News and Views

All signs point to Apple announcing the iPad 3 on Wednesday, March 7. It started with a report at iMore.com. Jim Dalrymple at LoopInsight, who is known to have internal Apple sources, confirmed the report with a “Yep.”

The very high resolution “Retina Display” is anticipated by most sources.  Also, Apple will use an “A6” processor, but whether it stays dual core, like the iPad 2’s A5 chip, or goes quad-core, remains to be seen.

Whether Apple will offer 4G LTE cell service in the top-of-the-line models remains to be seen. Qualcomm has made the hardware, but it’s not known if Apple implemented it.

So all I have got is rumors. Like the smell of steak on the grill, it’s very tempting; but you have to wait for the real taste test.

The Macbook is Dead, Long Live the MacBook

Apple has confirmed that it has phased out the white Macbook (my companion in computing since November 2006) for all customers, even the education market. From now on, the low-end model is the $999 11” MacBook  Air.

But fear not! Apple plans to release revised MacBook Pros this year. Apple will make them very thin. These new models will use SSDs instead of hard drives and ditch the internal SuperDrive.

The 15” MacBook Pro will get the first revision, since it’s the most popular model.  The 17” model comes next and I look forward to seeing one of these at the Apple Store.

Apple faces competition from the Ultrabooks originated by Intel and sold by ASUS and Acer and HP and Dell. Well, they in turn, face the problem of a lack of CNC milling machines. Apple has most of them engaged in making chassis for its products.  So the competitors have to make due with plastic or hybrid plastic & aluminum designs.

The Editor’s new Mac Mini

Yes, the editor has finally upgraded to a Mac Mini running 10.7.3. I’m still learning about 10.7.3 on a personal level.

I am pleased to say that this hardware and software will run videos without causing a kernal panic. I had to watch The Overtime segment of Bill Maher’s HBO show posted on-line on my Windows 7 machine. Not any more!

I have found a solution for running Quicken 2006 on the new machine by using VNC (Virtual Network Computing). I’ve set up a simple client-server network, with the old white MacBook as the server offering up Quicken 2006; and the aluminum Mac Mini as the client, where I access the program via the Chicken VNC client program.

Will I upgrade to the Lion –compatible version of Quicken 2007 announced by Intuit


Maybe. Intuit didn’t say when they would bring it out and what it would cost.