Isn't it amazing just how quickly good news can run out of steam? Barely more than two weeks ago we were flying high on the news that Apple's long-declining and stagnant sales to the education market actually rose by a whopping 16% last quarter-- a victory made even sweeter by the fact that sales from all the other manufacturers had declined "by double digits" during the same period. But it's been a rough couple of weeks for Apple's education progress, and if you follow this sort of stuff, you may have long used up any smiles from the sales increase figures.

For example, remember Henrico County in Virginia? Those were the folks that really put Apple back on the education map in a big way in 2001 when they announced that the county would be leasing some 23,000 iBooks-- the "largest portable computer sale to education ever"-- in order to Macify every single middle and high school student and teacher in the county. Well, since the existing lease expires in part at the end of the upcoming school year, Apple suffered a bit of a setback last week when Henrico turned down its offer "to renew and extend" the lease for four more years. No, really! According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Henrico County School Board decided that the existing three-year-old iBooks will be fine for another year or two.

Now, sure, iBooks are durable and everything, but it's worth noting that the entire program will be "the focus of a series of evaluations this year," and Henrico's unanimous decision not to renew the lease just yet subtly implies to us that Apple won't score quite as highly on its exam as we'd like. Reportedly Henrico passed on the deal because "the cost of opting out after a year... was relatively high," which makes it sound like Henrico's hoping to bail on the project as soon as the original contracts are up.

Oh, so you think we're paranoid, do you? Granted, the Henrico board wanting to keep its options open may simply be good business sense, but we sense a larger conspiracy at work, here. Come on, who passes up the chance to trade in 18,000 three-year-old computers-- ones that have suffered for three full school years at the hands of a horde of middle- and high-school students, no less-- for 23,000 brand new ones ready and waiting for more abuse? We sense an exit strategy, that's all we're saying.

But wait, it gets worse: Henrico County isn't the only high-profile Macs-in-schools site to give us a funny tummy this past week. Remember when Maine bought iBooks for every single middle school student in the entire freakin' state? Well, the Associated Press is reporting that Maine just hasn't been able to scrape together the funds or support required to extend the program to all high school students-- and even Apple's compromise deal (which requires that enough individual high schools sign up to account for at least 8,400 laptops, which is probably something like 25% coverage) still hasn't been met. Maine's commissioner, at least, is keen to keep the program growing, but says that it can't happen unless "more schools sign up" and Apple "lowers the minimum participation level."

So Apple's struggling with both the Henrico and Maine deals and you're probably sporting a frowny-face over what it all means for the company's education prospects. Well, buck up, saggy-mouth; those setbacks are clearly a bummer, but BusinessWeek has a ray or two of sunshine to share, reporting that "the nation's fifth-largest" school district is 70% Mac and 30% Dell-- and "wants to move towards an all-Apple shop." To that end, Broward just bought 4,500 new iBooks, which is a far cry from the 23,000 units Apple tried to push to Henrico or even the 8,400 it can't sell to Maine, but according to Phil Schiller, these smaller deals are where it's at: "A year ago, you would hear about big deals like Maine or Henrico County. Now it's moving out to smaller school districts. It's a lot more deals of smaller sizes."

So maybe that 16% increase in education sales last quarter wasn't just a fluke, and Apple's presence in the schools can strengthen even if the Henrico/Maine deals start to peter out. Our suggestion? Save the wailing and the gnashing of teeth until you see the education sales figures for Q4 when Apple reports its quarterly results in October. If you see a decline, well, that might be the time to panic and froth at the mouth. Besides, there's better weather for it that time of year.

Good ol' Apple, always thinking about our insatiable thirst for drama. Earlier in the week when the state of Steve's pancreas rightfully overshadowed all other concerns, we were so hard up for raw material we were almost forced to try to squeeze a drop or two of thrill juice from-- of all things-- an iPhoto 4.0.2 update. And if an iApp point-release update that "addresses minor issues with Smart Albums and European books" isn't scraping the bottom of the drama barrel, we don't know what is. It's kinda like trying to make an exciting and vibrant breakfast entirely out of a thin gruel.

The thing is, though, Apple has pulled off a minor miracle and turned gruel into Cocoa Krispies after all; the company has ramped up dramatic potential by transforming the iPhoto 4.0.2 update into a matter of controversy and mystery. How, you ask? Why, by trying to make us all think it never existed in the first place, of course. The update, which surfaced sometime on Monday, inexplicably vanished on Wednesday, and not only did Apple not tell us why, but it also removed any and all references to the 4.0.2 version from its web site.

Indeed, the only sure evidence that it ever existed at all is the "About iPhoto" window of any poor shmoe who applied the update before Apple whisked it off into oblivion-- and said poor shmoes are no doubt even now nervously backing away from their Macs, wondering what was so toxic about 4.0.2 that Apple felt the need to erase it from the very face of the earth. Does it delete your photos? Corrupt your hard drive? Make long-distance phone calls during peak rate hours when you're not looking? What?

Well, no one's sure just yet, but so far the only reference we can find to a repeatable and widespread problem with iPhoto 4.0.2 is at MacFixIt, which reports that several (but not all) users are experiencing much longer quit times than they had with 4.0.1. In some cases, people have to wait up to 20 seconds for the application to quit. Oh, the hardships of life that we endure in the 21st century...

The question, though, is this: would Apple really go so far as to eradicate all traces of proof that iPhoto 4.0.2 ever existed just because it takes a relatively long time to quit? It just sounds like a fairly drastic measure to take if the only problem is an extended quit time. We're not ruling out the possibility that Apple discovered another more serious bug which has yet to strike anyone in the wild-- like, after 72 hours running, version 4.0.2 sprays acid in the face of the user or releases a pulse of mutating cosmic rays or something. So unless you want to risk turning orange and blocky or having your face melted off, it might be best to quit iPhoto 4.0.2 until Apple comes up with a update to the update.

For whatever reason, though, the iPhoto 4.0.2 Update is gone-- and Apple appears to be going to extreme measures to hush up the fact that it ever shipped in the first place. But how extreme? All we can say is, if you happen to have a copy of 4.0.2 on your hard drive, don't be surprised if you're visited in the night by a wetworks cleanup team who'll confiscate your Mac and Midnight Express you off to a Turkish prison...

Not feeling marginalized enough lately? That's a serious problem, you know; our very identity as Mac users relies heavily on our us-versus-the-world underdog complex. Sure, Apple's continually dwindling personal computer market share now hovers at just 3.7% in the U.S., which is a great help for fostering that outsider self-image, but even so, spillover from the iPod's top dog sales status (which has made the Apple logo much less of a counterculture icon than it one was) might be eroding your identification as a rebel living on the wild outskirts of tech society. What to do?

Well, never fear; we're here to help. If you want to feel that surge of indomitable rugged individualism again, just check out this IDG News article about Hewlett-Packard's new Linux-powered laptop. Remember how, when Mac OS X shipped, Apple liked to mention that it had suddenly become the world's largest supplier of UNIX? Well, HP's Linux veep Martin Fink is taking a similar stance regarding Linux: "This is the year that Linux overtakes the Mac on the desktop, and maybe my laptop will help accelerate that." Hear that, folks? We're about to be eclipsed by Linux. Nothing against Linux, of course, but purely from a soup-to-nuts user experience perspective, if that doesn't make you feel like a lone individualist standing firm against the pounding tide of mediocrity, we don't know what will.

Except, perhaps, for hearing that Fink apparently wasn't nearly optimistic enough in his estimate about when Linux would overtake the Mac. The same article quotes an analyst from the research firm IDC as saying that "Linux captured the No. 2 spot as desktop operating system in 2003." (We're taking a wild stab in the dark that Windows isn't No. 3.) So for months, now, more people have been buying computers-- personal computers, mind you, not servers-- running Linux than ones running Mac OS X. Just feel that wave of self-righteousness douse you in the conviction that you and you alone must save the masses from their own ignorance. Feels good, doesn't it?

So, Fink doesn't get the satisfaction of watching his product push Linux past the Mac into the mainstream (because it's already there), but at least we Mac users get to revel in the fact that we're now so fringe we could pass for David Crosby's jacket. If this keeps up, pretty soon conservationists are going to be tranq-darting us while we're coming out of Apple retail stores and we'll wake up hours later in the food court sporting a numbered ear tag and a subcutaneous tracking device. Say, does Endangered Species status qualify us for discounts at the Great Steak & Potato Company? Mmmmmmmm... Fresh-cut fries...