Today's News On One Page
November 5th, 1999
| [4:30 PM] More Minsweeper Madness In The Form Of A Public Beta by Staff In what is turning into a bonanza week for Minesweeper fans, another Minesweeper game has hit the market. Carrot Software has released a public beta of their version called Mega Minesweeper. Mega Minesweeper is a feature packed collection of Minesweeper games, and the company even provides a list of reasons for you to try it. ;-) According to Carrot Software:
You can find more information and download links for the public beta at the company's web site. |
The rally continued today on Wall Street boosted by the tame employment report this morning. Although unemployment dipped to 4.1%, its lowest since 1971, wages only climbed 0.1% indicating no inflation on the horizon. The financial stocks lead the Dow higher to close up 64.84 at 10704.48. Volume was high at 977 million shares. The Dow was up more than 200 points at the beginning of the session, but as the pattern has been all week, settled back down for more modest gains later in the day. The Nasdaq continued its winning streak, up 46.34, (1.52%) to close at 3102.29 for the sixth consecutive record high.Volume was very heavy at 1.295 billion shares trading hands. The S&P 500 advanced 7.59 points, (0.56%) to close at 1370.23. The 30-year U.S.Treasury bond was up 24/32 to close at 101 1/32, while the yield fell to 6.04% from 6.09% on Thursday. AAPL opened this week at $80 and closed this afternoon at $88 5/16, advancing 4 11/16 for the day or 5.61% on less than average volume. Of course, today was yet another all time high. Wall Street is waking up to the fact that Apple is going to do very well this Christmas and all of next year. Apple appears to be entering a new higher trading range. Apple's average volume is skewed higher than it should by the week of high churn volume AAPL experienced back in late September. In Apple related stocks, Akamai (AKAM) on its sixth day of trading has stabilized at $174 1/4. Arm Holdings (ARMHY) traded down 5 1/4 to $95 1/4. Oracle advanced another 1/2 to close at $58 11/16. Macromedia continued to sag while Adobe showed strength, up 1 13/16 to $70 11/16. Symantec and Pixar had a down day. Apple's Power PC partners were mixed, IBM extended its downtrend today, but Motorola leaped 7 3/4 to end at 114 1/4. In a conference call with analysts, Motorola said that its semiconductor business is set to grow strongly next year and that they have solved the G4 chip shortage that disrupted Apple in September. Yesterday, PaineWebber Inc. hiked its price target for Motorola to $146 from $125 based on its earnings per share estimate for year 2001 of $4.18. PaineWebber suggested that, "Motorola is the least expensive way, in our opinion, to play the high growth wireless industry." Gateway, Compaq, Hewlett Packard and Intel all closed higher, Microsoft continued to weaken as MSFT investors brace for a DOJ decision in Microsoft's antitrust case which could come as early as later this evening. Warburg Dillon Read on Friday raised its price target on Gateway to $80 a share from $60. Analyst Charlie Wolf speculated that, "Gateway's alliance with America Online has the potential to significantly enhance Gateway's revenues and earnings." For full quotes on all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! for your reference. We also have many of these same quotes reported live (20 minute delay) on our home page. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report.
[4:10 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Markets End Week in Rally Mode, Apple Roars to $ 88 5/16!
by Wes George
| [3:30 PM] Firestorm At Fantom Yields New Storage Devices by Staff Fantom Drives has announced a new Firewire based product line of storage devices called Firestorm. The Firestorm line brings the heart stopping speed of Firewire to mass storage devices for Firewire equipped Macintosh computers. According to Fantom Drives:
The Firestorm CDRW is scheduled to ship next week, and will be available for US$449. The Firestorm hard drives will be available in 15, 25, and 34 Gig capacity. Pricing was not available at this time. You can find more information at the Fantom Drives web site. |
| [Column] The Back Page - iMac - The Next Generation, A Merchandizing Opportunity? |
| [1:30 AM] Two Upgrade Companies Are Shipping 400 MHz G4 Units by Staff Powerlogix and XLR8 have both announced they are now shipping 400 MHz G4 upgrade cards. In addition, Powerlogix announced a record month in October. According to Powerlogix:
XLR8 also announced shipments of a 400 MHz G4 card. According to XLR8:
You can find more information on XLR8's and Powerlogix's products at their respective web sites. |
| [12:45 PM] New Mac Retailer Hits The Internet by Staff A new Mac retailer has hit the Internet, though the company behind the web site has been selling Mac stuff for 10 years. The company, called The MacSmith, is offering lots of Mac games and other Mac supplies. According to The MacSmith.
So run over to The MacSmith and check out their selection! The Mac Observer Spin: The company offers lots of games and their prices are competitive. It's great to see another online Mac retailer hit the market, especially one that offers Mac games. Besides, anyone offering deals on something that is Myth related is ok in our book! :-) |
| [11:30 AM] MAC-O-RAMA Celebrates Season Premier Of X-Files With Contest by Staff MAC-O-RAMA is celebrating the season premier of The X-Files by having a contest. The company has put together clues on their web site for you to use to solve the "sick tale of conspiracy." According to MAC-O-RAMA:
So head over to MAC-O-RAMA and good luck with the contest! |
The WWII flight combat simulator WarBirds has been updated to version 2.7.4, the network monitoring software WhatRoute has been moved along to version 1.6b4, uCalendar gets a maintenance release to version 2.0.3. These are the most recent updates listed at The Mac Observer's VersionMaster. You can find all the most recent Mac software updates with this service.
[11:15 AM] VersionMaster Latest Updates: WarBirds, WhatRoute, And uCalendar
by Staff
| [Review] Internet Gateway Allows Easy Routing And Network Management by Dave Hamilton |
| [8:00 AM] More On The iMac Alarm Clock (With Pics) by Staff We have more information and pics of the Timex Alarm clock. While we have still not heard directly back from Apple or Timex, an Observer named Cannibal forwarded us a note he says came from Apple's Trademark department. Also, credit where credit is due, we were told that Nobeige, the excellent site from Jason O'Grady, has mentioned this item in the past.
Unfortunately, we still don't know if this design was licensed by Timex or not. However, we have some fabulous pics from Tadd Torborg. Each thumbnail leads to a larger version of the image.
Great pics! The Mac Observer Spin: These are going to be hot items for Macheads this Christmas (or other holiday buying period). Our advice is to get 'em quick while you can until we find out whether they are officially licensed products. They are certainly way too cute. :-) |
| [8:00 AM] VST Updates FireWire Software by Staff VST Technologies has upgraded their Firewire software, VST Format, to version 2.0. The VST Format software allows VST Firewire devices to be used on Macintosh computers, and controls the set-up and functionality of these devices. According to VST:
VST Format 2.0 is available as an updater from the VST web site. VST will also be shipping the new version with all of their Firewire devices effective immediatly. You can find more information at the VST web site. |
| [8:00 AM] Snak Update Helps With Large Channels by Staff Ken Sorensen has updated the Mac IRC client, Snak, to version 3.1. The latest version includes several new features, along with a number of bug fixes. According to Mr. Sorensen:
Snak is available as shareware for US$20. You can find more information at the Snak web site. |
| [8:00 AM] Select A Better Finder With A Better Finder Select 2.0 by Staff Frank Reiff has released version 2.0 of A Better Finder Select. A Better Finder Select allows enhanced search and selection features from the Mac OS's contextual menus. According to Frank Reiff:
A Better Finder Select is available for US$10 for a single user lisence, and US$25 for a site lisence. You can find more information at the Frank Reiff web site. |