New & Noteworthy: New iBooks tomorrow?; WWDC news; Sound tutorial; more

May day Apple surprise due tomorrow? Speculation is rampant about what Apple will announce tomorrow at its press event. This ZDNet article lists items that have been in twirling around the rumor mill for months: Apple retail stores, new iBooks, and maybe some new dual processor version G4 desktops. One more day and we will all know.

Mac OS X Migration Program at WWDC 2001 Apple has invited seven of the best engineering firms to WWDC 2001 to answer questions about creating or porting products for Mac OS X. The firms are Prosoft Engineering, Robosoft, Art & Logic, The Omni Group, ShadeTree, Recosoft, and Atimi Software.

R 1.2.3 is a port of the GNU statistics software. This release is Carbonized and can run under Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X.

Sound tutorial MacInstruct has posted a new tutorial on adding sounds to the Startup and Shutdown items folders. It also covers how to convert .wav files to something useful on a Macintosh.

New FireWire drive enclosure FireWire Depot now has faster drive enclosures based on the Oxford 911 chip available. The CG911 3.5" enclosure is faster than existing models, with gains depending upon the speed of the hard drive used.