We all know iCloud is coming at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — Apple itself pre-announced it.

And we already know that iCloud will:

• Stream songs from the cloud to Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPads, and maybe at some point cars.
• Apple and the labels will charge a monthly subscription fee.
• Songs will be matched with songs on user’s hard drives or iTunes libraries. If the sound quality of a song is poor, Apple will upgrade it with a higher-quality version.

One big question, however, is whether users will be forced to upload their music libraries to Apple’s servers.

Not according to The Wall Street Journal. Apple has reportedly struck deals with the major record labels to “scan and match” songs on users’ hard drives.

iTunes will scan users’ music libraries and make copies of the songs it finds available through the user’s Music Locker.

This is a lot easier than uploading a massive music library to the cloud, as both Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music require users to do.

It’s not clear, however, whether scan and match will be limited to songs purchased through iTunes, or will apply to music ripped from CDs, purchased from other sources, or pirated off the Net.

It’s also not clear whether the system will use tags and other metadata, or some kind of  acoustic fingerprinting like Gracenote. It may be based in part on technology acquired when Apple bought Lala, a start-up company that allowed users to play music they already owned on the Web. However, LaLa’s “Music Mover” required users to upload their tunes to the cloud before they could be streamed. Apple closed LaLa in 2009 after the purchase.

Either way, Apple has signed up three of the four major record labels, according to the Journal, and is expected to finalize an agreement with Universal Music Group later this week.

Eliminating the laborious process of uploading music libraries to the cloud is a major coup for Apple, and will certainly cement iTunes’ lead as the number one digital music leader.

Each account is a separate, ring-fenced section of the computer’s system. Stuff that User A does won’t affect stuff belonging to User B. So at their simplest level, accounts are a useful way of keeping every person’s work or activity separate. They are a good idea on family computers for that reason.

Accounts can also be useful for troubleshooting problems. If there’s a problem that occurs when you’re logged into one user account, but not when you’re logged into another, you know that the issue is confined to some sort of failure or file corruption inside that single account (more than likely in its Library folder).

Accounts also add an extra layer of security. By setting up multiple accounts, you can ensure that anyone switching on your computer has to know a username and password in order to gain access. Serious computer nerds will know ways around this, but it’s a good deterrent for casual thieves.

By default, your Mac sets up one single account the first time you switch it on, and automatically logs you into that account every time from then on.

To prevent this happening, you need to dive into the Accounts preferences – open System Preferences first, you’ll find it in there.

I’d recommend that you leave your admin account (the one you set up when you buy the Mac) “clean”, and create a separate one for day-to-day work. If there are any problems with the day-to-day account, you can always use the primary account to troubleshoot.

The Accounts preferences are worth exploring. You’ll need to enter your main account (or admin account) password to make changes to most things here.

One useful thing you can do in the Accounts preferences is control which applications are launched automatically when you access your account. Look for the “Login Items” tab; you can add pretty much anything you like here.

If you’re running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), there’s a built-in Guest Account which has special properties. This account automatically resets itself and erases everything after it’s been used. If your visitors just need to quickly go online, but don’t want to worry about littering your computer with their web cookies and saved passwords, this is a good way for them to do it.

If you go to ninemsn.com with a Mac and click on the “Messenger” icon on the top right, you’re directed to a page which mentions “Windows Live Messenger 2011″ and just below there’s a button to download Messenger 2011 for Mac with a “New” ribbon on the corner.

However, when you click on the button you’re redirected to Microsoft’s web site download section which only allows you to download the officially released MSN 8.0 for Mac.

A screenshot of the page was cached here in case of removal.

It might be a mistake by the graphic designer but it may also indicate that Microsoft plans to release a new Mac version of Messenger with the same branding and possibly the same level of features as on the Windows version.

Thanks to Orestes for the heads up!

The 10.6.5 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

- improve reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers
- address performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture
- address stability and performance of graphics applications and games
- resolve a delay between print jobs
- address a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme
- resolve an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal
- address an issue where dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide
- resolve an issue with Wikipedia information not displaying correctly in Dictionary
- improve performance of MainStage on certain Mac systems
- resolve spacing issues with OpenType fonts
- improve reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays
- resolve a VoiceOver issue when browsing some web sites with Safari 5

On Tuesday, a law firm representing Apple, Inc. issued an official C & D order to M.I.C. Gadget requesting that the wildly popular news site immediately cease the marketing and sale of their Steve Jobs figurine.

I want 1 ):

MacStories notes:

Here’s what we heard from a reliable source: when Apple didn’t know about the WiFi issues in the GM seed of iOS 4.2, the OS was scheduled to be released weeks before Nov. 22nd. Apple found out about the WiFi issues, released a second GM build and iOS 4.2 came out yesterday. It came out in November, but it should have been out in the first half of November. Anyway, before the WiFi issues were discovered, Apple was already planning to release a new build of iOS 4.x in mid-December. Most specifically, they were planning for an iOS 4.3 release on December 13th, which is a Monday.

Our source tells us it is unclear whether the “extra time” that was required to ship iOS 4.2 (actually it’s iOS 4.2.1) will cause a delay for the rumored release of iOS 4.3 on December 13 or not. iOS 4.3 should, however, include bug fixes and maintenance of the code. It’s likely that 4.3 will also address the initial issues found in AirPlay, but we can’t confirm this just yet.

Said source is also noting that iOS 4.3 will indeed support the new recurring subscription functionality needed for The Daily, with a chance for even more cloud-based services on the way.

On the downside though, December 13th is only less than three weeks away, and Apple has yet to send out any builds of the next edition to developers, so the gang at Cupertino will have to work quickly to meet the date.

Can’t wait, hopefully they will add more printers to air print…. What a nightmare!

“Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget,” the copy reads, before telling visitors to check back with Apple tomorrow at for an exciting new announcement pertaining to iTunes

What the hell could it mean? Some guesses are.

My guess: an iTunes all-you-can-eat or x-tracks-per-month subscription plan, like Microsoft’s Zune Pass. Not only is it something the competition already has, but most importantly, it’s a major new feature Apple can introduce to iTunes without releasing a new version of the software by implementing a new payment option into their backend.

The obvious guess on what exactly will be announced is a new cloud-streaming iTunes, but Steve Jobs said as recently as September that Apple was still wary of the cloud. Besides, cloud-compatibility would require a major new revision of iTunes, which is probably a year away. No way.

This is really interesting. Apple’s promising a lot here — a “day we’ll never forget” — but they are doing so in a really unorthodox way. They’re not throwing a special event, and they are announcing it before the opening of business on the West Coast, at a time which usually coincides with the weekly shuttering of the Apple Store.

This is all just speculation, though. For once, we’re absolutely clueless!

Keeping a low-profile, Apple started accepting app submissions to the forthcoming Mac App Store. Last month, at Apple’s “Back to Mac” event, Steve Jobs unveiled the new Mac-based app store as a shining example of the Mac OS X Lion‘s new features. Snow Leopard users however, were told they too would get an app store, which would launch within 90 days.

The building process of the Mac App Store’s content has begun, as developers are now able to serve up their creations to embellish the offerings of the Mac App Store’s upcoming debut. Comparable to the iOS App developer program, the Mac App developer program is also $99 a year. The new Mac App Store, as expected, will be a standalone app, similar to the look and feel of iTunes. It will enable users to download and install apps (for free or for purchase) with “just one click.” In late October, Apple released the Review Guidelines for the new Mac App Store. Similar to the guidelines for the iOS App Store submissions, the policy seems to be “intended to head off complaints” about the criteria for inclusion on the Mac App Store. Apple only said that the published guidelines are “to ensure that apps are reliable, perform as advertised, and free of offensive material.” If you want more information, feel free to check out the Mac Developer Program.

Apple today released iPhoto 9.1, an update to the iPhoto application included in the company’s new iLife ’11 suite. The update restores support for the photo calendars that had gone missing in the initial iPhoto ’11 release, and also fixes several other bugs and introduces new holiday-themed letterpress card options.

This update adds several new print product options to iPhoto ’11. It also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues.

- Provides the ability to create and order calendars in iPhoto.
- Additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes are now available.
- Fixes an issue that prevented videos downloaded from MobileMe or Flickr from importing correctly into iPhoto events.
- The update is recommended for all users of iPhoto ’11.

The update is the second to be released for iPhoto ’11 since its debut just over two weeks ago, as the company quickly pushed outiPhoto 9.0.1 late last week to address issues with data loss when upgrading from iPhoto ’09 to iPhoto ’11.

One item of interest that was overlooked in this morning’s news that Apple is discontinuing the Xserve is that the company has added a new standard configuration to its Mac Pro lineup. The new “Server” configuration offers an entry-level 2.8 GHz quad-core processor with 8 GB of RAM, two 1 TB hard drives, and Mac OS X Server for $2999.

The specs on the Mac Pro Server configuration can be boosted with a full range of build-to-order options, including processor options up to dual 2.93 GHz six-core Westmere chips, up to 32 GB of RAM, additional hard drives, a second optical drive, RAID card, Fibre Channel PCI Express card, and Xsan storage area network software.

While Apple’s “non-server” Mac Pro options could (and still can) be configured with Mac OS X Server, the new Server configuration offers an optimized starting point for building a machine to focus on server tasks rather than act as a workstation.