InBox: iMac G5, MSN Music, iTunes, Free Utilities

“I think the new imac is designed for people who want to use the computer…just the way it comes out of the box. The new imac is not a pro machine but either was the previous generations of imacs. I think the new imac will rock and there are other markets besides the good ole U.S of A that might like computers that are QUIET and take up very little space and that have the best OS out there. Apple is a kick ass tech company that deserves a standing ovation for innovation. Imac equals ingenuity, good price, quality and fun.Try having fun on a PC after worms and trojans and spyware, malware infest it!”

“From what I’ve seen, I think the new iMac G5 is gonna be a big winner. I’m looking forward to going to the Apple Store here and playing on one! It’s always the same. In 1984 when the first Mac came out, everyone dissed it. It became a classic that lured millions to computing. In 1998 Apple released the original iMac (I still have a Blueberry 266, circa ‘99 and love it!) and all the PC heads said it was a toy. Again, an instant classic, lured millions more to computing and started the late ‘90’s/early ‘00’s “translucent plastics” trend, to boot! With the new iMac G5, Apple has done it again, created another classic that will lure millions more to computing. Apple rules and the PC world is again trembling with fear!”

“I’m trying to think why MS is even bothering with this idea. Everyone agrees that no one can make money selling music online (the record companies want to keep all the cash, so you unless you want to give away songs for a loss, you ain’t gonna make money doing it). The only reason Apple runs ITMS is to sell iPods. MS doesn’t have an iPod. They don’t do hardware. Their one major foray into hardware, the XBox, has lost money consistently.

MS can’t make money selling digital downloads. It doesn’t make money selling hardware. So where’s the money coming from? Are they just going to give away music forever at a loss? Will that drive more money to the Windows franchise, when 90% of computer users already use Windows? Are they doing it just to be mean to Apple?

Knowing Bill Gates, that’s not an unreasonable hypothesis.”

“I like your list. For me these would all be candidates for top ten. I use
them all.

Tinkertool
http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html
It allows access to many built in but hidden OS X customization options. My
favorite is having dual scroll arrows on both the top and bottom of scroll
bars, but Tinkertool offers a couple dozen others.

PhotoStickies
http://www.grunenberg.com/photostickies.html
A sophisticated sticky inspired photo viewer, slide show and wallpaper
utility, and recorder, with some special effects and timed display
capabilities.

Nisus Thesaurus
http://www.nisus.com/Thesaurus/
Add a neat thesaurus to any service aware application.

MacJanitor
http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
Allows you to run the routine but essential OS X maintenance tasks that your
Mac normally schedules for the middle of the night. Great for laptops or
people who typically turn of their Mac when not in use.

Smultron
http://smultron.sourceforge.net/
A text editor with some nice features for programmers or web designers, like
syntax coloring, multi-file search and replace (with regular expression),
HTML preview, tabbed browsing of open documents and a lot more.

BatCHMOD
http://macchampion.com/arbysoft/
A handy utility for setting permissions, an essential for installing server
side applications on the built in Apache web server. It also force empties
the trash.