Kbase Article of the Week: Desktop Manager and Desktop Databases: What Are They?⇢

Apple Support, from 1995:

In the early days of the Macintosh operating system, new objects like icons and windows had to be stored and managed somewhere by the operating system. Information such as the bit mapped representation of the icon picture to display and the association of documents to the application that created them was saved in a database. This file was called “Desktop” and was an invisible file at the top level of every diskette. Information was placed in this file by the action of the Finder making calls to the Desktop Manager. The Desktop Manager, in turn, made calls to the Resource Manager, creating resource items within the Desktop file.

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Kbase Article of the Week: Get to know the Finder on your Mac⇢

Apple Support:

The Finder is the first thing that you see when your Mac finishes starting up. It opens automatically and stays open as you use other apps. It includes the Finder menu bar at the top of the screen and the desktop below that. It uses windows and icons to show you the contents of your Mac, iCloud Drive, and other storage devices. It’s called the Finder because it helps you to find and organize your files.

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Kbase Article of the Week: Definition: Beta Software, Beta Test⇢

Apple Support, channeling the dictionary:

Beta is a term used to describe software that is in the last stage of testing. Software publishers frequently make beta software availabile [sic] to a limited audience so that it can be tested in real-world environments. This is called a beta test.

Because beta software may be incomplete, it may not function correctly all of the time. You should only install beta software if you know how to remove it, or how to troubleshoot errors it may cause. Before installing any beta software, be sure you have a backup of important files you want to keep.

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Kbase Article of the Week: MacBook Pro Software Update 1.1⇢

This Apple service document opens with some marketing copy about the MacBook Pro:

MacBook Pro is built on the revolutionary Intel Core 2 Duo — which packs the power of two processor cores (up to 2.4GHz) inside a single chip. It provides 4MB of Smart Cache, L2 cache that can be shared between the cores as needed. It delivers higher performance in 2D and 3D graphics, video editing, and music encoding. But the faster engine is only part of the story. MacBook Pro delivers up to 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory with a faster, 800MHz frontside bus and support for hard drives up to 250GB. Ultimate speed, performance, and connectivity. To go. That’s MacBook Pro.

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