Man, make the suggestion that next week's iMac probably won't feature an LCD display, and suddenly people treat you like you kick blind puppies for fun and profit. As an extra bonus, you also get to hear every synonym for "liar" found in Roget's Thesaurus-- plus a fine collection of epithets slightly too "alternative" for that staid publication. Look, folks, we understand that you're upset, but don't shoot the messenger; all we're saying is that, based on various arcane and mystical methods of divination at our disposal, the odds of an LCD-based iMac shipping next week are looking pretty slim.

In other words, our own sources independently confirm yesterday's report of new CRT-based iMacs over at MacMinute. (For those of you who said you don't believe MacMinute because you've never heard of the site before, you should know that it's produced by Stan Flack, the man behind MacCentral before it was bought out by Macworld. Stan's not one to mess around with unconfirmed rumors without labelling them clearly as such, and we're not just saying that because we still owe him twenty bucks for that glowing review he gave us.) If you want still more evidence that this upsetting news is true, faithful viewer Five.Pence notes that MacUser has leapt in with its own independent confirmation-- and details about Apple's grand scheme to sell what is essentially the same old same old when the public is clamoring for new blood. Ready for this? Rebates!

Yup, according to MacUser, Apple is hoping to sell a ton of these still-G3, still-CRT iMacs through the magic of mail-in rebates. Purchase a Mac (apparently any Mac, not just an iMac) between July 18th and October 14th, and get $50 to $80 back on certain inkjet printers, and $100 back on select digital cameras, camcorders, PDAs, and MP3 players. Because nothing sells expensive equipment in a depressed consumer economy like the prospect of spending yet more money on still more high-tech toys. We love this plan! We're excited to be a part of it. Let's do it! (At least that "October 14th" end date for these alleged rebates hints at Apple's new ETA for the real new iMacs, right?)

There's still a chance that Steve has somehow bamboozled everyone on the planet with fake stories of minor speed bumps and new colors, all so he can roll out a kickin' new flat-panel iMac G4 with a maximum degree of showmanship and surprise, but at this point, we just don't see it. That said, faithful viewer Kevin Wojniak notes that longtime Mac pundit Matthew Rothenberg does see it-- or, at least, his latest Interactive Week article indicates that he's still expecting a flat-panel display on Apple's new consumer desktop. His basis for that assertion is the alleged fact that Apple is no longer "even purchasing the tubes that shaped the current all-in-one systems." Let's hope he's correct. But then again, even if Apple isn't buying any 15-inch CRTs anymore, that doesn't necessarily mean the company couldn't wedge a different CRT in there-- like perhaps, oh, we don't know... say, a 16.1-incher, maybe? Just a thought.

This probably won't come as any particular surprise to anyone, but you remember that scene a few days ago about how one research firm has determined that Apple has overtaken Dell in educational sales to reclaim the crown? Well, prepare yourself for a shock: Dell is denying the truth of that claim. (Insert wide-eyed "Gasp!" here.) Actually, in a way, it is a bit of a shock; given Mike Dell's psychotic propensity to copy everything Steve does, we expected a full-fledged press release contradicting Quality Education Data's numbers-- kind of like the one Apple issued back in '99 to refute Dell's announcement of stealing the top spot. Perhaps Mike was too busy preparing his keynote speech for next week to deal with such a relatively minor matter.

In any case, faithful viewer Macindave alerted us to the existence of an osOpinion article in which Dell spokesperson Dean Kline claims that "there must be an error in the way QED gathered its data." He arrived at this conclusion after a careful analysis of QED's statistical methods and practices-- in some alternate universe where they wear shoes on their hands and hamburgers eat people. In our universe, Mr. Klein hadn't even heard of QED's report, but claimed it was wrong anyway: "The results of QED's survey are completely counter to what every other major industry analysis firm that tracks the U.S. education market are [sic] saying."

When musing just how that could be, Klein proposed that maybe QED was "talking to teachers instead of superintendents" to get its numbers. Now, isn't that a telling response? Here's a real, flesh-and-blood Dell spokesperson, the Official Voice of the Company, revealing to the public that he thinks that if teachers-- you know, those people that actually need to use the school's computers to educate our children-- were making purchasing decisions instead of the superintendents, schools would be buying lots more Macs than Dells.

Compare that to what one of the teachers states in a Salon article about software piracy, kindly forwarded to us by faithful viewer Helen Balasny: "We use AppleWorks for word processing but I put Office on their computers because they couldn't read the Microsoft Word attachments they kept getting from the district's central office." In other words, the teachers want Apple technology, but are being force-fed Wintel junk by the bureaucrats. Again, that's not much of a surprise-- but we digress. Odds are, Dell won't concede the race until some of those other "major industry analysis firms" release numbers more in line with QED's data. But that's okay; we've got all the time in the world to watch Mikey squirm.

Do you suppose that Microsoft is devious enough to time its moves in the "Redmond Justice" saga so that the AtAT staff is too distracted with other issues to notice? After all, it's the week before Macworld Expo, we're overloaded with mail about G4 spy photos and LCD-less iMacs, we drove three hours out of state to cram the AtATmobile full of hundreds of t-shirts and cart them back to headquarters, we're still engineering a tricky switchover to a new bandwidth provider, and in the midst of all that, Microsoft decides that now is a good time to make noises about settling its antitrust case.

In fact, if weren't for faithful viewer Rod tipping us off to a CNNfn article on Wednesday, we probably would have missed it entirely, what with all the Expo-related hoo-ha flying around. (Plus, now that the Emmy nominations are out and Buffy didn't get a single nod, not even for "The Body," we're officially dead inside.) But if Microsoft was counting on us being too busy to tell you about its "willingness to settle," then Bill and friends figured wrong. We may be two days late, but we're moving fast.

Here's the skinny: Microsoft has announced that it is now willing to "allow PC makers licensing its operating system software the option to remove the 'Start-menu' entries and icon that provide end users with access to its Internet Explorer web browser." And even more startling is the company's newfound willingness to include IE in the "Add/Remove Programs" feature in this fall's Windows XP. Letting end users remove IE? If nothing else, that's a technological miracle, because as we all know from Microsoft's testimony on the stand, IE isn't an application, but an integral and inseparable component of Windows. We wonder if Bill can turn water into wine, too?

While we're not thrilled with the idea of Microsoft finally settling this case instead of going down with guns a-blazin', we'll be interested to hear what the current administration deems to be an acceptable resolution as settlement talks begin anew. In the meantime, since Microsoft is also allowing manufacturers to add icons to the Windows XP desktop, over three years after this saga began, PC manufacturers will finally be able to ship Windows systems sans IE and with another browser installed in its place. "Hey, Netscape, great news! Uh, Netscape? Netscape?..."