Apple Computer’s decision to release a new operating system in 2001, Mac OS X, represented a revolutionary departure from the traditional Mac OS with greater system stability (based on a secure UNIX architecture) and flexibility wrapped in an stunning new user interface. The latest upgrade gives Latvians something to smile about, too.

The recently released upgraded operating system, called OS X Panther or OS X 10.3, adds more than 150 new features. One of the lesser known features is the welcome addition of Baltic language support. Users now have the ability to write in Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian in just about any Macintosh application.

To activate a language, load “System Preferences.” From the “International” preference pane select the “Input Menu” tab and check the desired Baltic language.

A new “Formats” tab will also allow you to change the date, time and currency options for any of the three Baltic languages.

However I don’t recommend moving any of the Baltic languages to the top of the “Languages” pane just yet. You may disable your system. No system localisation for either of the three languages exists or is expected in the near future. The story is the same for Windows. Microsoft is yet to produce a Latvian version of its operating system, but we can remain hopeful.

The new Baltic language support in OS X Panther opens up a mountain of possibilities. Without purchasing any additional software you can now send a legible Latvian e-mail to your Windows colleagues and they won’t notice it came from a Macintosh. You can begin cataloging and labelling your photos with the most descriptive Latvian words using iPhoto, add Latvian titles to music tracks in iTunes or create snazzy titles and special effects for that next family home movie using iMovie and iDVD. You can even view your busy Latvian schedule and appointments in iCal. It will only be a matter of time before someone will publish a namesday or other Latvian events calendar.

Compatibility with Baltic Windows users also no longer seems to be an issue. With Apple’s TextEdit you can import basic Microsoft Word documents that were originally created on Windows. To share your work with others you can save your work as a Word document or an industry standard Adobe Acrobat PDF file. Apple’s Safari Web browser will beautifully render any of the popular Latvian Web sites, all without having to change settings while you’re casually surfing the Internet.

However, there’s a catch. This newfound flexibility will only work with Unicode-compliant applications. Examples of such applications are TextEdit, the iLife 04 suite (iMovie, iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes), InDesign CS, Photoshop CS, Stickies, Address Book, Mail, Keynote, Dreamweaver MX, OmniGraffle and many others.

Unfortunately the two most popular word processors for the Macintosh, Microsoft Word X and AppleWorks, are not Unicode compliant. In order to access the letters of the Baltic alphabets for these non-Unicode applications you will need to continue using Apple CE fonts. Similarly the popular database Filemaker Pro does not yet understand Unicode, but there is news that the next major version will. Users who are upgrading from an earlier Mac OS and have not been using the standard Apple CE fonts will be faced with converting their documents so that they are legible in OS X.

With Baltic language support now included as standard in Mac OS X we can expect some exciting new developments in the future. Software developers are now able to provide a Baltic language option in their new products and we may finally begin to see the much anticipated Baltic language proofing tools.

Now I must go and check out the latest iPods. I have a sneaking feeling that Apple Computer’s popular music playing devices have also become Baltic friendly.

For the dedicated online newshound, keeping up with events in Latvia is getting to be more and more of a chore. Although still not used by many Web sites in Latvia, a relatively new communication format called RSS might help.

Depending on the source, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary. Either way, it’s a means for easily distributing the content of Web sites to users who don’t want to visit each Web site separately to learn what’s new. Instead of having to plow through all the bookmarks in your Web browser, you use a RSS news feed reader to receive a list of headlines from the sites to whose news feeds you have “subscribed.” See something interesting and, click, you’re taken to the appropriate Web page.

Download any of a number of freeware or shareware news feed readers and you’re sure to get several prefigured subscriptions. For example, when I first download NetNewsWire Lite for my Macintosh computer, I was treated to headlines from sources such as the BBC in London, the American daily newspaper Christian Science Monitor, the British daily The Guardian and the French daily Le Monde.

That sent me on a search for RSS news feeds from Latvia. I visited a few of my usual suspects: the Rīga-based dailies Diena and Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze, the news agency LETA, as well as the Web portals Delfi and TV-NET. But none had RSS feeds.

Then I happened to look at the Web page for Latvian state television’s evening news show, “Panorāma.” To my delight, I found a news feed! I copied the RSS feed address to my news reader and seconds later was presented with a list of headlines and summaries from the most recent broadcast.

Ingus Rūķis, the Webmaster for “Panorāma,” told Latvians Online that the RSS feed was introduced in August along with a redesign of the show’s Web site.

“At first RSS was added only because it was interesting and a way to try out a new technology, Rūķis said. “Seeing in the statistics that visitors were interested in it, we automatically added RSS as a necessary part of the new design.”

The “Panorāma” Web site receives about 200,000 page views per month, he added. About 10,000 of those, or five percent, are for news via RSS, which is a notable figure.

A search on Google led me to only a few more RSS feeds from Latvia. I was bit surprised to see that a regional newspaper, the daily Zemgales Ziņas in Jelgava, was one of them.

The feed was added last summer, explained Sergejs Bižāns, the newspaper’s Webmaster.

“We use it purely for our own needs and don’t have information about whether others use it,” Bižāns said. Because creation of Web pages for Zemgales Ziņas is automated, it doesn’t take much extra to run a news feed and could in fact come in handy, he added.

Two Web sites in Liepāja, the portal Virtual Liepaja and the politically ultraconservative news and commentary site Latvians.lv, also have RSS feeds.

RSS feeds are perhaps most popular among bloggers, those individuals who post frequent comments on their Weblogs. Several Latvian blogs are among those, including laacz.lv, created by programmer Kaspars Foigts, and roze.lv, a blog focused on Japanese anime art.

I’ve heard some in the online news business say that RSS is the next big thing. Perhaps, but from the looks of it in Latvia the technology still has a way to go.

The final weeks of 2003 and the first few of this year have proven to be rough time for the state-funded Latvijas Televīzija (LTV). Uldis Grava, who left behind a career at Radio Free Europe to repatriate and take over running the public television broadcaster, has left LTV to work with Jaunais laiks, the party of Prime Minister Einars Repše. Grava’s last day in LTV’s towering headquarters on Zaķusala was Jan. 16.

Grava took over the reins at LTV in 2002. Although he might have had high hopes of getting the broadcaster in financial and professional shape, he met a lot of resistance from within and without LTV, in part because of misguided scoffing at him being a “foreigner.” It’s no wonder, then, that he decided to get out.

Unfortunately, even his last days were not to be quiet. Grava suggested that his replacement should be one Edgars Kots. LTV staff and media experts cried foul, urging the National Radio and Television Council to require that a search be done for suitable candidates, rather than merely appointing Grava’s heir apparent.

Why the concern? Because Kots has been director of the Rīga-based advertising firm Labvakar, which in turn tied him to Edvīns Inkēns, a former member of parliament and controversial journalist who now is chairman of the board for Latvian Independent Television (LNT). LNT is LTV’s chief rival in Latvia’s tiny broadcast market. Plus, critics pointed out, Kots doesn’t have a university degree, a requirement for the LTV general director’s job.

And, critics also noted, there’s the political subtext. Why should Grava, who is leaving a supposedly apolitical broadcaster to work for the prime minister’s political party, get to choose his successor? Doesn’t that suggest that his successor would be someone who is looked upon favorably by the political powers that be?

Although the radio and TV council decided Jan. 8 that it will conduct a search for Grava’s replacement, it nonetheless on Jan. 15 approved Kots, rather than LTV News Director Gundars Rēders, as acting general director. The council’s tie vote was broken by Chairman Imants Rākins, who, critics again noted, was appointed to the council by Jaunais laiks. (To be fair, Rākins is not without qualifications, having himself served from 1992-1995 as LTV’s general director.)

Clearly, some in LTV’s newsroom didn’t like that and, during the Jan. 15 evening news show “Panorāma,” let their opinion be known, likening what happened to how power is passed down in a monarchy. Rākins responded, calling the airing of the newsroom’s opinion unobjective and unethical, according to Baltic News Service. A case of the pot calling the kettle black? Perhaps.

What’s sad about the debate over LTV is that it isn’t serving to make the broadcaster any better. Latvia, in my opinion, needs a strong public broadcaster, one that can be sheltered from Jaunais laiks or whichever party is in power. Whoever becomes the next general director, whether it’s Kots or someone else, will still face the unenviable challenge of trying the steer an invaluable but troubled institution.

S magazine folds

Among the chores with the beginning of the new year was renewal of a number of subscriptions to Latvian magazines. One of them was S, a young women’s magazine my daughter has been reading for a couple of years.

But we were surprised to learn, in an e-mail from the Santa publishing house (publisher of a number of titles, including the popular women’s magazine Santa and the gossipy Privātā Dzīve), that S will cease publication after its March issue. The publishing house’s board last week decided to drop the title.

Even more surprising was the reason: competition from one of the best-known women’s magazines in the world, Cosmopolitan, published by New York-based Hearst Magazines International. If you haven’t looked at a Latvian newsstand recently, you too might be surprised to see that there’s now a Latvian edition of Cosmo. In fact, it’s been there since March 2002, put out in association with I&L Publishing Limited of Rīga.

S, with its combination of fashion, culture, sex and relationship advice, will be sorely missed by at least one young reader. Or maybe she’ll just start reading Latvian Cosmo.