Nosce te ipsum

By way of Bryan Chaffin at the Mac Observer

Windows users who are tired of the endless hassles of security problems should dump Windows, and move to the Mac platform. These words of wisdom were brought to us by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal in an article titled "Digital Crime Wave" that rounds up all of his most-recommended guards against Windows viruses, spyware, and other maladies suffered in the Windows world. After 18 paragraphs of recommending browsers, firewalls, anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities for Windows users, his bottom line advice is to get a Mac.

"And if you're totally fed up with the security crisis but want to continue using your computer for common tasks," wrote Mr. Mossberg, "consider dumping Windows altogether and switching to Apple's Macintosh, which uses its own operating system, called OS X. There has never been a successful virus reported on OS X, and there is little or no spyware for the Mac."

He also adds a pitch about the joys of using Mac OS X, as well as the iLife apps that ship with Macs: "In my view, Macs have better hardware, a better operating system and better bundled software than Windows PCs. They are as good as, and often better than, Windows PCs at e-mail and Web surfing; at word processing and other productivity tasks; and at handling digital photos, videos and music. And most popular Windows file types open right up in Mac programs, without the need for any conversion or translation."

Mr. Mossberg writes about technology issues for the Journal, and regularly offers positive comments about the Mac platform. His pulpit at one of the largest mainstream newspapers in the U.S. makes him both well-respected and influential.

You can read the full report at Mr. Mossberg's Personal Technology Web site at the Wall Street Journal. Current columns are free to view, while archived columns require a subscription to the Journal. "Digital Crime Wave" is being offered as the April edition of The Mossberg Report.

Today at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas, Apple announced Final Cut Studio, a new HD video production suite that includes Final Cut Pro 5, Soundtrack Pro, Motion 2, and DVD Studio Pro 4. Final Cut Pro 5, a major upgrade to the company's powerful video editing software for DV, SD, HD and film, gains several new features including native HDV (long GOP MPEG-2) support. Soundtrack Pro is a new audio editing and sound design application that offers numerous features to "make video projects sound as good as they look." Apple said Motion 2 is the world's first real-time motion graphics application with GPU accelerated 32-bit float rendering. DVD Studio Pro 4, a new version of Apple's professional DVD authoring program, enables users to burn HD projects to high definition DVDs based on the latest HD DVD specification.

Between Tiger and this release, there's lots to be learned in the coming few weeks!

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange. Based on Adobe’s and Macromedia’s closing prices on Friday April 15, 2005, this represents a price of $41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock.