Type of Article: MacMinute Web Site

An eWeek article takes a look at last week’s Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, gauging the opinion of attendees. Developers noted a de-emphasis on Java, while Cocoa (Objective C) received top billing. The article also quotes Mark Adams, president of game porting company Westlake Interactive as stating that he is “very happy with where Mac OS X is right now.”

Troi Dialog Plug-in 2.1 adds FileMaker 5.5 and Mac OS X compatibility to the FileMaker plug-in for creating powerful Dialog functions. The software can show dialogs with variable text and up to four buttons, show temporary flash screens and progress bars, and more. Troi Dialog Plug-in sells for US$29; a demo is available.

Terra Soft has begun shipping Yellow Dog Linux 2.0 for PowerPC, a new version of its Linux package that features a multilingual graphical installer, KDE 2.1 graphical interface, and over 900 applications, including Mac-on-Linux, which allows the Mac OS to run under Linux. The software is available for US$59.95 with installation support, or $29.95 without. Users can also order a hard drive with the software pre-installed for $289.

Adobe has released the final version of Acrobat Reader for Palm OS 3.1 or later. The file, however, is currently available only as a Windows application, requiring Mac users to either use Virtual PC or sync their Palm with a PC to download the software. A Mac specific version, as well as support for languages other than English, are expected in the future.

Apple has made the iBook Audio Update 1.3.6, released last week via Software Update, available as a standalone download. The update improves the audio quality of new (dual USB) iBooks.