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Mac OS X Services in Snow Leopard

Mac OS X Services let one application supply its powers to another; for example, a Grab service helps TextEdit paste a screenshot into a document. Most users either don't know that Services exist, because they're in an obscure hierarchical menu (ApplicationName > Services), or they mostly don't use them because there are so many of them.

Snow Leopard makes it easier for the uninitiated to utilize this feature; only services appropriate to the current context appear. And in addition to the hierarchical menu, services are discoverable as custom contextual menu items - Control-click in a TextEdit document to access the Grab service, for instance.

In addition, the revamped Keyboard preference pane lets you manage services for the first time ever. You can enable and disable them, and even change their keyboard shortcuts.

Submitted by
Doug McLean

 

 

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Math Bug Confirmed in Pentium Chips

Math Bug Confirmed in Pentium Chips -- Earlier this month, reports of a floating point division bug in Intel's Pentium chip began to surface on CompuServe and in Usenet newsgroups such as <comp.sys.intel>. Mathematics professor Thomas Nicely of Lynchburg College in Virginia is generally credited with the first public announcement of the bug, which Intel claims to have discovered as early as June.

The bug - involving double-precision floating point divide operations - occurs once in every 9 or 10 billion divides and seems unlikely to affect the average user. However engineers, analysts, and others who bought Pentium systems as a substitute for high-priced workstations have expressed genuine concern.

Intel claims to have corrected the problem in currently shipping Pentium chips, but there are no part-number changes or other markings on the corrected chip. According to the 21-Nov-94 issue of Electronic Engineering Times, Intel indicates they will replace the part if customers are concerned. However, Intel is apparently not planning to upgrade existing Pentiums or inform their customers. In the meantime, programs are circulating which determine if the bug is present on a given machine. [GD]

Intel Technical Support -- 800/628-8686

http://www.wais.com:80/techweb/eet/current/ default.html

 

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