It's official! Well, no, okay, it's not official; in fact, it's not even "official," since we have neither a public statement from Apple nor a leak from an Apple employee in the know. But multiprocessor G4 Power Macs are coming soon, and we can say that with "a high degree of confidence." A few days ago AppleInsider predicted that dual- and quad-processor systems would premiere at WWDC on May 15th, and as the first honest-to-goodness rumor we'd seen in a long time, we pretty much took it as gospel right then and there. But we realize that not everyone out there in television land is as trusting as we are (skeptics!), so we're happy to report that Go2Mac dug up some actual evidence supporting the multiprocessor rumor. (Thanks to faithful viewer Carlos Santellanes for the find.)

In fact, it's the same old story: when you want to verify that Apple's got new products coming out shortly, ask someone with access to CompUSA's inventory system. Uncle Steve can tighten the screws in Apple headquarters all he wants, but no matter how leakproof Cupertino's Silicon Curtain becomes, CompUSA will continue to be the weak link in the chain of secrecy. Simply put, it leaks like a sieve-- one that's had the wire netting removed for increased throughput. See, any new products that CompUSA's going to sell have to be put into the company's computer system a couple of weeks before the gear actually shows up on store shelves. Why? Hey, do we look like experts on retail business practices? You may as well ask us why TV sets have "off" buttons. We haven't a clue. The important thing is, "sources" at CompUSA claim that a dual-G4 Mac is listed there in CompUSA's system, and that's good enough for us.

Sadly, there's no mention of a quad-processor G4 in Go2Mac's coverage, so AppleInsider may be wrong on that point, or perhaps Steve will introduce both models and say the dual is "available now" and the quad is due in three weeks. And while it's nice that Apple may soon be able to claim (however sketchily) that it's shipping a "1 GHz system" to combat the GHz processors available from Intel and AMD, the real hope this brings to the Mac community is this: If Apple can ship a pro system with two processors, then there's still a chance that someday it may once again ship a keyboard with two "command" keys. Hey, we can dream, can't we?

Correction: faithful viewers Chris Bucksath and Khaled Mohammad both pointed out that Apple's current USB keyboard does in fact have two "command" keys-- though it lacks two "option" and "control" keys. Our bad. Chalk it up to spending so much time on an iBook, whose lack of a second "command" key is possibly the worst thing about it (and that's really saying something). The other thing we really miss on the USB keyboard is the "end" key, though there is a "home," oddly enough.

Reason number 5469 why it's better to use a Mac: you can generally open attachments in messages titled "ILOVEYOU" with impunity. Yes, once again the entire computer-using world is in a tizzy, as the ILOVEYOU virus spreads cyber-disease that's making last year's Melissa look like a mild head cold. According to MacWEEK, ILOVEYOU nuked untold numbers of Windows machines by sending itself to every address in the infected system's Outlook address book-- and then sticking around to trash MP3 music collections, photo archives stored in JPEG format, and generally turning your life into computer hell. (Assuming, of course, you're using Windows, in which case there's a decent chance your life was computing hell already.)

Macs, on the other hand, are wholly unaffected by ILOVEYOU-- or at least mostly wholly unaffected. You can be sent the virus, sure, and you can even open the attachment; but since it's written in VBScript, it won't do a thing to your Mac. Apparently even if you're using Outlook for the Mac, ILOVEYOU won't spread automatically. You could email the infected file to a PC user on your own, but doing that inadvertently would be kind of tough, and doing it on purpose would be irresponsible and mean, not to mention criminal. On a completely unrelated note, does anyone happen to know Michael Dell's email address? No, wait, forget it... Bad dog.

If you're using VirtualPC or some other form of Windows emulation on your Mac, well, then you are vulnerable to ILOVEYOU-- or, at least, your Windows partition is. But the worst-case scenario would appear to be that your whole VirtualPC environment gets trashed, while everything else on your Mac keeps humming along nicely. And since backing up a virtual Windows system is a simple matter of a Finder copy, you shouldn't have any trouble recovering if you're backup-savvy and accidentally contract the virus.

The other way that ILOVEYOU might affect Mac users is by denial of service. Several companies reportedly shut down their entire mail systems in an effort to stem the plague; if your mail server is down, if doesn't matter whether you're using a Mac, a PC, or a Garden Weasel-- you're not getting any email. Some other servers are filtering out all messages with "ILOVEYOU" in the subject line (including, ironically enough, warnings about the ILOVEYOU virus), but that may not be enough; the Associated Press reports that variants of ILOVEYOU are already spreading. (One is particularly clever: it looks like an online order confirmation that the recipient was charged "$326.92 for a Mother's Day 'diamond special,' urging the reader to click on the attachment to print the invoice.") But the bottom line is, Mac users are pretty much spared the pain once again. But we're not looking forward to the day that the Mac OS gains system-level VBScript support-- or malevolent script kiddies start writing Mac-specific ILOVEYOUesque viruses in Applescript.

Lastly, a quickie rant. You've all seen the Gates-in-a-sweater commercial, in which a kinder, gentler Bill croaks on about "innovation" and how Microsoft has made the world a better place by making PCs easy to use, providing people with the tools they need to prosper in the digital age, and eradicating world hunger and all forms of disease. You probably also noticed that the public and the press generally reacted to this thinly-veiled ploy to garner public support in the shadow of a devastating antitrust "guilty" verdict with a collective eye-roll and a mild dose of disbelief.

So no, for the most part it looked like Bill's fireside chat didn't give the company much support. We'd like to think that most people know a scam when they see one, and also that they're typically turned off by shameless behavior. (Okay, so we're eternal optimists. Sue us.) But the really crazy thing is that now there's a sequel. Did you see this new version? Now it's Steve Ballmer (sans sweater) on camera, talking about Microsoft's vast contributions to the advancement of the human race, and he concludes the thirty-second spot with Microsoft's new mantra, "the best is yet to come."

Now, after the AtAT staff responded with hoots of manic laughter and a collective "oh, brother," we tried to imagine the marketing meeting at which this plan was concocted. "Something's wrong," the ad director said. "People aren't responding well to Mr. Gates, even though that sweater had a sincerity index of 93.6." "Our numbers show that people don't trust him," a marketing analyst chimed in, "because he looks like a geek and he sounds like Marvin the Martian channeling the spirit of Kermit the Frog." "Well, then there's only one thing to do-- we'll bring out the big guns. Let's put Ballmer up there in his place," said the director. And that, kiddies, is the story of how Microsoft considered Steve Ballmer-- a big, chunky, balding guy who looks like Drew's brother's less-attractive stunt double-- a step up from Bill Gates in terms of trustworthiness and charisma. Next in the "Best Is Yet To Come" series of commercials: Microsoft's indispensable role in the new economy will be described on camera by Darth Vader as he strangles a puppy.