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The July 18 gathering will be one of our combined SIG meetings. The LinuxSIG will not meet at 6:00pm this month. For our presentation, Linux SIGCo-Chairman Kris Klindworth will be talking about security issues. In thisera of constantly "on" broadband connections, this is a topic that toucheseveryone.
We welcome any kind of input or feedback from members. Run across aninteresting item or tidbit on the net? Just send the link to the editor.Have an article or review you'd like to submit? Send it in. Have a comment?Email any officer you like. Involvement is the driving force of any usergroup. Welcome to the group.
In answer to questions about whether Moore's Law would extend for yearsinto the future as a result of nanotechnology and other technologybreakthroughs, Moore said nanotechnology wasn't necessarily the Holy Grail."We'll go a long way by doing what we've done in the past. We'll get downto 30-nanometer dimensions or so. Nanotechnology, where you're taking theapproach from the other end and coming up is certainly going to beinteresting, but I don't think - at least not at first, maybe never - thatit's going to replace the kinds of things we've been doing. Making a smalldevice is one thing, but hooking up a million of them on a chip issomething completely different."
Moore also reminded journalists that he had changed the law once already,in 1975. "I went from predicting that complexity would double every year todoubling every 18 months." Doubling time will slow down when we can nolonger take advantage of just making things smaller. We could go to four orfive years."
Based on the number of times Software Update popped up on my screen lastweek, I'd believe Apple's programmers were cranking to meet some end ofquarter quota. The company released a number of miscellaneous updates andutilities for both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, ranging from essential securityenhancements to machine- specific fixes. Here's a quick rundown.
Security Update July 2002
A few vulnerabilities were recently discovered in two underlying Unixcomponents that enable users to run Web Sharing and connect to serversremotely under Mac OS X. The Security Update July 2002 fixes a problem inApache that could allow remote denial of service attacks and also correctsa problem in OpenSSH that could potentially allow a remote intruder toexecute code on one's machine. The update is a 1.2 MB download.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120131
Apple has gotten better about responding to these types of security holes,issuing the update within days after the problems were discovered, andpublishing more detailed information about the changes on its SecurityUpdates Web page. It's worth noting in this case that these vulnerabilitieswouldn't affect most Mac OS X users, since Apache and OpenSSH are turnedoff by default. Apple also sent an email message to its Security Announcelist stating that Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server are not affected by aseparate buffer overflow problem in Multiple DNS Resolver Libraries,described online in a CERT advisory.
http://www.apple.com/support/security/security_updates.html
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/security-announce
http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-19.html
Networking Update 1.0 for Mac OS X
Apple released Networking Update 1.0 for machines running Mac OS X 10.1.5,Build 5S60. (To determine the build number, choose About This Mac from theApple menu, then click the version number.) According to Apple, the updateimproves Internet and network access after you wake the computer from sleepor restart it. The update is a 284K download.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120124
iMac Update 1.0
If you're using an iMac running Mac OS X 10.1.5, Build 5T91, this updateincludes the Networking Update, mentioned above, and also improves supportfor installing third party applications. The update is a 2.5 MB download.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120130
Repair Privileges Utility 1.0
One side effect of having a Unix core in Mac OS X is that everything isbased on privileges: installing software, changing preferences, printing,etc., are governed by which users on a machine are allowed to perform thoseactions. If your privileges get out of whack, you can run the RepairPrivileges Utility 1.0 to reset them (at least those for the Mac OS itselfand Apple-provided software) to their original configuration. Some commonerrors that could require the utility include problems mounting disk imagesusing Disk Copy, trouble spooling print jobs, or the inability to unlockfiles in the Finder. Apple cautions that although the utility doesn't alterpermissions set by third party software, that software may not work asexpected. The utility is a 112K download.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106900
CarbonLib 1.6
CarbonLib 1.6, the glue that links applications that run under both Mac OSX and the Classic Mac OS, improves reliability and performance under Mac OS8.6 and 9.0, as well as Classic under Mac OS X. The update is a 2.9 MBdownload, and must be installed while booted from Mac OS 8.6 or 9.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120047
AppleScript 1.8.3 Update
The latest version of AppleScript, available in separate Mac OS 9 and MacOS X versions, corrects performance issues with some applications, improvesreliability when using Unicode text data, and works with files and folderswhose names contain accented or special characters. This version also makesfile and alias objects behave as they did under Mac OS 9; a previousversion caused many scripts to fail in an attempt to make the behavior morecompatible with Mac OS X. The updates are 1.5 MB (Mac OS 9) and 2.2 MB (MacOS X) downloads.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120128
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120129
AirPort 2.0.4 Update
For owners of the Snow (Dual Ethernet) model of the AirPort Base Station,the AirPort 2.0.4 Update adds the capability to dial into the base stationusing a PPP phone connection and administer the base station and connectedcomputers without being on the network (which is pretty neat). The updatealso adds compatibility with Windows clients that use PPTP (Point to PointTunneling Protocol) or IPSec-style VPN (Virtual Private Network), as wellas AOL 5.0 compatibility within the United States. The original Graphitemodel of the AirPort Base Station doesn't gain any new features, but allversions of the AirPort cards installed in Macs pick up improvedcompatibility with other wireless networks.
Although you can install these updates using Mac OS 9, the new featuresmust be configured using a Mac running Mac OS X, after which Mac OS 9machines can take advantage of them. The updates are available as 8.5 MB(Mac OS 9) and 3.6 MB (Mac OS X) downloads.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120120
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120121
Apple has released Security Update 7-12-02 to fix a recently reportedproblem with Mac OS X's Software Update utility. Software Update 1.4.6eliminates concern over an attacker setting up a machine to masquerade asthe Software Update server swscan.apple.com and deliver malicious programsin the guise of legitimate updates. Although Software Update 1.4.6 stillrelies on the same server, Apple is now cryptographically signing alldownloads, and Software Update installs _only_ downloads that Apple hassigned, a capability that has been available in the Mac OS 9 version ofSoftware Update for some time. Downloads that lack a valid signature aredeleted. The 2.3 MB Security Update 7-12-02 is available via SoftwareUpdate itself or as a separate 844K download. [ACE]
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75304
http://www.cunap.com/%7Ehardingr/projects/osx/exploit.html
http://www.apple.com/support/security/security_updates.html
Our Mac OS X report today covers problems created by Apple's new SecurityUpdate 7-12-02, which was released to solve a security hole in SoftwareUpdate. Readers isolated the issue to a special file installed by theupdate:
Morimoto Takasi: When software updates run, they search for/usr/sbin/softwareupdate. If it is found, the installation is stopped./usr/sbin/softwareupdate was installed by Security Update 7-12-02. So,renaming or deleting /usr/sbin/softwareupdate, all works correctly.
George Smith: I decided to poke around at the 10.1.5 update package file[after encountering the problem]. I brought up a Terminal window and cd'edinto the package directory and got down to the guts of the package at this path:/Volumes/Mac OS X 10.1.5 Update/MacOSXUpdate10.1.5.pkg/Contents/ResourcesIn this directory were several files, including several Perl scripts thatlooked like scripts that would be run by the Installer to check for asystem that it liked. One of the Perl scripts was named VolumeCheck. One ofthe checks was to see if the following file existed: /usr/sbin/softwareupdateIf the file existed, it would exit with a non-zero exit status which toUNIX programs usually means an error condition. I checked my system andsure enough, that file did exist - maybe it was put there by the buggySecurity Update of 7-12-2002? At this point, I guessed that the 10.1.5Installer was running this script, and getting a non-zero exit status, wasaborting. So I did the following in the Terminal window: sudo mv/usr/sbin/softwareupdate /usr/sbin/softwareupdate.save I then exited theTerminal session, reran the 10.1.5 update package, and it ran through theentire procedure successfully! Double Yippee! I then manually downloadedand installed the Networking Update for Mac OS X 2002-06-24 and it wassuccessful. I then tried to use the Software Update preference pane againbut it still reports that my system is up to date and offers no updates sothere is still a problem, but here is a work around until Apple puts out afix.
It turns out that Apple's latest ad campaign, in which formerWindows users explain why they moved to the Mac, is less than honest.Contrary to comments made by CEO Steve Jobs last week, Apple solicitedthe ex-Windows users featured in the ads--the users didn't approachthe company first. Furthermore, the participants were paid to be inthe ads and will receive royalties each time their ad airs. I don'tthink any of this would be noteworthy if Jobs hadn't implied that theusers approached Apple instead of the other way around.
Intel Corp. is pushing up the release of a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 to this summerin hopes of boosting sagging sales of its flagship PC processor, sourcesclose to the company say.
In addition to raising the bar for its fastest chip from 2.53GHz to 2.8GHz,the Santa Clara, Calif., company also is considering additional price cutsthis quarter in a bid to reduce its rising supply of unsold Pentiumprocessors, sources say.
Weaker than expected PC sales during the second quarter have left Intelwith an oversupply of chips, a troubling situation that pushes up thechipmaker's operating costs while it struggles with a decline in overallsales.
Intel first acknowledged disappointing sales last month when it surprisedWall Street analysts by issuing a lower-than-expected earnings forecast forthe quarter, a move that spurred a sell-off of stock that sent thecompany's shares down about 20 percent.
In a further blow, Salomon Smith Barney Tuesday lowered its earningsprojections for Intel through the rest of the year and cut its stock targetprice 30 percent. Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jonathan Joseph said helowered his expectations due to Intel's rising inventory levels andcustomers' increasing preference for cheaper Celeron chips, which yield farless profits than more pricey Pentiums.
In a bid to boost the attractiveness of its leading brand, Intel moved upthe launch of its 2.8GHz Pentium 4 from the fourth quarter to this summer,sources said. The chip, which will be released in the coming weeks, willinitially be offered at $637, with the price of its current speed king, a2.53GHz chip, falling from $637 to $433.
Intel also will release a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 priced at $562 and a 1.9GHzCeleron costing $138. Prices are based on 1,000-unit quantities.
Intel, which has a policy of not discussing future product releases, willtip its hand about upcoming chip plans when its reports its second-quarterearnings July 16, sources said.
Internet auction pioneer eBay has announced plans to acquire PayPal, theleading Internet payment service, for $1.5 billion in stock. The move is anatural one - approximately 60 percent of PayPal's business takes place oneBay, and 25 percent of eBay auction payments are settled using PayPal(another 15 percent are settled via other electronic payment mechanisms).eBay will phase out its competing service, eBay Payments by Billpoint,which struggled to compete against PayPal and was losing $10 to $15 millionper year. PayPal's services will continue, with the exception of thecompany's support for online gambling, a field that's coming underincreased legal scrutiny. Though both companies are highly regarded ingeneral, both have also endured criticism - eBay for its response tosecurity exploits and for not cracking down on fraud hard enough, andPayPal for poor customer service (resulting in several class-actionlawsuits from users whose accounts were frozen) and investigations fromseveral U.S. states as to whether or not PayPal should be regulated as abank. [ACE]
http://www.shareholder.com/ebay/news/20020708-84142.htm
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06260
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06652
Thank thee.
Yesterday, as we all know, Microsoft fed an 'exclusive' story about its new'Palladium' DRM/PKI Trust Machine to Newsweek hack Steven Levy (a guy whowrites without irony of "high-level encryption"), presumably because theytrusted him not to grasp the technology well enough to question itseriously. His un-critical announcement immediately sparked a flurry ofarticles considering what this means to the Windows user base.
And that's as it should be. But my question is, what does it mean to theLinux user base?
Well, of course no one knows yet; the Levy article is long on generalizedpromises but very short on details. We know that some hardware element willbe involved -- some hardened slice of silicon on the motherboard which willidentify the computer and the user, and recognize other computers and theirusers. It, or a companion chip, will interface with some manner of PKI,current or future, so that only 'authorized' applications may run withprivileges. MS wants us to think that the 'authorizer' will be the user,but we know better: there will undoubtedly be a DRM element in it, and itsauthorizations will override yours. There will also be a networkingcomponent, involving an elaborate PKI and vast data warehouses run by MSand its trusted partners.
So let's say Intel and AMD begin shipping Palladium-compliant boards as MSbegins shipping the software to OEMs and shops. And let's say that theRedmond spin campaign, persuading users that this is actually for theirbenefit, takes hold, and consumer demand for the scheme begins to grow andit eventually becomes a de facto standard, like SSL today, for example.
Got root? All right then, how do we get Linux and open-source servers andapps to work with networks using this master scheme? What changes will benecessary?
The first thing that comes to mind is the difficulty of getting my ApacheWeb server to work seamlessly with Harry Homeowner's Windoze box when hecomes to my site for some eminently trustworthy business. Everything Idownload to him (and this may even include Web pages -- the scheme is thatfar-reaching) will have some manner of digital cert which MS and its familyof cronies will have established beforehand. I don't see a problem here.The certs will be embedded in the content and I'm merely providing spacefor it to reside. Even pages and images can be digitally signed and Harry'sbox can simply accept them or not according to rules he's worked out forhimself.
But what if Harry needs to transact business and/or send me something? ThenI think it gets tricky for two reasons. First, I have to be able to assurehim that I can't read what he sends (and neither can the script kiddies whoroot my site monthly), and second, I'll probably have to pass part of italong 'safely' (as defined by MS) to some other network under Redmondsuzerainty where the bulk of Harry's whole life's data is stored andcontinually updated. And of course I'll need access to that data so I canbe sure Harry is Harry and his Mark of the Beast (or whatever MS will callhis Uniform Identifier) is valid.
So to validate Harry, and to update his Master Data File -- two bits ofbusiness integral to the Palladium scheme -- I'll need hardware, an OS anda server compliant with Redmond specs. Now MS says they're going to makethe sources to the core of this technology open. But consideringMicrosoft's white-knuckled terror of Linux and open source products ingeneral, combined with its established penchant for mining its productswith hidden little pissers for the competition, I don't think it's paranoidto imagine that I may have to turn to a packaged product from a major MSpartner/collaborator or a Linux distributor who's gone to the bother ofobtaining certs for the kernel and the apps. But either way we'll havemajor GPL problems, as we'll see below. Indeed, this is going to besomething of a reductio ad absurdum.
This certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, theminute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with theGreat PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, allright; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render mysystem 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, Iimagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modificationsand patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whateverprice they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladiumauthorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source systemwill actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under suchcircumstances.
If MS can't wipe out Linux, at least they can throw their marketing mightand obscene quantities of cash into the project of castrating andcontrolling it by rendering the commons hostile to Linux users who stillhave their balls. They can in a sense create a huge market for open/closedhybrids, just as I imagined above: a system that comes with a GPL which Idare not exercise, and with considerable costs of both purchase andownership. Even Dell might get into the castrated Linux act when they seewhat sort of stranglehold the Palladium scheme will enable them to place onit.
But here's the diabolical bit. Linux distributors are going to lose bigtime if they remain faithful to the GPL. Palladium will either break theGPL, or if not, break Linux.
Harry's lament I fully expect to see Linux on the desktop growing rapidlyin the next several years. The major distros like SuSE and Mandrake arecoming along nicely with classic Harry features like automatic updates.Hardware detection is getting better by the day. Open Office is rapidlyapproaching the point where it imports from and exports to MS officewithout difficulty. The 2.4.x kernel is finally showing signs of the2.2.x's legendary stability. The KDE desktop is looking sharp and workingnicely now with version 3.0. Mozilla is coming along wonderfully. And nowRed Hat says it intends to commit seriously to the desktop market.
As the obstacles to Windows migration fall away, inherent virtues likebetter security and privacy (your Linux box does not automatically connectto servers at Microsoft whenever you search your hard disk, for example),freedom to configure, redemption from the MS update crack-addiction, andlow cost of ownership will strike more chords with the computing public.
This terrifies MS as much as the enterprise Lintel phenomenon. And it's notjust cost rationale at play here. There's a revelation in store for usersonce they have something to compare their Windows eXPerience against. Ashome users come to use and understand Linux, they'll automatically begin toperceive what a parasite Microsoft really is.
The answer to this will be more parasitism: Palladium is a means ofinfesting the commons with hostile digital fauna. As these new services andapplications become more plentiful, the need for the Linux desktop to dealwith them according to Redmond spec will increase as well.
Kernel hackers will have their hands full figuring that one out. How do youmake Linux interface with a security chip in such a way that untrustedapplications are sandboxed without taking root away from the machine'sowner? I think the answer is, 'you can't,' and I imagine Redmond thinks sotoo. And what will Palladium mean to application development? Moreoverhead, that's what. Certification authorities charge for their services.Some applications in development may have to be scrapped due to the costsof certification.
Eventually, as Palladium contagion spreads, the home Linux box will needcertified open-source apps to run DR-managed content. Here goes the GPLagain. So I've got this certified app. Fine. I've got the sources. Fine.What happens if I decide to build my own binaries? They won't be certified.They won't work. So what does the GPL mean to me then? It means I canbuild, or modify and build, an application which will lack the digital certwhich it needs in order to run the content it was designed to run. Only thebinaries will be certified (as a moment's reflection will make obvious).This is a nail in the GPL's coffin. Yes, I can improve the app and giveaway or maybe even sell my improved version; but first I have to prove thatit qualifies for certification, and second I have to pay for the cert. Andwhen I release it, source and all, only the certified binary will function.
The entire concept of root will be out the window. If I build my own orre-compile my existing kernel, my certs won't work. I won't be permitted tolog in to the Microsoft Digital Empire or any of its numerous coloniesbecause that little chip on my mobo is going to freak out. Perhaps even mycertified apps will fail to run. And I can no longer present my UniformIdentifier at the digital immigration turnstiles which MS will be settingup as I meander through cyberspace. "Sorry, we don't know who you are;you'll have to turn back...."
So how is this going to work in practical terms? Will the Linuxdistributors release certified kernels and apps and utilities? I don't seehow they can avoid it. But what happens to the GPL in that case? Will thecertification authorities decline to certify the distro if the kernel andapp sources are included? Or will the machine simply lose its Palladiumauthorization and fail to work properly if apps or the kernel arere-compiled or built from external sources?
Either way, the GPL is perverted. Any GPL'd kernel, utility, application,whatever, that's designed to be Palladium compliant will have to bedistributed without certified sources. There's simply no way to ensure thata source archive can only be used to build compliant binaries, unless GCCis deliberately broken in some radical way and the security hardware won'tallow other compilers to run (except similarly broken ones).
Will there be a hybrid Linux/hardware package coming out to address this? Asort of black box -- a mere desktop appliance not unlike an X-Box or aPalladium-enabled Windoze box -- with no compiler, and only userprivileges, and some hardware chip that prevents modifications to any ofthe binaries except by digitally-signed RPMs pre-approved for Palladiumcompliance? That means basically that MS has got root on my machine, and ofcourse it would rip the guts out of the GPL to boot. [Reader Stephen Cranepoints out that Rule Set Based Access Control (RSBAC) might well suit sucha product, which would then make MS not root but the 'Security Officer' ofmy Linux machine.]
It's the very fact that this appears insoluble to me that helps me realizethat MS has put tremendous, careful thought into it. To make the commonsLinux-hostile, MS is taking dramatic steps to make it GPL-hostile. Veryclever and admirably diabolical.
Of course here I'm assuming Palladium won't become the next Microsoft Bob.It could meet with severe consumer rejection, as I hope it will. And so weend with a question for lawyers, not for me: is a technically-valid,letter-of-the-law GPL which you can't practically exercise violated or not?You've got your sources and everything in the distro is GPL'd -- only anybinaries you choose to build on your own will isolate you from the commons.I think MS believes it's found a loophole here. Whether it will work or notis another question.
In any case, it's time for Tuxers to take the gloves off.
Internet search engines that substitute top query results with paid adsmay need to do a better job of disclosing such practices to consumers,federal regulators warned on Friday.
In letters sent to Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and other major searchengine providers, the Federal Trade Commission urged the industry todraw a clearer line between editorial content and advertising.
Many search sites offer "paid placement" ads, where companies pay afee determined by the search engine to have their product or namedisplayed at the top of a search result list. Paid placement links oftenare listed under such headings as "Sponsored Links" or "Partners."
But consumer groups have taken issue with the increasing use of so-called "paid inclusion" ads - in which companies pay to have more oftheir Web pages returned in any given search.
Last summer, the FTC examined the practice following a complaint filedby Commercial Alert, a group affiliated with consumer activist RalphNader.
In its complaint, the group alleged that "without clear and conspicuousdisclosure that the ads are ads," paid inclusion ads "may misleadsearch engine users to believe that search results are based onrelevancy alone, not marketing ploys."
In letters sent Friday to AltaVista, AOL Time Warner, Direct HitTechnologies, iWon, LookSmart, Microsoft and Terra Lycos, the FTCwarned that "the intermingling of non-paid Web sites with paid-inclusionWeb sites in the search database may cause consumer confusion andmislead consumers."
Commercial Alert Executive Director Gary Ruskin praised thecommission's action, and said some companies named in thecomplaint have begun taking steps toward clearer disclosure.
Aside from Google, however, no other search engines currently meet theFTC's disclosure guidelines, Ruskin said.
"The problem here is that these search engine results are beinghijacked by corporate interests and nobody knows about it," he said."Once people know that these results have been hijacked byadvertisers, hopefully we'll see people flee to search engines that haveeditorial integrity."
In a search for "vacations" on AltaVista, for example, online travelbooking site Expedia.com comes up as the first two entries under aheading of "Products and Services."
Users must click on the word "Info" - in plain text 6-point type - to learnmore about AltaVista's ad policy. But even that notice doesn't clearlyexplain that the listings are paid ads, said Danny Sullivan, editor of TheSearch Engine Report.
An AltaVista spokesperson defended the company's current practices,and said AltaVista had not yet received a letter from the commission.
"We believe that the paid listings that we display on our site aredelineated from our search results and that the disclosure is notmisleading," said Fred Bullock, AltaVista's chief marketing officer.
An AOL spokesman said AOL Search has always listed paid ads underthe heading of "sponsored links," but said the company converted itsNetscape search engine to the same policy sometime after thecomplaint was filed.
Other search engines named in the complaint could not be immediatelyreached for comment.
In sending a staff letter, the FTC signaled that it was not prepared toopen an investigation into the matter at this time.
But Barry Cutler, a former director of the FTC's Bureau of ConsumerProtection, noted that the commission has a strong record of enforcingdeceptive advertising laws, most recently with regard to misleadingtelevision infomercials.
"This appears to be an example of the FTC's taking a rather traditionalrule -- that consumers are entitled to know when something is acommercial message -- and considering how to apply it to a newmedium," Cutler said.
Cutler added that search engines would be ill-advised to ignore thecommission's warnings.
"To the extent that the FTC is saying 'here's an issue we're concernedabout and we want to put you on notice,' I would take that seriously," hesaid. "I would not just brush it off."
An open-source office suite, OpenOffice.org might surprise you with thebreadth and depth of features found on its 1.0 offering. In fact,OpenOffice.org 1.0 started from the code base of Sun's StarOffice 5.2, sothis is really a reasonably seasoned desktop productivity package.
The products share the same code base, but StarOffice is a commercialproduct and contains some extra features and software. Although marketleader Microsoft Office surpasses OpenOffice.org on features and usability,OpenOffice.org has most of the basic and intermediate features you'dexpect. It also has a respectable number of advanced features and someunique and intriguing benefits. Most important, this office suite is freeand runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and other platforms. In testing, wefound the product to be very usable on its own and passable (though notperfect) for working on existing Microsoft Office documents.
The OpenOffice.org download (from 50MB to 70MB, depending on the platform)has four productivity software modules: Writer (word processing), Calc(spreadsheet), Impress (for presentations), and Draw (for drawing). Theonly major components missing are a scheduling and e-mail package (ˆ laMicrosoft Outlook) and a desktop database application.
When used alone, the product has a complete set of features for creatingletters, complex documents, financial and other spreadsheets with powerfulfunctions, and high-end presentations with animations and effects. Andyou'll not get lowest-common-denominator features. All the underlying datafiles produced by OpenOffice.org are based on XML. This could have somefuture benefits for displaying portions of documents on portable devices.Unlike traditional binary data files, XML documents are modular, withextractable parts.
Two useful floating toolbars for paragraph styling and document navigationillustrate both the utility and some lack of finish. These features make itmuch easier to apply formatting quickly to a section of the document and tofind bookmarks, graphics, and sections. They are helpful but get in the wayfor those using 800-by-600 or 1,024-by-768 screen resolutions because thetoolbars float only within the OpenOffice.org window÷not the desktop÷andalways seem to be covering your text.
OpenOffice.org can import Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word documents.Import quality is good but not perfect. Compatibility is fine for those whowant to save time by reusing existing Office documents and moving themforward with OpenOffice.org. In these cases, a quick scan through thedocument or spreadsheet and a comparison with the original will identifywhere margins or shading did not transfer precisely. Other areas to watchout for are more esoteric Word templates, spreadsheet formulas, functions,and macros. For those collaborating with Microsoft Office users on morecomplex documents, the back-and-forth can be a little painful.
We liked OpenOffice.org, and it's a good bet for students, consumers, andsmall businesses that can't justify the $500 price tag for Microsoft OfficeProfessional.
You've heard of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing and massive corporateremodeling, in which the company has asked all developers, productmanagers, and even (presumably) executive assistants to rethink everythingthey do in the context of security. Well, that's just the tip of theiceberg. Secretly, the company has been working on a plan to redesign thePC from the ground up to address the problems of security, privacy, andintellectual-property theft that dog the industry. Inexplicably, thecompany pulled an Apple and chose to detail its plans solely to "Newsweek,"so we have only that report to work from. But if that magazine's take onMicrosoft's plan is correct and consumers and businesses buy into the newdevices that would result, the PC landscape will soon change forever.
The plan is code-named Palladium, a reference to a statue of the Greekgoddess Athena that residents of ancient Troy believed guarded their cityfrom attack. Palladium involves several hardware and software solutionsthat will, in part, be implemented in a future Windows version--possiblyLonghorn, due in 2004--that will require specific hardware to work. "Thisisn't just about solving problems, but expanding new realms ofpossibilities in the way people live and work with computers," saysMicrosoft product manager Mario Juarez. Microsoft designed Palladium aroundthe following ideals:
- Palladium will tell you who you're dealing with online and what they'redoing. It will uniquely identify you to your PC and can limit what arrives(and runs on) your computer. Information that comes in from the Internetwill be verified before you can access it.
- Palladium will use encryption to seal data and protect information sothat "snoops and thieves are thwarted." The system will be able to maintaindocument integrity so that documents can't be altered without yourknowledge.
- Palladium will stop viruses and worms. The system won't run unauthorizedprograms, so it will prevent viruses from trashing your system.
- Palladium will stop spam before it even reaches your email inbox.Unsolicited mail that you might actually want to receive will be allowedthrough if it has credentials that meet standards that you've defined.
- Palladium will safeguard privacy. In addition to sealing data on your PC,Palladium will be able to seal data that you send across the Internetthrough a software agent, which will ensure the data reaches only theproper people. Newsweek reports that the agent has been nicknamed "My Man,"a goof on ".NET My Services," "My Documents," and other similar names atMicrosoft.
- Palladium will control information after you send it from your PC. UsingDigital Rights Management (DRM) technology, Palladium will letenterprises--and eventually, users--securely distribute music, movies, andother intellectual property over the Internet. Movie studios and therecording industry could use this technology to let their customersexercise fair use rights to copy audio CDs and movies, for example. "It's afunny thing," says Bill Gates. "We came at this thinking about music, butthen we realized that email and documents were far more interestingdomains." Gates said that Palladium could ensure that email designated asprivate can't be forwarded or copied to other people, for example. Or, asNewsweek reports, "you could create Word documents that could be read onlyin the next week. In all cases, it would be the user, not Microsoft, whosets these policies."
Few of the concepts behind Palladium are new, but what makes this systemunique and--dare I say it--innovative is Microsoft's ability to rally theindustry and push the technology through to fruition. Leading chip vendorsIntel and AMD have signed on to Palladium, although Intel was originallyreluctant to join. Major (but as yet unidentified) Microsoft partners infinancial services, health care, and government--areas in which security isa prime concern--have likely signed up as well. "I have a hard timeimagining that businesses wouldn't want this," says Microsoft Group VicePresident Jim Allchin. After the enterprise is locked in, Microsoft expectsPalladium-compatible applications and services to arrive, thus kicking offthe inevitable consumer-oriented push.
However, the success of Palladium isn't at all a given. The anti-Microsoftcrowd is louder than ever these days, thanks to the company's drawn-outantitrust battle and mounting security concerns. And Palladium, being aWindows-only technology, would arguably extend Microsoft's OS dominanceeven further. Microsoft counters this criticism by explaining thatPalladium can be ported to other platforms easily enough. "We don't blinkat the thought of putting Palladium on your Palm, on the telephone, on yourwristwatch," says Palladium software architect Brian Willman. Presumably,Linux and Mac ports would also be considered.
And how will individuals react to news that their every move will berecorded and analyzed? As the shifting security landscape in the post-9/11world has proven, people are more accepting of such a change if theyperceive security to be better as a result. And although a vocalminority--think Slashdot--will likely find much to complain about, averageconsumers, IT administrators and decision makers, and other peopleresponsible for actually paying for this technology will probably supportit wholeheartedly. I can already imagine the sort of email responses thisarticle will get--after all, "Microsoft security" is an oxymoron of sortsthese days--but I also feel an inevitability to Palladium, or somethinglike it. Hang on to your seats, folks--your next PC upgrade might be acompletely different beast altogether.
A media-player-usage recount that was supposed to bolster AppleQuickTime has been completed, but the outcome isn't quite what Applewanted: RealNetworks has retained the top spot for home-based mediaplaying (although the company's usage share has fallen dramatically),and Microsoft's Windows Media Player has launched into the top spot atwork. Meanwhile, QuickTime remains where it was when the recent mediaplayer-usage controversy began: a distant last place in bothcategories. Recently, Apple complained that market-share ratings formedia player usage over-counted certain players, notably those made byRealNetworks, because of the number of support files required by theplayers' native media formats. So, unlike in the past, the most recentstatistics--provided by Nielsen//NetRatings--don't count these supportfiles.
"As the Web evolves, we are constantly refining our trackingtechnology to provide deeper, more insightful media measurement," saidNielsen//NetRatings' senior VP Manish Bhatia. "This new report offersenhanced breakdowns of multimedia activity, responding to requestsfrom the industry for more granular information on which to basebusiness decisions."
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, RealNetworks' RealMedia players arenumber one at home, with 17 million users, compared to 15.1 millionfor Windows Media Player and 7.3 million for QuickTime. At work,Windows Media Player edged out the competition, with 12.2 millionusers, compared to 11.6 million users for RealMedia and 5 million forQuickTime. To give you an idea of how far RealNetworks has fallen,consider the December 2001 results, which reported that the companyhad 32 million home users and 16.3 million work users, compared to14.6 million and 9.9 million, respectively, for Windows Media Player.And what about Apple's complaints? Apple actually lost usage sharesince last year, when it had 7.4 million home users and 5.5 millionwork users.
A second company, Media Metrix, announced recently that it woulddiscontinue tracking media-player usage this month because ofcomplaints that its results weren't accurate. Media Metrix hasn't yetdetermined whether it will revise its methodology or simply stopmeasuring this statistic for good.
Mozilla 1.0 and its Netscape 7.0 Preview Release 1 (PR1) siblingare off to a strong start, according to a recent survey by marketresearcher OneStat.com. The company says that the Mozilla Web browserhas a global usage share of 0.4 percent after just two weeks ofavailability, while Netscape 7.0 PR1 has a global usage share of 0.3percent after one month. Not surprisingly, Microsoft Internet Explorer(IE) 6.0 continues to dominate the market and actually has seen itsglobal market usage rise 1.7 percent since April 2002. Overall, IE 6.0has a global usage share of 46.4 percent, according to OneStat.com.
OneStat says that all versions of the Microsoft browsers account for95.3 percent of total worldwide market usage. However, Microsoft'stotal global usage share has dropped 1.3 percent, from 96.6 percent to95.3 percent, in the past 30 days, while the total global usage shareof Netscape has increased by 0.6 percent, from 2.8 percent to 3.4percent. The top five browsers and their market usage are
1. Microsoft IE 6.0 - 46.4 percent
2. Microsoft IE 5.5 - 23.9 percent
3. Microsoft IE 5.0 - 23.6 percent
4. Netscape Navigator 4.0 - 1.4 percent
5. Microsoft IE 4.0 - 1.2 percent
OneStat's research is based on a sample of 2 million visitors,according to the company.
Forget the point-release tomfoolery: The next Windows version-- code-namedLonghorn--is going to rattle some cages and change perceptions aboutMicrosoft's role as industry innovator. Originally envisioned as a steppingstone to the Windows .NET world that Microsoft was promising with the moredistant Blackcomb release, Longhorn suddenly took on a much grander rolelate last year. Although the company has been trying to keep informationabout Longhorn secret for fear of stalling Windows XP sales, details aboutLonghorn have been slipping out for months. And this week, "FORTUNE"magazine revealed what we've long suspected: When Bill Gates stepped downfrom his CEO post, he did so to focus on software, and that software isLonghorn.
"We'd been talking about doing a lot of things separately for a long time,but the mood was like, 'Hey, this incremental stuff is okay, but let's dosomething more dramatic,'" Gates recently said of Longhorn. "And [MicrosoftCEO] Steve [Ballmer] said, 'That means synchronizing the release.' And Isaid, 'Isn't that risky?' And Steve said, 'But isn't it obvious we shoulddo this?'" Gates calls the suddenly complex Longhorn "[the equivalent of]many moon shots."
So what makes up Longhorn? The secure-PC initiative--code-namedPalladium--that we discussed in Monday's WinInfo Daily UPDATE is part ofit. Longhorn will require a complete overhaul of the Windows OS, both theserver and desktop versions, Gates says, not to mention most of thecompany's other software as well. Equipped with Longhorn, as "FORTUNE"reports, "Your PC will keep track of how you work, whom you talk to, whatsites you look at, how you make documents and whom you share them with,which data on the network are yours--making all those things easier."
"My biggest thing is getting knowledge workers to install this version ofWindows and say, 'Wow!' in two dimensions," Gates says. "As in 'Wow, theytook the pain away! They fixed the stuff that was always crummy!'--like itwas hard to update the software, to move files between different systems,to understand what these error messages meant, etc. And as in 'Wow, I canget new value out of my PC by taking it to meetings and taking notes on it.I'm doing annotations, or when I call somebody my screen comes alive, andwe're looking at the article or contract or budget we're working on, and ifI want to add somebody into the call, I just go to my screen, pick thename, and all that phone stuff just happens--the guy is there and lookingat the same document.' And then, having all your stuff available anywhereon any device you own."
Although the software implementation details are still vague, Gates saysthat Longhorn will:
- consolidate Windows storage so that documents, contacts, email,Instant Messaging (IM) buddy lists, calendar, and other data are allstored in the same way and can easily be searched together. The numberone question Longhorn will answer, Gates says, is "Where's my stuff?"
- protect users from distractions by screening phone calls and email.
- track you down when you're out of the office and forward calls andemail to you automatically.
- arrange conference calls and online meetings.
- let consumers easily set up Web sites and email lists to keep peoplethey care about informed and up-to-date.
- securely access users' important work data from home by using anyconnected device.
- read digital versions of magazines and other publications onlinethat look exactly like the printed versions.
Gates says that there are 10 major Longhorn scenarios, includingPeople, Annotation, Real Time Communications, Storage, Authenticationand Security, and New Look. Separate teams at the software giant areworking on each scenario. Gates is overseeing the entire project andmeeting frequently with each team. Longhorn, he says, represents atleast 50 percent of his workload.
Given the breadth of these advancements, it's no wonder that Longhornhas slipped from its original early 2003 target date to an expectedmid-2004 launch. You didn't really think a little point release wasgoing to take that long to develop, did you?
After last weekend's revelation that Microsoft is working to overhaul PCsecurity through a new platform called Palladium, the company is now facingits biggest problem: overcoming public perception. If my reader feedback isany indication (and let's put this in perspective--my readers are Windowsusers, not Linux advocates or Mac sycophants), Microsoft has a tough roadahead. Hardly anyone trusts the company to deliver on this plan--primarilybecause of Microsoft's abysmal security record to date--and the Big Brotherovertones are almost deafening. And here's a sobering thought: Theadvertising that Microsoft will eventually use to spread the word might bethe thing that really kills Palladium. To understand what I'm talkingabout, think back to the company's last two ad spots ("Business agility"and "1 degree of separation"). What, you don't remember those ad campaignsor what they were trying to sell? Then you DO see what I mean.
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Man, George Orwell must be doing flip-flops!! To think it takes a privatecompany to accomplish what he feared the Government would do...
Incoming European Union (EU) Competition Directorate-General Philip Lowewarned Microsoft yesterday that its upcoming security plan, TrustworthyComputing (code-named Palladium), shouldn't exclude the company'scompetitors. Speaking at a conference sponsored by the American AntitrustInstitute, Lowe said that the EU will ensure that "[Microsoft] competitorshave the capacity to offer the range of services they want to provide,including security. We have always emphasized ... interoperability."
Microsoft will initially include Palladium in a future Windows version,possibly Longhorn, which is due in 2004. To run, the software will requirea special hardware platform, leading to concerns that Microsoftcompetitors--especially those in the Linux and Macintosh camps--will beexcluded. However, Microsoft downplays these fears, noting that Palladiumis still in the planning stages and will be designed to run on numerousplatforms.
"We're building the development process to be a collaborative industryinitiative," said John Manferdelli, general manager of the Microsoft"Palladium" Business Unit, which the company secretly created last fall."We understand this kind of process can only work if every stakeholdertrusts the process and has an opportunity to participate. Plus, thePalladium technology must be broadly adopted to be fully effective. It'snot something that will belong to only one company; it's something thateveryone across the landscape of computing needs to be invested in."
Industry analyst firm Gartner announced this week that the PC industry hasshipped more than 1 billion PCs in the roughly 25 years since the first PC,the Altair, debuted in 1974. As with most PCs built since then, an Intelmicroprocessor--an 8-bit 8080--powered the Altair, although the power andflexibility of processors and PCs have expanded dramatically over the years.A basic Altair with 256 bytes of RAM (yes, bytes) cost about $400 in 1974,but the customer had to assemble the device, an often perilous andunsuccessful venture. Input occurred through binary switches on the device'sfront panel, and output occurred through binary LEDs. Ah, the good old days.
Since then, of course, PCs have evolved from a hobbyist toy intomission-critical hardware devices found in businesses and homes worldwide."The PC is so versatile and so good at so many things," says Gartner VicePresident Martin Reynolds. "It's become something that almost everybody hasto have."
As for the next billion PCs, Gartner says that the industry will reach thatmilestone much more quickly; the firm expects to celebrate the sale of 2billion PCs in 2008. Gartner says emerging high-volume markets in China,Latin America, and Eastern Europe will drive sales growth. As for Intel,which arguably has had even more influence on the PC industry thanMicrosoft, the company plans to continue developing faster, more powerfulprocessors for future PCs. "We want to make computers work with humans ontheir terms," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel vice president and chief technologyofficer (CTO). "That vision includes developing PCs that can recognizespeech, gestures, and video, and it means achieving breakthroughs that willmake the interaction between people and computers a truly immersiveexperience."
According to Microsoft Group Vice President David Thompson, in February andMarch the company spent more than $100 million to train more than 5000developers to create more secure code. "Every developer feels it is now amatter of pride ... to write secure code," Thompson said at Tech Ed Europethis week, leading us to wonder why writing secure code wasn't a matter ofpride all along. But a bigger question is how the company expects 2 monthsof training and code review to overcome years of security neglect. The proofis in the pudding: A year from now, if we see far fewer Windows-relatedsecurity vulnerabilities, Thompson and company will be vindicated. If not,the company's critics have a particularly nice vat of tar and featherswaiting.
After warning the plethora of rumors Web sites devoted to Apple's productsto back off in January, Apple has reportedly now issued an ultimatum: Applewill deny press passes at MacWorld New York to any site that prints rumorsabout the Mac--or even links to rumors on another site. I can't believeApple would actually do such a thing; to prove this theory, I present thefollowing Mac links, and yes, I'm going to MacWorld New York. See you therein 2 weeks!
- Inside Jaguar (Think Secret)
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/jaguarnewupdates.html
- MWNY: New Enclosures, PC iPod (Macrumors.com)
http://www.macrumors.com/forums/showthread.php3?threadid=7042
- iMac Speed Bumps (MacOS Rumors)
http://www.macosrumors.com
An unnamed donor contributed $200,000 to the Xbox Linux Project, with theintention of awarding that money to any programmer who can make Linux run onthe Xbox by the end of 2002. The Xbox is what we lovingly call a closed,proprietary system; its hardware and software hooks prevent outside codefrom running on the device. Before the financial gift, people saw the XboxLinux Project as yet another goofy weekend pastime for hackers with too muchfree time on their hands, but now the project has taken on a new level ofvisibility in the open-source community. Will anyone succeed? I bet someonewill.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that Microsoft is now the world's largestcompany (when measured by market value). But with falling tech-stock pricesknocking down IBM and Intel, Microsoft is now the only high-tech company inthe top 10. Here's the list:
1. Microsoft: $285 billion 2. General Electric: $283 billion 3. ExxonMobil: $276 billion 4. Wal-Mart: $242 billion 5. Pfizer: $212 billion 6. Citigroup: $198 billion 7. BP: $191 billion 8. American International Group (AIG): $175 billion 9. Johnson & Johnson: $152 billion 10. Coca-Cola: $140 billion
Incidentally, even the top 10 companies aren't doing great. Microsoft'smarket value has fallen 50 percent since last year, and the top 10 companieslost a combined $310 billion of market value in the first half of 2002.Yikes.
Microsoft has indefinitely delayed the third service pack for Windows2000--Service Pack 3 (SP3)--according to internal documents I saw lastweekend. Microsoft originally scheduled SP3 for release July 17, but thecompany recently discovered several major bugs in the Microsoft Installer(MSI) 2.0 code, which the company had planned to bundle with the update.Microsoft will remove MSI 2.0 from SP3 and will instead include the olderversion, MSI 1.1, unless feedback from Microsoft beta testers and partnersindicates they want MSI 2.0 included. Obviously, this indecision willadversely affect SP3's release schedule.
"We are still facing MSI 2.0-related issues," an email sent to the Windowsdevelopment team reads. "[But] before we move ahead with a retraction plan,we want to make sure that we are doing the right thing for our customers ...we do not want to make deployment impossible for some of our partners, andwe do not want to break our customer's applications ... We are working hardto make the right decision."
Until the MSI problems are resolved, Microsoft will indefinitely delay theSP3 release. "This will have a bad hit to [the] Win2K SP3 schedule," theemail reads. "[So] we will not be able to release an escrow build today[which would have been considered a release candidate--RC]. We will roll outa new schedule early [this] week." I don't have any information about wherethe new schedule places the final SP3 release, but build 3.149, whichMicrosoft released last week, isn't the final build. I'll provide moreinformation about the Win2K SP3 release as it becomes available.
Speaking at Oracle's semiannual analyst day, CEO Larry Ellison uttered wordsmany people never thought they'd hear: Oracle will adopt many of thestrategies that made arch-enemy Microsoft successful and will focus oninexpensive, integrated software suites. "The suites always win," Ellisonsaid. "The specialty guys can never survive for long." Later this year,Oracle will release a set of products, including the Oracle CollaborationSuite (OCS) that will compete with core Microsoft infrastructure softwaresuch as Microsoft Exchange Server.
As usual, the volatile Ellison spent much of his time yesterdaygood-naturedly poking fun at Microsoft; Ellison's company has long been thenumber-two software maker behind Microsoft. "Bill [Gates is] a genius,"Ellison joked yesterday. "We don't need him working here. We just read whathe says: It's cheaper." Ellison said that OCS will integrate with MicrosoftOutlook and let users store email, voicemail, documents, and group calendarsin an Oracle database. The software will be more secure and less expensivethan Microsoft's solutions, he said.
OCS will contain a bit of technology I've been wondering about recently--theInternet File System (IFS) software that Oracle announced more than 2 yearsago. As you might recall, IFS was going to enable "no-OS" hardware thatwould run only on Oracle's database, making Windows unnecessary. And ifMicrosoft's plans to move SQL Server 2003 (code-named Yukon) into theWindows file system sounds suspiciously similar to IFS, remember thatMicrosoft has been working on this plan (once called Storage+) for years;indeed, database file systems have been part of the holy grail of computingfor decades. In OCS, Oracle customers might finally see the fulfillment ofthe IFS vision. "It took us a long time to get the pieces together," Ellisonsaid, "so we think we've gone down the road to solve all these problems. Itwas not easy."
Oracle's desktop play mirrors moves by other server companies such as SunMicrosystems, which recently released a new version of its StarOffice officeproductivity suite to good reviews. Interestingly, as Oracle and Suntentatively reach into the desktop market for growth, Microsoft is movingupscale with more scalable server products and services.
It was supposed to be a shining moment for the Linux community, but you'llnever get to read the stories pro-Linux sites wanted to write because thedream is over. A few weeks ago, the Phoenix Linux Users Group (PLUG) wasawash with exciting news: Apparently, the Maricopa County, Arizona,government has a clause in its bylaws that prevents the county from doingbusiness with any organization that shows "a lack of business integrity orbusiness honesty" or has a "conviction or civil judgment finding" againstit. So PLUG naturally figured it would alert Maricopa County that Microsoftmeets these criteria and demand that the county stop using Microsoftsoftware. Not so fast, guys. In a Monday meeting with the Maricopa CountyChief Information Officer (CIO), 23 Linux geeks showed up and got some badnews: The county is quite happy with Microsoft, thank you very much, andthe CIO noted that only 5 percent of the county's IT budget goes toMicrosoft each year, meaning that a switch to Linux wouldn't save muchmoney. Furthermore, to switch to Linux, the county would have to retrain alot of people, accept various losses in functionality, and so on,effectively costing the county more money than it would save by simplysticking with Microsoft. So much for the grassroots approach.
And speaking of Microsoft and its great relationship with the Linux crowd,here's a candidate for News from the Bizarre: Microsoft bought booth spacefor this August's LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco. I assume thatMicrosoft will design the booth to be more than a target for rottentomatoes and other projectiles, but I have to wonder why the company woulddo such a thing--I'll hazard a guess that it isn't to announce a new Linuxversion of Microsoft Office. Maybe next year Gates can give the keynoteaddress. Weirder things have happened.
In December, the state of Maine signed a deal worth more than $30 millionto supply iBook laptops to every 7th- and 8th-grade student in the state--adeal that Apple and its supporters trumpeted as a major business success.Now, however, two Maine legislators are asking the state's Attorney Generalwhether they can break the contract with Apple and walk away from the deal,stating that the $37.2 million would be better spent to offset a $180million budget shortfall. So far, Apple has shipped 2000 of the planned16,000 iBooks to the state. Whether Maine can get out of the deal isunclear. However it works out, Apple's shining success story is forevertarnished, which is too bad. With mounting pressure from Dell in theeducation market, Apple is quickly losing ground in this once-securebastion of its power. And something tells me niche creative markets aren'tthe growth market Apple needs.
By the time Microsoft put Windows NT 4.0 out to pasture, few people wouldhave argued that the OS was more than a little long in the tooth, thanks tothe years-long development time of its successor, Windows 2000. But inApril 2003, Microsoft will stop offering Win2K to PC makers for inclusionon new systems, effectively ending the product's life 3 years after thecompany first introduced the OS. In the consumer market, a 3-year OSlife cycle is pretty good, but for the business markets that Win2K targets,3 years is about half as long as many customers want. Sure, XP is better,but it's also targeted largely at consumers and requires a lot of tweakingto remove the UI eye candy that so many enterprises loathe. Ah, well, timemarches on.
Ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about the suddenly exploding number ofWindows versions and Palladium's future, and he'll chew your ear off aboutMicrosoft's plans. But what it comes down to is making real the company'svision statement ("Empowering people through great software--any time, anyplace and on any device"). That vision means we'll be connected at alltimes to have access to our crucial data from anywhere, regardless of thehardware that's handy at the time. So PDAs (specifically the Pocket PC, inMicrosoft's plan) will evolve into Smart Phones, laptops will evolve intoTablet PCs, home PCs will evolve into digital media hubs, and the company'sconsumer-oriented Xbox will expand to provide hard disk-based videorecording and other digital activities that people might want to perform intheir living rooms. What else do all these strategies have in common?They're technically similar to previous-generation technologies but takecomputing into new areas (you can use natural handwriting on a Tablet PC,for example, or access your calendaring information from a cell phone). Andcritics say Microsoft doesn't innovate. I guess the company's recentinitiatives put an end to that criticism.
I've been requesting Apple's cooperation for six months for the loan ofequipment to test how an OS-X Mac stacks up against a Windows XP PC interms of real world functionality. In other words, who cares about labperformance benchmarking? We want to know if a Mac offers the ease of usethat lets us get our work done faster and will less aggravation than a PC.The concept of OS-X -- the Mac interface on top of a UNIX core -- soundslike a great idea.
Although it is in the midst of a major ad campaign aimed at convincing PCusers to switch, Apple declined the request. See:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/513/tr.cgi?al1
Apple also declined to help out a year ago when I made a similar requestthen.
We do not have the budget here to go out and purchase scores of test units.We rely on companies being willing to provide us with loaners. And we thinkthat is a valid measure of how interested companies are in communicatingwith The Naked PC readers.
Apple is not alone in turning us down. Software companies usually say yes,as do accessory makers. Peripheral providers are 50-50. Getting a fullcomputer system, however, is always a struggle. However, in the PC worldthat isn't critical -- I can test PC software on any PC. But to test Macsolutions, I need a Mac.
Curiously, one company that has been a source of loaner computers to TheNaked PC has been Dell. Dell is the #1 seller of personal computers in theUnited States. Evidentially THEY have figured out how to Think Different.
(c) 2002, Al Gordon
You can reach Al Gordon at:
mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com
Recently one of my PCs experienced a power supply failure. I have long beenintrigued by the idea of silencing my PCs, and this was an opportunity forme to get my hands on a quiet power supply from PC Power & Cooling, Inc.The firm makes seven different ultra-quiet power supplies. I bought aSilencer 275 ATX, priced at $79 with a two year warranty, and it is QUIET.The unit comes with screws, spare connector caps, and a power cord (I'mtalking about the external power cord that connects the back of your PC--the power supply actually--to an AC outlet; nice touch eh?).
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/513/tr.cgi?lee1
I don't have a sound pressure meter on hand here, but all the reviews I'veread indicate that these units are significantly quieter than traditionalpower supplies. The unit's spec sheet lists the noise level as 20 dB(A) forfan noise and 34 dB(A) for power supply noise. The company's FAQ states,"Fan Noise is the noise level of the power supply's fan, outside the powersupply in free air. Although it severely understates the actual noiselevel, it's the rating given by most power supply companies. Power SupplyNoise is the actual noise level of the power supply, measured at 1 meter.Due to back pressure and air turbulence from surrounding components insidethe supply, this reading runs significantly higher than the fan'sstand-alone rating. By either measure (both are given), Silencer powersupplies run 6dB - 12dB quieter than ordinary units, a reduction of 75% -95%." (I haven't yet found noise specs for competing power supplies, so ifyou have some resources you can share with me, I'd appreciate it.)
The firm has written a handy article for calculating the power requirementsfor a power supply:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/513/tr.cgi?lee2
I found this web forum thread which is called "The BIG Windows XP ServicesGuide (Tweaks)".
http://www.deviantpc.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1926
If you use Windows XP and would like to fine-tune its performance, then thisinformation is for you. It offers specific advice about which Windows "services"you can safely turn off to improve overall performance of your machine.
Please do completely read all of the explanations accompanying the author'srecommended settings. His recommendations are based on a home desktopmachine not connected to a network. So, if you are on a network or if you thinkyou might need a particular service, don't disable it.
Access to Windows Services can be gained through the Control Panel,Administrative Tools, Services. I'm pretty sure you have to have administratorrights to modify these settings.
Just tried Winamp3. It's still a little buggy (a few crashes here and there)but it definitely does have some neato features.
So far the most noticeable for me has been the cross-fading feature.When playing a bunch of songs in a playlist it will fade out one song andfade in the new song at the same time. The result sounds like a radio-station transition and is somewhat enjoyable especially if you're listeningto a bunch of unrelated cuts. Apparently this is available as a plug-in forWinamp2 but in 3 it's built-in.
Another wacky difference is the totally customizable skinning. No longerare skin authors limited to just redrawing the elements of the player andother components. They can now move the controls around and placethem wherever they wish. One result I'm sure is going to be a number ofunnecessarily goofy skins that are hard to figure out. But I can see skinauthors getting creative with this. You can currently get a MAD Magazineskin that's pretty wacky when you download Winamp3.
Apparently the decoding engine is identical to that in Winamp2 so, yourMP3s won't sound any different.
Having decent ID3 tags is pretty important in Winamp3. The new MediaLibrary database relies on consistent ID3 tag use.
One thing that really caught my eye. Winamp3 beta occasionallydisplays Guru Meditation errors. Our beloved Amiga's spirit seems tobe alive in some small measure with Winamp3.
Download Winamp3 beta for Windows here:
http://download.nullsoft.com/winamp/client/wa3install-mad.exe
Download Winamp3 alpha for Linxux here:
http://download.nullsoft.com/winamp/client/Winamp-0.a1-1.tgz
I hate the damn pop-ups. They are probably the worst thing about the web.
I downloaded and installed Pop-Up Stopper and it worked pretty nicely. Iforget why I uninstalled it--I think it was incompatible with anotherfavorite application or something. Then I found Pop-Up Killer and it workedmuch better and came with a pretty complete file of web addresses andwindow titles (this is how these apps generally work) to block.
Tonight I found some fellow out there (Stephen Martin) who has taken on thetask of creating a comprehensive "hosts" file that effectively stops mostpop-ups and even some in-page ads--without additional software.
The "hosts" file is a file on your computer that acts like a local DNS. Youcan actually add computer names into it and direct traffic to any IPaddress. For example you could be running a local web server on your homenetwork and use a real name to access it (say,"http://kitchen.myhome.net/") rather than the less-pleasinghttp://192.168.0.10/.
But you can also redirect any other name--even real computer anddomain names--to any other IP address. One trick that Martin's hugehosts file uses is to redirect accesses to known pop-up and ad serversto your own machine, effectively blocking them. This works so well thatthe darned pop-ups usually don't even open. They just do not appear.
The real benefit to using a hosts file as opposed to say an applicationlike Pop-Up Killer, et al, is that it's built into your system already and youdon't use up any system resources running yet another app all the time.
Here's a site that describes in pretty good detail how all this works andgives instructions about where to put the file:
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/how_to_use_hosts.html
Stephen Martin's site including his nicely constructed hosts file is here:
http://www.smartin-designs.com/
I posted this in the Winsig section but this file may also be used on Macsand on Linux. I'm just unsure how it works on those systems.
I've been using the new hosts file all night and I only saw one pop-up.Many of the sites I visit use multiple pop-ups, but they didn't even pop.
Try it!
If you are as annoyed as I am about the behavior of Microsoft's InstantMessenger client, read on.
As you may know, IE/OE 6.0 installs Microsoft Instant Messenger, turned onand active by default. I don't like this, mainly because I don't use it anddon't plan on it, either. After I had exhausted all the configurationoptions to permanently turn this thing off that I was aware of, I decided toGoogle for some help.
I was presented with tons of articles describing all sorts of configurationtweaks to disable and even *uninstall* MSIM. Armed with all this knowledge,I set things up only to see the little generic two-person icon back in thesystem tray again after I launched Outlook Express! That !@#$%^& thing,anyway!
Well, I finally found the most simple and elegant way to kill thiscockroach-like applet, once and for all...
First, right-click on the MSIM icon in the system tray and select "Exit",then open Windows Explorer and navigate to "C:\Program Files". Here youwill find a folder named "Messenger". Rename this to something like"Messenger_OFF" (anything, other than the default name will do).
Now when one of Microsoft's applications that *requires* MSIM tries to runit, the path has changed so that it can't be found. Since MSIM can't befound, it can't be *run* either! Poof.. problem solved. You don't have toconfigure anything, delete or uninstall anything, and the process is easilyreversible.
To restore MSIM to its original state, just fire up Windows Explorer againand navigate to the "C:\Program Files" folder and rename the "Messenger_OFF"folder back to "Messenger" again.
Simple, elegant, easily reversible... I like it!
An interesting Linux-to-XP switch article:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~knigits/articles/switched_back.html
The Walt Disney Company, the doyen of animation studios, is joiningHollywood's embrace of a technological upstart Ö the GNU Linux operatingsystem.
Disney's animation division is announcing today that it plans to useHewlett-Packard workstations and data-serving computers running Linux fordigital animation work in the future.
The Disney move is the latest commitment by major studios andspecial-effects houses Ö including DreamWorks SKG, Pixar Animation Studios,Industrial Light and Magic and Digital Domain Ö to Linux, which is avariant of the Unix operating system that is distributed free and underterms that allow programmers to fine-tune the software.
Movie animation is a rarefied niche market for computer technology. Thestudios have deep pockets, legions of technical experts and plenty offinancial incentive to get just the right look and detail in movies like"Shrek" and "Monsters Inc.," since the payoff for a box-office hit can beenormous.
Yet the advance of Linux into Hollywood is a sign that a technology onceviewed as part of the counterculture of computing is moving steadily intothe mainstream. "Hollywood is at the leading edge of computing, and itshows what Linux can do," said Martin Fink, general manager forHewlett-Packard's Linux systems division.
At Disney, like other studios, machines running Linux typically take theplace of computers running proprietary versions of Unix, like SGI's Irixsoftware. Not only is the Linux software free, but it runs on low-costpersonal computer technology, workstations and data-serving computerspowered by Intel or Advanced Micro Devices microprocessors. "For us, it's amove to less-expensive commodity technology systems," said John Carey, vicepresident for Walt Disney Feature Animation.
In animation, Linux made its first inroads a few years ago on the clustersof server computers used in "rendering farms," which require huge amountsof processing to render a finished image of a creature or character as itappears on movie screens.
More recently, Linux has also been used on the workstations used byanimators for drawing and modeling their creations, as the leadingproducers of animation software have tailored their applications to run onLinux. Alias-Wavefront tweaked its Maya program to run on Linux in March2001, after it had been approached by animation studios and special-effectshouses that wanted to use the Linux technology, according to Kevin Turesky,an engineering manager at Alias-Wavefront, a software subsidiary of SGI.
Linux tends to be portrayed as an archenemy of Microsoft and its Windowsoperating system. In the long run, the rise of an alternative like Linuxwill limit Microsoft's future growth and market dominance. But in the nearterm, as the Hollywood experience shows, Linux is gaining at the expense ofproprietary versions of Unix.
"Historically, animation has been a Unix environment," said Al Gillen, ananalyst at the International Data Corporation. "And what's happening inHollywood is that another piece of the Unix market is moving into the Linuxspace."
Indeed, Mr. Carey observed that adopting Linux for part of its animationwas part of its migration strategy to move away from its previous"homogeneous technology environment," revolving around SGI's Irix.
The Disney commitment is the second agreement in recent months forHewlett-Packard systems running Linux in Hollywood. In January,Hewlett-Packard announced a three-year partnership with DreamWorksinvolving the purchase of Hewlett computers and some joint development oftechnology.
Hewlett-Packard, to be sure, has a heritage of doing business withHollywood and Disney. The first product the founders William Hewlett andDavid Packard sold in 1938 was to Disney, an oscillator used to helpproduce the rich, textured soundtrack for the animated movie "Fantasia."
Austrian company BMS Bayer launched EasyDose, a unit that monitors,displays and manages X-ray exposure data automatically through hospitalnetworks. Based on Transmeta's Midori--a very compact Linuxdistribution--and a Cyrix GXM 233 processor, the unit has a 6.5-inchtouch-screen and works to the standard DICOM (Digital Imaging andCommunications in Medicine) protocols over IP and Ethernet.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-935737.html
The announcement will cover joint development work to make the Oracletechnology stack "unbreakable" on Linux, according to an Oracle source.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/06/04/020604hnlinuxoracle.xml?0605weam
The Taiwanese government plans to start an open-source project as early asnext year that could save it as much as $295 million in royalty payments toMicrosoft, according to a report from Taiwan's Central News Agency.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-931885.html
...
RMDS previously had been released to run on the Windows NT operating systembut is no longer available for it, Sayers said.
http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=685896
A CD that lets businesses, schools, and consumers use open-sourceapplications on their existing systems without fear, fuss, or cost? Nowthat's an idea worth supporting.
http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=684294
I discovered to my shock recently that during my short career as a Mac user(since 1995), I have already owned something like 10 different Macintoshes.Although each one was different, I have loved them all. So when Steve Jobssays that the flat panel iMac is perhaps the best Mac Apple has made yet,do I agree? In a nutshell, yes - but not simply because of its catchydesign or impressive hardware specifications.
Do you know how you sometimes get an emotional sort of vision that is hardto describe? Well, I got one of those in the late 1990s when Appledescribed the upcoming next-generation Mac OS. Looking ahead to a muchslicker and more stable operating system, coupled with the (then) futuredevelopments of the PowerPC chip, gave me a wonderful feeling. I imagined acomputer which never got in the way, never delayed me, and whichmultitasked at least as well as I did. I may be a long-time Mac user, but Iam not a geek. I've never programmed, and I haven't even launched Terminalin Mac OS X.
This ideal of a Mac has been a bit slow in the coming, for a number ofreasons. Apple clearly bit off an awfully big chunk in developing anall-new operating system, based on Unix, no less. Motorola and IBM havefailed at fulfilling the promise of the PowerPC chip: it's barely keepingup with the Pentium (remember Apple's snail ads?). Of course, the techslowdown around the millennium, along with a loss of focus on the part ofthe PC industry in general, has hampered everyone's development schedules.But there's also the simple fact that I am getting better with practice. Acomputer which is as fast as I am and multitasks as well wouldn't have hadas high a bar to clear three years ago.
Now, Apple offers the flat-panel iMac. A couple of weeks after purchasingmy new iMac, sitting there using it, I suddenly realized how close themachine really is to my vision of the ideal Mac.
A Professional Consumer
I think first I should explain why I have the iMac at all. After all, Iwork with photos and art, design for the Web, and so on. I have a nicedual-processor Power Mac G4 tower with a Cinema display. So why would Iwant a consumer computer? Well, apart from the fact that I just like theiMac, it boils down to the fact that I am one of those hyper-sensitive"ahhhtistic" types for whom pleasing industrial design actually makes asignificant difference. So, I kept the Power Mac G4 for my creative work,and switched to the more discreet iMac for the communications work (Web,email, and writing) which occupies the bulk of my time.
I've liked just about everything about the iMac. The half- basketballdesign with the flat-panel screen supported by a gleaming chrome arm iseye-candy, but it's also highly functional. The screen moves smoothly and Ifind I adjust it small amounts throughout the day to match my posture. Theperformance of the 700 MHz G4 processor has been more than sufficient forMac OS X and my email and Web use. Even the speakers sound wonderful, muchbetter and even much louder than those in my Power Mac G4. Speaking ofsound, I hate the noise of the Power Mac G4 tower - it grates on my nerves.If I were to be granted one favor from Apple, it would be a quietprofessional Mac (and one with more power and expansion possibilities thanApple's first experiment in this category, the Power Mac G4 Cube).
It's important to note that the iMac was the first machine on which I useMac OS X full time, so my impression of the iMac is tied into my impressionof Mac OS X. I've tried all the versions back to the public beta, but theyjust weren't up to snuff, since my important applications ran poorly underClassic. However, since I primarily use email and the Web on the iMac, itruns just fine with Mac OS X; I've never booted into Mac OS 9 at all.
Well, I do have one half-hearted reservation: it's clear that Mac OS X isdesigned with future developments in screens and screen size in mind. Itlooks good on the iMac's 15-inch screen, but it's even better on the22-inch Cinema display. (After Photoshop 7.0 went native, I switched to MacOS X on my Power Mac G4 as well.) But setting aside overall dimensions, theiMac screen is, in a word, fantastic. It's much brighter than the 22-inchCinema display.
If we take economics into consideration, it will be a while before you see22-inch screens on consumer computers, and the dual processors in my PowerMac G4 are great for intensive image processing work. So in allpracticality, even if I'll keep using the Power Mac G4 for my design work,the iMac is as close to my idea of the perfect consumer computer I canimagine. It's fast, it's quiet, it's compact, and it looks great.
In short, the iMac is so good that it almost makes me wish I was in itstarget audience, just to have the pleasure of getting such a fantasticcomputer for the first time. For the student or family member, messingaround at an amateur level with email, Web browsing, digital photos, andmaybe a bit of video editing in iMovie, this is... well, like I said, asperfect a machine as I can imagine.
Mac OS X may be the future of the Macintosh, but for many people, it stillisn't part of the present. Unless you purchase a new computer with Mac OS Xpre-installed, moving up from Mac OS 9 isn't as simple as installing thesoftware and getting back to work. In last week's issue, I offered a numberof considerations for determining whether or not you should upgrade to MacOS X and how to get ready for the move. In this installment, I want tocover some steps for making the move as painless as possible.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06848
Prepare Your Hard Disk
Before you start installing Mac OS X, you need to spend a moment thinkingabout your hard disk. Many people recommend partitioning your hard diskinto two volumes, one for Mac OS 9 and another for Mac OS X to simplify theprocess of reinstalling Mac OS X should something go horribly wrong. Somepeople prefer even more partitions. It's a personal choice, but my take onthe subject is that for most people, partitioning is unnecessary and willcause more annoyance in the end.
Until I got my Power Mac G4 with its 10 GB hard disk, formatted with HFS+,I always partitioned my hard disk into three volumes: one for the operatingsystem, one for applications, and one for documents. I'd kept thatpartitioning scheme since my first 30 MB hard disk because it worked aroundthe block size inefficiencies of HFS and reduced backup needs somewhat. Butit also increased the complexity of navigating the Finder and Open dialogs,cluttered the Desktop, and complicated my backup strategy. I didn't mind ittoo much until I switched to a single partition, which turned out to be farless stressful to use.
Plus, when Apple ships a new Mac with Mac OS X, it comes as a singlepartition. That says to me that Apple considers a single partition thedefault setup and has thus devoted more testing resources to that approach.In short, if you want to partition your hard disk for separate Mac OS 9 andMac OS X volumes, feel free, but I consider it optional. If you choose todo so, be very careful about your backup strategy to make sure you'rebacking the necessary data on all partitions. Also, it's easier to set upmultiple partitions if you have a large external hard disk around to holdyour data while you're reformatting and repartitioning the disk (plus, itprovides a secondary backup for added peace of mind).
Although the Mac OS X installer does check your disk before installing, Istill recommend running Disk First Aid (or Alsoft's DiskWarrior, if youhave it) manually before installing to make sure you're clearing up anydisk corruption. Another potentially useful thing to do would be todefragment the hard disk first so all of Mac OS X's tens of thousands offiles are laid down contiguously - you can use a tool such as PlusOptimizeror Tech Tool Pro, or you can back up your data, reformat the drive, andrestore everything from the backup. No matter what, make at least one fullbackup of your entire hard disk, just in case. I know we say thatfrequently, but it's truly important with such a major operating systemupgrade.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
http://www.alsoft.com/PlusOptimizer/
http://www.micromat.com/
If, like me, you've decided to pop a new hard disk in your Mac beforeupgrading to Mac OS X, you'll get the advantage of a nice clean hard diskwith no fragmentation, since restoring from backup or duplicating one harddisk to another also eliminates fragmentation. Even better, this approachgives you an automatic backup, since you could always put the old driveback in if necessary.
Install in Order
It's finally time to install. If you're lucky, you have a Mac OS X 10.1CD-ROM. I wasn't so lucky - although I had a 10.1 upgrade CD-ROM, thatwould only update an existing 10.0 installation. I spent hours installing10.0, letting Software Update bring that copy up to snuff, installing the10.1 upgrade, and letting Software Update do its thing again. I might havebeen able to skip some of the intermediate 10.0 steps, but frankly, becauseI don't know exactly how everything works inside Mac OS X, I didn't dare,and I don't recommend you do either. Let's give Apple the benefit of thedoubt here and assume they know what they're doing when they say thatupdates to Mac OS X must be applied in a certain order. Be sure to read thefollowing two articles from Apple's Knowledge Base before starting theinstallation process.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106718
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106692
If you have only a slow modem connection to the Internet, relying onSoftware Update to download all these updates could extend the upgrade timeover several days. As I noted in the first part of this article last week,a better approach would be to download the various updates manually whenconvenient, and then apply them yourself. The only trick here is makingsure you get the order right - I don't know if the installers for eachupdate are smart enough to prevent you from making a mistake. The KnowledgeBase article below provides links to all the necessary installers and tellsyou the order in which they should be installed.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106713
The main Mac OS X installers and Software Update offer to let you install anumber of optional components, most notably the BSD subsystem and developertools, but also additional printer drivers and updates for Apple deviceslike AirPort hardware and the iPod. Assuming that you're not trying to cramMac OS X into a too-small hard disk, I recommend you install most of theseoptional bits (it's safe to skip language kits for languages you don'tunderstand) because it's not entirely clear that you can install some ofthis stuff after the fact. Disk space is cheap, and Mac OS X is still toomuch of a black box to second guess Apple's installers.
In the end, you should have a stock Mac OS X installation. Go ahead andexplore a bit and try things out, but remember that things will feeldifferent once you finish your configuration.
Install Applications & Utilities
The next step is to install the Mac OS X-specific applications andutilities that you've downloaded. I don't recommend dragging programs fromyour Applications (Mac OS 9) folder over to your Applications folder unlessthe application in question is already carbonized, such iView MediaPro.It's better to build up your Mac OS X collection of applications moreslowly and consciously to avoid confusion about what's new and what's old.Plus, if you do need to switch back to Mac OS 9, all your Mac OS 9applications will be ready and waiting where you expect them to be.
I do recommend that you install all Mac OS X programs into yourApplications folder. Some programs simply won't work properly unlessthey're in the Applications folder - for instance, if you move theRetrospect Client folder out of your Applications folder, the RetrospectClient application will turn itself off (that's a bug that Dantz knowsabout and will be fixing). In short, for now, take it easy on customhierarchies. With time, it shouldn't be a big issue, but unless anapplication claims explicitly that you can place it anywhere, stick withthe Applications folder. (And that includes the default Utilities folderinside the Applications folder.)
During this installation phase, you'll probably get sick of typing youradministrator password (a good reason to keep it short and easy to typeunless you're seriously concerned about crackers). Sorry, but there's noway around it, and as consolation, note that you don't have to restart yourMac after every installation or worry about what extensions were loadedwhen you're running the installers, as would have been necessary under MacOS 9.
Once you've installed utilities, take a moment to configure them as youexpect. For me, the most important step involved configuring MouseWorksproperly for my Kensington Turbo Mouse's extra buttons, setting up QuicKeysX so I could switch to applications using my function keys, and enteringthe text shortcuts I rely on heavily. Until you've done this, Mac OS X willfeel clumsy and foreign, but bringing back familiar interfaces makes allthe difference.
http://www.kensington.com/support/sup_1170.html
http://www.cesoft.com/products/qkx.html
Also take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the options availablein the Finder's Preferences window (open it from the Finder applicationmenu). The options surrounding window usage are perhaps the most importantfor those switching from Mac OS 9 - you will likely want folders to open innew windows all the time. The freeware ASM utility is extremely useful forbringing back the Mac OS 9 approach of tying all of an application'swindows together when you switch to that application by clicking any of itswindows.
Move Documents
Up to this point, nothing we've done is irreversible (though it's tricky,if not impossible, to remove Mac OS X from your hard disk should you decideyou don't want to use it - manual deletion won't work, so reformatting andrestoring from backup is probably your best bet). However, when it comes toarranging your documents, you have two options. You can move everythinginto your Mac OS X user folder, distributing it among the Documents folderand the other top-level folders that Apple provides by default, or you cancreate aliases to the appropriate folders so your files are equally asaccessible in Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. For instance, so I could read email inMac OS 9 if I booted back into it, I moved my Eudora Folder into Mac OS X'sDocuments folder and made an alias to it in my Mac OS 9 Documents folderunder the top level of your hard disk. I haven't had to use it under Mac OS9 after the first few days, but it was nice not to have to worry aboutlosing any email during that time. More generally, you could try aliasingthe Documents folders to one another. (I couldn't find a simple way ofusing aliases to link the Mac OS 9 invisible Desktop Folder with the Mac OSX Desktop folder.) When in doubt, though, I recommend leaving the originalin the place Mac OS X expects it and putting the alias where Mac OS 9expects it - Mac OS X is pickier and more likely to squawk.
I'm sure that those of you with highly specific filing systems are alreadychafing at the default folders Apple provides. Ignore them if you want, butdon't delete them. Apple and other companies are already assuming theirpresence, such as with iPhoto, which stores its iPhoto Library in thePictures folder. Creating new top-level folders is up to you, though.
Use and Reassess
At this point, you're basically done with your installation andconfiguration, and it's time to start using your Mac as normally aspossible. Obviously, some things are just different, such as the Findercolumn views and Dock, and you'll need to decide whether you like usingthose things or not. Don't write them off as a matter of course - the factthat they're different doesn't mean they're bad. Since I test lots of newutilities all the time, I treated Mac OS X's new approaches as though I'djust installed a new utility - some, such as the column view, I've decidedI like using, whereas others, such as using the Dock as a launcher, I findto be a waste of time.
Give yourself a few days using Mac OS X, and take notes about what bothersyou, what you find mystifying, and what gets in your way. I see a lot ofgeneralized anger at Mac OS X for changing the way things were done in MacOS 9, but a lot of the time when I ask people for details, it turns outthat the problems are easily solved or explained. For instance, when myfather first upgraded, he had lots of stuff stored on his Mac OS 9 Desktop.Since he didn't realize that's accessible only via the Desktop (Mac OS 9)folder alias in Mac OS X, he was furious that his files seemed to havedisappeared. Once I realized what was going on, we solved the problem bymoving everything from his old Mac OS 9 Desktop either into appropriatefolders or to his Mac OS X Desktop.
Realistically, this process of usage and reassessment will go on for awhile as you become comfortable with Mac OS X. Don't assume just becauseyou're using roughly the same applications that you'll be zipping around inMac OS X as fluently as you were in Mac OS 9 for some time. Even afterusing Mac OS X on my iBook since launch and using it non-stop on my PowerMac G4 for the last few months, I still occasionally run up against a brickwall. Then I have to stop, poke around a bit, ask questions of friends, andtry to figure out a workaround. So far, I haven't been stumped by anythingthat matters, though Mac OS X's windowing logic (and I use the term "logic"extremely loosely) continues to irritate me on a regular basis - there's nogood reason that a window belonging to a background application should everappear over the front-most application, for example.
The upside of this process, at least from my point of view, is that everytime I figure out something that wasn't obvious, such as how to delete auser completely, why files in my Sites folder aren't accessible via WebSharing, or how Mac OS X uses some of those default folders, I want towrite an article about it. We'll be publishing some of these how-toarticles in the coming months, and if you have suggestions or requests forother short how-to articles, send them along to TidBITS Talk and we'll seewhat we can do.
Microsoft today released Internet Explorer 5.2 for Mac OS X (5.1.4 remainsthe current version for previous versions of the Mac OS). There's only onenew feature in Internet Explorer 5.2 - support for Quartz-based textsmoothing for users of Mac OS X 10.1.5. Whether you like text smoothing candepend on your monitor, your font choice, and your eyes; those who don'tlike it can turn it off in the Interface Extras pane of Internet Explorer'sPreferences window. The only other change is that Internet Explorer rudelyresets your home page to MSN, no matter how it was previously set. Alsoannoying is the installer, which quits all running applications beforeinstalling, something which is generally unnecessary and exceedinglyuncommon in Mac OS X. I have enough utilities set to launch at login thatit was easier to restart the Mac than to find and relaunch each oneindividually. Lastly, it's odd that this update wasn't available viaSoftware Update like all the previous ones. Could this release, along withApple's announcement of iChat's compatibility with AOL Instant Messenger,indicate a rift between Apple and Microsoft? And might it also foreshadowthe release of a Web browser from Apple to complement the rest of theiApps? [ACE]
In a singularly unhelpful move, Microsoft has released Internet Explorer5.2.1 for Mac OS X with absolutely no indication of what has changed.Installing Internet Explorer 5.2.1 did require quitting all runningapplications, which seems unnecessary, but it didn't change my home pagesetting this time (others have reported differently). We presume Microsoftfixed a bug or two, but without release notes of any sort, it's impossibleto recommend the update either way. I'd encourage Microsoft to read "TheSeven Deadly Product Release Sins" in TidBITS-491_. [ACE]
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/DOWNLOAD/IE/ie521.asp
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05497
FileMaker, Inc. has begun shipping FileMaker Pro 6, the latest version ofthe company's database software. New in this evolutionary release is thecapability to import large batches of images easily, or under Mac OS X, toimport images directly from digital cameras. The other significant additionis XML (eXtensible Markup Language) support, providing a common lingo forimporting and exporting data with other applications. Shortly after theinitial release, FileMaker made a 6.0v2 update available for download tofix a few bugs related to importing and exporting XML. FileMaker 6 costs$300, with upgrades priced at $150. FileMaker Pro Unlimited, which canpublish databases on the Web to an unlimited number of users, is availablefor $1,000, with upgrades from FileMaker Pro 5 or 5.5 at $500. [JLC]
http://www.filemaker.com/products/fm_home.html
http://www.filemaker.com/support/updaters.html#fm60v2
A message to the Amiga Community, Present Past and Future:
I would first like to thank all of you who expressed your concern andshared your support for Gary Peake and his family when you learned of hisheart attack. I can now share with you that Gary is looking forward toreturning to work in the next couple of weeks. He, of course, was trying tosend e-mail from the hospital (at one point, he thought that the beeping ofa heart monitor was the logon sounds of a modem), but fortunately with hishands and legs restrained, as well as some very effective tranquilizers,they were able to keep him from the computer. Having said that, I wanted topersonally thank each of you on behalf of Gary and his family for your kindwords and support.
This is an amazing time for Amiga, and the Community. You have all beenpatient, more than understanding, and have dealt with more misinformation,disinformation and rumors than any one group of people should, ever. Yet,and happily, we are moving forward and gaining momentum. Admittedly, wehave not been very public about many of our plans and activities, to date,but they are many and we are pleased to be bringing this news to you, TheCommunity, as well.
One request: If you find this information as positive as we do, share itwith someone. Call or e-mail your friends, Amigans who are interested butmight not be following the news as closely as you and let them know thatchange is in the wind: that new, interesting, and most importantly: REALopportunities will soon be here for all of us in the Amiga Community.
We all see and hear hype everyday. We know it well, sometimes quiteinstinctively. What you are to read is not hype. These are true andsustainable facts. Reality. The real skinny. We could not sustain andmaintain the hard work and dedication of the members of the Amiga Family,those people whom are working so hard to bring you real products, if therewere not real opportunities for us to make a real difference and a realchange for the better.
Did you notice the incessant use of the word "Real"? Good. Because whatthis Update is telling you is real.
Quite frankly, I enjoy the almost daily updates showing where you can findAmigas today at work and play. I find it so exciting, and yes, rewarding,to learn how some are using Amithlon to bring Amigas back into usage, inplaces where they have not been in some time. I see new sales, a new senseof opportunity and a new spirit emerging. A spirit that challengesconventional thought and challenges us at Amiga everyday. We are herebecause of you. Your desire for new Amiga products, your desire that thisplatform, this valid, vital and pioneering computing concept should not beswept aside has fueled our desire to succeed and grow. We have survivedwhen so many others have failed, because of you, The Amiga Community andthe way you have challenged us to "deliver the goods". Because of thatchallenge, we owe these exciting opportunities, this "Delivering TheFuture" to you.
Now, let's roll up our sleeves and get started. We have a lot of news toshare with you:
Amiga Party Pack purchasers? This is for you!
Each of you received your Party Pack and in the very near future you willbe able to use the discounts that are associated with your Party Packpurchase. Each of you will receive an e-mail explaining your options, andthe process is simple:
1. You may purchase the products directly from Amiga at the discountedprice and the products will be shipped to your door.
or
2. Once you have purchased either the AmigaOne with OS 4.0, or if youpurchase just OS 4.0, send us a copy of the receipt along with the frontpage of your SDK manual and Amiga will send you back a check for $100.00!
or
3. Let us know the retailer that you will be using and we will get them the$100.00 so you do not need to worry about it.
Not a bad deal at all. Each of you have had the chance to work with AmigaDEand many of you have become developers of Amiga Anywhere content, becauseof the party pack. Now soon you will be able to get $100.00 back when youpurchase a new AmigaOne system.
AmigaOne and Amiga OS 4.0 ? Update
We were more than impressed with the response to the AmigaOS 4.0 screenshots and the live demonstration of the AmigaOne boards. We sometimes havetrouble understanding how so many people, people interested in the Amigaplatform and the progress we are making in bringing it back to market canstay hidden for so long. However, the facts are that we must make certainproduction decisions based on projected product sales volumes, and howquickly we can receive a return on investment. That's Business 101. So, oneof the challenges for us is we decide on a number of units to build andthen we see, from web hits and direct inquiries, that there are 5 times asmany people who are interested in the AmigaOne than we knew were out there.You can file that under "Beyond Our Expectations".
AmigaOS 4.0 is going to include many of the features that were originallyplanned for later versions of the desktop AmigaOS. With the need to rewritecertain portions of the code, the Hyperion team has decided to go ahead andfold in a great many more of the features that they were planned for OS 4.1and OS 4.2 into OS 4.0. Ben Hermans and the team have been doing a greatjob of keeping us up to date with screen shots, updated product featuresand current development roadmaps. I know that we will have more updates,regarding real development and feature details from Ben and Hyperion verysoon, and trust me when I say that we are chomping at the bit to sharethese details with The Community. Right now, according to our lastconference call with the AmigaOS 4.0 team, at Hyperion, we can see theexceptional progress and the feature set that is being included with thisrelease is fantastic. This has been driven by you the Amiga community, andI know that you will all be very happy.
AmigaOne boards are in the hands of the AmigaOne developers and theintegration work is moving ahead quickly, but with the full realizationthat rushing the release to the public will afford no one any realbenefits. Alan and his team at Eyetech has done a great job of "keepingtheir eyes on the prize". We are really pleased that the hardware is outthere, and that the Amiga community is going to have the first new hardwaredesigned for them, with their own operating system, in a long, long time.
These are real Amiga products from Amiga and their associated partnercompanies. Yes, it has taken longer than any of us had predicted. We toohave shared your anticipation and yes, impatience, but some things can onlybe done one way: The Right Way. Having said that, we know that with theresults that we are seeing, I believe that you will share this with yourfriends and other members of the Amiga family with us.
The Amiga Community will soon have a brand new platform. You will soonbegin working with the most sophisticated Amiga Operating System yetdeveloped. There is great care and attention being paid to Getting ItRight, with the features and benefits that you have told us that you, TheCommunity, want in a new Amiga. However there is a considerable challengethat goes along with all of these activities and we are going to need yourhelp in helping us make a determination regarding certain businessdecisions that will be made quite clear further on in this update.
Amiga Anywhere/AmigaDE ? Why are there two?
There needs to be some clarification of these two products: Amiga Anywhereis a subset of the complete AmigaDE. In speaking with customers andpotential partners we learned that they were looking for the content, andnot the complete DE for their environments. The idea was to have as minimala build as possible for these devices. So Amiga created the Amiga AnywhereContent Engine. This is a series of lightweight products that offer thebinary portable attributes of the complete DE, while delivering thefeatures and products in a much smaller form factor. Development iscontinuing at a rapid pace with these products and we currently offer anAmiga Anywhere Content Engine for PocketPC, and Pocket PC Phone editiondevices, and shortly for Smartphone, Embedded Linux, and Symbian devices.This will allow AACE content to run on all of these various products anddevices opening up even wider audience to which we can introduce Amiga.
Development is moving ahead quite well on both the complete DE and AACE,and you will see some new partner announcements in the very near future.These are customers who are going to deploy AACE and the associated contentin a variety of interesting products.
There is presently one other question about the current Amiga EntertainmentPack for Pocket PC devices, and why there is limited content for it. Thisis because we were creating a game console type of experience with thisfirst release, and that it was designed to be closed. The idea was to popthe card into the device and begin playing a game, without taking theresources from the relatively limited memory in the device.
There will be an exciting promotion/contest that we will be announcinglater in the week with regards to AACE and the Entertainment Packs. Weassure you, this will be a great deal of fun, and we look forward tointroducing Amiga to several new customers who are currently using PocketPCand PocketPC Phone Edition devices.
Amithlon Update ? Yes there is an update! (Cue Trumpets!)
We are very pleased to announce that we have entered into contracts, andyes they are signed, with Bernd Meyer, regarding Amithlon. In fact we havebeen testing a new version in-house for several weeks now, and this is agreat product. As you may remember I was the first person to show Amithlonto the public, at the AmiWest 2001 Show, and the reaction was simplyamazing from the people there. Since then, we are seeing deployment ofAmithlon in many new places where Amiga's once roamed and seeing new lifefor Amiga, with Amithlon. Please know that we have been working with Berndfor several months so far, and we see Amithlon as a great product with along, robust future for both Amiga and Bernd. You can see the press releasehere.
The Challenge and the Opportunity!
Now before the naysayers out there begin complaining about this and startmaking rude noises, I want to explain the very real situation before us:Let it be known now that Amiga does not make money on the following. Infact we will lose money, just as we did on the party packs. However itallowed us to show to our board and our investors that we should pursuebuilding a new Amiga computer. Now we are at that same crossroads again,but in a way that is more complex.
How many AmigaOne's do we build and order?
We need to properly plan, budget, and order for the production of theAmigaOne. To do that, we need to get a good idea of how many units we needto order, build and prepare to support etc. You get the idea.
There are those who tell us to plan for 2,500 to 3,500 units. However over50,000 people downloaded the OS 4.0 screenshots. These were not 50,000hits, these were 50,000 different people. Then you have others who tell methat we are looking at 10,000 units to prepare for. This is great becausethere are certain economies of scale, economies that benefit everyone, thatcome into play at 10,000 units. You have all seen how chip prices work:once you are able to order 10,000 of the chip prices you are able toreceive better pricing, and then, prices start coming down. Everybodybenefits.
Then we find that there are currently over 30,000 subscribers to Amigarelated magazines. Add to this the fact that we know that there arethousands out there who are quietly watching and waiting to learn moreabout the release of the AmigaOne before they respond. Then this last weekwe learned that there was a very large electronics chain in Europe who isinterested in carrying the line again if there is enough interest for thesenew products.
So as you can see, this is a real issue before us:
We do not want to come up short on supply for you, the customers, and yetit is growing quite difficult to judge how many AmigaOnes we should build.You can tell, as we do, that there is a big gap between the numbers and wewant to make sure that we ha