New and Noteworthy: Finance your new Mac with the help of other Mac users; MacTech VBA/AppleScript Transition Guide; more

Finance your new Mac with the help of other Mac users Ars Technica reports on an Apple user group at Prosper.com that allows individual funds-lending for Mac purchases. "You and other average people just like yourself can get together and lend money to those in need, just like a bank would, except that you're not a bank. You can lend whatever amount you want with whatever interest rate you request, and people looking for funds can shop for lending offers. The various people looking for credit range from normal people who need funding for legit reasons, and they are considered safe investments. Others are... not so safe. Lending to those people may result in a much higher interest payback rate to you?that is, if they pay it back at all. [...] Prosper has an Apple User Group wherein the entire "goal" of the group is to lend money to those who want to finance Mac purchases. Not exactly the greatest idea in the world (on both sides), in my opinion, but an idea nonetheless. The lending group is actually rated very highly, with a 100 percent "performance vs. expected defaults" score. The interest rates vary a lot based on your personal credit rating, from 7 percent all the way up to 27.5 percent. Oof." More.

MacTech giving away VBA/AppleScript Transition Guide in back of April Issue As previously announced, MacTech will be giving away a guide for transitioning VisualBasic scripts to AppleScript. VisualBasic will no longer be officially supported on Mac OS X versions of Office with the release of Office 2008 later this year. A press statement reads "For months, MacTech has been working with a team of VBA, AppleScript and Office experts from around the industry to create the most comprehensive guide available to aid users in migrating from VBA to AppleScript. Chock full of step-by-step examples, it not only helps people migrating from VBA, but is useful for anyone who would like to AppleScript Microsoft Office." More.

[See MacFixIt's coverage of Office 2008 VisualBasic concerns in the following articles:

• Keeping Visual Basic macros in Office for Mac OS X: Microsoft says macros will survive translation
• Office 2004 with Open XML converters may be the most cross-platform compatible edition -- even after Office 2008 ships

Previously on MacFixIt:

• Apple releases iPod Reset Utility 1.0... again?
• Security Update 2007-003 (#2): Files modified by this update; AirPort connectivity issues
• Mac OS X 10.4.9 (#3): WWAN update included, how to remove; When a startup failure isn't actually a startup failure; more

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