Hey, does anyone else miss those crazy days of Apple trade dress lawsuits? Back when the iMac was a "surprise" smash hit, suddenly the Wintel market unleashed a flood of cheap knock-offs intended to capitalize on the success of the designer original. Apple's Big Scary Lawyers battled valiantly, citing the iMac's "distinctive look and feel" and the possibility of customer confusion. Given how obviously the clones ripped off the iMac's design, it didn't take long for various courts to issue preliminary injunctions against the copycats, and most of those manufacturers saw which way the wind was blowing. Eventually Apple secured settlements from all of them-- all of them, that is, but Future Power USA, who swore to defend to the death its inalienable God-given right to make cheap, ugly plagiarisms of other people's computer designs. (Talk about leaving the door wide open for a sequel...)

Well, hang onto your tracing paper, because Future Power is back and badder than ever. That's right; even though Apple's first lawsuit against the original iMac knockoff artist still hasn't been resolved (at least, if it has, no one bothered to tell us), faithful viewer Cru Jones hit us hard with a link to Future Power's latest creation: the AIO. AIO, you may have guessed, stands for "All-In-One," and for a company who is already entangled in litigation due to a product looking too much like an iMac, Future Power doesn't appear to have learned many lessons.

Need we go over the laundry list of similarities? There's the swoopy, curvy all-in-one design. There's the two-tone color scheme-- white and a deeper translucent blue, which, incidentally, looks quite a bit like Indigo to us. And then there's the specs list, which includes such familiar elements as 64 or 128 MB of RAM, a 10 or 20 GB hard drive, a 56k v.90 modem, 10/100 Ethernet, and two USB ports. The fact that Future Power is calling this thing a "unique system" only reveals just how mentally disturbed those guys are. Heck, even the name is the name of one of Apple's own products-- the Power Macintosh G3 All-in-one, released only two months before the iMac's formal introduction. (Although we have to admit-- the Future Power AIO is possibly a bit more engaging than Apple's AIO, which looked sort of a like a Performa 550 that sat in a hot car too long.) Sure, any one of these factors by itself might not be enough to attract the fiery wrath of Apple's divine Lawyers of Death, but taken as a whole, we have to assume that the legal team smells blood in the water.

There is one feature of the AIO that's new, however: the 17-inch display. That's right, kiddies; those of you who have been holding out for a 17-inch iMac just got your wish-- sort of. What's particularly galling about this development is that if Apple ever does plan to get off its duff and ship an iMac with a bigger screen, Future Power's just the sort of company that'll use that fact in court. "Oh, no, Your Honor-- clearly it's Apple who is copying us! Have you seen how they stole our idea to incorporate a 17-inch display? It's shameful, isn't it?" Get ready for the fireworks, people.

At first we were doubtful, but after a few conversations with so-called "normal people," we now accept the fact that there may be a few of you who didn't line up on the sidewalk overnight to snag the first copy of the new Steve Jobs tell-all biography as soon as it hit the shelves. Indeed, you can be excused for having missed the event, since the delay in publication (which some conspiracy theorists, including the author himself, still say was engineered by Steve himself) messed with the release schedule, and consequently, fewer people were aware that the book's debut was finally rescheduled for last Tuesday. But it's out now, complete with a new non-copyright-violating cover photo, and when we last checked, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs by Alan Deutschman was the 36th best-selling book over at Amazon.com-- and ranked 7th among buyers at Apple Computer. Everyone wants a piece of Steve!

Now, if you didn't realize the book had shipped, you're trapped in some bizarre universe that has no brick-and-mortar book stores, and Amazon's next-day delivery just isn't fast enough for you, fear not: as faithful viewer Mr. Nick pointed out to us, Salon has published some excerpts from the book to keep your head from exploding while you anxiously await the arrival of the FedEx guy. Read how Steve's constant phone harassment eventually sent former veep of Developer Relations Heidi Roizen looking for a new job. Marvel at how his frequent uninvited drop-ins at the house of Apple director and Intuit CEO Bill Campbell sent Bill's dog into a tizzy. Witness Steve's sensitive side, as he cries upon first seeing the landmark "Think different" commercial. And thrill to the "reign of terror" that had the denizens of Apple fearing for their jobs, even as Steve outlawed smoking, banned dogs, and replaced the cafeteria staff with the vegan-friendly chef from his favorite restaurant.

All this, of course, is but the merest taste of the juicy material that comprises the three-hundred-odd pages of Deutschman's so-called "hatchet job," but it should be enough to satisfy you while you await the arrival of the real thing. Meanwhile, what diabolical scheme will Steve hatch to exact his revenge? And will the dirt that Deutschman kicked up muddy Steve's chances for the White House on November 7th?

"Redmond Justice" fans, mark your calendars... the Court of Appeals has finally released the schedule for the show's new season. Regular viewers will recall that the Justice Department has been pushing for a quick appeal, hoping to salvage at least some effectiveness from a case that threatens to stretch on so long that any remedies it finally imposes will be irrelevant. In stark contrast, Microsoft has been trying its hardest to stretch the proceedings out until the next ice age-- for precisely the same reason. But it's the U.S. Court of Appeals that has the final say in the matter, and as pointed out by faithful viewer Ken Llewellyn, that historically Microsoft-friendly entity has chosen to split the difference between the two extremes.

According to an article in TechWeb, the following dates are the nights for which you should set your VCRs. First, Microsoft has to file a brief "describing its arguments" by November 27th. The government must do the same by January 12th. Then Microsoft gets to respond to the government's arguments by January 29th, and final briefs from both sides are due on February 9th. These dates are carved in judicial stone; "the court will not entertain motions for extensions of these deadlines." Note that the appellate court also compromised on the two sides' proposed length limits on the briefs-- Microsoft had asked for a whopping 200 pages in which to set forth its arguments, and the court granted it 150.

The real action, of course, isn't all this paperwork being shuffled back and forth (though the briefs are always plenty entertaining in their own right, and they promise to be thick enough to cause serious injury if accidentally dropped on someone), but rather in the courtroom drama itself. Well, start organizing the TV party right now, because "Redmond Justice" heads back to the courtroom at the end of February; "arguments before the seven appellate judges are set for February 26th and 27th." Hopefully we'll get to see some of that old fur a-flyin'. Ah, it'll be just like old times...