Papermaster countersues. IBM to pay up 3 million bucks.

What a dramatic tug-of-war of interstate proportions! If you have been following the misadventures of Mark Papermaster, PowerPC geek and super manager, you might have been feeling a bit uneasy about the repercussions to all technical professionals. If the injustice system rules for IBM, the precedent might make all technical professionals indentured property of the members of the board, a mere piece of furniture in their inventory. Luckily, the New York judges saw the light and had no other choice but to rule that you can't own a nerd, only rent it.

The guy deserves a ride on the iGulfstream V.

Yeah, here's the link.

No VoIP over 3G, but music streaming is a-OK

Pandora and AOL Music are being trumpeted as if there's no tomorrow, and they are great... great suckers of 3G bandwidth. However, iPhone Apps like Truphone and Fring are not so hot yet. Truphone is 6 cents a minute: not as expensive as AT&T overage fees, but way more expensive than SIP voice carriers, which is the reason to use VoIP. Fring is sitting in the shadows, as their app is for jailbroken iPhones, waiting to see if the iPhone developer program becomes a little less draconian.

So, which way is it going to be, Steve? Are bandwidth sucking apps allowed, or forbidden?

BTW. G729 calls sound great at 8 kbits/s. I can't imagine Pandora and AOL Music are pushing less bits per second.

Don't waste your dollars on commercial office suites

If you haven't tried Open Office and Neo Office for the Mac lately, ... well, you should. As some open source projects do, OO has very active communities and developers (paid by Sun, no less). You might be surprised are how much it has evolved since the time you tried it last. Neo Office is an OO's Cocoa/Aqua port, so you might want to check that out too.

If you don't have time to test the free software, Mr Christopher Dawson has a decent review of the four contenders: OO, N-O, iWork and MS Office. Link

However, if you are still writing your thesis in a commercial word processor, may I suggest you switch to LaTeX already?

Eagle 5.0.0 for OSX. No X11 required!!

O HAPPY DAY! The good guys at CadSoft have heard the clamor of the Mac-using hackers. The new 5.0 version of their excellent Eagle PCB design software not only runs in OSX, but it also runs Aqua style! To check out the droolworthy software, follow the link.

Note: there's an excellent Eagle tutorial in Sparkfun.com. Link.

EVDO+iPod Touch: faster and cheaper than 3G iPhone?

If AT&T is joined by the hip to that somewhat cool piece of aluminum called an iPhone until 2012, do you really need a Blackberry to surf in the most ubiquitous 3G network in the United States? With this combo, you could mobile surf in style with your Touch, a with a cheaper monthly bill, at higher speeds, and in many more places than HSDPA can offer. The clinch is that you'll have to bring more hardware with you, possibly doubling the weight of the iPhone alone. Presiona el link vato.

Behold the Apple Mobile Lab

OMG. Like, er, I have never seen this stuff before. You know, like, have you ever seen those things called Apple Mobile Labs. These products, as they exist only in the shadows of academia, are rarely seen by our consumerist eyes. Fear no more, mon cheri: a guy in the MacNN forums posted a set of photos of the rarely witnessed Apple product. Get your edumacation by clicking the link.

MacUpdate promo for the penny pincher in you

Mac users are not known for going to 99-cent stores, but here's something that might pique your interest. MacUpdate has launched a promo, which may potentially get you Parallels+SoundStudio+other useful apps for less than retail price of Parallels alone. Remember, spread the word and you'll have more chances of netting the most value from your dollar.

Lame-duck CompUSA employees go nilly-willy on store's website

It is a slow news day in the tech world, so I reach the bottom of the barrel to report...

Pretty audacious if you ask me. Get your mug shown all across a high traffic website and, if that's not enough, get your friends to do it too. Fun times, fun times.

Un-DRM your iTunes DRM tunes with Best Buy

Got a few (or many) DRM'd songs in your library, with no way to load them into any PMP you'd ever want? It's time to stick it to the music labels; we've got a tip for you.

A habitual poster of decent credibility in the MacNN forums has recently shared his experience with a non-iPod PMP: the Insignia Pilot. The included software pulls some neat tricks to allow you rock those DRM tracks in the stereo-bluetooth enabled little bugg'r, not thanks to iTunes Plus.

Now, if I could get confirmation that the Pilot woul sync with my Mac, I'd be a-thousand times sold.

Is that utopian world that Uncle Stevie promised us finally coming in 2008?

See a pattern here? This Mac centric blog in no way drinks or serves Kool-aid of any flavor.

I love the smell of Entitlement in the morning

Consumers being crybabies again.

First it was the iPhone early adopters, crying "It's not right to screw us over with this $200 price decrease". In response, Apple "makes it right" by "giving back" $100.

Now it is the iPod users, crying for their games in their G5.5 don't transfer to their G6 iPods. If you are one of them, then listen to this: the new iPod comes with a new OS. Porting the games to this new OS takes effort and expense, which _should_ be passed on to the consumer.

I am sure that consumer who buys a G5.5 iPod and G6 iPod a few months later have fat wallets. Fat wallets are fair game, anytime.

This just verifies once again that the Mac userbase is composed of way too many socialist pinkos.

*Logs off to check his AAPL stock*