Steve Jobs, who has led a stunning turnaround at Apple Computer Inc., has also made his stewardship of the computer maker a more permanent affair. After 2-1/2 years as ``interim'' chief executive of Apple, Jobs, said he would drop the qualifier from his title.

"I'm going to be dropping the 'interim' title," Jobs told the Macworld expo here amid a standing ovation from the crowd of Apple devotees at San Francisco's cavernous Moscone Centre.

Apple also said it would take a seat on Earthlink's board. Earthlink, which has about 32.5 million shares, is set to merge with Mindspring Enterprises Inc., creating the No. 2 Internet service provider after America Online Inc.

The agreement with Earthlink is similar to a service that Gateway Inc. - a maker of so-called Wintel personal computers that use Microsoft software and Intel chips - has been offering for some time. The largest PC makers have teamed up with Internet access providers to boost sales through add-on services amid a brutally competitive PC market.

At the trade show, Jobs also unveiled the delayed Mac OS X, a completely new version of its well-received operating system software. It grew out of an earlier version code-named Rhapsody and will boast a new interface called Aqua.

Apple also revamped its Web site, at www.apple.com, to include features called iReview, a Web site review guide and iCards, an electronic greeting card site.

Separately, Microsoft Corp. said it will release its latest Macintosh-based Internet browser by early March and bundle it with the next version of Apple's operating system later this year.

Apple stock jumped 4-13/16 to 107-5/16, defying an earlier broad sell-off on the tech-heavy Nasdaq index. In late trade, the index climbed 22.14 to 3,923.83 after earlier falling as low as 3,734.87.

"Our new iReviews, iCards and the revolutionary iTools offer amazing new ways for Mac users to take full advantage of the Internet," Jobs said.

iTools include Kidsafe, a new way to protect children on the Internet, specifying what they can see rather than trying to filter out what they shouldn't see. Apple's computers have more than 50,000 sites it deems safe for children, and is adding 10,000 new sites each month.

Apple also unveiled Mac.com, an e-mail service that the company plans to run, giving users and exclusive address on the Internet and works with standard e-mail programmes. Users can easily set up automatic replies and forwarding of their e-mail to other addresses.

Apple also is offering something it calls iDisk, which is 20 megabytes of storage on Apple's Internet server computers, and Apple said it was as easy to use as a folder on the Mac desktop.

HomePage also introduced what Apple called an easy way to build a personal Web site in less than 10 minutes, which would then be hosted on Apple's server computers. The iTools services are free to Macintosh users running Mac OS 9.

Earthlink will become the exclusive Internet service provider in Apple's Internet setup software included with all Apple Macintosh computers sold in the U.S.