I love Product(RED) items. Particularly the ones from Apple - the red iPod nano has always been something I’ve wanted. I even got the matching V-Moda Vibe earphones ready and waiting. As Wayne Campbell said, she will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.

The specially-made items are, if you don’t know, editions meant to generate charity funds to fight AIDS and HIV in Rwanda. A portion of the sales from the (RED) items like watches, cellphones, laptops, t-shirts, colognes, credit cards - and iPods - go to this fund. For example, Motorola contributes US$8.50 for each sale of the (RED) Razr, Gap gives 50% of their net profit from (RED) clothing items, and Amex gives 1% of all transactions from their (RED) card. A couple editions of the iPod nano have been made for this campaign, started a year ago by Bono.

After the first year, consumers have generated US$22M for Rwanda, but controversy is heating about the figures, which detractors claim is grossly misrepresented.

Advertising Age magazine reports that the entire campaign has raised only US$18M, but has spent US$100M in advertising collectively. People organizing the campaign claim that they’ve raised US$22M, and have only spent US$50M in advertising. Huh? Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder?

Whatever the case, it’s apparent that they spent more than they raised - and people say that the cause would have been better served if the money spent advertising was given straight to the cause in the first place. Of course, no one really knew this coming in a year ago, but maybe a bit of research and planning might have made the project a bit more worthwhile.

At least they made nice iPods, huh?

More on the issue from The New York Times.

Looks like I can finally retire resource-hungry Firefox soon, if developer news about the new version of Safari is accurate.

People currently testing Webkit, or the new iteration of Apple’s own browser, are finding that the developer build currently being seeded and tested is already 2.5 times faster than the current Safari release - and that is still in it’s unoptimized state!

If this is any indication, the speed boost of the forthcoming Safari will be considerable. Computerworld has more details on the speed boost and the new features here.

Don’t take my word for it, but it also seems that Webkit is safe enough to test on your own system. If you want to, download the 15.8mb dmg file (it bloats to 62mb when expanded) of the unoptimized WebKit Build r30090 here; later you can get whatever nightly build is available through the Webkit opening page.

Been trying it out myself, and dang, it’s fast.

Seriously now, OS X is starting to act a bit too much like Windows. But hey, if it makes things better, why the heck not?

If it isn’t on your desktop yet, run Software Update to get Quicktime 7.4.1 (54.1mb), which “addresses security issues and improves compatibility with third-party applications.”

A quick dig into the guts of Apple Support shows us the real reason for the revision:

Available for: Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later, Mac OS X v10.5 or later, Windows Vista, XP SP2

Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Description: A heap buffer overflow exists in QuickTime’s handling of HTTP responses when RTSP tunneling is enabled. By enticing a user to visit a maliciously crafted webpage, an attacker may cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved bounds checking.”

Not that I understand any of it, but it sounds good.

No word yet if it tanks anything, but go get, if you’re the Early Updater type like me.

Much as The Doodler would love to actually put the MacBook Air through its paces himself, availability and resources have conspired to deny him the pleasure.

Not so our friends at Ars Technica, where Jacqui Cheng recently did a detailed, comprehensive review of the base model. More interestingly, she just got a unit of the higher-end, slightly faster and US$1300-more expensive Air with the 64GB Solid State Drive, did the same benchmarks as with the base model, and then put the results head-to-head.

So, is the MacBook Air with the SSD worth the extra $1300?

No.

Read Jacqui’s comparative review here.

If Software Update hasn’t brought them to your attention yet, a couple of updates surfaced a couple of days ago.

ProKit Update 4.5 (24.2mb) is for all the expensive stand-alone Apple apps you might own (lucky you):

This update improves reliability for Apple’s professional applications and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Express, Aperture, Logic Studio and Logic Express.”

iPhoto Update 7.1.2 (15.9mb) closes a security hole, and some other stuff that Apple, as usual, declines to elaborate upon:

This update addresses issues when publishing photos to a .Mac Web Gallery, improves overall stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues.”

Go get ‘em.