Have you noticed a distinctly... military feel coming from Apple in the last couple of weeks? First there's the nifty new commercial for the Power Macintosh G4, in which tanks surround one of Apple's speed-demons to protect it from the potential onslaught of vicious foreign invaders eager to get their hands on gigaflop performance. Then there's the news, first forwarded to us by a certain slumbering reptile who shall otherwise remain unidentified, that the U.S. Army is fed up with hackers compromising their security and hacking their web site-- so they're switching to a "more secure platform." Guess what that platform is (and no smart-aleck remarks from you old-timers about Omega's COS).

That's right, the Army's web site is now served by honest-to-goodness Macs. If you want to see for yourself, head over to Brad's Web Detective and enter http://www.army.mil/ as the URL. Sure enough, the Army's running WebSTAR, a Mac-only product-- and, incidentally, the AtAT staff's server software of choice. (That's about the only thing we have in common with the Army, probably.) As it turns out, the Mac OS is a very secure platform for web serving, since the Mac OS currently lacks any sort of native remote login capability. You can read more about the Army's recent hacker troubles and their "Think Different" solution in an ArmyLINK News article. We have to say, the whole idea of the Army "thinking different" tickles our collective irony bone.

Now if only some other branches of the military would follow suit, maybe they'd all be a little less grim. Remember a while back when the Navy had that little problem with Windows NT? A divide-by-zero error left a Navy "Smart Ship" dead in the water for a few hours, and it had to be towed back to shore. Perhaps seeing the Army migrate its web servers from Windows to the Mac OS will prompt further changes. If so, then everything will proceed according to plan. What plan, you ask? Surely you're not naïve enough to think Steve Jobs is innocent in all of this, right? We figure the hackers that messed with the Army web site are on his private payroll-- what better way to nudge the Army in the Mac's direction than to stage a web site break-in? Once he manages to infiltrate the U.S. military system with enough Macs, that's when the world domination plans get put into action. G4s at the ready, men!

Still fuming over the Blue Blocker scandal? That's this rumor that Apple deliberately rendered blue and white G3 systems incapable of booting when a G4 upgrade is installed; allegedly they built the disabling code into the last firmware update for those machines, supposedly to force people who need G4 performance to buy whole new systems from Apple instead of just buying CPU upgrades from some other company. Blue G3s without the firmware update reportedly work just fine with G4s installed, but systems with the latest firmware choke hard. This, understandably, has lots of people upset-- and Apple's continued reluctance to deny the rumors has only fanned the flames. We've actually been getting mail from people who threaten never to buy another Mac again because of Apple's insidious upgrade-killing behavior.

Whoa, there, Tex-- holster that six-iron for a sec and put away the tar and feathers. In addition to Apple's standard policy of never officially commenting on rumors, they've got another problem with this whole Blue Blocker thing as well: if they so much as utter the word "upgrade" in an official capacity, they court Death by Ten Thousand Lawyers. Perhaps you recall the Performa upgrade nightmare from a few years back? Apple marketed several 68040-based computers as "upgradeable to PowerPC," but neither Apple nor third-party companies ever made those promised upgrades available. Apple lost a class action lawsuit, had to pay through the nose, and now realizes that the word "upgradeable" is anathema. So they can't deny the Blue Blocker rumors without putting themselves on shaky legal ground. At least, officially...

That's why MacNN has posted a letter from an anonymous Apple employee which explains the whole situation. Sort of. According to this (admittedly confusing) letter, the G4 block in the latest firmware is not intentional, and has something to do with being a short-term installer hack for determining whether or not G4-specific libraries should be installed. In addition, there are worrisome claims that earlier G3s were having their power supplies fried when a G4 over 400 MHz was installed, and that somehow factors into the equation. But if, after reading, you have doubts about the legitimacy of the letter, you're not alone: a MacNN reader points out that, according to Apple's posted specs, the power supplies in the G3 and the G4 appear to be identical. That's a little fishy. At this point, though, the issue really is entirely one of intent, since most everyone agrees that a new firmware update and/or Mac OS 9 will re-enable G4 upgrades in all blue and white systems. Of course, that's only a rumor, too...

Are you anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the new iMac at this week's Apple Expo Paris? Don't get your hopes up too high, because somehow we doubt it's going to happen. Nothing against the French, but given the iMac's status as The Little Computer That Could, we expect a new iMac model to be a huge landmark in Apple's ongoing history. Remember, this is the computer that pretty much brought Apple back from the dead. The computer that sold a couple million units despite its lack of a floppy drive. The computer that inspired scads of colorful translucent peripherals and more than one cheesy Wintel rip-off. The iMac, in short, changed the world, and we doubt Apple would take the wraps off of iMac 2.0 at an overseas event. Nope, instead we figure it'll happen here in the U.S., probably with a ton of press in attendance, at one of those "special Apple events" we've come to love over the years. There is the stock price to think of, after all...

So in the meantime, you can satisfy your thirst for Kihei knowledge by reading the latest scuttlebutt over at Apple Insider. The various fuzzy rumors that have been flying around for so long are finally starting to coalesce into a clearer picture-- and we like this picture so far. Reportedly the iMac will continue its newbie-friendly single-configuration paradigm for which the only thing the buyer needs to decide is what color will go best with the drapes. Outside, the Kihei probably won't look all that different from today's iMac; same basic size, same basic look, with perhaps some new colors and textures. The real differences, though, are in the feature set, and they sound pretty impressive.

In addition to the same old rumors that are now almost accepted as fact-- on-board FireWire, 350-400 MHz G3 processors, easily-upgradeable RAM-- there are reports of some cool touches that improve on the current iMac's weaknesses. Like that CD-ROM drive; it's a pain, right? You have to push the button to pop it open, then you have to pull the tray out, snap the CD onto the holder, and push it closed. Kihei's CD-ROM drive (or, more likely, DVD-ROM drive) is reportedly much nicer; it's just a slot that you push the discs into, just like a car's CD player. Apple Insider makes no mention of Airport, but we just have to assume that Kihei will support it; that way, families with a Kihei and an "iMac To Go" iBook will be able to network them wirelessly for maximum convenience. Hey, it's all just speculation, anyway-- we'll know the real story in a month or so, probably.