Have you ever noticed how Apple seems just a little hesitant to hire celebrity spokespersons to hawk their products? Oh, sure, in recent times we've had iMac commercials starring Jeff Goldblum, and the "Think Different" campaign recruited a ton of big names (some deceased, some obscure, some both) to promote the Apple brand, but we're talking about more of a traditional and guts-level endorsement. Something like hiring a famous and beloved Macophile like, say, Drew Carey, and having him say how much he loves his Mac in a thirty-second commercial. It's that kind of thing we just don't see too often; no offense meant to Mr. Goldblum-- he's a fine actor and plenty famous-- but we think Apple should at least consider the possibility of hiring an absolutely huge, completely and immediately recognizable international megastar to push their goods.

And wouldn't you know it? We were just about to tell them to go do that when, lo and behold, they went ahead and did it without us. And when Apple decided to hire a megastar, they went after the biggest of the big-- and got her. According to an Apple press release, virtual celebrity Lara Croft has been signed on to push Mac OS 8.5 to the masses. Not that we should have to tell you, but just in case you've been stumbling through life with your eyes shut, your fingers in your ears, and keeping at least 500 feet from all TVs and other informational appliances, Lara Croft is the lithesome heroine of the spectacularly successful Tomb Raider series of games, which we doubt would be nearly so popular if it weren't for Lara's, uh, "special charms." This new promotional offer gives everyone who buys a copy of Mac OS 8.5 between now and April 30th a coupon good for a free copy of either Tomb Raider II or Tomb Raider Gold-- Lara's first two smash successes. (Her latest triumph, Tomb Raider III, is unfortunately not yet available on our favorite platform, though we hope that one day it'll be coming to a Mac near you. Or, more accurately, near us.)

It's great to see such a huge star pushing Apple software, but we can't help feeling just a little let down that Apple isn't having her promote some products that are targeted at a wider cross-section of the consumer spectrum. After all, the retail version of Mac OS 8.5 is only worth buying to existing Mac users, and not to the average man in the street. With such a ton of star power at their disposal, we sort of wish Apple would start up a "Buy an iMac, Get Tomb Raider Free" promotion as well. Still, even the Mac OS 8.5 promotion is a big step in the right direction.

Whatever happened to those good old Apple surprises? Following two less-than-shocking keynotes at the most recent Macworld Expo shows in Tokyo and San Francisco, we figure we Mac fans are about due for an exciting Apple "media event." You know the kind we mean: one like that November 10th hootenanny in 1997, at which Apple unveiled the Power Mac G3 and the new build-to-order Apple Store. Or a day like May 5th, 1998, on which Apple not only introduced the sleek new PowerBook G3 Series, but they also threw the world for a loop by taking the wraps off the funky blue iMac. Heck, even tomorrow's scheduled press conference looks to be a relative snore; after all, Apple's expected to announce the immediate availability of Mac OS X Server, an operating system that by any account is anywhere from a few weeks to several months late anyway. Yeah, unparalleled power, sure, unprecedented ease of administration for a Unix-based OS, yadda yadda yadda. (Now where's that P1?)

And yet, we continue to hold out hope that tomorrow's announcements really will include some nice "surprises." First of all, there's the issue of Mac OS X Server's price. While the whole world was expecting it to cost just a hair under $1000, a CNET article confirms a tip we got from an anonymous faithful viewer from within Apple's walls: now Steve's expected to announce that the spiffy new operating system will actually only cost between about $300 and $600, depending on configuration. That's quite a bargain for such a robust server OS; pricewise, it knocks Windows NT into a cocked hat. It's still not as cheap as Linux, of course, but considering what you get for the money, Apple's rumored new pricing structure seems more than reasonable.

Speaking of Linux, it's not just potential NT users that Apple's targeting; the other interesting bit about tomorrow's do is that Apple is reportedly going after Linux users and developers with a vengeance. Steve is expected to play up the partially "open-source" aspect of their new operating system, possibly even trotting out some big names in the open-source movement to lend the idea credence. Don't expect any Apple operating system to become fully open-source anytime in the foreseeable future, though-- you all know how Apple likes to keep a tight rein on things. About the best we can expect right now is that Apple will work very hard with developers who try to optimize performance on Apple hardware. Okay, so this stuff isn't exactly earth-shattering news from One Infinite Loop, but there's still the chance that Steve has a couple of aces up his sleeve. Stay tuned to learn more...

It's the Microsoft security hole that will never die. Mac users have known for a good long while that something fishy's going on with Microsoft Office 98 and the way it saves its files; it seems that little fragments of unrelated information manage to burrow their way into the documents and lurk there, ready to be discovered by anyone who cares to open the file in a text editor. The upshot of this is that while you're writing that annual report on the steady decline in U.S. beet consumption for your boss, the file you send him might end up containing more than the facts and figures you put there on purpose-- it might also contain a list of "interesting" web sites you've visited lately, your personal credit card number, and snippets of that email message you sent to Anderson in Accounting about what a first-class numbskull your boss happens to be. Whoops.

Now, this issue came up ages ago, but the uproar is starting all over again now that it's been "rediscovered" following the recent flap over Microsoft's tagging of all Office files with an ID number that allows any document to be traced back to a specific computer. In the process of digging around through Office documents in search of the so-called GUID, several people noticed chunks of unrelated data swimming in the middle of their files, and the furor started anew. What we find particularly amusing is MacInTouch's page of sample data inclusion cases, which illustrates the potential privacy and security problem by examining public Word files posted at Microsoft's own web site. The names of people not listed in the documents' content itself are easily seen; perhaps it's a list of everyone who ever worked on the files? There are also lots of interesting full file path names readily available, prompting one reader to call Microsoft's web site "a break-in waiting to happen."

On the plus side, we've got to thank Microsoft for giving us all the basis of a great way to kill time. What could be more fun than delving through Microsoft Word documents to search for extranenous data? We don't use Office ourselves (and, frankly, we've never been more glad of that fact), but these days we find ourselves just a little bummed that we can't have fun typing up innocuous invoices and courtesy letters just to see what kind of nifty unsanctioned data gets captured in the files as we save them. Oh, well-- we can still download other people's public files and dig around for fun.