As the Apple Turns: Scene 4469: Birthday Products After All (1/27/04)

Birthday Products After All (1/27/04)

Boy, are our faces red! We spent all that time yesterday trying to debunk the reports that Apple had hidden "1.26.04" in its digitally-altered 1984 commercial as a clever hint that the company would unveil something as momentous as the original Macintosh on that date, and what happened? As usual, Apple proved us wrong. Because before the day was out, Mac users were treated to not one, but two product introductions of earth-shattering impact. Nothing so prosaic as new G5s or a 20th Birthday iMac Special Edition for us, no sir. Instead, as faithful viewer hjcho revealed to us, January 26th, 2004, will forevermore be remembered as The Day That Brought Us AirPort Software 3.3 and Security Update 2004-1-26. (Please forgive any typos that may slip through today-- we're understandably still shaking from the adrenaline rush.)

By now you've surely devoured every scrap of available information on these two incredible birthday gifts, but just in case you fainted dead away from sheer joy after the news broke, here's what we know: AirPort Software 3.3 updates AirPort Extreme base stations to firmware version 5.3 (and really, who wouldn't want that?) and also "provides support for the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) specification for the AirPort Extreme base station and AirPort Extreme and AirPort clients." (We're far too giddy with excitement to bother looking up what WPA actually is, but it has the words "Protected Access" in it, so we're sure that it's the greatest invention since ridgy potato chips.) AirPort 3.3 also offers "significant benefits... from the standpoint of wireless printer sharing, easy base station administration, and many options for managing the range of your wireless network." Why, we've died and gone to heaven!

Meanwhile, as the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae, Security Update 2004-01-26 provides "several security enhancements" by updating "Apache 1.3, Classic, Mail, Safari, and Windows File Sharing." And that's not all: if you order now, it even includes all the functionality of Security Update 2003-12-19 at no additional cost! Heaven, shmeaven; we've died and gone straight to Heaven's Chuck E. Cheese-- where all the games are free, the pizza flows like running water, and the guy in the big rat costume doesn't reek of Night Train and the sour musk of despair.

Unbelievably, though, not all Mac fans were swooning over yesterday's security patch and wireless software enhancements, and some have gone so far as to suggest that the new entries popping up in their Software Update panels just aren't a fitting celebration of the Macintosh platform's two decades of innovation and panache. Clearly some people are never satisfied. Why, we bet that even if Apple had released AirPort Software 3.3, Security Update 2004-01-26, and another mind-bendingly incredible update-- for instance, AppleWorks 6.2.8-- these bellyachers would still complain that Apple had given short shrift to the Mac's big 2-0. But hey, we're not going to let them step on our buzz, are we? Because we've got improved wireless printer sharing to play with! Thanks, Apple-- and happy birthday, Macintosh!

SceneLink (4469)

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From the writer/creator of AtAT, a Pandemic Dad Joke taken WAYYYYYY too far

The above scene was taken from the 1/27/04 episode:

January 27, 2004: Apple celebrates the Mac's 20th birthday with a security update and revised AirPort software. Meanwhile, a new Windows worm is clogging email inboxes worldwide, and Virginia Tech confirms that it plans to Xservify its Mac-based supercomputer...

Other scenes from that episode:

4470: Meet The Worm Du Jour (1/27/04) Say, speaking of security updates, did you happen to find anything interesting in your inbox this morning? Like, say, oh, we don't know... eleven kajillion email messages with a subject of "hi" or "Server Report" or something similarly lame, all carrying suspicious-looking attachments?...
4471: Slimming Down For 2004 (1/27/04) Who knew that supercomputers make New Year's Resolutions? Not us, we can tell you that much. We always figured that resolutions were strictly the domain of shiftless layabouts like ourselves, who delight in the sheer absurdity inherent in an empty promise of self-improvement that will almost certainly wind up broken even before Dick Clark's New Year's Eve stops Rockin'...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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