Okay, face it: you're all just a little disappointed in the way Y2K's shaping up to be a big non-event. Sure, as caring, compassionate social creatures we all thrive on the continued comfort and well-being of our fellow humans yadda yadda yadda, but come on-- here we are, scant days away from the calendar rollover, and there's nary a panic attack in sight. Is a little wild-eyed anxiety about the imminent end of the world too much to ask for? The worst we've seen is slightly higher canned goods sales at the local supermarket. There was all that stuff on the news about the likelihood of organized terrorist attacks on New Year's Eve, but even that doesn't seem to have instilled much of a sense of drama into the masses at large. Maybe things will get crazier as Zero Hour approaches, but we're not holding our breath.

And things may be even less anxious for us Mac users, whose beloved computers are less likely to fizzle into silicon dust come midnight Friday. (That doesn't mean you shouldn't be wary of your software's compliance, by the way.) Luckily, we've been granted a bit of holiday drama: the discovery of a new Internet denial-of-service attack and circumstantial evidence of a shady Middle Eastern terrorist conspiracy to render Macs 'netless on New Year's Eve. Ooooooo. Hey, c'mon, we're not kidding, here-- read all about the Mac Flood Attack at John Copeland's page, including tantalizing details about how his Mac was "probed" for vulnerability to the attack by systems operating in "the Arab world." See? Now this is what Y2K's all about, baby.

Anyway, Macs connected to the Internet and running Mac OS 9 are vulnerable, as are all 'net-connected G4s, iBooks, and slot-loading iMacs-- at least, that's what's implied by the info posted with Apple's patch to correct the problem. While we're unable to get to Apple's page to download the fix, Copeland's posted a copy of Apple's info and direct links to the patch itself. All vulnerable users are encouraged to download and install the patch, which consists of a single small extension called "OTTuner 1.0"; be warned, however, that several MacInTouch readers have found that the patch rendered their Macs incapable of building an Internet connection, especially in AirPort situations. So the bad news is that, for some people, Apple's patch to prevent a potential denial of service does little more than instill an immediate denial of service; the good news is that simply removing the OTTuner extension re-enables the Internet connection-- and opens the door for those pesky terrorists to launch a Y2K MacDoS attack again. But hey, no one ever said that drama is easy.

UPDATE:We should have kept reading. As faithful viewer Scott McBride correctly notes, vulnerable Macs used in such a "Mac Attack" are not actually harmed in any way. In fact, it's entirely possible that the owner of a Mac used in such an attack wouldn't even notice what was happening. Basically, a whole slew of affected Macs get coerced into bombarding another target with so much data, that target effectively loses all its bandwidth. So in a "Mac Attack," your Mac might unwittingly become the weapon, not the target. It's quite fascinating, really. Details abound in Prof. Copeland's FAQ.

Outbreak! It's spreading like wildfire, with no slowdown in sight! Wait, hold on, don't call the Centers for Disease Control just yet-- we're not talking about some kind of icky infectious flesh-eating bacterium, or even the Windows virus du jour. We're talking about color. Beige is out, we all knew that; it's so 1997. Bondi Blue enjoyed a brief celebrity in 1998. In the first half of 1999, Blueberry ruled the roost, with four other fruit flavors bringing up its rear. But as soon as the Power Mac G4 touched down a few months ago, Graphite's been all the rage, baby. The coveted metallic grey with the liquid look was first reserved for the elite professional G4, but soon spread to the high end of the iMac DV line, as well, gracing the transparent shell of the Special Edition. The new "Pismo" PowerBook expected to be unveiled at the Expo in a couple of weeks is rumored to have Graphite accents. And now Apple Insider claims that the iBook is the next Apple product to dress in Graphite curves.

Finally, an iBook even for folks as insecure about their masculinity as John Dvorak! If Blueberry and Tangerine are too girly for you, fear not-- Graphite's a nice "manly" color. In fact, it may be macho enough to counter those niggling worries that the iBook looks like a makeup compact or a clutch purse. Are you a "suit" who can't see toting a bright blue or orange laptop into a high-powered meeting? Graphite's staid enough to be welcome in even the stodgiest business setting. Or maybe you've been holding off on getting an iBook because neither Tangerine nor Blueberry works with your decor or your wardrobe. That's the beauty of Graphite; it goes with anything.

It's just a rumor, mind you, and a Graphite iBook may not surface for months. We'd personally be quite surprised to hear any mention of it during the Expo, since the current iBooks are still selling like fezzes at a Shriners' convention. But here's a particularly interesting little side-rumor: the Graphite iBook may wind up having a DVD-ROM drive instead of the current CD-ROM unit. Mmmmm, a portable Graphite DVD player that just happens to be a Mac as well. When (if?) it ships, we may well be looking to trade in our Blueberry model.

While "The Holidays" overall aren't exactly over yet, the gift-giving portion is. The boxes have all been opened, the pretty paper's all been torn to shreds bound for the landfill, and the phrase "it's just what I wanted" has been uttered gazillions of times, with varying degrees of truthfulness. But you can bet that all the lucky folks who found a Mac under the tree were dancing happy little jigs-- and here's hoping that Apple and its resellers had a nice, green Christmas too. If Cyberian Outpost (uh, we mean Outpost.com) is any yardstick, the Mac holiday sales numbers may be very merry indeed.

According to MacCentral, Outpost's revenue tripled this holiday season over last year's sales, and the iBook and iMac were "at the top of Outpost.com's hardware sales listing." Cool! Whether or not Macs topped other resellers' sales charts remains to be seen, but by the sheer number of iMacs we saw being wheeled out of our local Micro Center and CompUSA stores the week before Christmas, we're guessing Santa came through for Apple this year. Hopefully that'll translate into lots of happy new Mac users joining the community.

As for other computers sold this holiday season, well, the recipients of non-Macs may not be quite so joyous. At least, that's what we gather from what The Register says about the best-selling Compaq Presario 5800 series. Compaq frequently tops the sales charts with a market share somewhere in the 30% range, we think, so we bet Santa delivered a lot of these things to good little girls and boys. Or maybe to the not-so-good children, since Compaq is being "bombarded" with "complaints of persistent system freezes" by unhappy users. We warn you-- if you're squeamish about graphic descriptions of nasty Wintel troubleshooting, don't read the article. It abounds with frightening tales; one user was directed to use the Presario "Quick Restore" CD and then reinstall his other software, which all took "5 or 6 hours" each of the "few times" he tried it, to no avail. Eeeeek! Looks like the Presario 5800 might win this year's "Lump of Coal" award...