that development of MarsEdit will continue. w00t!

So yesterday was the latest in a slew of product announcements from Apple. In just over a month, we've seen the iPod nano, the iPod with Video, the new iTunes Music Store from whence you can download videos and television shows for your video iPod, and now new Power Macs, PowerBooks, and a new piece of pro software. Power Macs The new Power Macs are slower than the ones they replace--from a clock-speed perspective, anyway. And let's be honest: most people don't understand how a dual-core 2.5 GHz processor is faster than a non-dual-core 2.7 or 3 GHz processor. They see numbers. They understand numbers. The higher the number, the faster it must be. So Apple has a bit of education to do for users, who aren't as hip and in-the-know as you or I when it comes to the technobabble, contemplating new Power Macs. Then again, maybe those sorts of people are just better off with an iMac or a Mac mini. Every gearhead, yours truly included, of course is lusting after the dual-core, dual-processor 2.5 GHz Power Mac. This means there are four cores on two chips, and is why Apple refers to this beast as the "Quad." Should you care to shell out as much money for two video cards--the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500, with 512 MB of SDRAM--as the Quad costs, you can drive four 30-inch Cinema Displays from a single box. Every gearhead, yours truly included, is also lusting after the funds to accomplish this. I can barely fathom having two of those 30-inch monsters on my desk, much less four, and I would be in happy-happy dream land with only one. PowerBooks While it's fun to have fantasies about high-end desktop hardware, I was realistically focused on the new PowerBooks. The missus mentioned the possibility of new mobile iron after the first of the year, so I was hoping to see some improvements, given that this may be the last revision of PowerPC-based 'Books before Intel-based hardware ships. I was disappointed that the line-up didn't see a speed bump. It would have been nice to get a 1.8 GHz PowerBook. The added pixels in the 15- and 17-inch models are indeed welcome, though the 15-inch's resolution is now higher than the 19-inch LCD I would normally hook it up to. Right now, my 12-inch PowerBook--with a resolution of 1024x768--drives the 19-inch panel, with its resolution of 1280 x 1024. My normal habit is to run the PowerBook closed, given the extra real estate on the 19-inch LCD. With one of the new PowerBook models, I'm looking at the prospect of reordering my workspace, so the PowerBook could be run in extended-desktop mode with the LCD. This is certainly not a bad thing. John notes the simplified line-up of the PowerBook models, and I concur this is a good thing. I wonder, though, if the simplified product line-up isn't so much a result of Apple's desire for simplification, but rather the aforementioned fact that there are no speed-bumps. Historically, when you saw the different versions of a PowerBook, other than screen size, there was a processor speed difference as well. With yesterday's announcement, Apple killed the slower-speed model for the 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks.That notwithstanding, again, I agree; the simplified line-up is much better. When I went to price a new 15-inch, I only made one change, the hard drive. (I'll buy my 2 gigs of RAM elsewhere and save a few hundred bucks, Apple, thanks.) Aperture Likely the main reason I'm gear-lusting after a Power Mac G5 Quad is because I'm also lusting after Apple's latest piece of pro software, Aperture. Think Final Cut Pro for digital photographers. (I know I read that phrase somewhere, but haven't been able to recall where yet.) I wasn't crazy about the name at first, thinking Tom had come up with a much better one, but it's growing on me. Aperture is a one-stop shop of digital photo post-production, and while it is geared toward--and priced for--professional photographers, as a burgeoning "prosumer," I can see how much I would gain from Aperture's abilities. Alas, none of my current hardware can handle the app, and while I know I will begin pushing the limits of iPhoto in the near future, I'm not there yet. Many see Aperture as a shot across Adobe's bow, and while I'm sure it will steal some screen time from Photoshop, I see the two applications working in complement with one another rather than competition. Given what Aperture brings to the table, Adobe is going to have to look at something other than just workflow solutions for Photoshop. Their flagship application is already suffering from featuritis, with no real room to grow except through the implementation of workflow solutions, so future development should be interesting to watch. Regarding the new Apple hardware, Leander Kahney remarked, "I actually don't like product announcements like this. It makes my 18-month-old PowerBook and G5 look feeble and decrepit." Leander, I'm plugging along on a 4.5-year old Cube and 2-year old 12-inch PowerBook. How do you think I feel?

King of Mac OS X Hints Rob Griffiths has a great tip for keeping your iCal window the same size no matter which view (Day, Week, Month) you're using. Very handy.

The October issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available. Ellyn ponders the day we watch movies on our mobile phones, while Wes covers the fact that our mobiles are now playing music, thanks to the iTunes-compatible ROKR from Motorola. He also looks at the incredible iPod Nano, file formats, OS X UI, and other bits from the Mac blogosphere. Ted takes TAO and OmniOutliner Pro head to head, while Chuck's FileMaking rolls on with Common Functions. ATPM reader Mark Dickson is gracious in sharing photos from his June trip to Italy as this month's desktop pictures selection. In this month's Cortland, the Lisa returns, and Terry is targeted by...well, some people you think you know. Frisky notes backup freeware PsyncX. On the reviews front, Johann examines Airfoil's audio hijacking and broadcasting capabilities (when paired with an Airport Express Base Station). Chris Lawson tries out Business Card Composer, and puts the Mercury Elite-AL Pro RAID through its paces. Michael compares two disk catalogers, Catalog and CDFinder. I used to use Disk Tracker, but eventually got out of the disk/CD cataloging habit. Now that my digital photo collection is growing by leaps and bounds, there is a need to pick that habit up again, and this review helped. Finally, Tom tells our readers what he thinks of the new iPod nano. As always, the publication is available in three fruity flavors for your reading enjoyment.

Sometimes, Apple can be so stupid.

Matt Deatherage used the above line as the title for an e-mail on the MacJournals-Talk list, and he's right. You usually don't see updates and new features added to .Mac until fall arrives. You can read the gory details, but the gist is .Mac members now get 1 GB of storage, split between mail and data, there's a new version of Backup, and .Mac members can now congregrate in to groups. As of five minutes ago, looking at my iDisk space inside the .Mac preference pane, I saw it was still at 200 MB. I logged in to my .Mac Account Settings, and it reflects the 1 GB increase. You will have to click on the Storage Settings button to see the change reflected in your e-mail/iDisk breakdown. Quitting System Preferences, then relaunching and clicking on the .Mac pref pane will have the storage update reflected there. I have been debating renewing my .Mac subscription, and these updates really don't change much for me. I'm not ready to transition everything in the next 12 days, when my account is set to renew, so I'll be a .Mac member for at least another year. Watch for an upcoming post about .Mac value.