New and Noteworthy: PC World's Best of 2004; Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow; iLife not just for the home; Apple wants new Toshiba

PC World's Best of 2004: Panther, iTunes PC World magazine just released its "Best of 2004" list (aka, the "World Class Awards") and two Apple products -- Mac OS X 10.3 and iTunes -- made the cut, Panther for "Operating System" and iTunes for "Newcomer of the Year." More.

Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow In the Seattle Weekly, a former Windows user (and Microsoft employee) recaps his conversion to Mac OS X: "While aware of Microsoft?s shortcomings, I always believed that the Soft did its best to improve products over time, as it did with Windows XP. But recently, I?ve had a crisis of faith. Perhaps I?ve rebooted Windows one too many times." More.

iLife not just for the home An eMediaLive article notes that Apple's iLife isn't necessarily just for consumers: "Anyone who took more than a passing look at iLife '04 couldn't help but notice that the tools in this latest version held plenty of promise for the office as well as the home." More.

Apple wants Toshiba 60GB drive Toshiba recently announced a 60GB version of its 1.8" hard drives, and Apple is first in line: "[Toshiba] has already received an order from Apple...Toshiba is currently shipping 350,000 of the (current) 1.8-inch drives per month to Apple for use in the iPod." More.

Microsoft patents the double-click? According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Microsoft has been granted a U.S. patent that includes "double-clicking" a mouse. The Public Patent Foundation, who last year filed a request to revoke Microsoft's FAT filesystem patent, plans on filing a similar request for this new patent. More.

Previously on MacFixIt:

• Mac OS X 10.3.4 (#6): Safari issues; Mail; fans; more
• Mail does not delete email from Comcast email servers?
• Odds and Ends: AOL SMTP problems; Bluetooth menu issue; Knowledge Base updates
• Utilities Updates: BackJack client; VueScan; Exif Untrasher; iCan; Quit Anything
• New and Noteworthy: .Mac back to .5mil; Passwords Plus; Sony exiting US handheld market

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