Adobe’s Jack Nack posted yesterday that CS4 is now shipping.  Adobe released a beta Photoshop CS4 a few months ago and has been taking orders for the full suite for several weeks, but never announced an official release or ship date.  Waiting to ship until Apple unveiled the new laptops makes sense to me.   Find out more about CS4.

Tom Root lent me an uncopyedited not-for-sale manuscript of Daniel Suarez’s (aka Leinard Zeraus) Daemon.

Techno thrillers are generally disappointing. Anyone who has seen Swordfish or Antitrust will understand. And by the second page of Daemon, I was already cringing on my couch. The writing is oh so painfully self-conscious. He uses brand names to introduce his cast (the reporter with her Louis Vuitton bag, the consultant and his BMW, the mastermind’s Hummer of Doom). He tells you matter-of-factly every character’s motivation and personality, leaving nothing to the imagination. Then there’s the (surprisingly few) clichés, such as the clueless experts. At one point in the story, representatives from the CIA, DARPA, FBI, and NSA are meeting to discuss the cyber crime issue on their hands. The young NSA doctor (one of the lead characters) has to explain to them how a Denial of Service attack works. Aw heck, if they don’t know what a DDOS is, we’re beyond screwed. Has no one in the room been briefed?

Heavy-handed writing aside, the technology is spot-on. Everything from database hacking to MMORPG’s to software development to WAP setup. It’s all airtight.

Halfway into the book the technology he describes turns from “current day” to more “current day if someone would just do it already.” I especially love the HUD glasses with overlay information on real world space. Imagine wearing a pair of glasses that delivers additional information on the physical space you’re moving in. You could be walking past a restaurant and see a call-out above it with its star rating. Or real-time directions superimposed on the streets. All the components already exist, so why isn’t this here yet?!

I’d recommend you wait for the movie instead, but it won’t be made. The technology  isn’t cutting edge enough to outlive the production period. So I’ll just tell you right now how it ends. It doesn’t. I hear he’s planning a sequel.

Apple just launched their new line of MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops.  The rumors were true: new production process & carved aluminum cases, glass track pads, multi-touch, glass displays.  No Blu-Ray, though.  In addition the new Books are thinner, faster, and stocked with new GPUs from NVidia. (Two video cards on the MBPros - really???)  The new aluminum MacBook is boss, I want it NOW.  And the 128GB solid state drive option for new MBPros is incredible.  I’m excited.

The black & white MacBooks are sticking around, entry price dropped to $999 - unclear if you can get the new model starting that low.  Oh, and there’s also a new 24″ cinema display.

Thanks to MacWorld for the live coverage -

The Apple Blog reported this week on a new iPhone app, Bloom, designed by ambient virtuoso Brian Eno.  TAB sums it up well:

Developed by Peter Chilvers, in collaboration with Eno, the app is described as, “Part instrument, part composition and part artwork…” The idea is that anybody can play with Bloom and coax gentle melodies and ambient soundscapes out of their iPhone.[...]“Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen.” Setting aside the marketing spiel, Bloom is utterly unique — a truly enchanting experience…

This YouTube clip shows Bloom in action - enchanting, indeed!  Ambient music isn’t really my thing, but I dig Bloom and could certainly kill a lot of time with it.  What I would really dig is David Byrne - Eno collaborator, intrepid artist, and personal favorite - creating a similar app.  Something where tapping/dragging elements on screen makes percussive sounds that could be layered and patterned. (I can almost see Eno and Byrne making their next album together using only iPhones.)

Engadget has a post about rumors having been confirmed of Microsoft once again extending the ability to legitimately downgrade Vista to XP. Which is what we’ve been doing. And is a good thing. ‘Cause we can’t find a good reason to move to Vista.

ARS Technica posted today that they recieved an invitation from Apple to attend a special event on Tuesday, October 14.  Included with the invite was this teaser.

The rumor mill has been in high gear lately, lots of speculation about new features and production process, and people are STILL holding out hope for a tablet Mac.  I think we’ll also hear more about 10.6, Snow Leopard, and updates to core applications like iCal, Mail, and Address Book.  Get excited!

Newegg.com, our favorite vendor for OEM harddrives, has finally started to sell the new 500 GB laptop drives. A couple of days ago they posted the new SAMSUNG Spinpoint M6 HM500LI 500GB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s and today appeared the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s both for $149.99.

I have not run a screensaver in years. Usually I just set my LCD to go off after 30 minutes of inactivity. But that’s changed. I’m hooked on a really cool screensaver that makes beautiful ever-changing images

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver created by Scott Draves. It’s run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers “sleep”, the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as “sheep”. The result is a collective “android dream”, an homage to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

The software is available for download for PC or Mac or Linux.

My guilt has caught up with me and a long overdue follow-up post about our latest trip to New York is finally here.

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I sat down with a cup of coffee and Google Reader this morning (as I do), and found every geek, gadget, and design blog I subsribe to with a post about Apple’s “big announcement” coming next Tuesday.  News to me; I had no idea there was something planned for the 14th.  The bloggers are convinced that the annoucement will reveal major changes to the MacBook/MacBook Pro line of laptops.  Apple, of course, is saying nothing now, not even that there is an announcement planned.  I don’t know how these things start, but they’re usually only half true.  I’m sure there will be an announcement on Tuesday, but I doubt it will be as awesome as glass track pads or cases carved from solid aluminium.  I wouldn’t mind being wrong, though.