If this story in the L.A. Times is to be believed, Apple is going to change the way Mac users buy music.

The new service was developed by Apple Computer Inc., sources said Monday, and offers users of Macintoshes and iPod portable music players many of the same capabilities that already are available from services previously endorsed by the labels. But the Apple offering won over music executives because it makes buying and downloading music as simple and non-technical as buying a book from Amazon.com. "This is exactly what the music industry has been waiting for," said one person familiar with the negotiations between the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker and the labels. "It's hip. It's quick. It's easy. If people on the Internet are actually interested in buying music, not just stealing it, this is the answer." That ease of use has music executives optimistic that the Apple service will be an effective antidote to surging piracy on the Internet, sources said. [...] Although no licensing deals have been announced, sources close to the situation say at least four of the five major record companies have committed their music to the Apple service. It could be launched next month. [...] An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the service Monday, as did representatives from the five major record corporations: Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann's BMG division and EMI Group. The new service is so important to Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs that he personally demonstrated it to top executives at all five companies, sources said. More than a dozen music executives have visited Apple since last summer and came away enthusiastic. The executives also like the massive marketing plan designed by Jobs to educate consumers about the service. [...] As a result, Mac users may find it easier to make unauthorized, free copies of songs through an online file-sharing service like LimeWire than to buy a copy through a label-sanctioned service. Apple hopes to change that situation with its new service, which is expected to be included in an updated edition of the iLife package of digital music, photo and movie software. Sources said Apple will make the songs available for sale through a new version of iTunes, its software for managing music files on Macs. Users will be able to buy and download songs with a single click and transfer them automatically to any iPod they've registered with Apple. Rather than make the songs available in the popular MP3 format, Apple plans to use a higher fidelity technology known as Advanced Audio Codec. That approach allows the songs to be protected by electronic locks that prevent them from being played on more than one computer. Still, sources say, Apple wants to enable buyers to burn songs onto CDs. That feature would effectively remove the locks. That's been a sticking point for executives at Sony, sources said. The other four major record companies, however, appear ready to license their music to the new service. No details were available on the price of the service, although one source said it would be competitive with other services in the market. Pressplay, for example, charges just under $10 a month for unlimited downloads, plus about $1 for each song that can be burned to CD or transferred to a portable device.

Yeah, so I pretty much give you most of the article. Saves you from the pain-in-the-butt registration the L.A.Times thinks it deserves from you. (via MacMinute)

Caffeine Software has suspended operations. Bad news for users of TIFFany, Curator, and PixelNhance. While I personally haven't used any of their products, this is bad news for the Mac world in general, as it means one less Mac developer. (via MacMinute)

The March issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now online. Yours truly has stepped into the Managing Editor's shoes, so if there's something you love, something you hate, or something you just have a comment on, email me. I read with great interest Greg's review of iView MediaPro, Johann's review of the 2d edition of The Mac OS X Missing Manual, and Kirk's review of O'Reilly's UNIX Power Tools, 3d edition. Update, 03-03-03: Thanks to Eric for the kind words, and the reminder that this issue features the return of my birthday-sharing paisan, Tom Iovino. I joined the staff of ATPM in 1998 as a copy editor; Robert Paul Leitao was the Managing Editor then. I've also been the Publicity Manager (currently vacant), the Help Jedi (now simply called "Technical" and performed by Evan), and a Contributing Editor. Eric is one of the few ATPM staffers I've actually met in person (two MWNY Expos in a row; will there be a 3d this year?). I met former Managing Editor Daniel Chvatik at MWNY last year, as well as long-time desktop pictures contributor Jens Grabenstein.

Like Michael, I like Bare Bones' replacement for BBEdit Lite, though I also wish it included support for AppleScript. Like Jan, while I like TextWrangler, it doesn't fit into my work habits, since in addition to normal text editing, I need the HTML tools of BBEdit. Still, if you want a hell of a text editor without the need for AppleScriptability or HTML tools, TextWrangler's the ticket. If you still want BBEdit Lite, which to me should have been the name they used for TextWrangler, and just gone to a pay model instead of freeware, Lee notes that you can still snag it from Bare Bones' FTP servers.

Please don't shell out ten smackers for MacMaid when Erik gives you an AppleScript that'll do the same thing for free.

I share Michael's iChat irritation. One of the things I love about Fire is that I can drag a log file onto BBEdit and have it open up in the text editor. iChat logs have to open in iChat, presumably so you can see the pretty word balloons. The solution, obviously, would be the ability to open my iChat chat log in BBEdit and read it in plain text glory, or open it in iChat and get it with the balloons. From a UI perspective, I prefer iChat over Fire, since most everyone I know uses AIM. Two friends stubbornly cling to MSN (Hi, Wil!). I have accounts with ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger, but with the aforementioned MSN exceptions, everyone I know on the other services also uses AIM, so iChat it is.

Michael notes Bill Bumgarner's example on using Mac OS X 10.2.4's new PDF Workflow feature. I tried out Bill's example, since it plays into my own web reading habits, and it's wicked cool. Bill also says:

"But PDF Workflow is even more flexible than that. It isn't limited to just saving PDF. You can also drop scripts, apps, filters, and other mechanisms into the PDF Services folder. That'd be the Workflow part of the whole thing."

Ok, I've finally used NetNewsWire consistently for a couple of weeks, and now I'm hooked. Like Michael admitted, my vision on NNW's potential was limited. Like Rands, I'm reading more weblogs, collectively, than any other type of site. Combined with Safari, NetNewsWire is a powerful tool for weblog reading, as well as accessing any other site with an RSS feed, such as ATPM. The two form a potent combo for accessing nearly any info on the web you might need.

Microsoft is going to acquire Connectix's Virtual PC software. Don't believe for a minute their claim that they're not buying the software to kill it. Why else would they? And they don't even have to outright kill it. Just buy it, sell it to end users, and don't update it. As the Mac OS moves on, just let it die since it would inevitably become less and less compatible with the latest version of the Mac OS. Whenever a company purchases assets from another company, and publicly announce they plan to not kill off a product they are acquiring, it is a sure sign that they will, in fact, kill it. As Michael said, it's a sad, sad day for Mac users. Update (2:55 pm): Apparently, Microsoft acquired the Virtual PC assets from Connectix so it can strengthen its hold in the enterprise server market. Sure, I can buy that. The Virtual Server product is pretty powerful. Yet let me remind you: we're still waiting for a Macintosh version of HALO. You remember HALO, don't you? The kick-butt 3D successor to the Marathon game saga from Bungie, it was going to be a Mac OS-first release, or at the very least, a Mac version was to be released concurrently with a PC version. Then Microsoft stepped in, bought out Bungie, and instead of getting a $49 Mac game, you now have to spring for a $199 Xbox to play it. Virtual Server may live on in Windows code, but don't bet on having a copy of Virtual PC to run on your Mac a couple of years from now. I really hope I'm wrong, but judging from past Microsoft history, I'm afraid I won't be.

Apparently, everyone's favorite OS X-flavored Gecko-based browser will be renamed to Camino. What's sad is that Pinkerton knows it stinks, but apparently nothing else has "made it through legal." Hyatt doesn't really like it, either. I found this stuff thanks to John Gruber, who does like the name. Like he says, it's got style. I like it. Though unlike the automobile image it conjures in Hyatt's mind, I think of a certain planet in a certain Star Wars movie... Update (9:12pm): The more I think about it, the more I see it, the more I like the name Camino. Definitely better than Chimera.

Ric is reporting that Microtech International has finally gotten off their duffs and have posted for download drivers for the USB CameraMate and Zio! Compact Flash readers for OS X 10.2. I own both of these products, which work great, but unfortunately, require a driver to do so. Thankfully, I also have a PC Card CF adapter that I've been using with my PowerBook G4/500 to get digital photos from my Nikon (it doesn't have USB). Besides, the whole drivers for hardware thing should be left to the Windoze drones. If I were to lose PC Card-ability in the future, say with a 12-inch PowerBook G4, I would have to seriously consider an alternative CF reader, like the Dazzle* 6-in-1 USB reader our artists use. Unlike the Microtech products, it is true plug-and-pray, working flawlessly on every OS X-running Mac (4 different models) I've tried it on.

I just noticed, after adding a new link in the right-side column, that the latest public beta of Safari now supports the title tag. Make sure you have the Status Bar at the bottom of the browser window; View menu, then click on Status Bar to get a check mark beside it. Or you use the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Backslash. Now when you hover on a link that contains a title tag, you'll see the title text in the Status Bar.

Lee is reporting that Jon Gales has found that the Mac OS X 10.2.4 update disables PHP; Jon provides the Terminal-based restart sequence.

If you're a .Mac subscriber, MacMinute is reporting that Apple is offering Aladdin's DropStuff as a free download. As of 9:00 am CST, I'm getting 504 Gateway Timeout errors when trying to connect to .Mac.

Apple has made rev 10.2.4 available via the Software Update panel. "The 10.2.4 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications, services and technologies: Address Book, Classic compatibility, Finder, FireWire, Graphics, OpenGL, and Sherlock. It includes AFP and Windows file service improvements, as well as audio, disc recording, graphics, and printing improvements."

Apple has released a Safari beta update, taking the turbo browser to beta v60 (0.8.2).

I'm always a little leery of third-party applications which modify or "enhance" another application. I like to live on the bleeding edge, but I also like my system stability. So I'm just getting around to trying Gordon Byrnes's freeware Safari Enhancer, and my recommendation, if you're a Safari user, is to download it immediately. What finally prompted me to give it a whirl was its bookmarking importation abilities, especially from Camino Chimera, my previous browser of choice. Others may have reported problems, but Safari Enhancer pulled off the importing of my Camino Chimera bookmarks perfectly, which is something Safari itself never did right with IE. Now I get to spend some time re-organizing my newly imported bookmarks in my new favorite browser. Hats off to Gordon!

Good news for those of us stuck in Exchange server-using corporate environments: Microsoft's Mac BU has officially announced that Entourage will be updated as the official Exchange client for Mac OS X. (via MacMinute.com)

Michael has released SpamSieve 1.3, which is more resilient than ever to spammers' tricks for obfuscating words. In addition, you can now use e-mail addresses in the system Address Book as a whitelist, so that messages sent from those addresses will never be marked as spam. Michael continues to optimize the app, greatly reducing the overall memory usage as well as launch and quit times. A complete list of changes can be found at the above link. SpamSieve requires Mac OS X 10.1 or later, and supports Emailer, Entourage, Eudora 5.2, PowerMail, and my personal favorite, Mailsmith. It's only $20, it's shareware so you can try before you buy, and it nips my spam problem in the bud. Give it a whirl, and support a shareware developer.