You know, we really do hate to keep bringing it up, but can somebody please do something about this voodoo curse that afflicts whichever company is trying to make chips for Apple's highest-performance Macs? Just yesterday we mentioned how some analysts think that IBM (who, as you know, was supposed to be Apple's savior from the slow death of Motorola's stagnant processor development and glacial rate of production) won't be ending the G5 chip drought for months yet-- which would be bad enough without the universe at large reminding us that Motorola is off the hook. Yes, even as IBM contends with the same sort of mysteriously low processor yields that once plagued Motorola during the Power Mac G4 days, we get word that Motorola's Freescale spinoff, no longer plagued by the curse's blight, is happily cranking out snazzy new designs.

You can't still be skeptical about this phenomenon, can you? Just think back to the surge of optimism you felt when the G5 was first announced-- and then remember how the first aluminum Power Macs shipped late, the Xserve G5s also shipped late, and the revised Power Macs surfaced months later than expected-- and even now that they're "here," 2.5 GHz G5 processors are as rare as a hamster with good flossing habits, while the 3.0 GHz processors promised last year aren't even on the radar yet.

And don't even get us started on portability; remember back when some of us actually thought that the 90-nanometer G5s were going to be small and energy-efficient enough to wedge into a PowerBook? Well, given that a pair of 2.5 GHz 90-nanometer G5s in a full-blown Power Mac requires a liquid cooling assembly the size of the engine block from a 1979 Buick LeSabre, we're becoming increasingly doubtful that a PowerBook G5 will see the light of day before next summer at the earliest.

Meanwhile, faithful viewer Porsupah tipped us off to an article at The Register which describes how a curseless Freescale plans to unveil its new chip design in October-- a dual-core PowerPC which "may also mark the next major leap in Mac notebook G4 processors before Apple gets G5 chips from IBM that are capable of integration into a top-spec portable computer." And since the voodoo-struck IBM probably won't be able to ship a portable-friendly G5 much before Twiki starts annoying the living bejeezus out of a poor, time-displaced Buck Rogers, we, for one, are getting pretty excited about the prospect of what would effectively be a dual-processor PowerBook G4 running at speeds "beyond 2 GHz." So at least we've got that going for us.

We can't just sweep this curse thing under the rug, people; why, now that it's no longer the victim of whatever cosmic whammy that's since moved on to smacking around Big Blue, in addition to this dual-core doohickey, Freescale is reportedly also refining "a faster successor to its top-end G4" and even working on "a G5-style e700 processor that combines 32-bit and 64-bit operation." Meanwhile, IBM is still trying to figure out where the poltergeist hid the keys to the silicon storeroom. Maybe an exorcism is in order?

Ah, debt: the real national pastime. Check those credit card balances, people, because federal guidelines state that if you're not carrying at least six figures' worth, you just may be some sort of communist. Well, okay, technically, it doesn't have to be credit card debt; debt comes in all the colors of the rainbow, and they're all beautiful and patriotic in their own way. Whether you slapped that brand new PowerBook on some existing plastic or took out an Apple Instant Loan for it, the important thing is that you're consuming beyond your means, and for that we salute you.

But what's this? According to Think Secret, the Apple Instant Loan program is no more, having been spirited away to the Great Dead Debt-Plan Thingy in the Sky. So now how are people going to spend much more money on Apple equipment than they actually have? Sure, there are always credit cards, but every good consumer has already long maxed all of those out, feeding the economy by only making the minimum payments each month. So what can people do if they need an extra ten grand of breathing room to squeeze in that dual-2.5 GHz Power Mac and matching pair of 30-inch Cinema Displays they so desperately need to complement the decor in the rumpus room?

Well, if they're buying from a third-party reseller, their only option right now is apparently to take out a personal loan from that guy in the nice Italian suit standing over there with the two big guys with baseball bats, because as of yet, Apple has apparently neglected to offer a replacement for the Instant Loan program to resellers. (Listen! Hear that scratching sound? That's the pens of the plaintiffs in the reseller lawsuits taking notes.) However, for anyone buying from the Apple Store online or at an Apple retail store, there's the new Apple Credit Account-- and boy, you're all gonna love this: it's yet another credit card!

Yes, folks, the Apple Credit Account works pretty much the same as the old Instant Loan program: you can still apply online and be spending money you don't actually have in less than a minute, and the interest rates are comparable to whatever borderline usury you're paying to the fatcat bank who gave you your credit cards. The big difference (other than not being available from third-party resellers yet) is what Apple describes as "flexible spending": "The Apple Credit Account provides you with a MasterCard credit card... you can also use it for purchases wherever MasterCard is accepted." So you can get approved at the mall, buy iPods for all your pets, and then use whatever's left over on your card to buy lunch at the Olive Garden down the hall. How cool is that?

We have to say, it's nice to see the return of the Apple credit card. About a decade ago, Citibank offered one that any true Mac fan snapped up at light speed-- mostly because it was a credit card with the freakin' Apple logo on it, but also because every purchase earned points redeemable for up to $1500 off on new Apple merchandise. (Yes, we had one; yes, we managed to max out the awards points and get $1500 worth of free Apple gear. As if you really had to ask.) Unfortunately, that program was cancelled ages ago, and as far as we've heard, the new Apple Credit Account card doesn't offer the same rewards. At the very least we're hoping it has an Apple logo on it, but we have no info on that topic to report at this time.

Still, it's an Apple credit card, of sorts, and it's still another way to buy a new Mac without cash up front. Of course, we're still waiting for a truly innovative payment plan-- something along the lines of the one Apple teased us with in commercials way back in 1998. In other words, when oh when will we finally be able to buy a new iMac by mailing in three pizzas every month?

So when was the last time your Mac actually contracted a virus? If you've only been a member of Macville for a few years, the odds are pretty good you just said "never"; if you've been around long enough to have used, say, System 7 extensively, maybe you caught one or two over the years. We're not counting Microsoft Office macro viruses, of course, which technically aren't Mac viruses, since they infect Microsoft's cross-platform macro engine and anyone who's used Mac Office in a Windows-type environment probably got hammered with six or eight of those infections a day. But those aside, actual Mac virus infections are almost ridiculously rare, and that's something to keep in mind for the next time people are making you say what you're thankful for before they'll let you at the turkey and stuffing.

After all, consider how bad things are for the "standard platform"; if you pulled a brand new Windows XP system out of its boxes, set it up, and plugged it into the Internet, how long do you think it'd survive before it got infected with something or other? Well, faithful viewer Ulmanor forwarded us a CNET article in which researchers at the Internet Storm Center claim that "an unpatched Windows PC connected to the Internet will last for only about 20 minutes before it's compromised by malware." And while that will only surprise you if you've had your head stuck in a bucket of concrete for the past couple of years, you still might find the sheer absurdity a little tough to come to terms with. After all, this is a pristine Wintel PC, fresh out of the box, connected to the Internet and then left to do nothing-- no surfing to dubious porn sites, no running illicit peer-to-peer software, no other just-asking-for-it sort of behavior. Nothing. Could it really be compromised in twenty minutes, just by sitting there?

According to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the answer is a big fat "Yuh-huh." Perhaps skeptical of the twenty-minute infection claim, the school decided to try the experiment for itself; it put two unpatched Windows systems on the 'net, and voilà-- "both were compromised within 20 minutes." So apparently this is a real metric and not just some sensationalistic scare tactic. (Not that there's anything wrong with that; some of our best friends are sensationalistic scare tactics.)

Note that just last year, the average infection time for a 'Net-enabled, unpatched Wintel system was apparently forty minutes, which doesn't bode well for 2005; if we're looking at a linear progression, here, next year an unpatched Wintel will become infected as soon as that network cable is plugged in and the link light goes green. By 2006, Wintels will contract viruses twenty minutes before they're connected. And by the end of the decade, the very act of purchasing a Wintel PC will result in the buyer himself coming down with cholera, syphilis, and the plague before he can get the thing into the trunk of his car. Yeah, yeah, "Service Pack 2," "Longhorn"-- whatever. Mark our words, people will be dissolving into goo in the aisles of Best Buy before the decade's out...