Cory R writes "Although many of us may hate to admit it, aesthetics matter even to hard-headed techies. Our software is skinnable, our email is filled with HTML, and our cases glow with colorful lights. Graphic design is pervasive and expected. Programming style is debated endlessly and many of us lust after Apple hardware which can command a premium price in part because of its styling. The age of aesthetics is here and in The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness, Virginia Postrel explains where it came from and what it means." Read on for the rest of Cory's review.

Dilaudid writes "According to this story at MacWorld Apple has just announced three new iMac models - all with Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme. More importantly there are new iPods too. Cool." The iMacs got a speed bump up to 1.25GHz, and the iPods were capacity-bumped up to 40GB.

YoDave writes "Have a slick new iMac and a boring old desk? This BBC report may be music to your eyes. John Treby from the University of Hertfordshire has designed the iDesk. It has space age styling with space for all your Apple goodies and not much else. Rain Design of San Francisco is shipping a similar stand called the iGo. PC users can prepare to drool with envy, again."

greyrax writes "So what does a Canadian cabinet maker who's a closet techie do during those long winter months? You modify a 17" monitor case to house your computer (think iMac). The blow-by-blow descriptions and pictures outline this three-month project. The only question that I'm left with is 'What is that antenna for?'"

no_demons writes "Jonathan Ive, the man behind the iMac and the iPod, has won the first Designer of the Year award from the Design Museum in London. The Independent has the scoop, and BBC2 has the documentary on Wednesday, June 11th."

Gropo asks: "I just got an email from my father who has just recently upgraded from OS 9 to Mac OS X on his PowerMac. He's connected to the 'net via Adelphia Cable and shares his TCP connection with my Mother's iMac via Software Base Station. He got a call from his neighbor (also running Mac OS X) who noticed 'My Father's Computer' show up on his network. My first thought was: 'He's picking up your AirPort signal' - alas the neighbor has no AirPort card. The neighbor *does* however also have an Adelphia cable modem. I asked him to scan for available afp:// servers and sure enough, a foreign machine showed up. What's the easiest way (if at all possible) to enable auto-detection for the local wireless LAN (useful for file and printer sharing within the household) yet remain invisible to other people also behind the cable companies' local DHCP box?"

numbski asks: "As a systems administrator, I find myself moving from machine to machine to machine on a daily basis. I happen to be a FreeBSD/MacOS X nut, so on a given day I move from my 17" iMac at home, to my 12" Powerbook at work, to any one of my 16 FreeBSD Servers. That's not to mention any of the Win2k Servers that have Cygwin loaded. All of that said, there is a longing in me to have a simple $HOME that all of my systems use and understand. I've considered the Knoppix way of dealing with this problem using a USB key device from this previous Slashdot article, however I don't know how many systems I could get away with consistently having my USB device picked up and used correctly without scripting changes to fstab, not to mention the issue of choosing a filesystem that just about every OS will recognize: FAT32. Windows is going to be unhappy no matter what I'm afraid, as it doesn't understand symlinking. c:\Documents and Settings\$USER can't just be moved off to another volume. The one glimmer of hope I have is this article on ftpfs and webdavfs. Using these one should be able to set up a single, persistent home that follows you from machine to machine over the internet. I guess I would like to know how others have gone about setting up a mobile $HOME. I look forward to having all of my preferences, dotfiles, and bookmarks follow me around."

*no comment* writes "In what may be one of the funniest things since MSN's site saying iMac is the best computer, Apple's news site picked up a story from crazyapplerumors about how George Bush is demanding a recount an Al Gore's election to the Apple board." Rumor sites bad, parody sites good. Remember that the next time you ask for a press pass to Macworld.

Joey Patterson writes "CNET News.com reports that, after five years, Apple has stopped selling the gumdrop-shaped iMac to the general public."

applematters writes "Apple has updated the iMacs, they are faster and incorporate AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth. There are two models, the 15-inch and 17-inch. For good measure the eMac has also been updated, and you can get it brand new for under a thousand bucks. Not bad."

smackthud asks: "I'm looking for an external firewire enclosure that works with a new 200GB Western Digital HD w/8mb cache. I tried putting the drive into my ADS pyro enclosure, however, the drive is seen by my G4 iMac as a 128GB drive, which is obviously incorrect. This is not a limitation of MacOSX 10.2 or the iMac, since the HFS+ filesystem supports 2TB+ file systems, and Firewire itself is device size agnostic. The enclosure simply isn't reporting the size of the drive properly. Some research has revealed that most enclosures that use the Oxford 911 bridge chipset do not support ATA100 drives larger than 120GB, while at least one supports up to160GB, but no more. My suspicion is that this is a limitation of the bridge controller's implementation of the ATA100 interface. I've heard that ATA100 had the optional ability to support 48bit address space rather than 32, which would mean that only those vendors who support the optional space would be able to address drives larger than 137GB. This may play a factor in Firewire chipsets which must bridge IDE to IEE1394. Existing products from both WD and Lacie prove that using this drive should be possible, and that any problems with large ATA100 drives have been solved by some vendors. Any helpful information or recommendations would be appreciated."

EnlightenmentFan writes "Apple plans to stop production in June of the iMac with flat-panel 17-inch display, according to this article at Asian tech-news site Digitimes. As with the now-history 15" flat-panel iMac, sales started strong but stalled once the early-adopter crowd had bought in. Probably-not-unrelated story (also posted today): Chungwha Picture Tubes is boosting the price of its 17-inch LCD monitor panels."

spydink writes "The Radio Netherlands website http://www.rnw.nl has a good hour-by-hour listing of potential local time live webcasts from around the world. May be helpful for those who want to raise a glass to the New Year every hour on the hour." (And there's some good news about that, too.) Read on for a few more end-of-year items, which you'll no doubt be seeing more of besides.

gsfprez writes "The fine folks at Other World Computing have teamed up with Newer Technology to release the perfect handle for your TiBook, because its also a stand: it folds underneath like the CRT iMac stand when you're parked. Previous handles were only handles, but the TiHandle actually gives you the tilt you wish you had with you all the time without the little feet popping off or overrotating."

Junks Jerzey asks: "Every time there's a mention of Mac OS X on Slashdot, there's a flurry of responses about how unbearably slow Mac OS X is. To anyone who has done software development under both Mac OS X and Windows or Linux, is there any truth to this or is it simply a knee-jerk reaction from non-Mac users who see low numbers like 800MHz. I'm talking about average priced Macs here, like the LCD iMac line, not the dual 1.25GHz machines that sell for $4500+." Having the fortune of using a Titanium Powerbook for over a month, I don't find Mac OS X that slow at all, however, there are some things that do take a little longer than I am used to, but I think these things are application-specific. For those Mac OS X users out there, have you noticed operations that seemed slower using Mac OS X compared to similar operations on other operating systems?

EyesWideOpen writes "Wired News is running two articles about numerous case mods to Macs. The first article is about Japanese mods that include painted PowerBook lids, a black iMac and a 'Beer Server G3' among others. The other article features mods such as the Philco radio Mac, a Mac writing tablet and an awesome G4 tower that lights up with fluorescent blue neon and has a LCD screen mounted in the front panel that can mirror the desktop or display other visualizations."

eclipsemgp asks: "I am breathlessly awaiting the end of August when I can have my PS2 go online and play SOCOM, Madden, etc. I have a wireless DSL router (Linksys BEFW11S4) that I use with my iMac and XP Laptop. Is there anyway way to hook up the PS2 WITHOUT the network adapter? Maybe using the USB port I could use wireless network adapter. I know the network adater is cheap, but I will pay for less clutter and the coolness factor. Plus my wife will kill me if I have to run yet another cable across the room to the router. Any thoughts?" Would it even be this simple. Will out-of-the-box USB 802.11 adaptors even work on the PS/2, or will the Sony network adaptor be the only way to get the hardware online?

A reader writes, "eWEEK talked with Apple about the state of its hardware line at Macworld Expo/New York, six months after Apple said it was going all-flat panel with future Macs. Greg Joswiak, senior director, hardware products, with Apple worldwide product marketing, says that while LCD Macs are still 'the future,' surprise boosts in flat-panel prices mean CRT systems like the eMac and old-school iMac will stick around a while longer."

Steve Jobs today announced at the Macworld Keynote that Mac OS X 10.2 will be available August 24 for $129. "That's less than $1 for each major feature," he quipped. Updates will be available in some cases for $19.99. Also introduced were iTunes 3, iPod updates, iChat, iCal, iSync, a 17" iMac, and a lot more.

Les writes "Mac insider site Think Secret has its scoop on what Apple CEO Steve Jobs will announce at Macworld Expo in New York next week. The site says that Power Mac G4s won't be updated until August, but we'll instead see a 17" flat-panel iMac and a demo of OS X 10.2 Jaguar."