| 2008 Predictions: Macworld's annual forecast of the year ahead
So for the past eight Januarys, we've broken out the crystal ball and indulged in a little soothsaying. We gather up the brightest minds of the Mac universe and ask them to dig deep into their reservoir of knowledge and expertise to determine which way the Mac market is headed. Usually, they wind up just making wild guesses. So without further ado, here's this year's edition of our fearless forecasts from four Mac observers hoping to be able to say the sweetest words in the English language by this time next year: I told you so. Dan Frakes, Macworld senior editor A Mac subnotebook: Apple will (finally) reintroduce a smaller, lighter laptop made for road warriors. Like older entries in this market, such as the PowerBook 2400c, the new model will forgo an internal optical drive to achieve a smaller size, but it will also feature new technologies that let it slim down while providing better performance and improved battery life, such as a solid-state hard drive, an LED screen, and a low-power processor.
Ash-West superintendent warns selectmen budget override possible
The override would also restore and fully pay for several sports and activities that were either cut or required a fee, Zapantis said. The curriculum renewal cycle -- which reviews and improves school courses over a period of six years -- would also be included in the original override, Zapantis added. Selectman Chairman John Fairbanks asked if the district's $785,000 excess and deficiency account -- which is made up of excess money not used during the fiscal year -- should pay for such programs instead of an override. "We chose .
Going once, going twice ...
Whether through a foreclosure or a regular sale, more people are turning to auctions to sell their homes, according to a Roanoke County Web design and hosting company specializing in the auction industry. AuctionServices.com was founded in the Roanoke Valley in 1994, and it hosts more than 400 Web sites for auctioneers in the United States and Canada. The company made news this week after its server became flooded with more than 100,000 visitors in a four-hour period on Tuesday, thanks to a high-dollar home listing posted to a blog by celebrity gossip writer Perez Hilton. Hilton linked to a listing for the former mansion of Louis Pearlman, founder and promoter of the Backstreet Boys and other boy bands. In the past year, an increasing number of foreclosed homes and nondistressed properties have been sold through auction sites hosted by AuctionServices.com, said marketing director Tammy Moore.
Spain Polarized Before Sunday Vote
Today, the vanquished Popular Party and its leader, Mariano Rajoy, still believe that they were robbed of the election and that the victor, Socialist Workers' Party leader José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, is an accidental prime minister who lacks legitimacy. Accidental or not, Zapatero embarked on a four-year program to liberalize divorce, marriage and other social laws, an agenda that deeply divided the country and prompted bitter clashes with the Catholic Church, one of Spain's most powerful institutions. On Sunday, Spanish voters return to the polls after an acrimonious parliamentary election campaign dominated by those same social issues, disputes over immigration and the flagging Spanish economy, and complaints about the Catholic Church meddling in politics. Zapatero and Rajoy, who launched bitter personal attacks and accused each other of lying during the campaign, are both seeking a verdict from voters on whether the 2004 election was a mistake.
Microsoft Finally Makes Its Move on Yahoo
If it goes through, we suddenly have a two-horse race on the Net, with Microsoft-Yahoo the one force with a chance to slow down search giant Google. But what a messy combination this will be, for months and even years to come. Maybe Yahoo is just too compelling a property for Microsoft, perennially struggling to stem the Google tide, to pass up. Clearly, Yahoo hasn't managed to get its act together fast enough. But neither has Microsoft—even less so vs. Google than Yahoo. And putting together two huge organizations like this is going to slow both down for a long time, while the Google juggernaut merrily barrels down the road, more focused than its competitor. What's more, big tech mergers often don't work. Even less often do hostile takeovers work. Put them together, and the results won't be pretty.
Category: Enterprise 2.0
Between the Lines Latest Post | Last 10 Posts | Archives Jotspot is back (as Google Sites); It's still a wiki Posted in: General Web Technology Google Enterprise 2.0 Google acquired Jotspot in 2006 and then let it disappear. But the company didn't totally give up on the hosted wiki application and has rebranded it Google Sites. As Dan Farber notes, Google Sites is another cog in that Google Apps suite. Rafe Needleman finds it curious that Google Sites doesn't mention the word wiki anywhere. That observation is keen. Perhaps wiki is too geeky. Perhaps Google thought a name like Google Sites was better than Jotspot. Frankly, none of this rebranding works all that well. It's still not clear what Google Sites is about judging from its name.
Let's Go On With the (TV) Show
He says he will appear on "American Idol" as a guest "mentor" in April. (Fox, the network that airs "American Idol," declined to comment on the appearance, saying that the show's guest-star lineup was not yet confirmed.) Two weeks ago, on the popular British soap opera "Hollyoaks," one of the show's central characters, played by actress Summer Strallen, auditioned for Mr. Webber and won the role of Maria in his hit production of "The Sound of Music." What audiences didn't know was that in real life Mr. Lloyd Webber had secretly cast Ms. Strallen as his next Maria six months earlier, and wanted to use the soap to build momentum around the musical, which re-opens with Ms. Strallen Feb. 26. .
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