Tyler Too writes "Is Apple having an unusually large number of quality control problems since its switch to Intel? Ars Technica runs down the litany of problems MacBook and MacBook Pro users have experienced since their launch. From the article: 'Is Apple's quality control slipping through the cracks with this Intel transition? Given the volume of available evidence that has appeared in such a short timeframe, it's simply impossible to say that Apple isn't having problems.'"

Tony Mobily has written a thought-provoking editorial for Free Software Magazine that makes the bold prediction of Red Hat's eventual demise at the hands of Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu. Calling on memories of Red Hat alienating their desktop user base to focus on their corporate customers and making money, Mobily states that many of those alienated desktop users are also system administrators who now feel more comfortable with Ubuntu and will make the choice to use Ubuntu Server over Red Hat now and in the future.

ejdmoo writes "The Unofficial Apple Weblog, a very popular Apple enthusiast site, has accidentally posted (and since retracted) a recommendation for an application called Procrastinatr. Though the original website for Procrastinatr promises to 'efficiently prioritize your calendars and regain lost time,' it gives no real description of the functionality. In reality, the application was written as something of an extensive joke between friends, moving all iCal appointments and tasks forward a week. The author has since apologized and posted a fix for users who borked their calendars. This story once again highlights the importance of making sure something is legitimate before letting it run loose on your system, even if it appears to be coming from a reputable source."

JohnnyCakes writes "MacBook Pro batteries are apparently swelling, then failing. MacFixIt has some grotesque pictures of their own swollen MBP battery, which looks like it has suffered an internal explosion. Apple is replacing batteries on a case-by-case basis, but hasn't yet admitted any wide-scale issues."

V-man writes "Microsoft has just launched Windows Live Messenger with free PC-to-PC phone calls and PC-to-phone calling as a pay service provided by Verizon Web Calling. Of course, most people doing PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone calling are probably using Firefox...too bad the Launch Page isn't Mozilla friendly."

kukyfrope writes "Peter Moore, Head of Interactive Entertainment at Microsoft, has clarified previous comments about gamers not being concerned with backward compatibility on the Xbox 360, claiming his words were 'misconstrued' and reiterating Microsoft's goal to make every Xbox game backward compatible. 'It's quite simply not that we don't care about backward compat[ibility]. Boy, do we care about backward compat[ibility]... We're going to get darn close to that stated goal of every title done,' Moore promised."

Chuan-kai Lin writes "According to Bloomberg, Intel will slash product prices by up to 60% in order to regain market share captured by AMD." From the article: "Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent, according to Alex Lin, a product marketing manager at Micro-Star, Taiwan's third-largest maker of motherboards, which connect electronic parts in computers ... Shares of Intel have fallen 33 percent since Otellini succeeded Craig Barrett in May last year. Advanced Micro's stock has gained 77 percent during the same period. Intel fell 31 cents to $17.08 at 12:06 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Advanced Micro dropped $1.55, or 5.5 percent, to $26.45 on concerns that Intel will lower prices."

daria42 writes "As Microsoft moves its internal desktop systems to Windows Vista, the company is contemplating whether to change a long running tradition and take away admin rights from its employees in order to improve security." From the article: "'We haven't made that final determination yet. We would like to absolutely look at scenarios where we can look at elements of User Access Control -- that is the feature in Vista -- so that we can start moving in that direction ... It is a tough balance and every company has to decide what is right for them,' said Estberg. However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees."

javacowboy asks: "For a while now, I've been advising friends who run Windows to try running as a regular user, as opposed to running as administrator, which is the default setting. However, I switched to Mac a year and a half ago and I haven't run Windows since, so I'm probably not the best person to be giving this advice. Still, on a philosophical level, *trying* to run Windows as a non-admin, given the prevalence of viruses, worms, trojans, and spy-ware, seems to make sense. Have any of you tried to run Windows as a non-admin, and how did it work out for you? Are there certain tasks or certain software you need to be admin to run? How realistic is it to expect a Windows user to run their OS as non-root?"

subbers writes "A zero-day flaw in Microsoft Word program is being used in an active exploit by sophisticated hackers in China and Taiwan, according to warnings from anti-virus researchers. The exploit arrives as an ordinary Microsoft Word document attachment to an e-mail and drops a backdoor with rootkit features when the document is opened and the previously unknown vulnerability is triggered. From the article: 'The e-mail was written to look like an internal e-mail, including signature. It was addressed by name to the intended victim and not detected by the anti-virus software.'"

Several readers have written in to mention that Apple has released the new Macbook on their site. Yahoo! has details from the press release: "With prices starting at just $1,099, the MacBook lineup includes three models: a 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz MacBook in a newly designed, sleek white enclosure and a 2.0 GHz MacBook in a stunning new black enclosure. The new MacBook offers performance up to five times faster than the iBook and up to four times faster than the 12-inch PowerBook with a completely new system architecture including a 667 MHz front-side bus and 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable to 2GB."

hype7 writes "The New York Times is running an article on why they think Windows is so slow. They boil it down to one key factor - legacy support - and they hold up Apple as an example of a company willing to make hard decisions around legacy support in order to provide a better product. From the article: 'Windows is now so big and onerous because of the size of its code base, the size of its ecosystem and its insistence on compatibility with the legacy hardware and software, that it just slows everything down ... That's why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation.'"