From the Mac Maineiac news room: FLASH! The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE), an organization responsible for setting networking standards, announced yesterday that they have approved 802.11g, the protocol used in Apple’s Airport Extreme Wi-Fi system. This move, in all practicality, establishes 802.11g as the emerging industry Wi-Fi standard. 802.11g is fully backwards compatible with 802.11b (the protocol in those Centrino laptops), but connects at about 20 megabits per second, while 802.11b crawls along at 4 to 5 megabits per second. Way to go, Intel and Microsoft – push two-year-old technology and called it “the next great thing”. But, what else is new…

FLASH! June 23rd, 2003 is getting to be a pretty popular day. For you trivia buffs, on June 23rd, 1912, Alan Turing, the founder of computer science, was born. This year on June 23rd, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off, with the introduction of Mac OS 10.3 (nicknamed “Panther” by the folks in Cupertino). Panther is a major upgrade to the Mac operating system, and it’s expected to be the first 64-bit consumer system. Although unconfirmed by Apple, many speculate that new chips from IBM (the “G5”, perhaps) and new Mac hardware (the 15” PowerBook G5, perhaps) will be announced as well. Coincidentally (snicker), Microsoft will launch its PocketPC 2003 operating system and Gateway and Hewlett-Packard will announce new PDAs (personal digital assistants) on the same date. Even more coincidentally (louder snicker), Intel has chosen June 23rd to begin shipping (with the accompanying hoopla) their new 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 processors. Coincidence? You be the judge.

From the Mac Maineiac “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction” file: Microsoft is, get this… no, wait, maybe you better sit down first… Microsoft is going to develop their own antivirus software. Well, actually, Microsoft is going to do what they do best – “innovate” by buying someone else who makes antivirus software. Wait, it gets better… Who are they going to buy? Norton? No. McAfee or Symantec? Naw. You guessed it! It’s GeCAD Software Srl, of Bucharest – makers of the finest antivirus software in all of Romania. Actually, GeCAD probably makes great software. Anyway, after Microsoft assimilates GeCAD and forces the aforementioned Norton, McAfee and Symantec out of business, I’m sure some hacker will find a way to spread a virus through Microsoft’s own antivirus software. But, what else is new…

Keep those emails coming to petez@macmaineiac.com, and, as always, Semper Mac! Take care.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski